Nine days ago, we hopped on the bus to downtown for some shopping and errands. First stop was Telstra where I signed up for a new pre paid mobile plan. Within one hour I had spent $7.50 setting up my voicemail. I guess Virgin wasn’t so bad after all. Luckily Hayley had purchased some nice caramel chocolates next door, which did wonders for my mood.

It’s already the holidays down under.


We walked by the three-story Apple store to the “Pitt Street Mall,” which is actually a bunch of shopping malls that are joined by Pitt Street’s walking-only blocks. The main mall, Westfield’s Sydney mall, is absolutely stunning inside with elegant decorations, an enormous hanging clock, titanic spiraling staircases and a $50+ tea room on the top floor. A small designer mall next door reminded both Hayley and I of a mall we went to in London with Nick Boucher and his girlfriend.

The main Catholic church of Sydney.

Afterward, we walked down the street to Hyde Park where we found an amazing Catholic church. We walked inside and around the church grounds, then walked across the street to the war museum grounds. We went inside a guard room, which from what I gathered, was used by the British during the old Aussie prison island days. It started to rain so we walked back to the train station. On the way, we encountered a random protest for Iranian democracy. Tired and wet from the rain, we walked down into the desolate St. James train station to catch the CityRail back home.

Spreading awareness has never been so ineffective.

Another week of work and we were ready to start our weekend all over again! On Saturday, Hayley and I went for a walk up to Crows Nest, a nearby neighborhood, where we did a little bit of shopping and garage sale-ing.

Chillin’ in Crows Nest.

I saw the nastiest insect ever on the way back. Here, check it out:

Happy dreams. It’s the size of a really big thumb.

Afterward, I went surfing with Freddy. I was out for a little over an hour before cruising back to shore to lie out on the sand and perfect my farmer’s tan.

On Sunday, we packed a lunch and walked down to St. Leonards park to see the New South Wales “Speed Blitz Blues” take on the Tasmania “Tigers” in the Ford Ranger Cup. Cricket is slower than baseball, but I love it. A few interesting things to mention:

• The batting team is not on the field while their teammates are batting.
• The batting team bats for hours.
• A Zamboni-like steamroller grooms the pitch in between innings.
• People go to cricket games with books and other things to entertain themselves. They drink a lot of beer too.
• The fielders sign autographs while the game is in progress. That’s how slow it is.
• They have free water. Beer is $5.
• You can bring your own food and picnics to eat while watching the match.

Swing, batta!

Check out more Cricket photos on my Flickr page, http://www.flickr.com/mswebersd.

We get thunder and lightning all the time now. I was sitting on a couch on the ninth floor of the office building, surrounded by windows, when lightning started striking everywhere, all over downtown Sydney. It was apocalyptic.

Even now there’s lightning outside. Here’s a pic that I took five minutes ago from our patio:

Damn power lines!

Back to the grind. Enjoy your week.

Tags: sydney australia cricket westfield "speed blitz blues"