Lachlan was away for a couple of days, so......
...he came back to a cardboard workstation!
friday
- Didn't quite manage to scarper from work early, but took off promptly at 5.30pm and drove across town to collect L from work. Noticed disturbingly strong wind gusts while waiting at the lights at the bottom of Oxford Street, but that corner always seems bad so didn't really think much of it.
- Got to airport only to find Belegdel and Cynthaea's flight delayed, presumably by the weather since it was one of the most miserable nights I've ever been out in. Sydney airport is set up so that when it rains, if you park you get wet. No way around it. Christened New Jacket #1 and dearly wished I'd brought New Jacket #2 with the insane I-though-OTT-but-turns-out-isn't-OTT-at-all hood.
- With a goal of "Steak!" saw us initially heading for Newtown, but the intended destination appeared closed and ...well, parking in Newtown? 'nuff said. So instead we went to Cafe Otto and had a very nice dinner in the enclosed courtyard. Joined by rocksluts and msrocksluts; the resulting group henceforth being called The Gang in this post. Despite the freezing night the gas heaters were almost too hot! Cafe Otto is good - and not just because they do home delivery :) Home delivery is awesome though. You can ring them and say Send me tiramisu, my good man! ...and they do!
saturday
- Headed to Paddington Markets only to discover they were cancelled - hey the wind was only gale force and the rain was merely sideways. Details, we wanted our cinnamon waffles! ...not really, actually I can understand entirely that they cancelled the markets.
- Lunch and coffee at Cafe Escobar, while we worked on a new plan given that the rain was still going past the door sideways. Thoroughly christened New Jacket #2 as I retrieved the car. Hoodies FTW!
- Decided that although it was generic, Bondi Junction Westfield was open, covered and probably had shoes to replace Cynthaea's broken-strap-mary-janes. That turned out to be untrue, however there was much squee when we went to T2 tea and the funky design shop. I forget the name.
- Available bookings turned out to be impractical so we ditched Portofino plan and instead headed to Betty's Soup Kitchen, joined by the rocksluts. Hearty stew and bread later, dinner declared a success!
- Walked back to car then drove on to Max Brenner, only to discover a stupid lineup. Why the hell don't they get rid of the useless display table up the back and put in another four tables? Instead gathered supplies from a supermarket and the gang repaired to Chez Rocksluts for hot chocolate and chats into the night.
sunday
- Slept in a bit, madly cleaned the unit to make it presentable then picked up B&C on the way to Chez Rocksluts for indoor picnic with the gang.
- Lots of food and weird DVDs ensue.
monday
- B&C joined us for brunch at Concrete. I say brunch, actually it was Second Breakfast for two people (hobbit alert!), lunch for another and breakfast for me. Apparently I like french toast when it's encrusted with cinnamon, drenched in maple syrup and topped with berry compote. YUM!
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Joined full gang and went to The Da Vinci Machines. It was cool, although admission really was a bit high for what you got.
- Went to Max Brenner, successfully this time! Discovered they're not making my favourite hot choc any more though (the orchid oil one). *shakes fist*
- On to The Dolphin for quick pub grub dinner before heading to the airport to drop B&C off to their flight.
- Now home, sipping a single malt scotch and writing this up.
Certainly a good weekend in terms of getting used to Sydney - if we can cope with this weather I think we'll be ok. Will see if it get significantly colder though, definitely going to have to work out how to keep warm on the bottom half - jeans don't cut it! Never had that problem before. Another new thing is Hoodie Hair, which is apparently worse than Hat Hair.
Plus we drove around a lot and found a few new ways to get places, which is good. This is a difficult city to navigate when you're relatively new - the endless No Right Turns make it much harder to recover from a wrong turn.
Weird to tune back into the news on sunday night though, discovering that the weather had actually been a really bad storm causing deaths and doing shitloads of damage. Pretty full-on, really. We'd been merrily wandering around thinking it's a bit chilly and bloody rainy.
So anyway, that's the weekend that was. Back to work tomorrow - sigh! - but at least it's a short week. After this one I think we'll have to declare next weekend a "do absolutely nothing" weekend :)
Labels: betty's soup kitchen, cafe escobar, cafe otto, concrete cafe, max brenner, t2 tea, the dolphin