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After returning from the US in late February we were lucky enough to be greeted by Mike's parents! They had spent the previous two weeks on a cruise around New Zealand. It was a lot of fun to spend time with them and get to celebrate the engagement together. Among other things, we enjoyed some Aussie sports including a rugby game and Twenty20 cricket match, snorkeling at Cabbage Tree Bay in Manly, watching the Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade and driving up the northern beaches (ending with a hike and swim at Palm Beach). We also had fun eating dinners together in the evening, playing cards and talking. 

We felt fortunate to host guests in our Paddington apartment given we received notice to vacate from our landlord about three weeks prior, eek! Our lease was up and the owner decided he wanted to move back in, go figure. We feel really lucky to have quickly found another good apartment...it's in North Bondi and has a view of the ocean. Pretty good living I'd say! It's furnished except for storage (there are no closets or built-ins), so we've been trolling Gumtree for good deals. Living at the beach definitely has a different vibe, but it's been pretty easy to slip into. So far, the longer commutes to the city are on okay trade-off for living here.

Since most of our recent blog entries have been about travel, I thought it was about time to drop some Sydney knowledge. Here's a handful of our favorite restaurants, cafes and bars around town. I love personal recommendations, so if you're a Sydneysider please leave a comment with your favorite spot!

Tiger Mottle: This is the best cafe in the 5 Ways are of Paddington. Friendly staff and great blackboard specials. Really airy, yet vintage vibe with old record jackets on the wall and a wooden stag's head above the fireplace. Great coffee, pancakes, salads...it's all fab.

Paddington Grind: It's a block away from our old apartment, but that's not the only reason why we went. The eggs benedict and porridge are delicious and the coffee top notch. For some reason it's a favorite for hardcore cyclists so if you're going early on the weekend, watch out for the hoards of men in lycra!

Eat Thai: This is the restaurant we've frequented the most. The the yellow curry and pad see ew are the bomb. Curry puffs are also good as a starter. It's a lot of food though..always leftovers for lunch, which isn't a bad thing!

Rockpool Bar & Grill: This place is pretty swanky and I'm sure the menu is fabulous, but we've only ever gone to the bar and ordered a burger. It's a $20, but oh so worth it. The onion rings are also yummy. Bring your appetite!

Love Supreme: This place can be easily missed as the front window is full of stacked pizza boxes and crates of veggies..kind of weird, but once you get inside it's a buzzing local gourmet pizza place. The Parma is my favorite! 

Agave: So, good Mexican food in Australia is basically non-existant. We're talking kidney beans in burritos...bad bad bad! Agave is the best, most authentic Mexican food we've found. Our friend Alane does it justice in her review here. Btw, The huevos rancheros are great if you go for brunch.

The Local Taphouse: This place is great, if you love beer. They have an extensive international beer list and serve each beer in a different glass, it seems. They have beer flights and tastings as well. The bar is really cute and cozy with lots of little rooms for hanging with friends (the upstairs has antique bird cages hanging from the ceiling!). My only gripe is that they didn't have Sierra Nevada when I ordered, even though it was on the beer menu.

Speedos Cafe: Right near the beach in North Bondi, this place is always packed with half dressed people getting coffee and grub (hot coffee + beach is so weird, but the Aussies seem to love it). Given it's right down the street from our new apartment, we decided to try it shortly after moving to the area. I had a fabulous bircher muesli and chai latte and Mike had a ham and cheese croissant and flat white. My recommendation would be to get there early or try to go on a weekday. Also, don't make it a habit because it's not cheap!

More to come in the next installment..maybe next I'll review activities next like yoga, hiking, sailing etc. 

Apologies that all has been quiet on the blog front..it's been a very busy month! We got engaged in the Whitsunday Islands on February 6, then headed to the US for about 10 days and returned to Sydney to be with Mike's parents who had been cruising around Australia and New Zealand. Phew!

So, for the engagement details.. Mike and I had been planning a long weekend in the Whitsundays for a few months and after much debate on where to stay, settled on Peppers Palm Bay. It looked gorgeous and all things considered, we got a pretty good deal given Summer is the low season in Queensland (hot wet weather and stinging jellyfish).

After landing at the airport on Hamilton Island, we went to catch the ferry (or so I thought) to travel to the resort on Long Island. We were stopped by a woman holding a sign that read Mike's last name and then whisked to an air conditioned van. This was all pretty special treatment for the ferry, I thought, before figuring out that we were doing a helicopter transfer! WOW. We got on the helicopter with another couple and were at Long Island within 10 minutes or so. 

