Springtime weekends

Our past couple weekends have been lovely - sunny and pleasant, but not too hot. The sun makes me happy and the mild weather makes T happy. So we've been taking advantage of it!

Last weekend we took a walk across the bridge and over to Walsh Bay for Saturday breakky.

A lovely bridge walk

We found a little cafe on one of the wharves - it was perfect for a little stop. 

We sat outside so the restaurant brought us a little squirt bottle because "sometimes the seagulls are annoying." Luckily, we didn't have to do battle with any birds!

Also on one of our weekend walks, we came across this car parked near our apartment. There are some UT Vols fans somewhere around!

And on the work side of things, the little puppy Archie is getting big! When he's not sleeping, he's getting patted. He's got a pretty good situation going on.

The 20th Bondi to Coogee walk

This week, a guy I know through work was in Sydney visiting the office for a week. Tobias is from Germany and I had a lot of fun with him when I was at Summit last year. This was his first trip to Sydney AND we had a holiday on Monday, so T and I wanted to make sure he had a good time.

Various people in Tobias' life had told him to check out the Bondi to Coogee walk. Even though we've done that walk so many times now, I still love it so much! I am not sure it will ever get old. Plus, it was a beautiful, hot day - the first truly summer-ish day. Perfect for walking on the breezy walk and taking a dip in the water.

The beaches were absolutely packed - everyone was enjoying a day away from work in the sun!

The walk, as always, was lovely. 

We took a swim & snorkel break at Gordon's Bay. The water was still REALLY cold, but it was so hot, it actually felt great after I got out. I took my first snorkel of the year, but I only stayed in for 20 minutes or so - my toes started to go tingly in the cold!

In Coogee, we fought our way through the crowds and found a spot for a cold beer and some lunch. It felt good to sit down in the cool and rest our feet. I forget how intense the Sydney sun is, but that day reminded me!

T parted ways with his new BFF Tobias (seriously, they talked about scifi things the whole time and exchanged favorite author names) after we caught the bus back to the city.  I hung back to take him around to the Opera House and through the Botanic Gardens. 

It was a perfect way to spend the holiday: enjoying the weather and seeing the best of the city through a visitor's eyes!

Comic Con

For T's bday, I gave him tickets to Sydney Comic Con. And because I love him, I also said I would go with him. Comic Con is clearly not my kind of thing, but I was interested to check it out and see what the fuss was all about.

The first part of Comic Con is getting ready.

And then of course you head out to the Comic Con ferry shuttle in full regalia. 

You might feel a little odd taking public transport dressed in costume, but as soon as you get close to the shuttle area, you see that literally hundreds of other people have been doing the same!

There were SO many people dressed up, that the ferry operator was naming off all the characters as they boarded. When he got to me, he seemed pretty disappointed and said "just a normal person." Ha!

So after riding a ferry full of costumed people, you arrive at the exhibition center where there are thousands of people in costume. 

Some of the costumes you might understand. And some of them you might not. 

I learned that it's pretty common practice to ask people whose costumes you really appreciate for a picture. So as we were walking around, people would be posing together for pictures with other con-goers. I have to say it was pretty cute to see tiny little kid Batmans posing together with other grownup Batmans and such. 

T's costume was pretty popular! He even got pulled aside for an interview with a film crew. 

You might be wondering what you do at the event besides looking at costumed people. There are TONS of booths with things to buy. Games, action figures, toys, and really more things than my brain could process. I got turned around and lost with all the booths that had so much similar stuff and things that I never even dreamed existed. 

Besides all the shopping, there were plenty of game demo booths and the panels of speakers going on all day. We sat in on one panel which was a Q&A with some actors from a scifi show. 

I have to admit that it was a little bit overwhelming to me. There were so many things to process, a lot of which I didn't know what it was. I think it must be like going to a greenhouse with a horticulturist who understands and appreciates all the minute differences in the plants. 

I did throw T a bone and posed for a picture. 

I lasted for a few hours but then I was pretty worn out. T and I went home where I crashed out for a nap. He went back the next day solo and properly enjoyed Round 2!

