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March 31, 2012

Darling Harbor

The smell of Sunblock, the screaming children on the playground, and the beautiful backdrop of the city's skyline. I have a love/hate relationship with Darling Harbor. It is always teaming with tourists and it is a major part of my commute to and from work. These two things do not mix well, but once I remind myself that I AM a tourist, I don't get as angry at the woman with her stroller and 6 rugrats that run into me whilst walking.




The Harbor has everything a tourist could need in one place: Starbucks, McDonalds, IMAX, Hard Rock Cafe, and a giant children's play area. Not to mention the huge amount of other cafe's and restaurants that crowd the waters edge. This makes it not only a hot spot for tourists, but a great place to grab an after work drink (it also happens to be the home of the one and only King St Brewhouse) So on a Saturday night as the tourists drag their tired kids off to the hotel, locals come out in droves for bars like Cargo and Bungalow 8.





And its all just a two minute walk from my apartment building. Not a bad place to call my backyard!

March 25, 2012

My obsession with the Harbour Bridge

I don't know what it is about this bridge, but it seriously gets be EVERY time. I went for my usual extended run yesterday and finally remembered to drag my camera along so that I could add to my already growing portfolio of photos of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

The Opera House, I could take it or leave it. Darling Harbor is nice, but there are a lot of tourists. But when I turn the corner and the top of this bridge sticks its head out over a building and catches my eye, my heart beats a little bit faster. I am reminded once again that I am in Sydney and I fall in love a little bit more.


It helps that yesterday was an exceptionally beautiful day, but this is seriously my favorite spot in the whole city. I love running around the corner and suddenly there she is! When I discovered this path that goes under the bridge it was like I had found a treasure. Just standing here so small underneath this bridge makes me feel like a little kid at Disney World for the first time.



Oh yea, there's that other monument too. Of course it is made much cooler when the bridge is in the forefront.



It just doesn't get old...



March 23, 2012

Going Green and Family Dinner

As anyone who lives on earth knows, last weekend was St Patrick's Day. So after much umm and ahhing about whether or not we should go out in the evening and join the already drunk people, we decided that we wouldn't be party poopers and headed to a bar we haven't been to before, the Australian Youth Hotel, for a few drinks. We got dressed in our finest Irish attire

 Gotta love self timer and our living room furniture isn't too bad either...

St Patrick himself


On Sunday we nursed our St Paddy's Day wounds with a nice comforting Swiss specialty:  Aelpler Macaroni (have I mentioned one of my roommates is Swiss? see the above less than saintly patrick). This involves all of my favorite things, cheese, pasta, onions, potatoes, and apple sauce. Does life get any better?
 
 Although I wish that was only my bowl, sadly I did have to share that with everyone else :(

 Everyone is really nervous about how famous they will become once I post this photo on my blog. All my readers please don't approach them in public, they are shy.

Now off to enjoy this beautiful weather and Friday happy hour at King St of course!

March 15, 2012

Taste(y)

Last weekend Luke was given some tickets for the Taste of Sydney Festival. After work on Saturday we headed over to Centennial Park where the festival was taking place and headed into a world of free samples. After the consuming all of the free cheese, yogurt, beer, wine, juice, sausage and tomatoes we could keep down, we used some of our "crowns" which are the currency you use in the festival to pay for the things that aren't free. Popular restaurants owned and operated by some of Sydney's "celebrity" chefs all have tents there selling baby-sized portions of a few of the fantastic meals you would find on their regular menus.

We headed straight for the Four in Hand tent whose Irish chef we came to know on Australian Masterchef (as a guest chef, not a contestant). We had a delectable slow roasted pork with a spicy sauce and some delicious coleslaw on the side. After that we headed over t see Four in Hand's head chef do a cooking demonstration where he proceeded to butcher a pig then show us three ways to cook him up! Unfortunately, there were no free samples there.

The rest of the night was sort of a food coma blur where I ate a lot more cheese, some macaroons, drank some alcoholic ginger beer that went down a TREAT! We finally spent all of our crowns as the last stalls were closing up for the night. It was an overall fantastic evening with lots of amazing food that we will be sure to keep an eye out for the next time we're at the supermarket! It also introduced us to some restaurants around Sydney that we will be sure to try when we come back to Sydney as millionaires.








 Someone needs to cool it with the hair product...

 Yes that is a tub of butter


Then I giggled like a giddy school child when I went up to him at the end to say thanks.