australia, day 13: loose ends.

After the second Chatham show, we had one complete truly free day to chill and cross off things we’d yet to cross off. We would fly back late the next evening, but had to be at the airport by dinnertime or so to return the car and begin our descent into abysmal depression. I joke of course. Anyway: above and below, Marrickville Market, 2 minutes away from the bnb. The only fucking thing two minutes away from the bnb, fucking Marrickville etc etc etc.

I digress. Corn fritters and assorted dals and chutneys, a plate called The Vegan, from Fritter House, all tasty and reasonably priced (EDITOR'S NOTE: technically, according to their FB page, that plate contains "A perfect balance of complex carbohydrates and good fats, with a great taste. Fritter House salad, bbq sweet potato, chickpea curry, spinach dal, tomato kasundi, mango & mint vegan aioli, a tamarind and miso glaze and (finally) toasted coconut flakes.") We were a bit jealous of their cooking setup, three massive griddles and six people, totally making a food stand look easy.

Did we go pick up a rental car here? If so it was pretty painless. Then, some plane-watching. We'd been plane-watching all week, because I've never been anywhere where so many giant planes passed so freakishly closely overhead, constantly. During our breaks where I was rehearsing at the studio, while it was storming the planes were flying so low I swear you could see faces in windows. Screaming. Silently.

Nelson, as you may or may not know, loves plane-watching. That may be an understatement. Like, her YouTube home page consists of three things: Stephen Colbert, sourdough tips, and planes landing. Or crashing. So we took a casual trip back to the studio to see just how low these planes  were, and that made us think welllll they've got to be even lower somewhere else, I mean they're landing, right? So I downloaded some kind of planewatching app that told you what was coming and when and where, which led us to the Ikea parking lot and then to Botany Bay, where it was so goddamn windy we wondered what an actual ocean would look like today (vs. you know, a bay), so we kind of randomly picked the nearest beach and drove to Maroubra, which damn was yet another piece of totally dumb luck on this trip.

It was gorgeously scary. We met a swimmer coming out of the water and for some reason talked to him, though I don't remember what was said, something about "You're fucking crazy" I imagine. Then we hung out for an hour or so and watched the waves try to destroy everything. Then we went back to Newtown and ate at Bloodwood, after a week of patiently waiting for them to reopen. Expectations continue to be the proverbial bitch: the general consensus was that it was "just ok" compared to the things we'd really loved from the week. A pleasant dinner, but just a bit too home-cooking for the prices. Although there was a really good potato and radish dish I'd like to steal. Then we drove to Parramatta to see a colony of 15,000 way-too-big fruitbats.