The way it's supposed to be

After that day I wrote about in my last post, you know, where it was 44C in some parts of Sydney? Well, the next day it started to rain and the temperature dropped to about 20C for the next week and a half. It was a dramatic change. My hair went back to its almost-normal self, and not the mess of craziness induced by a combination of heat, humidity, sweat and salt water. It felt great not to have to shower at least twice a day (since I bike to school, I had been living with a fine layer of sweat for what felt like forever). I also wasn't sweeping up sand in our apartment on an almost daily basis, like I was doing after our regular trips to the beach. Despite the break from the heat, I was really missing the sun and the beach.

Finally, this past Wednesday, the sun poked through the clouds and it slowly started to heat up again. Wednesday afternoon, as I was sitting in the post-grad room with one of the other students, we both started shedding layers (because none of the building are temperature-controlled in any way and when it's really hot outside, it's really hot inside), and we both looked at each other in amazement, "I'm sweating here, are you?". We had forgotten what it felt like!

Today, Sunday, was the first day in almost two weeks where the sun looked like it would come out and stay out, as it's supposed to in Sydney. To celebrate, we went to Nielson Park, a harbour beach that we hadn't been to before. It was so great, everything a beach should be:

• beautiful sandy beach,
  
• waves weren't too high,
  
• not too busy,
  
• a kiosk that had good food and reasonably priced snacks,
  
• pretty shells and cool rocks, perfect for beachcombing,
  
• a nice mix of families, young and old people,
  
• and even shark nets.
  

This last one was an added bonus, since Sydney's had a few shark attacks recently AND Vic and I watched Jaws last night.

Here's some pics from our day. Gus and Vic checking out some "ancient ruins" at Nielson Park.


Vic throwing Gus into the water (see that splash? that's Gus). Not the best picture in the world (I should really dig out the manual for my camera!), but if you look closely, you'll spot the shark nets in the background.

Vic and Gus enjoying a paddle pop.

...another paddle pop picture. They were both so funny, I couldn't pick just one.

And, finally a picture of some sailboats for grandpapa's viewing pleasure. There was a regatta going on, so we had a beautiful view of a constant stream of boats sailing by us. This picture also includes the requisite middle-aged man in speedo, that no Sydney beach picture is complete without.