La Boheme

Something I ate made my body work hard to detox...head aches, congestion, and my face feels puffy.  My first guess is something in the Thai food (maybe MSG)...but possibly the salad dressing...or maybe too much salt...or a combination of those things.  The body lets you know when you are out of balance.  Detox symptoms are a good thing, but they are also can be a clue that you are taking in more toxins than you need to.  Weight gain and fatigue are other clues.

When I went across the hall at 7:00 a.m. to use the toilet someone had recently been in and made a mess.  I can tell a lot about this person by his urine.  It was a male, he was drunk, and his body is in a highly toxic state because his urine is very dark brown.  He will certainly feel bad when he wakes up.  Possibly he never feels very good.  I was nice and cleaned up the bathroom for the next person.

My DIL Amy is headed to a big wedding in Minnesota and leaving her husband and three children to get buy best they can without her.  I am proud of her for taking this trip by herself.  I hope this will be a fun time for all of them.

Grandson, Caleb, called me on Skype.  He is enjoying playing WOW with the group he plays with which includes his Daddy and lifelong friends of his Daddy's.  I told him to listen to some of La Boheme on You Tube so that he can hear some of the music from the opera.

I walked the two miles up Pitt Street to the Sydney Opera House.  On the way I took a quick tour of the Opal Museum.  It had some opalized fossils on display.  It was a small museum, and it only took about ten minutes to tour it.


I got to the Sydney Opera House about 11:00.  I had some peppermint tea while I waited for the Opera Bar to open.  At 11:30, I ordered lunch at The Opera Bar - green salad and yam chips.


La Boheme by Giacomo Puccini was the opera playing for the Saturday matinee.  It was sung in Italian, but I paid the extra $50 to get a set where I could see the English subtitles.  The orchestra was also visible from my seat, so I could see one flute player.

A funny thing happened during the performance.  Marcello (Andrew Jones) threw his paint brush on the floor during one of the scenes and it bounced into the orchestra pit.  He looked at it and shrugged  and everyone laughed.  This his next part to sing translated into English as "My paint brush has a mind of its own".  Everyone laughed more.

After the opera, I walked back to Sydney Central.  I got laundry detergent and two ink pens at the 7-11 near by.  I went into a little Thai restaurant near the hostel and ordered some stir-fried veggies and rice for my supper.

I washed a load of clothes which was not as easy as it sounds.  After loading the washer and putting in my three one dollar coins nothing happened.  So down I went...58 steps to get help.  Help came back up with me...58 steps... and plugged in the washer, but my coins were lost.  So I put in three more coins and the washer started working.  So down I go....58 more steps...to get more coins from the manager.  Then back up to finish my laundry.  Then down the 58 steps to book my airport shuttle for tomorrow and then back up the stairs to dry my clothes in the dryer.  Then down about 50 stairs to take my laptop into the lounge to access the free wifi.  Maybe I won't gain any weight in Sydney.

I got a text from AT&T that I had exceeded my International Plan, so I called and upgraded the plan.  Hopefully that will keep me from getting a gigantic phone bill.  This new plan was $200 which is quite expensive, but I only need it for one month.  Once I get back to the bush, I will cancel it.  The man at AT&T told me to keep my data roaming turned off unless I am using the phone.  That was my mistake.  I guess I won't be listening to The Buzz radio program any more.

To health and happiness.