Yesterday, Thursday, was more of setting up house. One of the things that I was most sad about when moving from Portland was having to sacrifice all of my spices and pantry items. I’m a pretty avid home cook and have amassed quite a collection of herbs and spices so saying goodbye to them was a bit sad. Let’s just say that Connor scored at a major level when he inherited that box for his new apartment in Bend. On the other hand, I was seriously looking forward to visiting Herbie’s Spice Store to resupply with fresh replacements. I was not disappointed. The woman that worked there was extremely helpful, friendly and knowledgeable and within 20 minutes I had my 15 main herbs and spices in my bag. Interestingly, when she asked where I was from and I replied Oregon she was quick to offer that she would give anything to live in Oregon. The grass is always greener and even after less than a week in Oz I can tell you that I will be moving back to Oregon at the end of this adventure.
My next stop (after a 1 1/2 massage and some merry-go-round sushi) was a bin store. The kids and Julie all laughed at me the first time I went to Whole Foods and saw their bins of dried fruits, grains, legumes, and nuts. I love that stuff and actually created a mini version of the same “bin city” in all of my homes. It makes me as happy as Julie shopping for office supplies (geek) or my sister Kathy at a camera store (nerd). So…at this stop I loaded up on dried fruits and nuts, odd stuff like bulgur, and other assorted bin items. Both stops were reasonably priced which was good. Of course, having spent all that cash on cooking items I really didn’t have the ability/ingredients to cook a proper meal. Saturday morning our grocery list is being delivered between 7am and 9am from the local grocer.
Our cooking obstacles are not insurmountable though they are a pain in the butt. My knives, pots, pans and gadgets are on a freighter somewhere off the coast of Australia. The range hood is not operational and my Realtor is suddenly unavailable to return my calls, emails and office visits. The freighter is on schedule for a mid-July delivery and the Realtor is now also on schedule for a bit of an ass chewing. Cie La Vie — all part of the adventure, right?
It’s not like we needed an excuse to dine out but we justified it with kitchen angst and went out for a dinner in Darling Harbour. Darling Harbour is an amazing place. It’s located all along the harbour on the CBD side of things and is restaurant after restaurant after restaurant. Being mid-winter the people count is low so these enormous restaurants all look pretty empty. Come summer this area will bustle with hundreds of thousands of partiers, diners and revellers every night of the week. It’s quite the scene I remember from my last visit here. Julie and I chose a fish place where I ordered Barramundi and she had the fish and chips special. Mine was $36 and hers was $13. Hers was 10X better than mine and in a town where you have to pay a mugger $20 to steal your wallet, $13 is a deal! I might have ordered off the special too but I always wanted to try Barramundi after seeing it as a main ingredient on Iron Chef. It’s bland and slightly oily — kind of like day old Cod?
On the good side, it was great having dinner with my honey along the harbour downtown Syd. We also think it’s so much fun to take a boat to our destinations. Apart from the cool factor and romantic charms — they are always on time, there is never any traffic and you get a free harbour cruise for under $5!
We were home by 9, in bed by 9:01, and asleep by 9:02. Might be some residual jet lag but I really just think we were both tired. Life is good!
On the boring informational front: Learned overnight that our internet service will not be connected until 30 JUN which is major hassle. That means no phone or internet for two more weeks. Hang in there if you are one of the people waiting for a phone call from us. That’s it for now — take care blog stalkers.
Took the photo of sunrise behind the harbour bridge while waiting with Julie for her ferry. What a way to start Friday!
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