Room with a view

Two things I love about Australia:

1. Cheap wine. In Ontario, a cheap decent bottle of wine would run us about $10, and you couldn't get much cheaper than that. And, since liquor stores are run through a crown corporation, there is no such thing as sales on liquor. When it comes to wine, the situation couldn't be more different in Sydney. There are often sales on wine, including 2 for 1 sales and 20% off when you buy 6 or more bottles. But, the best deals, by far, are "Cleanskins", which are basically a "no name" brand of wine. My understanding is that the wine comes from a variety of sources, including excess from big winemakers who don't want to sell their brands cheap. This means that buying cleanskins are a bit of a gamble and you can never be too sure what you're going to get. Yesterday, we spent a lazy afternoon with some new friends, drinking their $2 Chardonnay, which was truly a decent wine to start with that got better and better with each glass. (sidenote: surprisinly beer is a lot more expensive here than it was in Canada - much to Vic's dismay)

2. The views from our apartment. We live in a tiny little apartment, but one of its saving graces are the trees just outside our windows that provide us with fantastic views, especially on bright sunny days like today.