We’ve had a busy weekend. We spent much off it hanging out with my friend Simon and his girlfriend, Ivana. Simon had a couple of spare tickets to a Sydney v Adelaide (soccer) game at the stadium near our apartment. They came over for a few drinks before the game, and then after the game (Sydney lost) we went out for a Nepalese meal in Surry Hills. Simon and Ivana stayed over, and at 5 am Sunday Simon, John and I were sitting on our sofa eagerly awaiting England’s World Cup victory – it never came.

Following a brief nap after the game we went out to get some brunch and headed to the Danks Street Festival – a food and art festival in a neighbouring street. After the festival John and I made use of some VIP tickets to the Australian Motor Show in Darling Harbour – also courtesy of Simon and Ivana. We then got an early night so we could get up early to watch a Hamilton victory at the Brazillian F1 race – it also never came.

I’m now off to work feeling rather depressed and wishing I could take another nap.

We spent the last week in California – Orange County to be precise – for John’s cousin’s wedding. The weather was wonderful, the wedding a little tamer than what I thought an OC wedding might be and I met a lot of John’s extended family. We spent most of our time in Dana Point where the wedding was being held, but we also spent a day at Pasadena. Our time was somewhat dictated by John’s family, but we got to do a walk in a state park and hung out at the beach.

My highlight was going for a pedicure – I didn’t know that it could be possible to spend so much time tending one’s feet. Admittedly they took one look at my feet and encouraged me to go for the deluxe version. I was also amused by Hawaii’s airport – it looked like a scene from Magnum PI (ie built in the 80s and never updated) and to transfer us from terminal to terminal we had to get the Wiki-Wiki shuttle (an old bouncy bus towing another bus). The not so good stuff had to be the food – they definitely do quantity over quality over there, I think we are somewhat spoilt in Oz. A close second has to be the taxi services – we ordered 6 taxis and only one journey was completely successful. Two didn’t turn up at all (one to the actual wedding) which they were totally unappologetic about, one turned up with a mate in the front seat forcing four of us to cram in the back seat, and two didn’t accept credit cards even though we expressed it as a requirement when ordering.

We both concluded on the way home that we wouldn’t like to live in that part of the world.

It’s deliciously hot and we have the day off today to get ready for our trip to LA. We have one minor problem – we appear to have a nest of moths under on our balcony, which means we can’t have the balcony doors open. Fortunately we have air conditioning.

Monday was Labour Day, so we got a three day weekend. Unlike British long weekends, the weather here was fantastic – c 28 degrees. On Sunday we went with Nicola and Steve to one of Sydney’s northern beaches – whilst the traffic there was reminisent of the A12 or the A23 on a hot weekend, the huge long beach was barely populated. I didn’t venture in the water as it was reportedly very cold. I then came home to watch Lewis Hamilton take a fantastic victory – go Lewis!

On Monday we went to a morning cinema showing and then had a lazy lunch in our favorite cafe. John then went to play golf, whilst I stayed home to do some work – unfortunately I had some things to finish off before going to LA on Wednesday.

Yes, I’m off to LA tomorrow for John’s cousin’s wedding. Its the first time that I’ll take a flight where I’ll land before I took off. The wedding is in OC so I’m expecting highly tanned and surgically enhanced wedding guests – we’re quite determined to be obvious out of towners.