Let me just say, the Whitsunday island are gorgeous...islands covered with rainforest, nestled together right off the coast of Australia. And there's tourism, but it all feels relatively quiet. Peppers was wonderful. Each couple has their own cabin or bungalow, there's delicious brekkie and dinner and a really nice pool (important since we couldn't swim in the ocean safely).

Back to the story. After we explored the resort a bit, we went for a swim in the pool. Then Mike non chalantly suggested taking kayaks out before dinner. We headed over to a secluded beach area and after padding around, went up to the beach to walk around. Then, he asked me right then and there to marry me! He had carried the ring in a dry bag with his camera..sneaky. We went back to the resort where there was a table set for two, right on a veranda by the beach. We had so much fun celebrating, talking and calling people during dinner. 

For the next day we had booked a scenic flight out to the reef to go snorkling and to Whitehaven Beach, which claims to have the purest sand in the world. We felt like VIPs with all these special flights! It was a spectacular day..couldn't stop smiling. Getting to see the Great Barrier Reef from the air was spectacular. It's hard to believe that there's 2,000 km of this up the coast of Australia, especially after seeing all the life underwater. Oh yeah, and it was a perfect sunny day. Lucky us!

The last day we sat by the pool, went on a rainforest hike (which I would not recommend doing in Queensland summer) and kayaked again..this time with handreels and bait. I caught two fish and Mike caught one - the fisherwoman reigns! We threw them back. 

We'll never forget the time we had tog ether in the Whitsundays. Hopefully we get the chance to visit that private beach by Peppers again during our lifetime!

Upon arriving in Melbourne for the Australian Open we quickly realized that people here don't watch tennis, they watch "the" tennis.

Well, we really enjoyed the tennis. I was actually surprised at how exciting it was to see such a high caliber of players battle it out on the court. The first day we had tickets to Rod Laver arena and watched some highly ranked players like Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray...we also got a peek of the Williams sisters playing doubles! The second day we bought grounds passes for $20 each and ended up seeing some great tennis PLUS Roger Federer warming up. It was also a fun atmosphere with beer gardens, live music and sponsor tents everywhere. This whole experience is making me want to see Wimbledon..hmmm.

A lot of our Sydney friends were actually in Melbourne as well - some for tennis and some for other stuff. We had fun during the evenings going to dinner and bars. We even got to celebrate Jess' Dirty 30 at Coda Bar + Grill followed by karaoke in Chinatown (which I think the girls enjoyed more than the guys).

The last day we were in Melbourne was Australia Day, which appears to be a day off from work for people to be patriotic, BBQ, go to the beach and do other Aussie things. Officially it commemorates the first explorers to arrive at Sydney Cove in 1788, the hoisting of the British flag there, and the proclamation of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of Australia. We didn't really have a typical Australia Day as we were busy exploring a few other parts of Melbourne including St. Kilda and Chapel Street. Oh well, 4th of July is still better!

I've had my share of long-ish stints without seeing my parents or being home, but never before had it reached a period of 8 months! Needless to say, I'd been looking forward to their visit to Sydney. They stayed for about 10 days and we had a lot of fun showing them what we love about this city, sharing meals and even traveling to the Blue Mountains and Jervis Bay. Some highlights include:

• A fabulous sail boat ride on Sydney Harbour in perfect weather..it was even hot enough that we all went swimming off the side of the boat!
• We were also fortunate to experience the St. George Open Air Cinema. It was incredible...never seen anything like it. It's an outdoor movie theatre that's positioned on the waterfront right by Ms. Macquarie's chair. We watched Invictus, though sometimes it was hard to concentrate given the the city, Opera House and Harbour Bridge were on either side of the screen!
• After being in the Blue Mountains for a day and night in pure fog (we couldn't even see the 3 Sisters or mountains), we stopped at a wildlife sanctuary called Featherdale that my mom had learned about from a friend. We were able to get SO close to koalas, kangaroos, kookaburras, tasmanian devils and other Australian wildlife. I'd highly recommend it, especially going later in the day after all the tour buses have cleared out.
• Unfortunately we didn't get great weather in Jervis Bay either, but still had fun exploring a new area together. I think one of our favorite parts was where we had dinner on the last night. Called The Gunyah, it's basically a tree house located at a luxury tent camp - Paperbark Camp. We ate outside on the deck among the trees and possums (one came dangerously close to jumping on our table, eek!). A really unique experience.

Here's some photos from our time together. We're looking forward to hosting Mike's parents next!