God save the Queen

When Australia declared independence from England in 1901, they decided to name the British crown as the monarch of Australia. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either, but they tend to do things differently here sometimes. As a result, we have Monday off in honor of the Queen's birthday (despite the fact that her birthday is actually in April...).

I was originally planning to go somewhere for the long weekend, such as Darwin or Uluru, but my plans fell through, and as they did I was scheduled to go on a business trip to Hong Kong the day after the long weekend, so I decided against it. Instead I'm spending the weekend mixing a bit of work with the free jazz festival in Darling Harbour and a brief trip down to Coogee beach to visit my favorite brunch spot (not much of a trip, it's actually a 20 minute ride on the bus).

After brunch at Globe yesterday, we went to the Coogee Bay hotel to enjoy a glass of wine overlooking the beach. One of my absolute favorite things about Sydney so far is the fact that it's 60 degrees here in winter, so you can still do things like this. I don't miss the cold winter of New York at all.