All About Sydney

I know, I know. It's been a while since I put a 'proper' post on here as opposed to the regular Tweeting and Facebook status update stuff. My only excuse is that I can do those things in real-time from my Blackberry while we're out actually having fun and doing things; whereas to put a 'proper' update on the site requires sitting still for a few minutes, concentrating and thinking about something that will be interesting to you all.

I won't take that line of thought to it's obvious conclusion and ruminate on what all this technology that we have available to us these days is doing to our collective ability to think critically and concentrate on one thing at a time and the impact that that might have on the younger generation. It is what it is. And, quite frankly, it would make me sound old and out-of-touch with the 21st century and, probably, people would lose interest before by the time they got to the end of the first 140 characters, wondering what I could possibly want or need to say in more space than that.

So, instead, let me tell you about what we got up to in Sydney.

First, before we got on the plane at SFO, M played here last couple of rounds of Words HD while drinking a G&T:

Then, when we arrived in Sydney the view over the Opera House looked like this:

Then I spent a few days working while M hung around with Helen and did some poking about the city - in between the rain showers - and then on Friday afternoon we got together with Helen to see a great Australian movie called 'Animal Kingdom' and then went out for a fantastic steak dinner at Prime - in the old GPO building off George Street.

And then we went for a cocktail in the Altitude Bar at the Shangri-La Hotel wherein a drank this Martini as part of my ongoing 'Martini Year' project.

On Saturday we headed over to Manly on the Ferry and met up with Helen and Wendy (her sister) and headed north to Narrabeen where we had a late breakfast (er, 2pm) before visiting Warringah Shopping Mall for odds and ends.

Before heading back to the hotel for an early night in order to start packing for our respective departures - C heading to Tokyo for work (and had to leave the hotel at 6am to get to the airport), M heading to Perth for fun with the McFarlane's (with a much more sensible 9:30am departure from the hotel). In spite of her excitement to head west to Perth, M was quite melancholy on the ferry back to Circular Quay.

All is well that ends well though as my disgust at having to get to the airport so early on a Sunday quickly evaporated when I realized that I could have toasted crumpets with vegemite and a coffee in the Qantas lounge before boarding my flight.