Lux Life’s January 2017.

This January has been a funny one, the month has completely flown, and I can’t believe it’s almost February! This month has been one of settling into my new job and new life in Sydney, exploring the city, and exploring my new neighbourhood. It’s been a fun month, with a heap of nights out and a visit from my old colleague and his new husband on their honeymoon!

The month began in Perth, with me getting an 8am flight from Perth to Sydney after going out the night before for NYE. I was tired, I was still drunk, and the Virgin Australia check-in desks didn’t open until less than an hour before the flight. Everyone was getting angry at the staff, and I just stood there vacantly, trying not to burst into tears. It’s my own fault for booking a flight for 8am New Years Day. Here are some of my fave pics from NYE with the Perth crew…

Eventually I got back to Sydney, and collapsed onto my bed and finally got some sleep. The next day was a bank holiday, so I went to Bondi Junction to stock up on food (I live in Paddington, and Bondi Junction is the nearest ‘big’ shopping centre…and I love it), and got a taxi back home with all of my huge heavy bags of shopping. Even though I’d moved in 3 weeks earlier, because I’d been back in Perth over Christmas and NY I hadn’t actually spent a whole lot of time at home.

My first week back at work was a shock to the system after a week off, but I finally got into a routine now that the Christmas parties and weirdness of my first month had passed. My first week back at work was also the week Dan and Damon arrived! The Alexis-Rochefort duo were on their honeymoon in Sydney after spending a month travelling through Asia. You may remember Dan from the old days of 2013/2014 when I worked with him at my old-old job in fashion PR. 

We had some epic nights out. Literally epic. On the Thursday we went for dinner with their friend Kate, and what was just supposed to be dinner turned into drinks at Shady Pines Saloon, and then karaoke and dancing at two gay bars; The Colombian and Stonewall. It. Was. Amazing. Karaoke was THE BEST. I was so drunk I couldn’t see the Karaoke TV screen, so when Dan and I dueted on Empire State of Mind (me as JayZ and him as Alicia Keys), he had to do the whole thing while I stood there bent double squinting at the screen. It was not my finest moment.

I don’t remember getting home, but the next evening I went out with the work lot. We went to Soda Factory (love this place so much) because Grandmaster Flash was playing…but we got there at 5pm and he didn’t come on until 12;30. TWELVE THIRTY. So we left at 11-ish and went to Standard Bowl, which was fun but then I started sobering up and realized I didn’t actually like the place we were in, so I went home.

And then it was Saturday. My IKEA day. When I moved in before Christmas I went to IKEA and got a small desk and chest of drawers for my room, but the bed I wanted wasn’t in stock. So I had to hire a car all over again and go the first Saturday of January. IKEA don’t do online/home delivery in Australia FYI.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to collect and put together a 46kg bed frame all by yourself!? I had a minor hand casualty, and was so exhausted by the end of the ordeal that I just had to go out with Dan and Damon again to forget about it all. It was all worth it though, my bed is LUSH. I splashed out and treated myself to real Egyptian Cotton 300 thread count sheets from David Jones (the John Lewis of Australia), and I literally love getting into bed now. Oh, I also managed to get a print of one of my fave Slim Aarons pieces. There’s an art store in Bondi Junction that sell lots of fashion art pieces and photographic pieces, and as soon as I saw it there I bought it!

After setting up my bed I met Dan and Damon at the Charing Cross Hotel in Waverley with their lovely friends Anna and Justin. After the best steak I’ve ever had in Australia, as well as lots of pretty great wine, we all decided to go to the bottle shop and then head back to A&J’s for a mini-house party.

Numerous bottles of wine later the five of us were running/dancing around the house and balcony, singing at the tops of our voices and having our own impromptu karaoke session. Thankfully Damon is a really great singer, so he drowned out the rest of us. And then Dan and I had our Dreamgirls moment. Both of us are massive fans, so we put on a few tracks and dueted to them haha. Also I had another casualty and grazed up my knee. I blame the wine.

The next day Dan and Damon left for Melbourne, and I had a quiet one at home to recover from the last few days/nights. I vowed to cut down on the partying, which sort-of happened. I had a more restful week the following week, with a couple of nights chilling out at home. I started salsa dance classes with my friend Nikki, and we ruined it by going to Lucio’s Pizzeria in Darlinghurst for pizza after, haha! It was legit the best pizza EVER. Omg. Such a good pizza place.

The next evening after work I went to get my hair colour re-done at PREMA Surry Hills. It was the first time I’d had it re-coloured since September, so my roots were pretty horrific, and the lovely Glenn did such a good job on it! I love it. Also you get a free glass of wine, and at $180 it was really well priced too.

Then it was the usual work Friday night out, we went to a lawn bowls club which was so weird. Like, young people actually go to lawn bowls clubs here to play bowls and drink. After bowls we all headed over to some bar/club in Bondi, and after a few too many drinks my drunk dance moves came out and it was not a good night. Also the club was like an oven with no aircon so we all headed off pretty early.

Finally it was the weekend! Nikki and I went to Bondi Beach on the Saturday as I still hadn’t been! The last time I went to Bondi Beach was on my 17th birthday, and it was raining and miserable, so it was super nice to see it in the sunshine! Also they were filming Bondi Rescue while we were there, and they had to rescue a guy near us so that was all very exciting.

After the beach we headed back to mine and got showered and changed, then met Luke for a night out. We did a bit of a bar crawl…we started at The Paddington, then went to Paddington Inn, Ching a Lings, The Barber Shop, Big Poppa’s and The Darlo Country Club. It was so much fun!

The following week I was struck down with a cold and cough, with the cough then moving to my chest and making my asthma a nightmare, so I had a pretty chilled one trying to rest and recover. I did end up going out the following Saturday night though with my housemate and his friends, we went to The Light Brigade rooftop for prosecco and wood-fired pizza, and then got ubers over to a house party just down the road.

This week my friend Sid from London (you’ll have seen him heaps of times on Lux Life over the past 5 years at various events and parties etc) has been in town, he’s doing a big Australia tour so we’ve had a couple of dinners (including Tetsuya’s), and nights out in Sydney, and of course there was Australia Day on Thursday! I’ll tell you more about all of that soon though 😉

Right now I’m in Melbourne, we’ve had a weekend here because the Australian Open was on and we were lucky enough to find tickets to both the womens and mens finals through a package deal with Mastercard. It cost us an insane amount of money, but it was so worth it! I’ll be telling you more about it all soon though, so keep an eye out for it! I will say though, that seeing the Williams’ sisters compete against each other and then Federer vs Nadal the next day, was a once in a lifetime experience that I still have to pinch myself about!

I’ve been a terrible blogger this month and barely taken ANY photos, I’ve just been trying to settle in and live in the moment for a change. I’m sure this will change over time though and I’ll be back to taking photos of everything! January has been busy and full of parties, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I finally feel settled in my Sydney life, and I absolutely love where I live – I literally live less than a 5min walk from some of the best restaurants and bars in Sydney; 10 William Street, Saint Peter, Paddington Inn, The Light Brigade, The Paddington, Fred’s, and Charlie Parker’s. All of them are on the stretch of Oxford Street right in-front of my house! I can’t wait to check them all out and review them all for you!

Also a HUGE shout-out to the Mitre10 Paddington team who have been amazing!! They kindly cut down a clothing rail for me, and lent me their power drill so I didn’t have to spend $80 on one that I’d use once! Having them opposite me is pretty darn useful, and I feel like such a grown up telling my friends all about this ‘amazing hardware store’ round the corner from my house haha.