January is Tara Month

Everyone with birthdays in late December/early January can appreciate, no one wants to celebrate a birthday right after they have gained 10 pounds and are trying to detox from weeks of solid alcohol intake over the holidays. The added bonus in Australia, is everyone also goes on summer vacation here at the exact same time. So for the first week of January, virtually everyone I know in town is away with family, or have taken off for vacation somewhere, and Almira + entourage left for a week in Melbourne. No one is even at work… the place is dead.

After I got over enjoying the freedoms of living alone again, I thought I am writing this blog thing, and everyone is going to expect something good. I better come up with some jealous-inducing activities for this week. I booked dinner with an Elvis Impersonator for me and a birthday buddy, I signed up for surfing lessons, wrote a hit list of the museums and pubs I was going to check out, the food I was going to eat for my birthday day…

Surfing got cancelled (waves were too big), Elvis didn’t sing for his supper (at least not on his birthday, which was the whole point), and the horse-racing day didn’t pan out. I only made about 3 out of 8 activities… so I have decided that the entire month of January will have to do for birthday celebrations.

I did manage to check out the Powerhouse Museum (amazing industrial design museum – from space vehicles to steam powered trains, textiles and glass, solar cells and avan-garde fashion design…. I saw Kylie Minogue’s entire costume collection. She’s revered as a goddess here) If you like pretty things or you are a gear head –at the Powerhouse museum you can split up at the door and both have a great time.

The next un-missable, was walking down to the Sydney Fish Market, which is really bustling at 5am…. Some night I will stay up and see it. As it was, I just wandered down in the late morning and bought heaps of fresh seafood as a birthday treat, especially picking up something called a “Balmain Bug.” Balmain is a suburb right next to mine, and this crustacean looks like a lobster tail with a flat head and eyes… more like a sea-going cockroach than I care to admit. However, once you crack this baby open, it tastes a lot like a cross between crab and prawn, and it comes out as a big hunk of meat, not like crabs where you spend 4/5ths of your time trying to break up the shell.

The rest of the weekend was just little decadent stuff: having one of the little gourmet cakes at the local French bistro, wine at noon in a restaurant courtyard, late-night BBQ with the Aussies…. A nice birthday. Not as exciting to write about as Elvis, but nice.

I found a pub, stumbling distance from home, that has crab racing on Wednesday nights, and after a fantastic night there myself – I am dragging my flat mate and everyone I can find to come out for a night. Good Stuff!