Sydney

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  Sydney, Australia
Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Hello Mates (friends)! We made it to Sydney. We were extremely tired from our trip in New Zealand so we took care of a few administrative things for the first day we were here like laundry, finding travel guide books at half the price (we stocked up on India, Queensland and South East Asia), uploading pics, etc. The next day, we visited the US Consulate to get additional pages for our passports. The process took only an hour but it was very interesting to say the least. The security, processes and professionalism was pretty incredible (we got to move to the front of the line since we were citizens twice!) AND we saw a woman who had lost her passport on the bridge climb (more on that later) who received a new temporary passport, valid for 1 year, in less than 4 hours...pretty impressive if you ask us. We also tried going to the Indian Consulate to get an Indian Visa, however it's going to take a little while longer than we had hoped, so we're going to have to try and get it sorted when we go to Brisbane. We also walked around the harbor area to make a few changes in our plans for when Traci got into town. (Traci is one of our great friends from Dallas who we were so glad to see and get to hang out with.) We were fortunate enough to meet up with Mike Hermann and Ed Hoover for some drinks as well as Tommy and Rachel from our South American tour. What fun it was to see A&M friends and travel buddies. Then, we met Traci for a fun reunion! She met us at the Oriental Bar (yes, very random) with tortilla chips and hot sauce in hand...we gobbled that right up.

Sydney Bridge Climb

We had a fun time chatting and there was so much to say that we did not even know where to start.

Saturday we were a bit more rested so we had a few activities lined up. First was the Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb! We headed to our tour around noon and got prepared to climb the bridge. It was really interesting all the gear they provide to climb the bridge, a jump suit, hat, belt, radio to listen to our guide, and a security latch which rolls along side you as you climb the bridge. We did a quick bridge climb simulation and we were off! We headed out to the bridge and had to walk below the beginning of the bridge for a few hundred meters before you're actually "on" the bridge itself. After getting onto the bridge, we had a series of staircases and ladders to take us up to the main arch of the bridge. Once we got up to the main arch, the views of the harbor were amazing! Jana did a great job and wasn't bothered too much by the height of the bridge, probably because of the beautiful views we had of the Sydney skyline, harbor views, as well as being able to see out to the entrance of the harbor. We had a few stops on the way up to the top for various photos, and had some stops to just soak in the scenery. In all the climb was about 3 hours.

After the bridge climb we went to a Super 14 Rugby game! We have wanted to go to some type of sporting event throughout our trip so far, but it just hasn't worked out. We had a couple friends (Maams from TCU, and Stu from the Magic Bus) mention that Rugby games were excellent and lots of fun, and that the Super 14 (there are 14 teams from New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa) was a great way to see a game. The game was at the Sydney football stadium and was between the Sydney Waratahs and the Wellington Hurricanes. We had a great time at the game, didn't really know what was going on half the time, but was fun because the home team won and there was lots of enthusiasm the entire match. It was funny, the Waratahs are sponsored by HSBC, one of Layton's big clients at Vurv, and the Hurricanes were sponsored by Ford, interestingly enough...

Sunday, we did some planning on where we were going diving while Traci is here with us, and wanted to see a bit more of Sydney. Based on where most of the diving operations are based , and to provide us with the most options possible we decided that we should fly up to Cairns instead of going to Brisbane and up the East Coast. After getting our planning out of the way, we took the Sydney Site seeing Bus around town and saw all the sites, and even got to hang out at Bondi Beach for a couple hours which was a nice break from it all...

Side note... It was really cool when we were at Tickettek (similar to ticketmaster) to get our rugby tickets, they were selling tickets there for the Australian Nationals for swimming!! So cool how swimming is a mainstream sport in Australia.

Post your own travel photos for friends and family More Pictures & Videos

Elizabeth Jana or Jana Elizabeth	layton taking a rest	Sydney Opera house	music on the street
Sydney bridge	can you see the people?	a different shot of the opera house	up close of the arches
little boy playing the trumpet	Jana mocking the fountain	turtles in the fountain	fountain and church from Hyde Park
Layton sporting the Waratahs jersey	WAGAMAMAs is our favorite!	Layton and Tommy in Sydney	Mike and Jana in SYDNEY!
Mike, Jana and Layton	Aggie Reunion!	Ladies and Gents...TRACI!!!	Getting ready for our climb!
not sure about this, but lets go!	I am pretending to be REALLY excited!	Rugby game!	This will be Layton in a few months!
they introduced a new mascot	who "flew" in!	he was really funny looking!	jersey is torn from playing!
Layotn LOVES HSBC	this was crazy to watch	three of us outside stadium	Dragon Boat Races for Chinese New Year
more of the dragon dance	and they are OFF...	stroke, stroke, stroke	we climbed this!
all the way to the flag!	Sydney Harbor	6 million rivots	opera house from the bus
headed to Bond-eye beach	first glance from the bus	close up of the rock	couple shot on Bondi
a shot from the North side	this was a funny tshirt	really windy!	model material
this was a flat iron you could use	in a bar bathroom

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