• Glebe Market:  A huge market of food and vintage clothes, among other things.  It’s in the Glebe neighborhood, which is eclectic with lots of restaurants, cafes, and specialty stores…and a giant mall.
• Balmain:  More spread out than Mosman, but with more to offer and closer to the city
• Kangaroo and camel are tasty
• Australia’s biggest horse race, the Melbourne Cup, is always on the first Tuesday of November at 3 p.m.  It’s basically their Kentucky Derby.  No, I don’t know why it’s on a Tuesday in the middle of the afternoon, but many stores shut down at least long enough to watch the race, although some close for the afternoon or indeed the entire day.
• The New South Wales Writers’ Centre:  I signed up for a creative non-fiction writers’ conference here last weekend and found out that this place is not all that far from where I now live in Balmain.  Cool place (with free WiFi!) that is offering space to those participating in NaNoWriMo (which I sort of am, but in a very non-committal way…)
• Powerhouse Museum:  Like a science museum with a lot of interactive exhibits, clearly meant for kids but worth a visit for anyone.  I went mostly to see the exhibit about the Beatles’ sole trip to Australia at the beginning of their illustrious career.  I also enjoyed the Playing With Light exhibit.
• The David Jones department store in downtown Sydney is huge and is what most every American department store wishes it could be.  Also, I want to move into its Foodhall.
• None of the malls I’ve been to here make any sense to me.  They are big and difficult to navigate and sometimes flow seamlessly into other malls.  For example, The Galeries, the QVB, the Strand, and the Westfield shopping center downtown are all essentially in the same place.  And one of the two David Jones stores was an astounding 8 floors. Also, why must people walk all the way around the world to get to the next escalator?
• I really wish I’d brought more long-sleeved shirts.  We may be going into summer here, but there are still plenty of days where I wear my North Face jacket unabashedly.

In actually exciting news, I’m going to see the Great Ocean Road in two weeks!  Look it up on Google Images and you’ll understand why I’m excited.

Until next time…

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