Boxing Day/Sydney, day 2

There's a big yacht race from Sydney to Hobart that begins today so the harbour is full of boats watching and escorting the yachts. It's quite a sight.

I happen to have a perfect view of all the boats because I am sitting ever-patiently while Curt does a watercolour sketch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Yesterday, we scoped out a perfect spot for him to sit and sketch, which always must include some shade to sit in. He eventually chose a spot on the lawn of the Botanic Gardens under a giant tree, with some curious ibis birds who keep him company. So today as he settles in for the next 60-90 minutes, it's my job to 1) keep myself occupied 2) keep admirers from bothering him 3) swat bugs away 4) go fetch some lunch or cold drinks occasionally and 5) don't try to talk to him because he's too zoned out to have a conversation while he's painting. I love this part of our travels because if affords me the opportunity to lie around and read a book or maybe even catch a short snooze, two of my very favourite activities. When I'm feeling really sassy, I offer my opinion of his work-in-progress, such as "I think it needs a little more purple." That always goes over well.

Once the masterpiece is complete (and it's ALWAYS a masterpiece), we walk through more of the Botanic Gardens and are especially creeped out by the zillions of bats hanging from the trees in one area! Eewww.

Then we are even more disturbed by the crowds on the streets. In contrast to yesterday, the streets are absolutely packed today. Boxing Day is traditionally a day of huge post-Christmas sales and all the stores that were closed yesterday when we walked through the ghost town called Sydney are now open and full of throngs of bargain hunters. The Pitt St. pedestrian mall is shoulder-to-shoulder. Good grief. We duck into David Jones department store and head to the 7th floor to look at digital cameras. There's even a queue to get on the escalators, but as we go higher at least the crowds thin out.

The reason we're looking for a digital camera is that I broke ours last week: I inserted a memory card but then couldn't get it out. Eventually I yanked it out in 2 pieces and after that, I couldn't get any other (unbroken) memory cards to go in. After looking at repair costs, we decided to buy a new camera.

Once we finished our mission on the 7th floor, we went to the Food Hall in the basement for dinner, then off to the cinema to see a chick flick: The Holiday. Isn't it sweet that Curt agreed to go to a chick flick rather than making me go see James Bond? For the last 20 years, whenever we went to a family movie, I always got outvoted by the 5 men in my life (4 sons and a husband) and we always seemed to end up going to a testosterone-laden movie like James Bond. It's nice now that there's only two of us and I get to choose the movie occasionally.

Finally, we end up back at the hotel so he can rub my feet, like he does every night. What a guy.