14th October, 2024
Thank you all for coming to my very important meeting. If you are reading this, I am sure you know that my lovely girlfriend and I recently celebrated one glorious year of being together. I was all over Instagram that week, borderline bragging about the matter. I am not finished bragging – hence this very mindful, very demure blog post.
Now, if you are not me or my girlfriend, you are, of course, welcome to read this very polished reflection of our wonderful week/weekend. But you should know that I’ve written this mostly so that in years to come, I can read it and reminisce. That is, so long as AI does not destroy Google as we know it and this blog post somehow gets shot into oblivion. Alas, I will take the risk in the name of a fun time.
First point of business: Wednesday
Many moons ago, I had a dream. I woke up and told dear Sinead that I had dreamt up a sort of conflict between us. In my dream, she had planned nothing for our anniversary, and neither had I, and my imaginary self, was rather upset. Not to worry, she said, plans will be made. And so they were.
This semester, my weekly schedule involves a very busy Wednesday, with back-to-back classes from 9.30am-5.30pm. So, on our actual anniversary, I was at UOW for most of the day. But I was too excited to wait until after uni and gave Sinead her present and flowers after we woke up that morning.
One thing that I have learned, in celebrating my first anniversary, is how hard it is to keep anniversary related secrets. Under normal circumstances, I tell Snake almost everything that pops into my head, the moment it arrives to my mind palace. Over the last few months, there have been a few near-misses in holding my tongue. I came up with a present and a plan for our first anniversary a long time ago – probably a month into us officially dating. My present for her involved a collection of letters that I had secretly written throughout the year we have been together. There is one for every month of the year, so I certainly must have conceived the idea pretty early on. Some might say I am presumptuous, assuming we’d be together a year later. Frankly, I knew with all the certainty in my heart and every fibre of my being that Snake and I would spend our lives together far before we even talked about making things official. When I gave her this collection of letters, she said that she couldn’t wait for me to see what she had created for me. Alas, she had to wait – as I had to go out into the world and would not see her until later that day.
After I finished my long, torturous day at the university, I went home to get ready. Sinead had organised a nice dinner for the two of us – location undisclosed. She gave me my flowers and present when she came to pick me up. Her present to me was incredibly fun to open – because at no point in the process did I understand what it was. As it turns out, it is a little brown leather clip-on case to hold a single roll of film, which has a film roll container in it, which has a roll of film in it, and you can pull the film reel out and it has pictures of the two of us all along it. You can then roll it back up and put it away. I’ve got it clipped to my bag, and it’s beautiful. She also got me the most perfect flowers. The bouquet features a particular flower that I loved from a different bunch of flowers she had given me many months ago. She made sure of it. Her card is magnificent as well. It has multiple pages built in!
Sinead is particularly handy for creating a present-opening experience. Last year, for my birthday, she combined the few things she knew about me at the time to create the best birthday present I received for my 22nd birthday. She knew I like Scott Pilgrim vs The World, and that I do not own a DVD player, and that I love a silly big t-shirt, and I love a joke. With this information in mind, she spent an unimaginable amount of time roaming around Sydney to different op-shops, collecting copies of Scott Pilgrim on DVD. She secured 5 copies. She then had a T-shirt custom made that says “I own 5 copies of Scott Pilgrim vs The World on DVD”. Opening this present was a solid gag in itself. Imagine opening 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 copies of the same movie, and then unfolding the t-shirt. It was hilarious. Her film reel idea was just as methodical and surprising, but with an added sweetness. She’s the greatest.
Anyway, back to our anniversary. We both got ready, and she looked so incredible and we went to a nice wine bar. It was more fancy than any dining experience either of us has had before. We had oysters on arrival and the staff were so funny and friendly. We had multiple courses and every single one was great. The heirloom tomatoes were my favourite – I’ve been after some of those for ages. Before we went home, we stopped at a silly venue for a boogie. It was a perfect night!
Our Weekend!
