Finally Taking the Time to Catch Up

So I have finally found the time to tell you about the last few days. David and I are sitting in the Sydney airport waiting for our flight to the gold coast so we can get race week underway.

We have had a great couple of days. On Thursday we "slept in" until eight. I made a big beakfast and then we walked down to circular quey to catch the Ferry to manly. Manly is a small beach suburb of Sydney filled with small shops and restaurants. We were all set for a day in the sun on the beach but the weather had different plans for us. It was miserable and cold so we spent a few hours walking around, had lunch at a small cafe and then we hopped the ferry back to the city. By the time we got there it was pouring! We hid out under an overhang until we could catch a cab back to our flat. When we returned we made soup and hot chocolate and we were in for the night.

Thursday was very different. We walked down market street in downtown Sydney and did some shopping. Our intended destination was Chinatown which is just past darling harbour and by the time we got there we were starving. Chinatown was pretty much a small alley style street packed with shops and tiny restaurants. There were people and product everywhere! We sat down and had a great Chinese food lunch. After lunch we went to paddy's market. It is a sprawling, overpacked, overwheming indoor market filled with.... Junk. Interesting nonetheless.

That night we had tickets to see a dance group called bangarra do a performance called fire at the opera house. It was incredible! They blend traditional indigenous Australian dancing with modern dance. Combined with tribal costumes and body and face paint the outcome was stunning. Bangarra has been around for twenty years so the show was a retrospective. You have to YouTube them!

Yesterday was our last full day in Sydney. We walked around kings cross ( which was historically a very seedy area) and we stopped for lunch and a beer. After lunch we returned to the flat, changed and walked to the rocks for the dinner that teryn and jeannie had organized with teryn's friend Dean. It was at a restaurant called Ventuno which is on a warf overlooking the water. We met up with Dean and his girlfriend at the beautiful restaurant. We sat down and had a drink with the two of them after which Dean gave us a tour of the restaurant and showed us to our incredible table where they left us alone. They had organized a private menu for us and everything was in the hands of our super awesome waitor tony. Dinner started with fresh bread, oilive oil and Italian olives with a side of chili oil and a fantastic bottle if white wine and a bottle of gourmet water. Next course was deep fried cheese and ricotta balls (cannot remember proper name) with marinara sauce. After that we were served fresh scallops in the half shell with a citrus sauce... My favourite! Next was eggplant rolled around a batter of pinenuts, cheese and rice and deep fried mozzarella. We were then given a passionfruit sorbet to clear our palets for the main course. The main came as two courses. The first was a fresh linguini served in a creamy porchinni mushroom sauce. The second was a vegetarian thin crust pizza with mushrooms, artichokes, olives and peppers on it as well as a caprese salad. This came with more wine because we had of course worked through the first bottle. Desert was the final course and it consisted of vanilla gelato with strawberries and a nutella pizza! Yum! We had a glass of desert wine and followed up with some tea.

By the time all of this was done we were a little drunk, alot full and... Four and a half hours had passed! It was bar none one of the best nights we have ever had together.

This morning we woke up a little hungover. We packed everything, had a shower and left. After walking around the market at the rocks, we took the train to the airport and here we are!

This is a very long post and I am sure you are bored by now so I am off for now and the next time I blog we will be in surfers paradise!

By for now!

D&S

So we are in surfers after a long bus ride from the airport. The house is great and everyone is here safe. But the is no Internet!!!!! So posts will be slow until we figure something out. Right now we are using free Internet at mcdonalds

D&S