Sydney Festival

Every year I tell myself that I really should get into the Sydney Festival more. Somehow each year, I don' t quite get there.

This year I have managed to go to Flickerfest opening night and to First night in Hyde Park - kind of.

Flickerfest - I figured it was the place to be for a filmmaker who has just finished a short film. I went, I sat on the incredibly uncomfortable chairs for the way too long speeches and enjoyed the selection of shorts on an unseasonably cool summers night at Bondi Beach. I could have stayed for the afterparty but I was quite content to go home. Yes, I'm getting old, ok! But I've just really been enjoying sleeping lately - it's holiday mode and who am I to fight my urges?! And it really can be quite the wank fest at these industry do's and sometimes I'm just not up for it, not to mention the breakfast plans I had for Saturday.

First night - A huge event which takes over a good chunk of Sydney's CBD with multiple stages and performances. I checked out the Art Gallery and walked through Hyde Park a few times and enjoyed waling down the middle of city streets usually full of car traffic. I knew a few other people in the crowd and thought great, lets get out amongst it and experience the Festival.  We walked through it, experienced the disappointment of the ANZ "chill zone" at the Keystone Festival bar, saw some cool blow up Tim Burtonesque characters on Macquarie St and out the other side of Martin Place in search of a small bar.

Bit of a fail on my part here as I seem to be rather forgetful this week. I forgot my wallet when I went grocery shopping earlier this week and actually left the house without my phone tonight (I had to go back and get it), I went on to mistakenly wander down Clarence St believing it was Kent St, lost the little festival book we were using as a guide for some places to find and directed us around the block to find a little cocktail bar on Burton St in Darlinghurst.

Clarence St  did bring us to the Red Oak Beer Cafe and tasting plates for $20. I got the seafood one to the left. I love Seafood Chowder!! And honey beer and crisp apple cider aint bad either. My companion got the meat plate which also got a thumbs up. the only downside was that it wasn't filling enough so we went a few doors down and got Oporto - you can never go wrong with Oporto!


Now my plan for the evening was to eventually circle back to the Festival - but I really don't like crowds these days. I'm going though a bit of a hermit phase, but not completely coz part of me still gets me to the event before remembering my dislike of the general public. I know it doesn't make sense but I really am on holiday mode right now and I don't have to make sense - it's my blog!

Back to the festival and the crowd around Norman Jay's Bus and a failed attempt to find a friend in the crowd. Damn text messages wouldn't go through!! So we decided to go for cocktails which led us on a roundabout trek to 13b Cafe & Cocktail Bar aka The Safehouse.  The cocktails were fantastic the "Amazingly Perfect" cocktail really was Amazingly Perfect and easy to drink (vodka, passionfruit, grapefruit juice and sweetness). Then I had a drink with Maker's Mark, maple syrup, lime, rosemary and pepper. Interesting, a touch sweet with the maple syrup, and weird licking pepper off the side of your glass but very drinkable. Atmosphere, service and even toilets were all impressive, The cockroach and spider put a bit of a downer on the whole experience.

Heres hoping my mate survives the spider bites. If he doesn't - Who wants to come to the Victoria Room with me on Sunday night for Performance Carnival?