More Fun Down Under

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02/24/2010
By this time James and I have become accustomed to vacation. Sleeping late a leisurely breakfast, a work out and swim for one of us and some TV catch-up or record shopping for the other. One of James's friends asked for a t-shirt from a bike store- talk and one of my friends requested a sari, oh why could they have not asked for a boomerang or a knock off designer bag from Thailand?

Anyway we took our time and took the train; we were over the scenic city walks. We took the train from Central to the Harbour and grabbed a ferry to Manly beach. Got some more pictures of the opera house. When we hit the port we pulled out our map because in Australia we felt comfortable doing that without being surrounded by taxi and tuck drivers. We made our way to the bike rental place and got a couple seven speed cruisers. I think James wanted something with a few more speeds but I was like, it's a beach town, how hilly can it be. It was hilly-at one point I had to walk my bike up the hill which I did while cursing which I find therapeutic. This again just cemented in my mind the need for topographical maps. (A new travel invention perhaps.) We took the bikes to this Natl. Park, Northgate which had panoramic views- hence the hills. We also went o this great fish place called The Fish Monger. After the park we rode down the beach and did some people watched. It seemed too late in the day to swim without being chilled for the next few hours. On the way back in the ferry I was dead set on getting the outdoor seats with prime opera house views- so I jostled and squeezed by old people and young and made my way and got my middle seat. When the ferry pulled out I kept thinking, when is this thing going to turn around? It didn't. I got a couple good shots of water, lots and lots of water.

We relaxed a bit when we got home then went to Bondi Beach hotel for a couple local bands. We saw Chicks Who Love Guns and Regular John- I guess read James's music blog if you wanna find out more about that. It was fun, we had some beer, listened to some tunes and had a great night out- the next morning was another story.

02/25/2010
UUuugh our aching heads. We made it out of the hotel sometime before noon and walked about a mile to the University of Sydney, we kind of wandered around "back to school" at the campus until we found the Nicholson Museum which was chocked full of fake, and not so fake ancient looted and bought artifacts. My favorite part was the mummies. Then we had a quick lunch at Oporto, there seemed to be so many Portuguese chicken sandwich fast food joints I just had to give it a try. Mine was good- I had a much better version of the KFC zinger. One of the things we noticed is the Aussies sure like their "chips", most of the time when you ordered a small you felt like you got a cup full of a half dozen Yukon Golds. Plus you have to pay for your sauces, and who wants to do that, so we had yet more naked French fries. Then we grabbed a bus and took it to the center to the Museum of Contemporary art- I had wished we had about 3 more hours there- they had vidoes by this French artist that seemed disturbing and hypnotic that I would have liked to see all of.

Later that afternoon Natasha picked us up at our hotel and took us to her and Nick's house for beers and burgers and a visit with their 3 year old Cleo, oh and the very gentle cat Scarface Fang. Nick is a master on the grill and Natasha built us the craziest burger with a beef patty, tomato slice, piece of lettuce, cheese, a pineapple ring and a beat round or two. I liked it, it was a bit hard to bite into though.

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Comments

[anissa]

I'm hungry
Damn that looks so good, both the fish and the burger. does that burger have a slice of ham on it? You guys look great too, so relaxed.