Life seems pretty normal now in Sydney. Just like being at home, only we feel more obliged to make the most of our weekends in this fab country.With this feeling we feel obliged to go out and about every weekend (initial plans of going places after work soon stopped as we started to remember how exhausting work can be - especially with commuting on the buses).

So this weekend we flicked through the travel guide for something relaxing to do, phoned a friend, asked the audience and locked in answer 1, a trip to Paddington market and Centennial Park.

Getting anywhere from our accommodation is really easy, the bus links seem to go wherever we want them to in Inner Sydney. In this case we got the bus from the end of our street to Bondi and got off just outside Fox, only a few minutes walk to Paddington Market. Just incase we got lost we'd taken the street directory with us as we weren't sure where the best place to get off would be, but we only needed to look at it once - perhaps we are getting better at this navigating malarchy.

We kind of stumbled on the back gate of the market but it was obvious we had found it. It looked like every other market seems to in Sydney - huge white umberellas over every stall and a crowd of tourists speaking mainly german. We still can't believe how much the germans dominate the tourist scene here, you barely see any other Europeans at all.

Paddington market was just what we had expected from reading the travel guides - a large craft market with a lot of art work, framed pictures, knick-knacks, arty style clothing at tourist prices (we know, we are tourists too but sometimes it just doesn't feel like it - meaning we notice when prices are a little high.) The huge bonus for us was the food stalls - what a choice! That has to be one thing we really love about Sydney, the opportunity to grab some great international cuisine wherever you happen to be. Not the plain old hotdog stand in sight, but numerous stalls selling Thai, Chinese, Nepalese, Australian (the nearest to a hotdog / burger stand), and a few others, each offering a big plateful of delicious hot food at reasonable prices. The other big bonus - it saved us from having to cook a main meal at night and doing the washing up!

We opted for Thai, and went with a plate of 'Yummy Honey' (fried rice, Honey chicken and vegetables) and 'Oodles of Noodles' (3 different kinds of noodle dishes, one with chicken in, all with peanut sauce. Now that's what we call lunch - sat in the middle of a market that spends the rest of it's days as a childrens playground in the winter sunshine.

From there we took a walk down Oxford Street - just what you'd expect coming from Britain - a large street filled with gorgeous looking shops, but without the frequent occurance of chain stores. Not being shopping people we weren't drawn in, but given the right mood and budget...

At the end of Oxford Street we crossed over into Centennial Park. A huge expanse of green. Sydney really has it's priorities sorted on this town planning lark, green spaces everywhere to just sit, relax, meet friends and play in the beautiful weather. Centennial park was alive with people running, riding bikes, horse riding, having sports practices, walking dogs and generally chilling after a week at work. According to our sources (our friends at work) it is also renowned for in-line skating, but as luck would have it for us the rain came while we were there so we didn't see much of that. Perhaps we'll go back another weekend for a go (but seeing as we don't have that long left now perhaps it's not top of our priority list!)

We didn't spend too long in the park as there wasn't many places to shelter from the drizzle (you can't really call it rain here)and having already filled our bellies in the market we weren't in the mood for a picnic. So we headed back to the bus - destination Circular Quay is always a good bet if you're not sure where to catch the one home from, another good reason for buying a travel pass each week - freedom to get lost!

Time for a quiet night in.