Day 7

Final day here in beautiful Australia. We are READY to come home but I will miss this view for sure! Everywhere you look its just spectacular. We took a final ferry ride back over to Watson's Bay today because it was so cloudy and rainy the other day...we just wanted to see it on a clear day. It was just amazing. There are parks everywhere over here with people just lounging and enjoying the outdoors. We watched a group of girls playing a game of frizbee and it wasn't like I was used to seeing frizbee played....they had a coach and everything!

Tonight we had our farewell GALA dinner downstairs in the ballroom. It was delicious and they had a great little band and these 3 girls that played violins. They called themselves The String Angels. They were excellent. The batteries on my camera went out right before dinner tonight so I didn't get any shots of our GALA. Oh well...we have plenty of others to enjoy for many years. It's about 9:45PM here on Thursday night (Thanksgiving night for us but not for you). We have an early flight in the morning and have to have our bags out and ready for pickup by 7:00AM so we are getting everything ready to go and will hit the bed early. It's been a dream come true for us to take this trip.
Thanks for letting me share it with you.

P.S. The 3rd picture was a sign right outside of the Opera House. Just for you Mel!

Day 6

Today was a very laid back day. We spent most of the day back at Manly Beach but the funny thing about that is...if you will remember I mentioned Manly Beach a couple of days ago and even posted a picture of it. I think I described it as "ok". Everyone has made fun of us because when the ferry docks there is this tiny little beach right there at the wharf. We thought that was it! We just couldn't understand why everyone was so impressed with this beach. Today we went back and found the "real" Manly Beach and it was beautiful. Leave it to us.

Tonight for dinner several of us went to a little restaurant where you pick out your own steak and grill it yourself. Of course this certainly doesn't mean that the price is any lower even though they do nothing but put the raw meat on a plate and hand it to you. You have to get your own salad, side, bread, and drink. It was fun though. The only thing is that where we were sitting (everything has outside seating around here) we were right under a tree that kept dropping these little green "peas" on us. They dropped in our glasses, on our heads...we aren't too sure they didn't end up as part of our salad. Sure hope they aren't poisonous.

Day 5

We woke up to a rainy chilly day but we still wanted to go the world famous Bondi Beach so we, along with another couple ,Jan and Brian (from Statesboro) hopped on a bus and headed for the beach all wrapped up in our jackets and carrying our umbrellas. Fun huh? We didn't stay at Bondi long - not much to do on a day like that so we hopped back on the bus and headed over to another scenic ocean view area called Watson's Bay. It was beautiful with cliffs that over looked the water. Had lunch there and then boarded a ferry back to the hotel.

This evening we had our Harbour Dinner Cruise. It was very nice. The boat sailed around the harbour for 3 hours while we ate dinner and listened to this one-man band who was excellent. It turned out to be a beautiful night and we throughly enjoyed the cruise. Another great day.

Day 4

This has been our favorite day so far. We spent the morning just walking around downtown Sydney. Melissa...it reminds me SO much of New York! You would love it here. We happened up on a mall right in the middle of downtown and it was a huge mall so we explored that for quite a while. One thing I noticed different from our mall was 1...it has a train station in it but 2...it has a fresh fruit store inside as well as a fresh seafood store. (See Facebook pictures).

At 2:00 we all met for our Koala Park and Tobruk Sheep Station tour. We got to pet the Koalas (which is what I came on this trip to do - let's be honest) and we got to feed the kangaroos! They are adorable! I want one of each - at least! Then we went up in the mountains to this beautiful sheep farm which wasn't a whole lot different from our farms except that they have turned it in to a total tourst attraction. They made us Billy Tea and Dampa (spelled Damper but prounced Dampa). This is a hot tea and bread that's made over a stone fire (see picture above) in iron kettles. It was very, VERY, chilly up there so that hot tea and bread was wonderful. The bread was served with some kind of sweet syrup which is some kind of Australian tradition. Then we watched a boomarang and whip cracking demonstatration from these Australian ranch hands and I actually videoed a little of it so you could hear the accent. I could listen to them talk all day and they have said the same thing about us! :>) Then we watched their "sheep" dogs herd in the sheep and one of those lucky sheep got sheared for us. Of course I felt sorry for it. :<(

They then served us a wonderful dinner (they called it BBQ but it was chicken and dressing, salad, and sweet potatoes). I guess this must be aussie BBQ. This will probably be the closest we get to turkey and dressing!

They had a great little Australian band who got the audience all involved and we just had a great time. It was about an hour's bus ride back to the hotel so we all passed out when we got back. It was a long day but one to remember. Hope you enjoy the pics....

