Done.

One last day in Sydney. Not much time, but enough time to eat the BEST pancakes on the planet at Pancakes on the Rocks but only after seeing the new Russel Crowe Robin Hood. Then race the rain to the train station. Boarding a plane for 14 is not much fun soaking wet....and then you see Vegas from the skies!

Bondi Beach, Harbor Cruise, Curry Beef! (May 2nd)

Sunday, May 2, 2010
I woke up on my own at 6:45. Mom was clearly wide awake as well, but she said she had plenty of things to do, and the market didn’t open until 9 anyway, so I was at the gym by 7:30. Mom was a life saver and had brought hair scissors with her, so the morning brought about haircuts for both Tim and I.

Paddy’s Market was a huge bust. It was all these crappy booths with really cheap stuff and clothes and electronics accessories. Really not at all what we expected. So we headed to Bondi Beach. We made it to the front strip of Bondi, but ended up getting stuck because of some sort of parade that was heading down our street. We waited a few minutes, but then ended up flipping a uturn and going down the side streets, Mom oohing and aahing at the beach the whole way. It was a perfect day for beaching. A little overly hot, but a breeze, perfect sun. There were a ton of surfers out, and they were super fun to watch. Hot, yes, but they were too far away too really tell that of the ones actually surfing. Mom was just as enthralled by them and kept trying to take the perfect picture. Mom had thought there would be chairs to lounge on at the beach, so we sat on a bench and watched for a total of two minutes before she claimed she was bored, and we walked back up to the food strip street. Tim got fish and chips again, I got a mango smoothee for right now, and the sweet potato salad to take with me since I felt it was still a little early to be eating lunch. Mom got a chicken cesar salad from the same place. I had a bit of tims fish and chips, and mom had some too and decided that she wanted more fries. She barely ate any of her salad before we looped around and dropped her off to get another order of fries.

We did a scenic loop around Bondi. Stopping for mom to take pictures, all of us eating way too many French fries, but they are just the best fries ever and nearly impossible to stop eating them. Back towards the Sydney CBD, did some Souvenoir shopping as we waited for our Harbor Cruise.

We waited by the docks to load the boat, and behind us came the stereotypical, rude, everything is about them, group of Asians, complete with know it all leader. I mentioned to Mom not to get trampled by the Asians and the Exercise Exhibition guy in front of us heard me and commiserated with us. We boarded our 2:30 vessel, and in the process of going up the first ramp, mom took a tumble. We were petrified that that was the end of our day, if not the end of the trip, but she got up, seemed ok, and we got on. The Aussie was concerned about her and kept talking to us, and we made a new friend and he was very chatty for the first 20 minutes of the boat ride.

The sun was bright and shining, unlike the day before, which was realy nice because we got some really good pictures of Mom by the Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. As well as Tim chillin in his aviators and v neck. The ride was only 75 minutes, but it felt like a few hours. I flipped through Mom's Australia travel book, not finding much more than what Mom had already on the itinerary.

Post boat, we found a wine store. They even had bottles from Clare Valley. Dropped bags off at the hotel, went to the mall to catch up with news back home (internet style) and look for a brush for Mom. It was a little after 6 by the time we left the Mall, and we all knew that if Mom went up to the hotel room, she would never make it out to dinner. We walked up and down the Chinatown block, and every few feet there were these women shoving menus into our faces asking us to come sit. It was really rather weird. Picked one and ordered, when we got the food, clearly Mom and I ordered poorly. But Tim’s curry hot pot beef dish was the killer. The curry sauce was amazing. We each had rice and put the sauce on it, and I even tried the beef too. It was amazing. Well worth eating there all by itself. The waiter was kind of strange though, didn’t know much English, but was thoughtful enough to bring over an extra chair so that we could put our bags on it while we ate. When he brought the check, we also received two thin slices of watermelon and a Sandie like cookie. Yum yum.

May Day! Mommy Day!

The day that everything turned happy!

Saturday, May 1, 2010
5:30 wake up and off to the terminal and waited for mom. Once the screen said that her plane had landed, it took mom 50 minutes to come out of the arrivals gate. I was getting worried! We stood there forever looking at every person that came out thinking it was her. It was super awesome to see her though, everyone was really happy. We waited in line with her at the Hertz rental. We got the car, and it was so awesome, the inside of the car was spotless. SO so different than the crap van we had been living in. It was beautiful.

Good Living Market first. We lucked out with parking right across the street, and it was a really big market, biggest one that we had seen yet. They had virtually every type of food stand that you could want. All sorts of foods, prepared and take home, ready meals, flowers, spreads, everything, and quite a few of the stalls had samples. We all looked for the lunch that we wanted to purchase, and I wanted figs, but you could only buy them in the trays, so that was disappointing. We ended up buying a bag of apples, olive bread, and a super super soft cheese. Mom bought some jerky, and I got strawberry tarts for dessert.

