Why I love my family

Because no matter how many times I say "No, you don't have to worry about my wedding dress", "no, i do not want to come to sydney", "no, i will find my own wedding dress", and finally, "no, i don't like that dress", they will not even listen to me and insist and insist until their faces turn blue and my ears turn red. I also love my australian family because one of them, namely my aunt, tries so hard to please everybody and ends up distorting and changing facts just a little bit. Like if let's say my cousin said "great to see you all, thanks for the dinner; will see clau again i hope", her version of events is "your cousin really loved having you around!!" :)) and this kind of stuff that does not go well with my scientist brain. To the point that sometimes I get incredibly frustrated.

Yup. And if you are still reading, I will tell you about Sydney! First of all, I can't show pictures because the wifi connection here is a) NOT FREE?!!!! and b) if it's free it's super crappy, so you'll had to wait until I get home for some pictures. Today I have also realized that I am truly addicted to chili. I had my first australian tom yam and i nearly cried because it was not spicy at all even though i insisted for extra-extra spicy.

I spent the last three days hanging out with my uncle and my aunt. On saturday my uncle and I went running in the CBD, around the botanical gardens, opera house, the rocks, etc. It was FANTASTIC!! Plus we topped it off with a guiltless turkish spinach and feta cheese kinda-crepe from the saturday market at the rocks. I enjoyed it more because i rarely get a chance to really talk to my uncle. He is a very smart individual but also so fucking choleric that you can't have a conversation with him without trying to kill him within 30 seconds. But running helped calm the spirits down and we got along just fine.

On Saturday night we went to where captain Cook first set foot in australia.



Then we drove through the city - it was marvelously empty since everybody else was at the annual Mardi Gras!

On Sunday we ran on the beach and chilled.



Sydney is overall MUCH bigger than adelaide, much crowded, dirty, cosmopolitan, whatever you want to call it. I like adelaide more. I guess I am getting old :)

I love my wedding dress, for many reasons, one of which is that it's decent enough such that i don't have to shop for another one.

Being away right now for so long is a good exercise because I get to see how it will be away from my peeps. I am slowly approaching the threshold. This is because usually when i am away I spend those three days or so shopping and thinking about what prezzies I am going to get for the people back home. This usually involves visits to numerous supermarkets, candy stores, t-shirt shops and fresh markets, so I am kept busy. I am almost done with everything - still have half of marian's present, but after this I will still have half a week to mope around and wait for my dress to be adjusted.

Today I went to the climbing gym and I missed singapore even more, as the guys there were spotting amazing one-packs and all of them were top-less. NUS climbing gym guys (and your six/eight packs), I salute you!

Did I tell