Holiday Stuff Around Sydney

Being summer...it just doesn't feel like the holidays. Looking around town, here are some things that are very merry and bright.

The holiday lights at Town Hall:

 Some wreaths by Nurse's Walk near Circular Quay:

Martin Place lights and tree:

Pitt Street near Westfield Mall:

St Mary's Cathedral Lights of X-mas:

David Jones Dept. Store window displays:

This is the only window display I could find. Better than nothing, but of course nothing compares to NYC.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays from Sydney. May everyone have a safe and peaceful holiday season. Don't let those crazy people elbowing you and cutting you off to buy presents ruin your day! Just breathe!

Brought to you by a Lego X-mas tree. Pretty cool eh? Holidays in the summer....strange to me.

Bluebird Coffee - Sydney CBD

This is now the new best coffee place so far. It's right by the Town Hall station off of George Street. The dessert was also good. It was nutella flavored, but forgot what it was called. Either way, it was moist and not too sugary. We had one sugar each in our cappuccino and latte. Good flavors together with the dessert. We will go back due to the convenient location by the train station as well.

Coffees here have been good so far. Becoming a coffee snob by tasting smoother and smoother coffee. They always do a good job with the latte art as well....which is a plus!

http://bluebirdcoffeesydney.com/

Registering the Doggie

Went to the local council that covers our area to register our dog. You just have to provide the dog's microchip number and desexing (spay/neuter) information. It was $50 for lifetime registration in the state of NSW. If you move to another state, then you would have to register your pet in that state. Just know that it is a one time registration fee for the state that you live in. So long as we don't move out of state, we never have to renew anything for doggie. They just want the microchip number and your information in their records. This way, if doggie is ever lost, they will scan the microchip and find the owner. So if your dog is not micro-chipped, I guess you can't register. No annual license fees here like in California. Woot!

Pablo & Rusty's in CBD Sydney

Stopped by the Pablo & Rusty's at 161  Castlereagh, and it wasn't as good. The place was buzzing....but for some reason the coffee just wasn't as good? Maybe more people, more rushed? No need to go back to that location. Lane Cove better.

Pablo & Rusty's - Lane Cove, NSW

There are so many little cafes and coffee shops here. Starbucks is not on every street corner here...which is a good sign. There are many great small shops here. Hooray for small business owners! Pablo & Rusty's is one of the best we've tasted so far. Just went to their website and noticed they have a few locations. Will have to try the one in CBD next time.

http://pabloandrustys.com.au/

Frappe - Crows Nest, NSW

Starting from the top left going down:
Veggie wrap: Salty (might be too much aioli)
Coffee: good
Veggie stack: good
Frappe (tropical flavored): good
Outside view: ok
Salad: rocket(arugula) and haloumi was good
Pasta: good

Overall: good...just no wrap again.

Learning Some Australian

As weird as that sounds, there are some words we just use differently. Here are a quick few:

bell pepper (US) = capsicum (Australian)
romaine lettuce = cos
arugula  = rocket

Yup...looking at menus...I had no idea what those things were until I asked a native Australian. Feeling pretty foreign for an English speaking country.

Labor Day and Daylight Savings

Just a quick note that Labor Day here was this past Monday October 6th and Daylight Savings was this past Sunday October 5th. We sprung forward one hour because remember... we are on the other side of the equator and it's Spring.

Greetings from Sydney

G'day mate! This is my first post in a looong time. So much has changed. This is also my first post from the other side of the equator. Yup, no more food blogs from SoCal. Now it's food from Australia (generally)...and many other things I'm learning out here.

Today is the first day that I have internet connection here at my new location. Yay! It took approximately 2.5 weeks since calling the internet company for internet to actually be hooked up. Yes, they work slow down here. So I've been patiently/impatiently waiting for internet service. Technically, they just installed service into the building (not all the way to our unit). Luckily someone I know is a network engineer and found the already connected lines that run into the unit. Network engineer told the guy that came to do the install to punch a line to the correct location that runs to our unit. So it's all done.

Puppy dog was also imported with us. After working at the shelter and seeing so many abandoned animals, there was no way I was going to leave our dog behind. Well....even if I hadn't worked at the shelter, we would've imported the dog. We took on the responsibility to take care of her for life. She's our family! More on the process later...boy was it a pain.

Anyway, I hope to be posting more things about everything that's different (and not) around here. So far I'm figuring out which stores equate to what in the states. *Sigh* I don't really know if I'm getting a good deal...and I like to get good deals!

Hopefully more to come soon!