Sydney, part II

So far, we have been walking around Sydney without a camera. This is not because I didn't think ahead and bring batteries AND a battery charger. This is because we accidentally blew up our battery charger and its contents when we plugged them into the adapter in the hotel room. (Note: Adapter, not converter.) Oops. Anyway, we figured the convenience store across the street would have batteries, and we knew we'd be paying tourist prices for them, but that's what happens when you do dumb stuff and have to rely on a convenience store across from your hotel. Anyway, we grabbed the batteries, and the guy rang them up and said, "That will be $30." I said, "Is that right?" and he turned the battery pack over to show me the price tag on the back which did, indeed, agree with his cash register. After my heart started beating again, I said, "30 dollars?? Why so much?" He seemed surprised by this. "Well, these are the lithium ones." "Are they also made of gold?" Okay, I didn't actually say that, but I was thinking it. Did I mention that these were not rechargeable? These were Energizer. I was pretty sure that I had about an hour's worth of use to look forward to from these batteries, maybe two, based on previous experience. We passed on the batteries. I'm prepared to pay tourist prices, but not $30 for batteries. My husband had been to Sydney before, so we already had a lot of pictures from there. Otherwise, I might have caved for the batteries. A few days later we finally gave in and paid $20 at another convenience store. Hey, it's better than $30. BTW, for any of you who are thinking, yeah, but that's in Aussie dollars, it makes no difference. The US dollar and the Aussie dollar are almost one-for-one right now, so it really was $30.

fter that we took the ferry over to Darling Harbour, which is just sort of the next harbor over, walkable, but my husband likes being on the water, so we took the ferry. We walked around for a while and then visited the Sydney Aquarium which was pretty cool. Near the entrance, they have a platypus, which is cool because I don't think I've ever seen one, and they're just so wierd! After that I wasn't overly impressed until toward the end where you get to walk through tunnels which go under/through one of their giant tanks, and you find yourself surrounded by lots of different sharks, big rays, and huge turtles. I could have spent hours in there. After you leave that area the overall aquarium experience picks up considerably compared to the pre-shark-tank part, in my opinion. They have lots of salt-water tanks that are very cool. I probably enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef because here I wasn't worried about drowning all the time. (More on that later.)

At the end of the day, we took a taxi back to the hotel. It was cold and my knee was pretty sore, and walking from the harbor to our hotel seemed like more than I could do. That was the night of the 3AM fire alarm where I realized that there would have been no way for me to make it down 26 flights of stairs in my gimpy condition and I would have burned alive had there been an actual fire.

The next day we walked around The Rocks where the main street was closed off for a street market. There were a lot of quality goods there, as far as street markets go. By the time we were done walking around we were getting hungry. We'd walked past a number of restaurants, but nothing looked quite like what we wanted. We thought about going back to GG espresso, which we'd been thoroughly impressed with a couple days ago, but that was all the way back by our hotel, and we were not too far from Lord Nelson's, so we decided to go back there and get a meat pie and some beer. After a fabulous meat pie and some great beer (my husband finally got to try the Nelson's Blood) we started chatting with some of the folks that were hanging out there. Turns out one of them was the brew master, whose picture you saw here . I'm going to call him Robert because I think that was his name, but I can't remember for sure. Whether his name is Robert or not, he was a very nice guy who gave us a tour of his brew operation and then plied us with free sample beer all afternoon. Quality control is important when you're the brew master! His mates, Jason, Eleisha, Tank, and Joel were all fun folks who were nice enough to let us hang out with them for the afternoon as well. Thanks guys! We had fun!

All in all, I would totally recommend Lord Nelson's Brewery Hotel. Their food was great, their beer was great, the people were friendly, and I suspect their accommodations would be great as well. Check them out if you are in Sydney!

After leaving Lord Nelson's we headed back over to Darling Harbour because I had purchased a package deal for the Sydney Aquarium and the Sydney Wildlife World. Turns out the Wildlife World was not that impressive, but I did get to pet a koala, which was as close as I got to grabbing a koala, stuffing him in my suitcase, and bringing him back home to hang out with my Basset hound as I was ever going to get. They will take your picture with the koalas as well and, of course, sell you the picture for about $20, but we ducked out after I got to pet the koala and before they tried to sell me a $20 picture...which I probably would have given in and bought, and now I kind of wish that I had because it's the only picture in existence of me and a koala. We had plans to go somewhere where I would actually get to cuddle a koala though, so we were counting on getting THOSE pictures. Never happened. Bird in the hand, people. Oh well.

