I’ve never been one to pass on a chance to create some sort of boondoggle.  When Sara was due to be in Sydney for work on consecutive weeks, I floated the idea that she should ask if her company would pay for her room over the weekend instead of flying her back and forth.  They agreed with my impeccable logic and had her stay the weekend.

I took 1/2 days on Friday and Monday, so I could fly out Friday afternoon and back home Monday morning.  Things got off to a rocky start when my plane needed a tire replaced before we could go.  I thought it might be interesting to watch a tire change on an airplane, but like much of air travel – it was really slow and boring.

Sara had chosen to stay in a hip neighborhood called Newtown – which is about 15 minutes away from downtown by train.  We headed out to a place called “Uncle Hops” on the first night and were not disappointed in their choice of beer or their flat bread pizzas.

The next morning, after a hearty brekkie at Fleetwood Macchiato (HA!), we decided to head over to the zoo.  A bonus is that to get there, we had to take a ferry from Circular Quay – which gives great close ups of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.  Upon arrival at the zoo, we took a gondola up the to the zoo entrance and were again afforded great views of the city.

We met lots of wonderful animals at the zoo.  I got to check out my tall friends:

There was a peacock just roaming around

There was no shortage of our Australian friends, and we finally got to see an Emu.

Once done with the zoo, we headed over to a neat little beach called Balmoral and had lunch on the water and walked around a bit.

Later we headed out to a nice Italian dinner and got our picture taken.

Sunday we went for a run in the park and then walked around University of Sydney.  After that we checked out a big market in Chinatown and then made our way to a brewery in Newtown (Young Henrys) before having some wonderful Chinese food for dinner.

With the boondoggle complete, I boarded a plane back to Melbourne on Monday morning.