Justice and Police Museum. We almost had to park in a garage that was $35 a day, which was just insane, but we found street parking thankfully. We can’t believe how expensive parking is though. Its almost not worth having a car, at least in Sydney. And of course, Mom is surprised at the cost of things (besides parking) despite my attempts at trying to tell her before she was even here exactly how expensive this place is. But of course, no one believed me. The Justice and Police Museum was interesting, the individual stories were cool, but there was a lot on the gambling/casinos/prostituion rings, which could be super interesting, but the way they were presented was too wordy and hard to really grasp. It was just different than I expected.
Once we finished there, we walked down to the wharf. Mom got her chance to see the Sydney Bridge and the Opera House. As soon as we got to the Opera House, Mom turned into a little girl. It was really cute. She was giddy and prancing all over the place. She was taking pictures every few feet like she wouldn’t ever remember what it looks like. It was somewhat disappointing that we couldn’t go inside, but she was still in utter glee and kept saying how she couldn’t believe that she was there.
Hyde Park Barracks next. On the way, we made a wrong turn, and had to go all the way over bridge, and then get back, which took an extra half an hour. The Barracks were three levels, each floor slightly different. They had interesting set ups of views of things, like a table set for dinner, and then a video camera shooting down the images of food and hands eating as if the people were there at the table. Also a section on the orphan girls that had been housed there, and what it was like for them. I really enjoyed it overall. In the courtyard, there was a shelter and a plaque for the three kitties that lived there at the Barracks, only one was home, but it was super cute and loved the snuggles I was so willing to give it.

Outside the Barracks in the park, there were bagpipes and a huge group of people. We watched them for awhile, thinking that they would eventually march down the street, but as soon as we saw that they were Socialist protesters, Mom was more than willing to go back to the car. We got to The Rocks area, and saw that the same market as yesterday was going on again. It was hard to decide on what to get for lunch with so many options looking super tasty. So Mom and I shared a cheese and spinach crepe/quesadilla thing, which was awesome. And then we each got one kebab, hers beef and mine chicken, although I should have had beef since mine had only two pieces of meat and one of those was rather gnarly. But overall it was tasty, it was like Chinese food on a stick. Tim had a KILLER hamburger. I could have had a whole one of those all by myself. There really wasn’t any non restaurant seating, so we ate while sitting on these big planters, not exactly easy, but it was better than standing and trying to juggle the plates.

We went and found Hillsong church, so that we would know exactly where it was later and wouldn’t have to be wandering around in the dark. There was a Cole’s right next door, so instead of going back downtown and walking or parking in an expensive lot, we parked in the free lot right in front of the door. On to the hotel, which was huge driving drama. GPS wasn’t seeming to take us there at all, so I had to follow the map, which was really hard because it looked easy enough on the map, but what WASN’T on the map was all of the one way streets that we couldn’t go down, that we needed to go down. I eventually got us there, and Tim only went through one red light to do it.

Only one bed, and mom and Tim immediately started fighting about who would be the one sleeping on the floor. Tim eventually was the one that won. There was a note saying that the gym was closed until the 3rd (the day we leave), but I went to check anyway, and it was at least functional. Got to the church in record time of about ten minutes. It looked like a shady esque neighborhood, but the building on the inside was clean and bright and gorgeous. You could tell immediately that it was going to be super awesome and that I wish I could go there on a regular basis. The speaker was super intelligent and was one of those people, that you just wanted to listen to. His talk made me want to take theology classes from him. It went over the 90 minute mark and I thought my poor mommy was going to pass out. It was 4:30am her time. Back to the hotel for a brief dinner and bed for Mom.

Robert Downey Jr Seven Stories Tall, aka Lazy Day in Sydney! (A30)

That's right, two posts in one day, but this one is short, so you can TOTALLY read both.

Friday, April 30, 2010
We didn’t get out of the room til 10amish. It was gloomy and dark. Not exactly raining, but raining off and on. We walked to the central stop, got a text from mom saying that she was on her first plane, and a txt from dad saying that he had dropped her off. We waited for our bus a little bit. We still had until 11:20 in the morning to ride the hop on hop off bus, so we figured we could at least get to our first destination on it for free.
We made it to the National Maritime Museum, really the only free museum, hence the reason it was picked. But when we got there, we realized you had to pay to see the boats, only the exhibits were free, but we figured we were already there, so why not? Ranging from the beginning of Australias European convict history all the way to the current navy and such. I also enjoyed reading about Australia’s reaction to the Japanese war brides of WWII.
We got to the IMAX, grabbed the schedule, and walking out decided that really, we were so museumed out that we really would be happiest seeing Iron Man 2 on the worlds largest IMAX. Seven stories tall. And a full week before its released in the U.S. nonetheless. We decided to go to the 2:15 showing, and it was 12:30 already, so we hoped to make it to the Rocks market before hand, and headed off towards there. We walked forever, accidentally overshooting the place that we wanted to be, so we had to double back because we were at a high way, and a high tail it a seriously long ways. Tim wanted to turn back numerous times, but I was super determined to make it and get back to the movie in time. Finally we made it to the market, it was about a block long. Bread stand, flowers, soap, fruit and veggie stand and then a bunch of food stands. All with super long lines. One had amazing bbq, great looking hamburgers. There was a crepe/calzone type looking place, and a Chinese place. All looked really good. But we only had about 45 minutes to make it back, I didn’t think we would make it if we waited for food. So we stopped at a bake shop on the way back .
We got to Circular Quay and figured our only real shot was to take a cab. We walked to the train station, got in the cab (the doorhandle came off when I went to shut the door). With lunchtime downtown traffic, it took a lot longer than we thought it would. We were stopped for minutes at every single light.
Assigned seats at the movie. Near the top, somewhat in the middle just fine for me. I mean, its hard to have a bad seat when the screen is literally seven feet tall. Did I mention yet that we were seeing Iron Man 2? Its really the only reason that I could justify spending it on a movie. 7 stories of Robert Downey Jr. is ok with me. It was great. But really it was nice to relax like that. No hard plot lines, just funny and explosions. Good time.

