When I got out of the shower this morning, Snookums excitedly asked if I’d seen the story on Page 2 of the Herald. “No, what is it?” Apparently Notre Dame has made an agreement with the Archbishop of Sydney to take over the disused St. Benedict’s school in Chippendale. I was pretty floored. The last I knew, Notre Dame’s Australian program was based in Fremantle (near Perth) and there weren’t any plans to relocate to Sydney. The weird thing is that the article never actually specifies which Notre Dame is involved. I mean, we both assumed my alma mater, but there are plenty of Catholic schools around the world called that, right? And the ND news site doesn’t have any mention of it. I wonder what’s up with that. Could ND really be opening a new foreign study center right around the corner from my apartment?

Eeek! Steve has cancer! I wonder if I can send him a fruit basket…

Sorry for the lack of posting. Snookums’s birthday weekend continues. Last night we headed out to the Rhinedorf, a German restaurant he’s been eager to visit ever since he discovered it online. Apparently they’re the only place in Sydney with Kolsch (a really good German beer) on tap. It’s way, way out in the suburbs though and we had a bit of a train journey to get there. Luckily I’d thought to call ahead because the place was packed with several birthday parties and they were only just able to squeeze us in. It was well worth it. The decor reminded me of riding the Matterhorn at the county fair: it was all mountains and lederhosen and odd pictures of fruit. The waitresses were even wearing dirndls! We drank half-liter steins of beer and grinned at all the fat suburban German-Australians around us. Everyone was happy. We ordered the Farmer’s Platter for Two, which consisted of four big sausages, pork cutlets, meat loaf, sauerkraut, potatoes, and red cabbage, served with a pitcher of a gravy and two tubes of gourmet mustard. It was excellent. We followed that with a couple slices of cake from the dessert menu. (Me: “I like how at a normal restaurant they’d ask you if you wanted custard OR ice cream OR whipped cream, but here they just give you ALL THREE!”) The bill was surprisingly cheap – only $70 – especially considering we’d consumed a liter and a half of beer between us. We staggered out an hour later to catch a train back to the city, echoes of oom-pah music still ringing in our ears.