Andy Arrives

Trip Start Dec 31, 2008
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Trip End Mar 27, 2009


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Flag of Australia  , New South Wales,
Wednesday, February 18, 2009

My brother Andy arrived on Monday the 16th in the morning and was ready to go explore Sydney.  He didn't think he'd be able to sleep because he had a middle seat, but with a 15 hour flight and a pocket full of unisom (which I highly recommend to anyone on a long flight), he said he slept a solid 6 hours and felt good to go.  I wasn't really prepared for this and hadn't planned anything, but I figured we'd do something that we probably wouldn't get the chance to do when Courtney got into town.  So, we took a bus down to my school and walked around it really quickly, and then we walked down to Coogee Beach to show him that.    Our real goal, though, was to walk the coastline from Coogee to Bondi Beach, which is a beautiful two hour walk or so, which I completed on my first day in Sydney as well.  Really, the coastline there is pretty spectacular, and you get to walk past about 5 beaches along the way, a really cool cemetery and lots of cliffs.  We happened to run into my friends Will and Lauren and two friends they had in town.  They were doing the same walk, so we decided to meet up with them in Bondi at the end of the walk.  After our walk was over, we indeed met up with them at the Bondi Hotel and had a few drinks, then returned home.  That night, Andy and I went and had dinner at the Clock Hotel in Surry Hills, a nearby neighborhood, and then had a couple drinks at Trinity Bar near there, before returning home, since Andy was tired and I had class the next morning. 
Courtney was supposed to arrive the following morning, but we received word that night before going to bed that she had missed her flight to Sydney from San Francisco because her flight from Denver to San Fran got cancelled.  So, she spent the night in San Fran, but sadly would not be able to make it into Sydney until Wednesday.  After I returned from class on Tuesday, Andy and I decided to go walk around Sydney for a while.  We walked down to King's Cross for some lunch (I had to take Andy to Oporto at some point on the trip), then we legged it down to Wooloomoolloo (I just like typing that word) to see the bay there.  We walked up to Mrs. Macquarie's chair at the tip of Sydney Harbor, and snapped a bunch of photos there because there are some spectacular views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge in the background.  Mrs., Macquarie's chair is this seat that one of the old patriarchs of Sydney had chiseled into the rocks in this area where she would sit to take in the views of Sydney Harbour.  We then went and checked out the Opera House and walked down to the Rocks, which is the oldest neighborhood in Sydney.  We decided we'd seen enough of Sydney for the day, and didn't want to replicate too much stuff we'd do with Courtney, so we hit a few pubs in the Rocks, and then Ryan came and met us for some drinks and dinner down there.  That night, the three of us met up with Lenny and Dale at their place, had a few drinks, and then went to a place called Scruffy Murphy's, which was filled, in my estimation, with every American student in all of Sydney.  Good times.  Not so good for me for class the following day, though. 
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