Busy August

Another month is gone and time is really going so fast down here in Melbourne, don't know why the time is just flying away ... been away from Sweden for more than 7 months now.

Sydney - Harbour Bridge from Neutral Bay

First week of August was exiting, not so much because of work, all good there, but because I flew up to Sydney on Friday the 6th of August, took a day off from work and had a long weekend up in the big city. The most exiting part was the running race "City2Surf" which is the biggest race in the world, counted by the amount of participants - over 80 000 people completed the race on Sunday the 8th of August and I was one of them too :). The run was 14km, not too bad (the most common comment in Australia haha) and I had a fun time running with the big crowd. The famous Heartbreak Hill wasn't that terrible, just a bit, my legs were fine - specially after the free 15 min leg massage on Bondi Beach.

Yep - happy me after the race (girl from Melbourne took the photo, small world :)

In Sydney I stayed at a Russian guy's place, in Neutral Bay, 2 nights of couch surfing (actually sleeping on his spare big mattress on the floor). Alexander was a nice guy, who also did the run on Sunday morning, and his apartment had the most amazing bay view ... look at this view :)

If I could pick and choose a spot like this in world, so close to the water, no cars and no other noises ... I could definitely live here!

On Saturday I did a long walking hike from Neutral Bay to Manly, don't know how long it was, but the weather was gorgeous with clear blue sky and quite warm as well and I couldn't resist the long walk :). Good to see Manly again, got all nostalgic and I went up/climbed up to North Head to my favourite spot by the rocks looking down on Manly and the ocean ... left my heart in Manly ...


Met up with Grant in the evening and we had a delicious dinner in the city, close to the Circular Quay. Good time and good company :-)

On Sunday after the run the most weirdest thing happened to me, a really catch 22 in Sydney :) - the short version; my phone died after the race, the flight was delayed by 2 hours and I had to wait at the airport for almost 4 hours, my iPod died at the airport, had no book to read and on top of all this I lost my ear plugs so I couldn't manage to sleep on the flight back to Melbourne ... what a day ... will never forget this day for sure! Funny story for the future!

The following 3 weeks in Melbourne were full of job, running, baby sitting 3 kids (Freya 7 years, Joanna 5 years and Phillip 2 years) to a Swedish/Aussie married couple in South Yarra, went to see Los Van Van (the famous Cuban salsa band), met some new friends through CouchSurfing at a cool music party in Malvern, saw the penguins on the St Kilda pier, biked home from work one Friday and the police was looking for somebody along the river (felt like being in a movie with a chopper hovering over my head), attended a dance workshop in the city and learned new moves (Zouk, Broadway Jazz and Bollywood Dance) .... will soon sign up for a Zouk class :) and maybe even perform with the class in November.

On the weekend of 20 to 22 August I went up with MUMC (Melbourne University Mountaineering Club) to Mount Feathertop, which is Victoria's second-highest mountain. The hut was up on 1625m, and we (37 of us) did the annual Midnight Ascent which practically meant walking in the dark up to the top of the hut. My walking group did the steep 6.5km to the hut in 4 hours and 20 minutes :), good time considering the other groups of 5 and 6 hours each. It was a cold weekend and wet one too, lots of snow and phenomenal good food on Saturday evening. My most memorable thing from the mountain was the leech (blodigel) I had on my cheek ... take a look at this ... no worries, I did survive but I was a bit scared I must admit :).

Leech was killed with lots of salt and buried in the cold snow!











On the last Sunday of the month I went out to Werribee to see my "Swedish family" and to say hi to them all. I was happy to see them and the kids, Savanha and Oden, 6 and 4 years old. We went for a bike tour down the Werribee river and the kids got tired of biking after 2 hours and I ended up caring two bikes and walking with two tired kids along the bike track :), that was tough, fun and I must have look quite funny too :) On the way home I got the best comment in my life, from Oden: "You're pretty Ingrid" ... I smiled and asked what he had said but he got all embarrassed about it and didn't want to say it again, boys haha :) ... kids are the honest small persons in the world and it feels so good to have the privilege to be around them and be in the present time with them and not analyse life to much. Thank you S, O, Sue, Rudolf and Ida for a lovely Sunday!

Oden with his bike

Savanha with her flowers on top of her head