Gday mate

Trip Start Jun 15, 2008
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Trip End Jun 15, 2009

Flag of Australia  , New South Wales,
Friday, July 25, 2008

After five days in Sydney, Australia I couldn't help but be disappointed. We arrived in on Monday morning at 5am and by the time we were leaving on the Friday we had not seen one landslide, hurricane, river burst its bank or a single convict escape from jail and then terrorize the neighborhood. No one had been stabbed, shot, run over or kidnapped. No planes had crashed in the bush, no bush fires had broken out, no boats had sunk and not a single person had come back from the dead. I can honestly say now that "Home and Away" does a rubbish job of recreating the Australian way of life.

But in all seriousness we were very excited to be landing in Australia, although as it turned out we were a little unprepared. We had been used to thirty degree heat in Asia and wearing no more than T-Shirts and shorts. This, as it turned out, was not appropriate wear for Sydney in July. In the southern hemisphere their seasons are the opposite to ours so July is their winter and contrary to popular believe it does get cold in Australia. Very Cold.

We got to our hotel at 630 am, but we weren't going to be able to check in until 2pm. We were wearing shorts and T-Shirts and we actually had no warm clothes in our bag so the only thing to do was to buy some clothes. Unfortunately we learned the hard way that the shops don't open until 10 am. I cant imagine what we looked like to the locals. Two silly paddies, blue from the cold, walking around central Sydney looking for a clothes shop in sub zero temperatures and with a breeze blowing that would just slice through you.

Needless to say the next day the both of us had the sniffles but that didn't stop us heading out and exploring the city. At the Opera House
At the Opera House
 It truly is amazing to see the iconic Sydney Harbour bridge and Opera house in person. We took a ferry from just beside the Opera house out to a suburb called Manly and it was amazing to see the Sydney city skyline disappear into the distance.

Unfortunately for us the pope had just visited Sydney for an event called "World Youth Day" the previous week and millions of pilgrims from all over the world had come to Sydney for this "World Youth Day" and to see the pope. Well most of these pilgrims had decided to stick around in Sydney and so every where we went there were these pilgrims singing and chanting with their guitars and crosses. There's a time and a place for singing and chanting and its not at a pedestrian crossing in central Sydney, its not on a ferry to Manly and its certainly not outside Pizza hut while your waiting for your crappy meal deal.

We got to do a lot of fun touristy stuff in our five days in Sydney. The aquarium was also well worth a visit, but again the singing chanting pilgrims made an appearance. There was one group of Italians who were just unbearable to be near in the aquarium. So rude and loud and pushy. Every tank we looked into there would be an Italian beside us who would spot some interesting fish and then shout to the rest of the group to come over and look. Next thing myself and Caroline would be engulfed by a sea of Italian tourists trying to see the fish. I cant tell you how many times this happened. It was like they were waiting for me to look in a tank and then just doing it to piss me off. Well it worked. We ended up just waiting at one tank for twenty minutes so they would be gone well ahead of us. It turns out there is only one thing more annoying than Italians in an aquarium, Japanese in an Aquarium. They will take a picture of everything and I mean EVERYTHING. Every fish, weed and stone. Every carpet, every wall, these people will take a picture of everything and then they will take a picture of themselves posing with this object. Do you walk through while they are taking the picture? can you look in the tank while they are taking a picture? No, so your time is spent waiting for these people to take 10 pictures of the same object each from a slightly different angle. As Caroline would say "Tres annoying"

We didn't get to do all we wanted in Sydney but we plan to come back here for new years so we can take up where we left off. For now we have some serious traveling to do. First stop is Melbourne to meet up with some friends from back home, after that we have to meet up with my sister for a few days and then we are heading up the east coast for some sun, sand, surf and scuba
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