I got it in my head soon after we started dating that we should do this for our first anniversary. It was a bit of a pipe dream, considering I definitely didn’t have the money in savings to make the idea happen. But I wanted for us to go away to the blue mountains and stay at The Hydro Majestic Hotel. I’ve been using the Hydro as a good place to stop on a drive to or from Dubbo for years. My parents took my siblings and I there on our trips to Wollongong as kids. I love a good sunset and when timed correctly, the view over the valley from the Hydro is amazing at sunset. We stopped there on our drive to Dubbo last year. It was Good Friday, and we thought they might have some nice non-meat snacks for us at the giftshop cafe. We got a zuchinni toastie that I raved about for weeks following. Snake even made a delicious replica of this astonishing sandwich for dinner one night. I am glad to announce that we got another zucchini sandwich while we were there for the weekend.
Anyway, some months ago, I received my first paycheck for my freelance work for The Illawarra Flame. I happened to have written enough stories that month that the amount almost exactly covered the cost of a room for two and a buffet breakfast. Sinead once excitedly asked me if there is a buffet breakfast at a resort that we’ll be staying at in January when we go to Fiji with my family. I was very excited to find that The Hydro does a great buffet breakfast! Our room didn’t have a valley view, but it did have a TV on the wall, which we were very excited about. We watched some free-to-air tv while we were there, and it was great. They gave us free drinks vouchers because it was our anniversary. We wondered if a small lie about how long we’ve been together would have scored us more free drinks. I guess we’ll never know!
Night One: Katoomba is so weird?!
We went out for dinner the night we arrived, and in anticipation of a few drinks, we took the train to Katoomba. The train was old and Snake loves a train, so she was excited to point out the cute carpet and purple leather seats and coat hooks. The train stations were also really cute. On our way back to the hotel, we sought shelter from the cold in Katoomba station’s lovely waiting room.
Katoomba is so weird, respectfully. We saw this crazy antiques store, decorated with a million conspiracy posters on all topics from anti-vaxx to climate change denial. It freaked me out, but it was also very entertaining. I had booked dinner for us at a place that google rated highly (more on this later), so when we arrived, we wandered around to fill some time before our reservation. We found a broom on the street and took turns frantically sweeping for our own amusement.
We eventually wandered on over to the dinner venue and quickly discovered that it seemed to be a place for men who live in the south of the USA to gather and eat an astronomical amount of meat. There were not, to my knowledge, any actual American men there, but you understand what I mean, right? The table was small and oily; the music was exactly how you’d expect it to be, and the women in the tavern looked like they had lost a bet to their husband and had wound up here. A hilarious place for two sweet girls to share a meal. The food was gigantic and spicy; the drinks were insanely sweet – all in all, not my best booking decision. But we had fun like we always do. Afterwards, we crossed the street to go to the railway bar, had one drink each, and engaged in our favourite pastime – looking at people around us and making assumptions about their character.
After our antics, we returned to the hotel, cashed in our free drinks voucher, and chatted until it was time to watch free-to-air TV and go to sleep.
Our Big Walk!
The next morning, we woke up a bit later than expected, but we deserved the rest. We went down to breakfast as soon as we could, as reception had warned us the day before that we should get to breakfast early so that we could “have the full experience”. I am confident we got the full experience anyway, despite our lateness. Neither of us are usually breakfast people, but then, maybe when it’s pre-made and presented for us to choose anything we might life, we are breakfast people. We certainly needed this huge breakfast, because I had planned a gigantic walk for us to do.
The Blue Mountains are known to have gorgeous bushwalks and trails – and a lot of them. They’re all beautiful, but I wanted to find the most beautiful one. After reading literally every google review, I decided we would go on The Grand Canyon Trail. This trail is (apparently) around 6.5kms long and takes 3-4 hours to walk on a round trip. I chose this one mostly because it looked, on google, like it had the most greenery, and some waterfalls. I think both Sinead and I enjoy a greener trail, as apposed to a rock-face type of vibe. Anyway, we popped into Blackheath and went to an expensive grocer’s store to buy sunscreen and snacks. I have recently purchased a picnic rug, and it happened to be in my car, so we took that with us on our hike too – in search of a delightful spot to stop and snack.