That night we ate at Alfredo's, the adorable little Italian restaurant which is right next to the Marriott. They offer authentic Italian and, if you're lucky you might catch them on a night when they have live entertainment, opera if I remember correctly. Anyway, we decided to try them out, and it was terrible. It was the worst food we had the entire time we were in Australia, and it was probably the worst Italian food I've ever had. I ordered a pesto dish which was flat noodles-larger than fettucini but smaller than lasagna. I'm sure there's an official name for these, but I don't know what it is-so, anyway, big flat noodles, pesto, and olive oil. This sounds great; I eat stuff like this at home all the time. It was a disaster. You couldn't taste basil or nuts, but it was super oily. It just tasted like oil, and not even good olive oil, just oily. The parts with the sprinkled-on parmesan cheese were less nasty, but not enough so that I was able to finish my dish. My husband ordered the Penne with Italian Sausage. This came out looking like someone had dumped a can of Chef Boyardee on top of some penne. Always willing to give the chef the benefit of the doubt, he tasted it, and it tasted like it was straight out of a can. The sausage was...mealy? I know sausage is ground up meat parts, but it shouldn't be squishy. Also, it was not Italian sausage, at least not what I consider Italian sausage-spicy, flavorful, not squishy. I'm willing to allow for the fact that I've never had Italian food from Italy. I know and love my American versions of Italian food, but I'm pretty sure that this was not a matter of authenticity, especially since we were in Australia, not Italy. I think this was just bad food. I think if Gordon Ramsay had been called to consult on this place, he would have had some choice words for the head chef. There was a plaque on the wall behind us thanking Alfredo's for their service to the 2004 Olympic teams? commission? I don't remember exactly, but I remember thinking that this couldn't have been good for anybody's morale during the Olympics. Then again, a lot could have changed since 2004. Maybe ownership has changed, maybe management has changed, maybe the head chef has changed. Or maybe they just had a bad night the night we were there, but our experience was not good. I will give props to the lovely gentleman who was playing the piano. He came around and asked all the tables if there was anything he could play for them, and did his part to keep up the ambiance. So, for the entertainment, I will give Alfredo's one star.

After our disappointing dinner we returned to our hotel to find two clean, non-smoky robes hanging nicely in our closet, not draped sloppily on a wire hanger on our bed like the last one.

The next day we walked through Hyde Park. (Yes, we're still in Australia; it turns out Australia has lots of things that England had first.) Pilgrims are beginning to arrive en masse and they are walking around everywhere wearing their countries' flags as capes. I sort of have mixed feelings about this. I'm not super patriotic, but some things are just tacky. Along with the flag capes there are lots of people with guitars and lots of groups singing and generally being youthful and excited but in a good Catholic way.

From Hyde Park we walked over to the Chinese Peace Garden, which was beautiful. They have a bamboo garden area that I really liked, and I would like to do something similar in my backyard.

The gardens were very well laid out and even though they didn't cover a huge area, there were lots of places that were tucked away around a bend or down a hill so that you discovered them as you walked through the gardens, rather than being able to stand in one spot and scope everything out. Also, the temples were painted in colors that perfectly matched the winter foliage. I don't know if this was intentional or not, but I thought it was a nice touch!

After this we walked back through Hyde Park to the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain where they have a "Sex and Death" exhibit starring orchids and carnivorous plants and it's housed in the Tropical Center which is this cool glass pyrmid that reminded me of the one in front of the Louvre. I was really disappointed. For as phenomenal as the rest of the gardens are, this was a sad, sad display. Everything looked overgrown and half dead. I don't know if they were attempting to make it look "natural" but it just looked "unkempt." So, my advice would be to go check out every nook and cranny of the Botanic Gardens and Domain that you can, but don't waste your money on the Tropical Center. I would, however, highly recommend the United States Botanic Gardens in Washington DC. They're display is largely indoors, extensive, and quite well-kept. And, I didn't get mugged while I was there.

We finished off our night with another fabulous meal at Lord Nelson's Brewery Hotel, and went back to the hotel to pack up for our travel to Newcastle.

Sydney

Well, kids, as you can see from my last post, I have just returned from Australia, 17 days in Australia to be exact. Which is why I have been a big, giant slacker in the posting department. Sorry.

I think the best way to break up my posting of this trip will just be to do it by region. So, one post for each city we visited. Let's start with Sydney!

First of all, if you are the person in charge of planning a work conference, and you know the Pope is coming to town, you might want to consider timing your conference so that it doesn't happen at the same time as the Pope's visit give or take a week. For one thing, any of your Catholic attendees probably won't appreciate you very much. Secondly, anyone who has to travel to and find accommodations in your city during this time probably will not appreciate you much either. I'm just sayin'. Some things to consider.

