Sydney - Day 3 – Saturday 20 June 2009

OK - so the pictures lack captions...or a sensical order, but we'll deal with that later...we're having issues from the internet cafe. But enjoy! :)

While we woke up, optimistic and excited with our prospective plans for today, Day 3 has been a wash. Literally. It has absolutely poured most of the day, which makes traversing the city on foot quite a challenge. We enjoyed another continental breakfast, borrowed an umbrella again, and set out with a few possible plans in mind. We were happy to meander, but were hoping to go to an opal cutting wholesale place, stroll through the botanical gardens, and enjoy the weekend “market” that was set up just down the road and had lots of vendors selling tastes of wine, cheese, spices, breads, etc.

We only had one small umbrella, so we took turns using our rain jacket/getting wet while the other used the umbrella. When the rain got really heavy we stepped into a shopping centre, which turned out to be five stories, gorgeous inside, and full of Coach, Versace, Gucci, etc. But, it was lunch time and we found a nice coffee/sandwich shop and waiting the down pour out while we grabbed lunch and did some window shopping.

After that we finally made our way towards the Opal Cutters place to check out the local stone. 95% of the world’s opal is mined in Australia – so they had a good bit of the stone…only after meeting with a man who taught us about the different kinds of opals, and then the double and triple layered pieces, we discovered what price range the opals are actually in. (I had glanced in some stores on the Rocks and thought they were a tad high, but figured at the whole sale price they’d be 10 or 20% cheaper and be in price range for a nice pair of earrings). I was wrong. The black and boulder opal earrings were $3,100 aussies (although the guy said they were 50% off)…but um, $1600 aussies wasn’t exactly the budget we had in mind. The duplicate layer and triple layer ones were considerably cheaper but still several hundred. So we need to get out of Sydney and un-learn how to look for real quality opal and then maybe I’ll enjoy a pair of earrings I find elsewhere.

After that we worked our way over to the botanical gardens and enjoyed the greenery and then headed back up to Circle Quay and the Rocks to check out the market. We couldn’t find the fruit bats Daniel was looking for (or Spike, Emily)…and as it continued to rain (we also had bought a second umbrella by this point) we discovered the weekend market was also washed out.

So today was a wash – but I don’t say that with any ounce of being upset. We saw a lot of central Sydney, full of pretty Europeanesque buildings, lots of neat shopping, all surrounded by the commercial part of the city and the taller sky scrapers. We got a much better feel of the area and while we probably could have explored more of the city if we weren’t damp all over and tromping around in soaked through sneakers, we really do feel like we have checked our personal “must-do’s” off. One of our biggest must-do’s was getting acclimated so that we can really enjoy the live-aboard dive boat that we are boarding on Monday.

We’ve enjoyed the city and are going to spend this evening grabbing a meat pie for dinner (mashed potatoes, mushy peas, gravy and beef) and some more of Lord Nelson’s brew. We catch an early plane in the morning to Cairns and will spend tomorrow afternoon checking out our new town. The Spirit of Freedom will pick us up at the Fig Tree Lodge on Monday morning and we will be heading out into the Great Barrier Reef for some great diving and to celebrate our third wedding anniversary! Onward we go! :)

Sydney – Day 2 – Friday 19 June 2009

Day 2 was an awesome day! We woke up this morning, awake, alert, and mmm, rested! Yay! So, we got up, grabbed breakfast and set out for the Taronga Zoo. We got to take a ferry through the Sydney Harbor and take some classic photos of the picturesque sites of the Opera House and Harbor Bridge. I should also mention that the weather was perfect – warm, sunny and clear with a nice cool breeze.

Once at the zoo we saw: the kangaroos, duckbilled platypuses (which are much more energetic than I imagined), the wombats and koalas and echindas and all the good stuff. Daniel reaffirmed that the giraffes, elephants, and goats have a fantastic view of the harbor. We were bummed to discover that the penguins are uncooperative, the pygmy hippos are unscary, and the Tasmanian devils are unavailable for photoshoots. One of the seals has one of the most adorable pups ever. As we were leaving the zoo there was a window to the seal tank that contained the mom and the six month old pup. Nala was adorable and the girls in the gift shop would take seal toys and get the seal pup to follow them back and forth – it was incredibly cute and precious and we caught a great video of the two girls playing with the pup. Honestly, it was one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen in my life. We stayed and watched Nala, mesmerized, until Daniel finally peeled me away.

So after another ferry ride back and another great photo op, we headed to climb the bridge pylon, which is supposed to unveil a beautiful view of the city. We marched the 200 steps and thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful 360* view of Sydney. Very pretty. And wonderfully clear. Today (Day 3) it’s absolutely pouring and disgusting, as it was on Day 1, so we really really lucked out.

