Aussie Aussie Aussie

Hi all! Sorry it’s been a few, we have safely arrived in Sydney, but alas the internets are not free… so slightly more limited than normal. In any event, we had a lovely couple of days in Los Angeles, after a very eventful flight (not in itself eventful, but there was a lot of delays on the part of American Airlines, and a lot of running on our part, and in the end both us and our luggage made it, so that is something). We saw a ton of people, got some errands done (Thanks Marc!) and enjoyed our last US moment until October.


Tuesday night we headed out for Australia, and arrived bright and early on Thursday morning! We’ll work on regaining Wednesday for the next few months ;) We got in nice and early, so we actually had quite a full day yesterday. Our hostel is lovely, and as promised both over an archeological dig and has an awesome view of Sydney Harbour (that’s right, rocking the Aussie spelling, just wait till I tell you not to park too close to the kerb!). First we spent some time walking around our new digs, we’re in ‘the Rocks’ a neighborhood initially settled by convicts (usually people who stole like an apple, one guy was sent here for 14 years for using a false pound note). Now it is an adorable and old-timey neighborhood with lots of shops, historic sites, etc. We set out for some walking and headed over to the Harbour Bridge. We opted not so spend $400 so we could each climb the bridge, but for $9.50 a piece you can climb one of the pylons on the side to learn about the bridge (while the 3rd longest steel arch bridge people consider it ‘the greatest’, we will now refer to it as the Mohammed Ali of bridges…), and see amazing views of the bridge and harbor (read Opera House). Then we walked over the bridge, and over to the Opera House, which let me tell you is awesome, and when you get close up, covered in what looks like standard white and beige bathroom tile.

Next, we headed over to the Royal Botanical Gardens where they ask you to please walk on the grass, smell the flowers and otherwise enjoy yourself (for FREE). It’s a gorgeous seaside expanse, with amazing trees, tons of birds (including flocks of cockatoos?), fresh water eels (which apparently eat ducklings) and BATS, huuuuge effing bats, sooo cool. We finished up the day with a rooftop BBQ at the hostel. Tired? Us too.

Today was our “Fish” themed day. This morning we set out for Darling Harbour, but ended up making a detour to go to the top of the Sydney Tower, which was good fun, I do love to be high up! It is a really fantastic view of the city. We stopped by the Queen Victoria Building, which is a shopping arcade… really a mall, but so much cuter, America could learn something here. Then headed over to the Sydney Fish Market, so Mike could gorge himself on lobster, prawns and oysters (oh my!). When we had our fill, we came back to walk around the harbor a bit, got some ice cream (amazing on a kajillion degree day like today) and headed on to the Sydney Aquarium.

Now any of you that know me know how I feel about the Monterey Bay Aquarium, so I’m a bit of a hard sell on them, but man, this aquarium is awesome! A) Australia has crazy cool creatures, because it’s Australia. B)they had tons of fun, walk through tunnels, and many locations to see the whole tank so fish can’t hide. C) Lot of things they had were huuuuge, not sure why, everything is bigger in Oz? In any event, we saw platapuses…platapi? Can’t spell it, but darn those creatures are cute, a bajillion sharks, an absurdly large ‘smooth ray’, a ‘shark ray’ which is the weirdest looking animal ever and dugongs, which are a ‘streamlined’ relative of the manatee (when I say streamlined… I mean they have a more fish like tail?). We saw tons more, but I’m sure you are tired of hearing about fish…

Tonight we went out to check out the Rocks Night Market. It rained, which made us hide for a bit, but it really was a nice little craft market, and we found some adorable dudes playing Beatles songs on the ukulele! (Mom, maybe soon you can join them? I told them you’d call…)

Tomorrow I think we’re heading to Bondi to check out the beaches. Pictures will come next time the internet is free…