One thing I wouldn't associate with being synonymous with Sydney would be rain. And when I say rain, I don't mean the light stuff you folk in Manchester call rain, I mean the biblical sh*t that you can't even begin to comprehend. I mean the stuff that falls so elegantly sideways from this Sydney sky. I mean the stuff that has been battering this wonderful place for the past couple of days, and looks set to remain until the close of this week.
It seems sometimes you just have to throw away your umbrella and get on with it.
The journey home tonight was of biblical proportions!
As nobody told me that Sydney expects precipitation within the month of August to be one of the highest months of the year, I was a caught a little off guard when this constant deluge appeared early Saturday morning.
Erin and I had things to do though during the day on Saturday, mainly looking for our wedding rings and procuring gifts for two of her newly appointed bridesmaids, Lou and Emily. Naturally this led us to one place, and one place only, DFO! (Think discounted Trafford Centre).
Tangible success was enjoyed by both Erin and I as we easily navigated both Coach and Michael Kors and got what it was we needed. A little pit stop at a rather creatively named Mexican establishment, named "Mad Mex" followed. Now, the only thing that would be mad about this place is the prices. You pay way over the odds for an abundance of carbohydrates, very little protein and a burrito that becomes trickier and trickier to eat with every passing bite. It was well timed stodgy food. It did the trick.
Putting the Mad Mex episode to one side, something else "mad" happened within the walls of DFO. As both Erin and I were walking back to the car after "exhausting" all our energy buying gifts for Lou and Emily, we walked past a shop called JB Hi-Fi and were both immediately stopped in our tracks by a subtle banner that proclaimed, in permanent marker "10% off all Apple products".
Now, the tech savvy of you out there, assuming of course, that there are people out there reading this, would know that it is not an everyday occurance that Apple offer 10% off ANY of their products, so we were both a little intrigued as to where this might lead us.
Instantly, as most people are when presented with Apple products, we were drawn to a gleaming, brand-spanking-new 27" iMac (3.2 GHz, Intel Core i5, 8GB 1600 MHz DDR3). The geek in me resisted the $200 price tag to update to a faster 3.4GHz quad-core processor and marginally better graphics card.
Anyway, to cut a very long story short, we conflicted with our inner selves, then we reasoned, then we justified and then we paid. It really didn't take that long to convince each other that this was a purchase that had to be made.
Four figures and a metaphorical dent to our credit card later and two giggling consumers seat belted their wedding rings* into the back of a Citroën C4 and made the journey home, VERY happy indeed.
Saturday night was a little less eventful, and less expensive too. Erin and I had been looking forward to this night for a while, as we met up with some of our married friends (social practice for when we are married too!) and went to a place called Alphabet St for some Thai cuisine.
Picture the backdrop: On the cusp of the surf, with an industrial outdoor heater fanning flames into the late winter air as the food is brought to you, al fresco on Cronulla esplanade. All punctuated by the sound of brutal horizontal rain!
Weather aside though it was a lovely evening, good quality food and was spent in great company. I would recommend the place, the waitresses were extremely knowledgeable and amenable.
Sunday was a quiet one. It was the sabbath day after all. I had a late one as I stayed up for the Newcastle United vs Manchester City game, which kicked off at the ungodly hour of 1AM. It was all worth it however as the incumbent Premier League Champions ran out comfortable 0-2 winners. There will be sterner tests than this one, I'm sure.
Das Wetter ist lächerlich.
*Wedding rings still need to be purchased.
