And now back to the grindstone!

We had a great weekend, very relaxing! It was our belated anniversary weekend away (our anniversary is in Sept, but we put it off until we weren't in the middle of all of the b'day parties!) - we had 3 nights in Sydney by ourselves! Billy stayed with my parents, sister & nieces and had ball.



Our accommodation was great value for money - we stayed at the Holiday Inn in Darling Harbour - Pete used points from his work travel, and then we got a free upgrade because he's a "platinum" member, so we scored a suite for absolutely nothing :) The hotel is right on the edge of Chinatown so we ate "real" Chinese one night, Japanese Teppanyaki BBQ another night and steak & chips at the pub the other night lol. China Town was amazing at night - young Asian ladies were standing outside all of the restaurants to try and get people to come into their restuarant. It was a lot like Lygon St in Melbourne but Asian not Italian lol.

China Town entrance

The view from our room - Paddy's Markets (mostly cheap junk but great fruit & vege markets as well)

The monorail went straight past our hotel - this was taken from our room!

Mostly we relaxed, read, slept, did a bit of shopping (and lots of walking). Saturday was our day of "culture" :) - we saw 2 plays over at the Opera House. Firstly we went to a matinee performance of "The Government Inspector". It was a Bell Shakespeare production adapted from a Russian play about a down-on-his-luck traveller being mistaken for a government inspector by the corrupt town officials and showered with bribes. He plays the con for all it's worth and even sleeps with the mayor's wife - and daughter!! It was absolutely hilarious - normally it has a cast of about 20, but it was done by 2 actors - Darren Gilshennan and William Zappa - with lots of costume changes and voices! It was so cleverly done, lots of slapstick, and a bit Charlie Chaplin-esque in some scenes! I laughed so much my cheeks were aching by the end of it!



That night we saw the Sydney Theatre Company perform the David Williamson play "Don's Party". It was set on Election night 1969 when Labor's Gough Whitlam was expected to win (but didn't) - it wasn't all that political though. "Don" and his wife Kath were throwing a party for his Labor voting friends, throw a liberal voting couple in the mix, and fueled by lots of alcohol, lots of sexual by-play and that's the plot in a nutshell :) It was a lot funnier than I was expecting but quite confronting in a few places. All of the characters were well played but my favourite was Rhys Muldoon playing Cooley - an oversexed, opionated "oaf" - I'm a big fan of his :)



So all in all a good weekend - it was lovely to eat a meal in peace or just sit and relax without having to keep an eye on the munchkin. I couldn't sleep in though - I seem to have lost the ability :(



Back to the grindstone today!