Walking the foreshore

Last week I took a day off work. The weather was perfectly spring-y and I'd been working too much. So I decided it was time to charge up the batteries a little bit.

I did some chores first off in the morning and then decided to go for a ramble across the bridge and along the foreshore toward the harbor heads. I didn't make it all the way to the heads, but I did make it about halfway in three hours, which included fun stops to check things out.

One sure sign that summer is here? Cruise ships are in the Quay way more often. They still dock occasionally during the winter, but during the summer there is often a different one in the evening from the one there in the morning.

My plan for the walk was to stick to the foreshore as close to the water as I could since that would take me by some places I've never seen before. But I did take a detour through the paths of the Botanic Gardens. I was pretty happy with that choice, since it was in full bloom!

Then I came to the Woolloomoolloo part of the walk. When we first got here, I thought that was the funniest name. It's still not the most natural thing to say!

Woolloomoolloo has a super long wharf that juts out in the water. It obviously used to be a pretty important shipping wharf, but now it has a hotel, restaurants, and apartments. It's an amazingly long building. 

After this part of the walk, I had to cut inland a bit. That's because an Australia Naval base is alongside the water on the other side of Woolloomooloo. But on the other side of that point is Rushcutters Bay, which has a lovely park and a little cafe on the water. Seems like a pretty good place for a coffee!

The rest of the walk was weaving through neighborhoods and down through water-side parks. I ended at Elizabeth Bay, which has a long, wide park with plenty of shade and spots for hanging out by the water. 

I had a sandwich here and hung out for a while in the shade. 

It was a really lovely walk, and it was a great way to see new places in the city.

Newcastle - Part 3

After the rain shower passed, it looked like it was going to turn sunny again instantly. So we headed back toward the city along the walk, and got up to the point where we'd started. At the top of the hill, we just happened across a man who was about to take off hang gliding. We stopped to watch and were able to be really close to him when he finally took off.

This guy certainly wasn't someone I would have picked to being doing extreme sport - he had long gray hair and was wearing sweatpants and a hoodie. His last move before running off down the hill was to light a cigarette and put it in his mouth. He circled around near us for a while, just smoking away.

Then we headed downhill. We came across an old fortification site, but in true Australian fashion, there were no signs. I learned on the train ride home that it was actually two separate fortifications: one from the 1890s to defend against the Russians and one from the 1940s to defend against the Japanese.

We couldn't go into the buildings, which was a shame, but it was interesting nonetheless.

Then we came to our last beach of the day: Newcastle Beach. It was a lovely beach but only about three people were out. Everyone else must have been scared off by the forecast!

By this point, we'd been walking around for about 5 hours, so we stopped off for a drink and a snack, and to rest our feet. Then we headed back into the city and toward our hotel. But we stopped off first to tour the Christ Church Cathedral.

On the way back, T made a friend.

We took advantage of there being nothing to do near our hotel and recharged with a nap. It was a perfect recharge after our day. That evening it was time for our last real adventure in Newcastle: dinner back on Darby Street. I'd picked this place called Coal River Company because they made pasta in the restaurant every day. It was a tiny place, so we got squeezed in at the bar, which turned out to be awesome because we could watch the two chefs hard at work!

Australians love to put beetroot in and on everything. It's not uncommon to get a sandwhich that doesn't list beetroot as an ingredient but to have it come out with giant slices of it. It's just considered ubiquitous to most dishes. I am not really a fan of the beetroot craze, but I decided to be adventurous and try the beetroot and ricotta gnocchi. It came out bright pink! T played it safe with a mushroom linguine, and we agreed that it was a surprising tie between the two for which one was best!

The nice warm, cozy pasta dinner was a perfect way to end our Newcastle adventure. It started pouring on us during our walk home and didn't stop before we boarded our train the next morning. Even though I was hoping for a sunny morning to fit in a walk to a lighthouse, the fact that we didn't get to do it just means we'll come back one day to see all the things left on my list! And I think we're both ok with that!

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