Anyway, I really liked Sydney, World Youth Day craziness aside. We stayed at the Sydney Harbour Marriott Hotel at Circular Quay. It was...fine. The hotel was nice, the staff were courteous, the room was clean. I wasn't overwhelmed, but it was ok. The one complaint I do have is that I asked for a robe, and they sent one up that smelled like smoke. I don't know if they didn't wash it after the last person wore it or if someone was smoking in the supply closet or what, but it stunk. Also, the 3AM fire alarm was a drag. Turns out someone down the hall from us was a smoker and couldn't drag his ass outside to take a drag. So, not really the hotel's fault, but still. Actually, it could have been the hotel's fault. Maybe whoever was wearing my robe and smoking in the supply closet finally went too far and set off the smoke alarms. Damn closet smokers...which brings me to...

my first public safely announcement: If you are injured or in some other way not highly mobile, don't get a hotel room on the 26th floor. I had never considered this before, but my knee was tweaked from all the walking around we'd been doing, and I couldn't go up or down stairs in a normal fashion. I had to do it old-people style where you put your left foot down a step and then, instead of bringing your right foot down to the step below your left foot, you bring your right foot down to the same step that your left foot is on and then start all over with the next step. I am here to tell you that if there had been an actual fire, I would have burned alive, probably on the 24th floor. So, I guess I should be thankful that it was just some thug smoking up robes to foist on unsuspecting guests.

Before all this nonsense with the fire alarms, we walked down to the Sydney Opera House. We tried to get tickets to see Hamlet, but it was in its last two nights of production and was sold out. The architecture is, of course, unique and fascinating. What was cool for me though was that it reminded me of the architecture of the Air Force Academy's Cadet chapel, which my grandpa helped build. When I say "helped build" I mean I think he was one of the lead guys on the job, but I'm not actually sure on that, so I'll have to do some fact checking. For comparison check out pictures here of the Sydney Opera House and this picture of the chapel.

After that we walked over to the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain which are huge! And quite lovely. They have some amazing trees and beautiful walkways and fruit bats, or flying foxes as they are more euphemistically called. Some people found the bats creepy. I kind of liked them. They were flying all over the place and chattering like crazy during the day, which surprised me. I figured they would be pretty quiet during the day and active at night. Shows what I know about fruit bats. They also had herds of cockatoos flying around. I'm sure the correct terminology is probably "flocks" but if you've ever heard these things, you'll agree it sounds more like a herd of cockatoos coming at you than a flock.

Anyway, the Royal Botanic Gardens have a lot of open space that doesn't involve bats or stampeding cockatoos, so don't let that discourage you if you're wary of either. It's a beautiful area and you can spend days walking around. Definitely a winner! Hawaii, take notes-this is how you do a botanic garden!

After all our walking around, we needed some food, and we found this little cafe called GG espresso, which was fabulous! And it wasn't just because I was famished and getting mean. I had the lemon pepper chicken, tomato, cheese, pesto and rocket on Turkish bread, which was one of the best sandwiches I've ever had. It was so good! The chicken was tender and had great flavor, the cheese was perfectly melted, the pesto was good but not overwhelming, the rocket (arugula) was fresh and the bread was light and crispy. The whole thing was wonderful! Sydney Airport, take notes-this is how you do sandwiches! My husband got the meat pie, which is not on the menu, but was also really good even though he burned off most of his taste buds on the first bite. A warning about meat pies: They tend to be served at roughly 800 degrees. Fahrenheit or Celsius, take your pick; at that temperature it doesn't really matter.

Speaking of food, we decided to go to Lord Nelson's Brewery Hotel for dinner. Instead of eating dinner there, we ended up trying some of their beer which is, as the name of the establishment implies, brewed on site. I'm not a beer gal, but I liked the Old Admiral and the Victory Bitter (not to be confused with Australia's Victoria Bitter or VB, which from what I could gather from the locals is sort of Australia's Budweiser-everybody drinks it, but it's pretty much crap.) I think we tried one other beer that night, but I can't remember which one it was. My husband wanted to try the Nelson's Blood, but they were all out. After finding the beer selection pleasing we decided to ignore the tempting menu and wander around the city a little more. At the time, some things seem like a good idea.

We walked around until we found the Australian Hotel, which apparently is some hot-shit, award-winning beer venue, but we found their beer to be far inferior to Lord Nelson's and their food was mediocre. My pizza, however, did make me laugh until I cried. Not because it was particularly funny, but because sometimes all the elements in the universe line up just right to make one split second in time so funny that you can't stand it. I ordered a cheese pizza, and as I was taking my first bite, I sort of sighed and thought, "I love cheese." This made me smile a little, and I knew that my husband had caught me smiling and was now wondering what I was smiling about. Then I thought about having to explain my wistful, "I love cheese," thought and that made me laugh, which made my husband ask, "What?" which made me laugh even harder because I thought about how ridiculous it would sound to actually say, out loud, "I love cheese," and how non-funny that is and then I thought about the disparity between the funniness of my "I love cheese," and how hard I was now laughing and that made me laugh even more. So, it just kept snowballing, and I probably laughed for a solid two minutes before I could pull myself together enough to tell my husband, who by this time was waiting for something really freakin' hilarious, "I love cheese!" which then sent me into peals of laughter for another minute or two. I'm sure anyone watching from the outside would have had no doubt that I was high as a kite, but I swear to you I wasn't. I just really love cheese.

I have more to report, but it's bed time, so I'll be back later with more.