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Published: April 19th 2008
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Resort Bilston
David relaxing by the pool at Anna's parent's place, guarded by the ferocious Topsy by anna and david (in italics) Resort Bilston
After a week of packing up the apartment and living amongst the chaos, we headed to Ballina (home) to spend two weeks being completely spoilt by my folks. Each morning we woke to a freshly made coffee from Dad, who has taken it on himself to hone his coffee skills to mix it with the best of the baristas (and he’s succeeding, as usual), before being fed gourmet lunches and dinners from Mum’s formidable repertoire of recipes.
David's mum joined us for a long weekend. We'd had a week of sunshine but unfortunately it rained the whole time Beverley was there. Still there was plenty of things to do (see photo of Mum and Bev with matching shopping bags).
Needless to say, two weeks in Resort Bilston meant by the time we returned to Sydney, we were feeling more relaxed than we had in years!
So long Sydney
Back in Sydney we embarked on an ambitious itinerary of dinners and farewells including a casual Indonesian dinner catch up and delicious degustation dinner at Buon Ricordo, one of our favourite restaurants in Sydney, that we’ve been talking about introducing some
Goodbye
Waving goodbye at the Sydney city skyline in the distance behind the airport friends to for ages. Armando, owner and head chef, did not disappoint serving our large group his sensational fare, matched with great italian wines.
On the Saturday, we put in an extended session at the Parkview Hotel in Alexandria. It was an awesome, if long, 12-13 hours of goodbyes, during which it finally hit me we wouldn’t see some of our best friends for more than a year. Geez. Thanks for all those who came to bid adios.
Sadly, I forgot to take any photos. The one captured moment was David and Jack realising they were about to open up a whole other hemisphere of racing meetings. I had to capture the sheer rapture that appeared on their faces. (see photos below)
Is that what you call it - it didn't feel like rapture the next morning. Thanks everyone for coming -David. Leaving Sydney was eased by a couple of hours in the QANTAS first class lounge drinking veuve and watching the planes come in. Yup, I'm spoilt ... and I love it!
Fish Head Heaven
We spent a great 3 days in Singapore on the way over, returning to our favourite haunts for
Fish Head Curry
An unreproachful eye looks up at us from the delicous curry fish head curry, chilli crab, lime freezes, duck and chicken rice with Sharad and family and of course, a G&T at Raffles. When not eating, we got in some time by the pool, a game of tennis, a trip to touristy Sentosa and some pampering at a Javanese spa (of course!).
Chic Madrid
We arrived yesterday to a Madrid that’s somewhat colder than expected. We were thrilled our apartment fulfilled all our expectations, and, as promised by the booking website "Chic Rentals", it is indeed chic, centrally located in the somewhat alternative, but happening, area of Malasana (Anna), with fast wireless internet access (David).
Great apartment, I discovered all Super 14 and Wallabies games are available streamed live online. Needless to say I purchased the season pass. Most amusing is the bathroom. The shower is constructed over a wooden deck that can be lifted up to reveal a bath, albeit, not the most comfortable looking concrete tub. To get to the toilet means walking over the shower deck, so is not possible to use if someone is showering and also means the toilet is somewhat amphibious, living mostly in water, drenched by spray from the shower.
In our new (temporary) home
Celebrating with the complementary bottle of red presented on our arrival We have to take our socks off and roll our jeans up to use it.
We arrived right in the middle of siesta and, wanting to avoid jet lag but too tired to wait up for Madrid’s dinner hours that start at about 10:30pm, we unpacked and had a bit of a rest then headed for the tourist area around Plaza de Sol (always open) to find some tapas to do us for dinner. We were not disappointed with dos canas (small serves) of beer and some gambas al ajillo (garlic prawns) at La Casa del Abuelo, followed by some chorizo y queso con pan caliente (chorizo and cheese with hot bread) and more beers at another bar across the street. Here they also gave us a toastie with morcilla (black pudding). It was really yummy with lots of spicy flavour and oniony crunch.
After a bit of a wander, cut short by the biting cold wind we hadn’t been expecting, we headed home and slept soundly in what’s to be our new home for the next 6 weeks.
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Emyo
Emyo Wang
Food
Love your description of all the food :)