the many living rooms of sydney

everywhere you go... you will be sure to find a living room chillin' on random street corners or grassy area. people just leave out furniture on the streets and some time later they miraculously disappear. starting from today, i will take photos of all these couches and post them on this entry. hopefully there isn't a picture limit per entry. i'm estimating 200 pictures before i leave sydney. i took these three in one day during a fun, lazy sunday walk through bondi.

expensive!

i really don't understand how people have such a high standard of living in sydney given how expensive it is! coke is now a luxury for me. i only drink while at work.. where it's free. :)

Pie Face

So yummy! One thing Aussies do well is pie! Before I leave I want to eat every pie made in this country. So far this is the best one out there. I mentioned before that I thought a good business idea was to take something from the States and bring it to Australia.. well I think another good idea would be to take this pie back to the States. http://www.pieface.com.au/

Merman

i exercised for the first time last night in a very long time. chris, jakey and i went on a jog. while chris continued on his jog (i stopped half way thru), jakey and i walked on the beach and did some yoga stretches. it was a beautiful night. the cold sand felt great between my toes. as i was getting my back stretch on, this naked man got out of the water. he started walking toward me. i was trying to be open minded. totally normal, beautiful night on the beach, we were one with nature, etc.. the guy then started talking to me. even squatting down while he was naked to try to pet jakey. ding-a-ling in full view. luckily jakey started barking and i started rambling how he has been slightly off because of quarantine and then briskly walked away. still shocked.

Zig zag road markings

Does this make sense to anyone? I understand double lines, dotted lines, yellow lines, but zig zag?

Big pimpin' up in SYD

Thanks so much to Denise and Vinay (a.k.a. Dinay or Mom and dad) for the super generous gift certificate to Est restaurant. Michelin does not issue a guide for Australia (reason unknown?). Instead there is a "hat" system given by SMH Good Food Guide. Est has three chef hats (the highest rating). Observations: knife design was unique (sat upright), cougar dining with boy toy (no not me), and women in prom dresses (this is common at night in Sydney .. sometimes day time as well). We ordered the chef's tasting menu, 5 courses of bliss! Oysters, lobster claw, crisp skin mulloway, beef fillet and then passion fruit souffle. We ended the night perfectly - in a gorgeous white Bentley, rocking Sade. The restaurant gives complementary rides in their Bentley to patrons in the following category: 1. VIPS (not us), 2. people who have spent lots of money with them (again, not us), or 3. people they just really liked! YAY!

The Cullen Family in the Royal Botanical Gardens

Yes those are bats! They are called flying foxes and are fury. Unfortunately, the Aussies are in a dilemma because they are killing the gardens and on the endangered species list (which I find a bit hard to believe because there are thousands of them in the trees).

Happy Easter from Sydney Opera House!

What a great Easter! Chris and I walked around the city and saw these cute bunnies next to the Sydney Opera house! Meanwhile, Jakey was at home being bad and ate the second ear off of his toy bunny. The bunny now has no ears.

This is the sound of heaven

Every morning at 6AM and every night at 6PM. This tree is right in front of my bedroom window. There really are no words to describe the sound.. you have to hear it to believe it!

Just another beautiful day in Bondi

Doing the coastal walk from Bondi to Coogee ...

Useful street signs

Guess what people? I have readers! Look at Lily's ping to me - Lily: you're supposed to keep blogging. This post is for Lily.

Look what washed up on the coast of Australia!

My knight in shining armor! Chris arrived on Wed, March 31! Jakey and Daddy reunited at last!

The best part about Google...

On route from London to Sydney, I was sitting next to a beautiful older woman. We exchanged pleasantries ..

older woman: "Where do you work?"
me: "Google"
older woman: "Oh I love Google! I use it everyday. It's so useful! I go there to get to Yahoo."

+ 1 for Mike Curtis!

Australian pride!

I was reading my kindle on the train the other day when a nice Aussie man asked me how I liked my kindle. I was really excited to answer since I love my kindle! I started rambling off all the great things: automatic downloads of magazine subscriptions, light weight ... OH and the best part - the low cost book downloads, especially since books are expensive in Australia! It was at this moment that he took the opportunity to tell me the exchange rate. "You know the AUD and USD are 1:1 now?". That was the first of many conversations that I have had on the AUD/USD FX rate. Even when you aren't on the subject of money, Aussies love to bring this up. "The weather is great today". "Oh did you know that the AUD and the USD are about 1:1 now?"