Let's make pasta!

Last weekend we went to a pasta making class. Yay! Sydney has a small Italian population compared to Melbourne, but we managed to land ourselves with a true Italian couple. They were so cute, and VERY passionate about their pasta. They immigrated from Italy 10 years ago and have opened a little pasta restaurant in Surry Hills. Now they do cooking classes, which I was so excited to check out after I learned about them.

We made two batches of pasta dough and then we got to play around with a lot of pasta tools.

 

At the end of the class, the restaurant kitchen cooked up our pastas with some delicious sauce and we all had a meal together. It was really fun, and I have to say that our pasta tasted pretty good! It wasn't beautiful, but we got the important parts down. After our pasta lunch, we headed back to the CBD. It was a beautiful and warm day, so we weren't ready to head home quite yet. We happened to notice that the new tunnel to the Barrangaroo development was open, so we decided to check it out. Toby loved it, which might have something to do with the fact that he said it looked like a starship.

It is pretty futuristic, I have to admit. 

Of course, once we were in Barangaroo, it seemed like we should maybe check out the new gelato shop that's opened. Tons of new buildings and shops have sprung up; it's almost like a whole other city over there!

 

 

And then we really needed to walk off all the Italian-ness of our day. So we decided to walk home, going through the Botanic Gardens  and soaking up as much sunshine as we could!

 

  Maybe next sunny weekend we can check out the pool with all the other fabulous people!

Some Sydney pics from last week

It's definitely starting to turn spring here! The flowers are all blooming and the weather is perfect for more time outside.  Two days in a row, the sunsets were fantastic on my walk home from work!  

And the flowers have been blooming like crazy! One of the parts of my commute is filled with booming jasmine, and you can smell it from 20 feet away.  

  Last Wednesday, we went to dinner and then to late night hours at the Art Gallery New South Wales. It was a nice 30 minute walk to dinner through Hyde Park.  

   

And then we went to the gallery, where there was some live music.

 

 

  I've also had lots of dog time at work recently. Yay for work pups!  

 

 

We took advantage of the later daylight hours by grabbing some dinner in the CBD and having an impromptu picnic on the way home from work.  

And we had one of the best festivals of all recently: a chocolate festival! The day was sunny and warm - what better way to be enjoying chocolate?

 

Setting up got chocolate lecture, I assume!

 

Yay for chocolate fun!

 

Hiking through Sydney

Last weekend we wanted to get some hiking in to break in new gear. But we had some things planned for our morning and evening, so we decided just to walk through Sydney suburbs in our hiking gear.  

We headed out of Potts Point and into the Eastern Suburbs. 

Most of our walk was through neighborhoods.

   

  But also through a couple parks.   

Aussies playing weekend cricket

 

  This weekend we did a longer walk up to Balmoral Beach on the north shore of the harbor. It was mostly though lovely little neighborhoods, but we did start out in the city.   

T starting out!

A lovely morning on the wharf

 

And a lovely morning in the Domain

 

 

  I was excited to walk up to the north shore because I haven't walked across the bridge since we moved. I really miss this view!

 

 

Two hours and 10 kilometers later, we arrived in lovely Balmoral Beach. I haven't ever been to this beach before, but it's on my list of places to visit again! The beach itself is really beautiful, and it's tucked back in from the harbor, so there were no real waves, just nice, peaceful shoreline.

 

And that was our our two weekends of city trekking!