I had read in my research (google reviews) that there were quite a few staircases on this walk, and someone recommended that walkers invest in a hiking stick for this trail. Naturally, we did not buy hiking sticks. We hunted around the beginning of the trail in search of a good old stick. I found possibly the best stick on earth for this purpose. Multiple strangers on the track complimented our choice of stick. Someone else must have used the stick for a similar purpose before me, because one end of it was particularly blunt and rounded, from being whacked on the ground 1 million times. It was great.
My research also told me we should walk the track anti-clockwise, instead of going in the usual clockwise direction. So we did. We are both confident that this was the right decision. Regardless of how tired and sore we were toward the end of the walk, we can see how it would have been torturous to walk up the short, steep staircase at the end of our hike, instead of coming down them at the beginning.
Anyway, it was a beautiful, beautiful walk. We saw so many beautiful things – see pics below!
This walk took most of our day – so afterwards, we went back to the hotel for a well-deserved shower, and then headed to Leura for dinner. We were both in search of a classic pub meal, considering all the fine dining we had done in the previous couple of days. The pub we chose had a fireplace, which I found extremely cute and fun. It just seemed like it was somebody’s home at some point, and now they serve beer and watch footy!
Later that night, we found ourselves back in our room at the hotel, wishing there was a pool or something to do. For legal reasons, this part is a lie. But we snuck around the hotel, ducking in through doors marked “staff only” to emerge on to closed balconies. We also snooped around in the leftover knick-knacks from a wedding that had taken place there that day. Congratulations, James and Megan!
History Tour & Burrata
Soon came Sunday – our last day of buffet breakfast. It was grand as it was the day before. We then headed off to explore the mountains some more. We wanted to go back to the crazy antique shop in Katoomba, but in the daytime. They have an old camera museum there, apparently. But it was closed as it was a Sunday. We walked around Blackheath and Katoomba, stopping at different shops and looking at silly things, before returning to the hotel one last time.
The Hydro Majestic has a certain centuries-old-charm, and they run a history tour every day, so naturally, we booked one. A nice man named Henry walked us through the hotel, from one end to the other, and answered all the questions we had gathered during our stay. I won’t repeat the lore that he told us, because I do not want to de-value his very important job. Before he saw us off, he told us that through storytelling; he had given us a part of his soul. That’s kind of intense, Henry, but I get what you’re saying, and I’ll write a google review at some stage.
At the hotel, there is also a little restaurant that looks over the Valley, called the Boiler House. I wanted to go there, but I hazarded not making a reservation – so they sent us away for an hour before they could squeeze us in. We explored the tennis court and looked at their automatic lawn mower until it was time to go back to the Boiler House. It’s worth mentioning that our legs were absolutely aching from our walk, and the stairs down to the door of this venue were torturous.
While we were in Melbourne a couple of months ago, I was on a quest to try a Burrata. We did not end up finding one there, but the Boiler House had us sorted. We ate, checked out the view, and headed home.
All in all, a great weekend for us!
Closing Thoughts
For transparency: I am finishing this rant/recount almost a week later. In my time with Sinead, I have found that the frequency of good memories has increased significantly. The rate that we pile up new stories and experiences with each other is incredible. I could rattle off 5+ fresh memories since last weekend, and a million since last year. I don’t think that there are many stories worth telling about before we were in each other’s lives, actually. It has sincerely been the most beautiful, enjoyable, exciting and peaceful year of my life. We are so incredibly lucky to have made so many sweet memories together that we can afford to forget some, but no part of me wants to forget anything. Hence, writing it all down, of course. It’s crazy that it’s been one whole year, and it’s equally crazy that it’s only been one year. Fancy words and silly jokes aside, I feel so deeply grateful to have the love the we have, now and every day, for the rest of our life together.
Thanks for listening, if you somehow read every 3000 words of this. I will certainly have more to say, another time.