An Evening at the Cinebar

V. and I had our first “date” in months this past Friday night. Our babysitter is a caregiver at a neighborhood daycare whom V. met while walking down the street one day, and who is entirely overqualified for babysitting but very cheap, by American standards. Once we waved goodbye to our son, who was really indifferent about our leaving, we headed off to Rosalie, a little neighborhood a few minutes from our home, where there are plenty of trendy restaurants to choose from. However, we opted to spend the entire evening at the Blue Room Cinebar. For a fixed price, we had a Thai meal on the cinema’s outdoor balcony and two tickets to see a Danish film, “After the Wedding.” The food was excellent (it comes from the kitchen of a Thai restaurant just below), and the entire concept was wonderful. Each of the two theatres has about 24 seats that were stuffed like reclining chairs with a sizable side table for two between each pair of seats. One can order a bottle of wine or other drinks that are brought to you during the movie (we didn’t actually try this out, but someone behind us had a bottle of champagne). You can even have your dinner in your seat during the film. It is all very cozy and convenient. The movie, by the way, was quite good--full of repressed emotions and family tragedy, typical of any good Scandinavian film.

I want to make special mention of the blog penned by Audra “Bryson”, an American who moved to Sydney in January. These two recent entries describe the exact Aussie appliances and the strange bathroom drain that we have in our home in Brisbane. It’s a bit eerie reading someone else’s description of what I thought was our unique experience!