Day 3

Today was a rather uneventful day except for the fact that I almost got beat up by a little old Australian woman but more on that later....
We got up around 7:00AM, remember our biological clock is still on "southern states" time, to another wonderful breakfast. Did I mention in my last blog that they serve baked beans with breakfast? Today was a free day so we decided to try out one of the beaches. We headed down to the wharf to catch a ferry over to Manly Beach. Nancy, I hope you are reading this because I know you will get a kick out of it. Out of ALL the people waiting there to get on the ferry a little elderly lady came up and tapped me on the shoulder and mumbled something like she needed help. I could tell that she probably didn't need to have been there by herself so I asked if she was ok and she just latched on to my arm to walk her onto the boat. I never could really understand her but I could tell that the dockhands knew her so I figured she must ride the ferry frequently. Once we got on she mosied on off and went to sit down. I heard her a little later yelling (very loudly) that she needed HELP! We all looked in her direction but we could tell this must be a regular occurence. A few minutes later she came out on the side where we were sitting and her little hat blew off and sort of rolled down the deck. Well she started screaming like someone had attacked her. A young couple that was sitting right down from us grabbed the hat and took it to her and that seemed to satisfy her....for a minute. Then, again out of ALL the people on that ferry, she came straight to me and handed me her little disposable camera and mumbled the words, "can you take my picture?" So, she posed and I tried to click and nothing happened. So I thought it must not be wound so I wound and wound and it was just out of film so I pretended to take it and handed it back to her. She said, "did you point?" I said, "Yes!" She said, "NO!" So I said, "I'm sorry it's out of film." She started yelling, "No, NO, NO!" and started to hit at me! I just grabbed her hands and said, "No, No" back at her ....and she walked away.

The beach was ok - but we left at lunch and went shopping. It was over a hundred degrees but if you were to ask a local they would have told you it was about 40 degrees. See ...lots to get used to over here. Their temp is calculated in celsius.

We are watching Australian Idol on TV - live. It's their final show. They are getting ready to choose the winner and it's happening right outside of our hotel at the Opera House. There are fireworks and lights everywhere. Sort of neat!

All in all it was a good day. Didn't get beat up and got to see a lot of excitment outside...oh, and the winner is..... Stan somebody.

Day 2

It has been a very busy day. We started with a wonderful breakfast here at the hotel...just about anything you could imagine. We then went to a short briefing about what we could do with our day. One of our options was the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb. They offered us a "special" price of $179.00 ea. to climb that bridge. Tommy said that we could walk across it for free so that is what we did. It was a beautiful view. One thing we noticed after we bumped into about 3 or 4 people was that not only do Australians drive on the opposite (notice I didn't say wrong) side of the road but they walk on the opposite side of the sidewalk. Can't you just see them trying to dodge us until we figured it out? At 1:30 we had a walking tour of "The Rocks", a very historical section of the city where convicts were sent to live back in the 1700s. Now it's full of renovated former warehouses, and sailors homes, restaurants, street vendors, art galleries, you name it. It was very interesting. Our tour ended at the Sydney Opera House where they were filming the finals for Australian Idol! That was pretty exciting in itself.

After watching that for a while we boarded a ferry and went over to "Darling Harbour" to where the IMAX theatre is to see the Jim Carrey movie "A Christmas Carol" in 3D. Cost - $27 ea. but it was amazing! We got out of the movie about 8:10PM and just missed the last ferry back to our side of the harbour so even though we had just bought the unlimited ferry ticket we had to spring for a taxi. The money over here is strange too. We bought a bottle of water for $3 so Tommy gave the lady a $5 dollar (Australian) bill. She gave him "a" coin back. When we were on the ferry we started talking to a local couple and he mentioned the water price and the change he got and the lady said that coin was a $2 coin. Go figure.

Its been a full day and a lot of fun. We think we are going to hit the beach tomorrow!

Love to all....

Day 1

Left for the airport at 1:00PM EST to catch our flight to LAX at 5:30. Anyone that knows Tommy knows that we will ALWAYS get there way early and we did. Had oh about an hour and a half before we could even board but that just gave him time to find ice cream and me time to get myself all worked up thinking about what was ahead.

The flight to LA was wonderful. We were on a 767 and it was smooth as silk! I really didn't mind it plus we had a prize awaiting us at the end of this little leg of the flight. Matt and Laurin met us at the airport which was an ordeal in itself. Once we landed we had to catch a shuttle to the other side of the the terminal to the International Flights to check in with our next airline to Sydney. This process took about an hour of our 3 hour layover. Then we called Matt and told him where we were so they could find us. We then had to wait about 30 minutes for a table at this little grill we found in a renovated (what looked like a basement) section of the airport. We finally got seated and then waited another 30 minutes for our food so we pushed our time to the last minute to spend all the time we could with them before heading to our next portion of our flight. (The 16 hour portion). The security line was backed up and not moving so Tommy started to panic. Once we finally got through security we ran (you know like the family did on Home Alone) all the way to our boarding area and sure enough...they were boarding! We made it though and that plane was HUGE. It was a double decker and we were in the VERY back of the plane, if that tells you anything about our class. It was a very nice plane but they pack you in like sardines which is crazy since all those flights are long. I was in the middle seat and hardly had room to move my legs much less blog like I had intended to do on the plane. No place to lay your head except on your husbands head but hey....it worked.

We managed and God was gracious and allowed us a safe landing and we are here in beautiful Sydney Australia.