After enjoying the view from the bridge we headed back to our hotel to shower and recharge before dinner and the concert. Sydney is expensive. We’re also staying in the prime part of town. And food prices are ridiculous. Fortunately, the conversion rate is in our favor and is .8 instead of the 1.5 that the euro was last summer. But still. Basic meals are pricey and really nice meals are only a little bit pricier. So, we decided that we would splurge one night, and that since we were getting dressed up and going to the concert, we might as well enjoy ourselves and have a beautiful, extravagant dinner on the harbor.

So, we headed back down to the Rocks and to the harbor and perused the restaurant menus and chose the one that had main courses that appealed to both of us. The food at the Great Ocean Room was absolutely fantastic and our table looked right out on the harbor and the Sydney Opera House. We ordered truffle French fries as our appetizer – we had never had anything made with truffle oil – but we quickly appreciated its reputation! We split a cabernet-merlot blend from Southern Australia. Daniel’s main course was blue fin tuna fillet, lightly seared, and I enjoyed an aged twenty days Australian Black Angus sirloin served with truffle butter. It was an absolutely delicious meal and were very pleased with our splurge!

After dinner we were onto the Sydney Opera House for the “power and panache” concert. The first half was Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and the second half was William Walton’s Symphony No. 1. I had preordered our tickets months ago and didn’t remember where we were sitting – so imagine our surprise when we walk in “Door 4” and discover we have second row seats!!! Both were great pieces and it was really fun to actually be inside the Opera House, but we were fighting jet lag off and on towards the end of the night. The pianist was excellent. And it’s really hard to explain, but the ladies restroom was really neat. We enjoyed a really yummy ice cream flavor on the way back too – honeycomb and butterscotch.

After our magical evening on the harbor, we headed back to our hotel for the night, absolutely beat, but very excited to have had such an awesome day!

Sydney! - Day 1 - Thursday June 18 2009

You know you are becoming a seasoned traveler when:

1. No toilet, faucet, or shower system phases you and you figure out how to flush or turn it on in seconds.

2. You are amazed at how easy it is to traverse a land that speaks English as its main language.

3. Ladies – you are very poised at hovering over the toilet with a thirty pound backpack, purse, camera, and sweatshirt hanging off your shoulders.

4. Between 7:05 and 9:05 am our plane touched down, we collected our bags, legally entered Australia, navigated customs, declared our beef jerkey and saw it destroyed, hit up the ATM for aussie dollars, got a city map, bought a train ticket, took a thirty minute train ride at rush hour, walked fifteen minutes through the city to get to our hotel, dropped our bags off so the hotel would “mind” them, changed and freshened up, and made it four blocks down the road and were sitting in a café waiting for our lattes and omlets, all within two hours.

Okay, so after all of the events mentioned above in #4 – and yes, they did take our beef jerkey to be destroyed (but only after Daniel opened the bag and shoved a whole handful of jerkey in his mouth…, we found ourselves in Sydney! As we left the train station (which is essentially a subway) at Circle Quay (pronounced Circle “Key”) we caught our first glimpse of the Opera House and then the bridge!

In terms of location, our hotel is absolutely perfect. We are staying at Lord Nelson’s Brewery Hotel which triples as a bar on the first floor, a brasserie (restaurant) on the second floor, and hotel on the third and fourth floors. We have a snazzy side entrance that allows us to enter from a side street too. The beer is excellent, the continental breakfast is yummy, the people are super nice, and the location is superb. We’re a five to ten minute walk (without luggage) to “The Rocks” and the main strip of the Sydney Harbor, five minutes from the bridge, and twenty minutes from the city centre, Darlington Harbor, etc. Our walk home from the Opera House last night took fifteen minutes – including a stop for fantastic ice cream.

Funny side note: when I was emailing back and forth with them to set things up I kept receiving emails from “the Lord”).
So, we arrived in Sydney, but as we dropped off our bags and set out to explore the city it started pouring a cold, heavy rain and the woman at the bar actually took some of the chairs off of the tables so we could wait out the worst of it (the bar wasn’t running at 8 am) and loaned us umbrellas to use for the day – nice service!
We meandered through town and worked our way to the Sydney Aquarium…time for Beth to do her homework and freshen up on some of the fishies she might see in a few days… and enjoyed the “floating exhibits” of the aquarium – there are floating salt water tanks (that are buildings floating in the harbor, connected by covered walkways to the aquarium). The floating exhibits are tunnel exhibitions full of sharks, rays, turtles and dugongs (which are manatee wannabes) and are a lot of fun to walk through and see all the creatures swimming above and all around.

Our first day was a rough one. We arrived in Sydney sleep deprived and discombobulated, but Daniel had a much more difficult time of it than me. I was better at sticking to the “strategy” and forcing myself to stay up late and sleep at certain times. Daniel was exhausted and made it through the aquarium, but was essentially toast after that.

