Sydney!!!

Sydney is awesome - what a start to the trip! We successfully made it here on Tuesday morning (after 32 hours of travel!), catching up with my family at their hotel by 10am. We spent the day catching up with each other while jaunting out to the Blue Mountains, a national park north of the city. Beautiful forest walks and frequent meals worked relatively well staving off the jetlag, and Chris' water polo game was a fine end to the day.

Yesterday we took a walk through the Botanical Gardens - gorgeous, but also with some pretty spectacular flora and fauna, including trees with hundreds of fruit bats in them and giant spiders. We also wandered along the Harborfront to the opera house - officially one of my favorite buildings.

Family left for the airport around noon, and Carl and I indulged in a nice workout at the hotel facilities, then left the paradise of the Intercontinental and settled into backpacker mode, schlepping across the city to our hostel, which is ... not the Intercontinental. Shared bathroom, double bed with a single bed adjacent (literally, one full sleeping space - weird) and then about a foot of walk space on two sides with a little sink in the corner. An adjustment; however, we can stay here for 1 week for the same price as 1 night at the intercontinental - tradeoffs...

Last night we had dinner with my brother and his friends in China Town - good fun, ok food. The Irish pub afterwards did us all in though, and we're a little sluggish today. Agenda for the next few days: surfing, Manly beach national park, another trip to the Blue Mountains, wine country tour and more city wanderings.

Sydney, Australia