December 3rd, 2010.
We woke up early after staying up late cleaning the house and working on my thesis to finish cleaning the house and finish packing for our trip to Australia. We had to leave the house looking decent because the darling, baby princess (a.k.a. Crunch) was going to be looked after by a friend of ours and we didn't want her to think we live like we do. Ahem. Anyways, we actually finished things up way before our airport shuttle (a touch of brilliance on Scott's part, since taking the Airbus from our house is kinda a pain) was due to arrive and were patiently reading to pass the time when we realized that it was a bit past time for the shuttle to show up. Scott pulled out the reservation from a neat stack of travel papers and saw to our dismay that the shuttle was actually scheduled to pick us up to TAKE us to the airport a few days after it was scheduled to pick us up FROM the airport. Ooops. O.K., no problem, we still have plenty of time to catch our flight we thought. We'll just give the airport shuttle people a quick ring. So we did, and they assured us that they would be able to pick us up soon and get us to the airport on time for our flight. Long story short, too late, we did make our flight, but thank goodness we didn't have any checked baggage. Although since we didn't have any checked baggage, we forgot to not bring "liquids" over 100mL and Scott lost his sunblock and shaving cream. Whoops. Off to a great stop.
Finally got on the relatively short 3 hour flight to Sydney which was fairly turbulent, but got us to Aussie is one piece. Once there we picked up our rental car keys and GPS system (expressly rented to do some geocaching, but we'll get to that part later) and headed out to find the rental car. Well, long story short, too late, there were actually two parking areas where Budget had its cars and if it were not for a kind Avis? employee, we wouldn't have found the car before the pouring rain started. As it was, we managed to find the car just before the rain started and after some horrible navigation on my part that got us turning around and honked at a lot (impatient Aussie drivers!) we finally made it to our "still inside the airport proper" hotel.
Now granted, when we realized that our flight was going to get into Sydney pretty late (i.e. around 7:30pm) and that Scott didn't want to be driving 4 hours after a 3 hour flight in the dark, we did just want a place to crash for the night, nothing fancy. Well, let me tell you, the Formulae One more than lived up to the expectation of "nothing fancy". In point of fact, it was seedy and overpriced complete with a "shower" that was simply a curtained off part of the bathroom, a propped open fire door, and no hand towels.
We arrived, were underwhelmed, and immediately our thoughts turned to food. There was a Krispy Kreme and a McDonald's next door, but we were hoping for something a little more Aussie and a little higher class, so we consulted the touristy Guide to Sydney that we'd picked up at the airport. Hmmm. Nothing there. Odd. So we then consulted the GPS. Restaurants-Near Sydney Airport. A Peruvian BBQ restaurant? Sounds good! Off we go!
Finding the restaurant was a bit tricky, but finding parking was even trickier as it was a hopping Friday night in the Sydney suburb of Newton. We chose a semi-legal spot in an alley beside the tram tracks and set off on foot (about a 5ish minute walk) to Inca's Restaurant. The outside of the restaurant was quite humble and there was only one patron in the whole place despite the sidewalks being crowded with people. This almost put us off and sent us to a much more bland, but busy cafe next door, but thank goodness we decided to "stick with the plan". Inca's was awesome!!! The waitress/owner? was very kind and attentive and spoke fluent Spanish and the atmosphere was very, well Peruvian. Anyways, I had goat with white beans and fried cassava and a house Peruvian cocktail made with pisco (a pisco sour). Scott had a pork dish and a Cascade Lager (an Australian beer which he gave a 6/10). All was fantastically delicious! Sadly, we had to pass on dessert (even though they had creme brulee, my favorite!!!) because we were pleasantly stuffed at that point and didn't want to get sick from eating too much wonderous food. It was also pretty late and we were fairly tired from our long day.
So it was back to the car which was still there with no damage or parking ticket and back to our crummy hotel.
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1 comment:
Jen, Pisco sours are awesome!!!! :)
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