After visiting the aquarium, we headed back to the hotel to check in and shower for the first time in nearly 40 or so hours. While I was showering Daniel fell asleep – big mistake. I dragged him out once I was ready and we grabbed dinner, but he high-tailed it back to the hotel and then slept from 6 pm to 7:30 am…impressive. I didn’t do much better…I made it to 7 pm and then passed out cold until 7 the next morning.

Onto Sydney! - The Lost Day - Wednesday 17 June 2009

Onto Sydney! -The lost day - Wednesday 17 June 2009
We flew on Qantas airlines and had a nice flight. I think it was the new airbus – it was a huge double decker plane that dwarfed most of the planes in the international terminal. And all things considered, the flight went pretty well. It was a twilight zone, and you lost all concept of time as you dozed in and out, ate dinner at 5 am east coast time, and gave up figuring out what time it actually was anywhere. I slept some, watched a few movies, and Daniel slept less and played lots of Chrono Trigger on the Nintendo DS light. We boarded at 11:50 pm LA time (mind you that’s nearly 3 in the morning FL time) and then arrived at 7:05am in Sydney. Wednesday disappeared b/c of the international dateline and we found ourselves arriving not later in the day on Wednesday, but Thursday morning instead.

A Beautiful Day in San Pedro - Tuesday 16 June 2009

A Beautiful Day in San Pedro – Tuesday, 16 June 2009

After a harried exit from our home, we set off for the airport Monday afternoon. We snagged dinner, breezed through security and arrived at the gate without problem. Our flight to LA stunk. It was about five hours long and when Daniel asked me for the third time why we weren’t flying Jet Blue, was I sure it wasn’t an option? Did I realize that he thinks the extra money for a Jet Blue flight is worth it? Will I remember in the future that he really likes flying Jet Blue? Etc…. I got the hint. The United seats were too narrow and too close together and he wasn’t happy. But we survived.

We also agreed unanimously that since we were both so exhausted heading into the vacation, we were really relieved that we weren’t stepping off a five hour plane and onto a fourteen hour one in straight succession.

It was really wonderful to catch up with my Aunt Betsy and to see family. We also realized that we think Giant Schnauzers are really cute, fun dogs (although the dribbling beard is a little gross). The weather was absolutely perfect – great temperature, crystal clear skies, beautiful view of Catalina Island, just perfect. It had been ten years since my last visit to San Pedro, but it did not disappoint – it was even more beautiful than I remembered.

Daniel did not adjust to the time change as easily as I did (I stayed on mountain time through the week after my AP reading in Colorado) and he was up and ready to go hours before I was – but he and Aunt Betsy made a quick trip to the corner store and then once I was up and showered we strolled through the park across the street and hiked up to the Korean Friendship Bell so we could enjoy the fantastic view of the water and Catalina Island.

We enjoyed lunch down at the LA harbor with margaritas and Mexican food, took a scenic drive to the glass chapel and through a neighborhood heavily populated with peacocks – and discovered that baby peacocks are very fluffy and cute, and finished the afternoon off catching up over tea.

We were sad to leave and that it was a short visit, but very glad we had decided to spend a day with the Denharts! We had a great visit!

Safely in Sydney!

We are safely in Sydney and have finally spotted an internet cafe to say hello to everyone. We had a great time in LA with my Aunt Betsy and cousin Sam, had a decent fourteen hour plane ride, and are happily becoming acclimated with Sydney time by day three. Our first day here was rainy and we were dragging, but yesterday was an awesome one! We took the ferry through the harbor to Taronga Zoo and got to catch beautiful views of the bridge and Opera House. Once we got back we walked to the top of the bridge pylon and got some awesome pictures of the city! Can't wait to share them! We had a phenomenal dinner on the Sydney Harbor last night from an outside table overlooking the Opera House and then headed over to the concert hall for a concert inside!

We're having a great time and are really getting into our vacation groove!

More soon, we promise!

Cheers!
Beth and Daniel

Here we go again!!!

So! I am very excited to say that we will soon be departing for the land down under! We leave for LA on Monday (06/15) night, will spend a day with Aunt Betsy and Sam, and are then off to Sydney, Australia Tuesday (06/15) night!!

Our itinerary is as follows:
1. LA - Tues 06/16
2. Sydney - Thurs 06/18-Sun 06/21
3. Cairns - 06/21-06/28
Part I: Liveaboard Dive in the Great Barrier Reef!
Part II: Daintree Rainforest
4. Brisbane - 06/28-06/30
5. Melbourne - 06/30-07/05 (Warrnambool, Great Apostles, Apollo Bay, Torquay, Phillip Island, and the other Melbourne)

We will do our best to keep you all updated. We are extremely excited and have some really neat things planned! Just a few more days to go!

All the best,
Beth and Daniel