use real butter

Jerad served up a terrific breakfast yesterday morning. It included American style bacon that he made from scratch. Actually, there were two types: maple and pepper. Both were delicious.

jerad’s homemade bacon

brekkie with jerad and kell

perfect in every way

eddie becomes crazy for smoked meats

After brekkie, we set out for the zoo, quickly catching a couple of museums along the way (the barracks and the nsw museum of art) and strolling through the botanical gardens. It was particularly warm and sunny.

flying foxes at the botanical gardens - this one special bat was white!

opera house from the ferry

The zoo was hot… but the animals were so cool! I really love the native Australian critters because they’re so different from what I grew up with - so isolated in an evolutionary sense. The reptiles and nocturnals were tough to photograph and it was far more fun trying to spot them in their habitats.

furry koala

baby wallaby

echidna

It began to cloud over and we stopped for a brilliant bird show before catching the ferry back. We returned to Kell and Jerad’s place for a rest and nosh. Jerad got me hooked on this documentary “heat in the kitchen” which tracks three Sydney restaurants and how they go about dealing with the review system (critics). Riveting and brutal. We dashed out for a spectacular dinner at Fish Face where a former co-worker of Jerad’s is a chef and brought us some freaking delectable plates in addition to our orders of sashimi and fish and chips. Sydney’s food scene is nuts. After the meal, we moseyed about Sydney at Night and yammered away about plans, ideas, life… only to return to the flat and finish the documentary series! We’ll be dining at one of the restaurants in the documentary tonight!!!

This morning we drove down to Boulder to have brunch at Lucille’s (yes Kell, this is that great New Orleans joint) with Erin (from Seattle) and her friends. A really lively and fun group with terrific beignets to start the meal! Afterward, the host couple had to get back home, but the rest of us walked down Pearl St. and then down to the farmer’s market.

fall produce in the market

Erin’s friend is a college buddy who lives in Bellingham. Both of their partners were unable to come to the wedding (in Boulder) so they flew out together. How to describe it… sometimes conversation is forced and other times it isn’t at all. This flowed so easily. We wanted to know more about her and she wanted to know more about us. I love making new friends like that. When I think of my network of close friends, I really think many of them would hit it off immediately. That makes sense. I don’t think you can ever meet enough quality individuals.

I like to drink a mixture of iced tea and fruit juice. I know that half iced tea and half lemonade is an Arnold Palmer, but what do you call the tea/juice concoction? I decided to name it The Politzer, after my Phys 2b prof, Dave Politzer. What a character. He taught us quantum. He also played the banjo and sang a song about Einstein for our class. He also got so pissed off at our class one time that he slammed his hands down on the lecture counter and yelled, “Shut the fuck up you assholes!” This guy recently won the Nobel Prize in physics. Jeremy took Phys 3 lab and Phys 76 from Politzer. Jeremy says, “Great lab instructor, couldn’t help me for squat in 76.” Ah well, here’s to you Politzer. I still want to name a cat after Frautschi, prof of theoretical partical physics at Caltech and a total sweetie.

after our hike, i was so moved to make brunch: hashies, bacon, and french toast