Waking Up in Oz

Being that I’m unemployed, I probably shouldn’t have spent $14 on breakfast this morning. Mandi woke up with the brilliant idea of having a Saturday morning breakfast in Newtown, so we hopped on the bus and scouted out somewhere along King Street that looked promising. We settled on Grub & Tucker after seeing their menu was slightly less expensive than the other cafes we’d passed. As a lover of a huge breakfast, I opted for their ginormous vegetarian breakfast (which, by my estimations, wasn’t all that vegetarian): eggs any style, baked beans, spinach, grilled tomatoes, sauteed mushrooms, corn and potato hashbrown, sourdough toast, orange juice and coffee. Yes, it cost $13.90 but it was extremely filling and I justified the price by saying it would cost me twice as much to buy all of the ingredients and make the same breakfast at home. I have seen bacon and eggs for more than $12 at some places which is criminal. It was a fantastic and satisfying breakfast and it’s now 5 hours later and I’m not the slightest bit hungry. Bonus: our waitress was American. The funny thing is whenever I hear an American accent I don’t pick up on it right away. I assume the person isn’t American and must have a trace of another accent I’m not picking up. It’s been made clear to us asking someone if they’re American is an insult, so I hesitate to piss off any Canadians by asking if they’re American (although quite frankly, they can suck it). Anyway, out waitress was super friendly and lives in our neighborhood so we made tentative plans to meet up soon.

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The good thing about unemployment is when it’s a nice day during the week, you can head straight for the beach. We spent yesterday at Bondi Beach, which is surprisingly my favorite beach I’ve been to so far. I’d been told it’s super touristy and packed, but we went on a Friday and it was perfect. The sand is great, the water is beautiful, and it wasn’t crowded. It actually made us decide Coogee is a big pile of dog poo in comparison, so we’re glad we didn’t end up living there.  Don’t get me wrong, Coogee Beach is nice but the shops and buildings are kind of run down and any time I’ve been to the beach there it’s extremely crowded. Perhaps I’m just extremely bitter we didn’t stand a chance in hell at renting a place there. Yeah, that’s probably it.

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I don’t think I’ve mentioned here that we have visitors coming for New Year’s. We have a friend and her boyfriend who live in Melbourne (she is American, he is Aussie) coming to stay with us for a few nights and join us for New Year’s Eve festivities. We’ve decided to pack a massive amount of booze and food and join the thousands upon thousands of other people who spend the day along the water in anticipation of the ridiculous fireworks set off on the Harbour Bridge and all along the harbour.  Now that I think about it, this fireworks display sounds completely over the top, so I may end up taking back my claim that Australia does not do obnoxious as well as America. Apparently to claim a decent spot we will have to get there around 10 am. I’m not entirely sure how I will survive until midnight, but I do know I’m bringing deodorant. We originally thought we would shell out well over $100 to go out to a club for the night, but after thinking it through we think this will be a better time. For one thing, we won’t have to dress up. I’ve been dressing up for New Year’s Eve since I was about 15 years old so this will be a nice change of pace. Shorts and a tank top? Sign me up. I’ve already started to plan a picnic menu for the day. I figure we will need stuff that will travel well and keep for hours, so any picnic food suggestions would be much appreciated (I’m looking at you, Brianne).

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P.S. Speaking of food, I came across this awesome food blog a few days ago: Smitten Kitchen.

Tags: Americans in Australia, Aussie food, holidays, I heart food, Sydney beaches, Sydney neighborhoods, Sydney restaurants