The Bucket (lists)

Last weekend I made two bucket lists. The first, my bucket list for when I’m back in Texas was because I felt a little homesick. My younger brother graduated from high school, my uncle got married, and the TCU Horned Frogs won a really important baseball game – that all happened in the same day, within a matter of less than an hour actually. That homesickness has subsided, though, as I travelled around the city yesterday and went to a chili pepper festival, reminding me how amazing this city is and how much it has to offer. This bucket list was centered around food and baseball. Being from Texas, I love Tex-Mex and barbecue. Sydney excels in burgers and cafes but doesn’t have that classic Texas barbecue and Tex-Mex I’m accustomed to.

But y’all didn’t come here to read about what I’m gonna do in Texas. You clicked on this because you’re interested in Sydney. So here’s a detailed version of my second bucket list, with some stuff actually completed already.

• Darling Harbor fireworks – so VIVID is the annual light festival in Sydney. The best spot for lights, in my opinion, is Darling Harbor. And on Fridays and Saturdays, they also have fireworks. I’ve been multiple nights the past two weeks and am going again this weekend because I love lights and fireworks and lights and fireworks together are even better. Sometimes you just gotta let your inner child out and be overwhelmingly excited by simple things such as lights.
• Chili Fest (done) – so this was actually down the street from my apartment. They had a special chili-infused food and drinks, and chili-eating competition that I happily declined to participant in because I would like to keep my taste buds intact for the rest of Sydney, particularly the burgers at Goodtime Burgers.
• Goodtime Burgers – y’all you gotta go there if you ever come to Sydney. They do a special $5 burger each week, which is actually one of the best deals in Sydney in addition to being the best burger I’ve had in Sydney. One week they had mashed potatoes and gravy on a burger. Another week they loaded it with waffles fries and bacon and bacon-wrapped sausage in case the initial bacon wasn’t enough.
• Soda Factory – so there’s a few cool things, first they have a bucket of fried chicken on Wednesdays, which I’m going to with Josh (my food guru) this week. And next week they’re screening Ferris Buehler, which will be a good reminder to slow down – because life moves pretty fast, and you could miss it – during my last two weeks.
• Bavarian @ Bondi – alright this is our place. I showed this to the TCU guys that came with me and my TCU friend that visited and we’ve planted our flag at this restaurant. We go pretty much once a week for their amazing wings and their foosball table that’s like 10 feet long. This place is awesome, make sure to stop by when you go to Bondi and get a bucket of wings.
• Chatswood VIVID (done) – this is in North Sydney and was actually the only part of VIVID I hadn’t seen until I went last night. Again, I’m a child and I like lights. Also, my walk across the Harbor Bridge as the sun set was pretty dank.
• Wendy’s Secret Garden – this is also in North Sydney but I wasn’t able to go yesterday because it was getting dark. My friend Noah (not myself, I promise I have friends) went last week and said it was one of his favorite things in Sydney. When her husband passed, Wendy devoted her time and money to gardening and created this amazing space that’s open to the public. Definitely gotta check that out and pay my respects.