We walked back from the mall, towards the hotel, stopping at Coles on the way. Picking up a tub of masala chicken, and salad (again). Chilled at the hotel for the rest of the evening.

Bussing Around Sydney. (A29)

Thursday, April 29, 2010

The morning found our medical issue getting worse, I was getting really nervous about it. Dealing with our travel insurance and going to a doctor and finding a doctor, and figuring out how to pay and all that jazz is not something I want to be dealing with when I am supposed to be touring Sydney. But it was a hgue debate about going to the doctor because we don’t want to affect Mom when she gets here, and/or be completely incapacitated by the time she arrives, making the last two weeks totally miserable. We decided at the least to look up our medical travel insurance, just to see what we even could do. After looking at our policy, it was looking grim that a doctors visit would even be covered. Due to the fact that its not life threatening, and we had no idea if it would leave permanent injury or whatnot since we didn’t even know what it was.

We figure out some prescriptions that could help us out, and seeing as though we aren’t in the uber restrictive US, all of them can be got OTC here. If we couldn’t get them, we would go to the doctor, but there was no sense paying the extra if we could just do it ourselves.

Feeling accomplished, we found the place selling the Hop On Hop Off bus tickets, and bought ours. Sitting on the top, the weather was awesome, not having to drive, seeing everything and being super comfortable, nothing really jumped out at us as worth getting off the bus for. We rode the bus around a good portion of the loop, Tim getting hit in the head with a branch (hard too), but got off when we hit the rocks to go to the Information Center.

We walked to the Starbucks next door, ordered filtered coffee, but had to wait for them to make it, since they didn’t have regular coffee made, which I found really funny.

The bus was a great way to see the stuff, without Tim having to drive, and we could just look at everything and drive around and hear certain information about places. We arrived pretty quickly at the Bondi Beach stop, right in front of the beach. Between it, and a whole strip of stores and eateries that lined the road in front of it. I went into the first store right off the bus.

We shopped around for awhile, Billabong was first, and it had amazing stuff. Stuff I wanted really bad, and not just for myself, but for Tim too. Everything was just so ridiculously expensive, I couldn’t justify $100 for a shirt. It’s the same brand, I just don’t understand why NONE of it is available in the states. It is so frustrating. I want to dress cute. I want to dress my style, but at home, I cant do that. And neither can Tim. Argh! This town is full of real surfers who barely wear real clothes, and they are the town that get the super awesome clothing stores? I guess it makes sense with that kind of style, but still! Not fair!

Back to the front street of Bondi Beach. It didn’t take long to find the places that we each wanted to go. Tim got the fish chips and I got a mango surpise smoothee next door. I planned on getting the fruit bowl, but that was more expensive than the whole smoothee. I had some of Tims fish and chips that were absolutely amazing. At the smoothee place though, they had tons of awesome side salads. Made me really want the cucumber feta tomato Italian one. As well as the pumpkin, sweet potato, sun dried tomato salad. Yum.

Back to the hotel to start some laundry, hit up the internet a bit, and shop at Coles for our Masala chicken and salad dinner. We tried to figure out what to do tomorrow, and in what order, which causes a bit of drama. Medicated, we head to bed and I wonder how all of those people in New Zealand walk around barefoot all the time. At gas stations, on the streets, restaurants, everywhere we went, city or small town, there were people that were barefoot, just walking around no big deal. There was even one guy downtown Wellington that was running in no shoes. It was just ridiculous. Ouch. And gross.

April 28th: Hello Sydney!

Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Our first day in Sydney. Busy busy day.
I learned that putting orajel on bug bites at 2am….doesn’t do jack.
We didn’t actually leave the hotel until 8:50, walking through Hyde Park and another park to get to the wharf. The parks were gorgeous. Very Boston Gardens. Big fountains though, as well as the big ANZAC memorial. And then all of a sudden we rounded the curve, and BAM. There was the Sydney Opera house. It was really really weird. Just right there in front of me, something more iconic than the Eiffel Tower even. Its like, it hasn’t hit us that we are in Sydney. Australia.
We took some pictures of the bridge an the Opera house as the ferry passed right by them, but the half hour ferry ride seemed to take forever before we arrived in Manly.
There was some “Do we or don’t we” drama about the Q Station, but it was resolved, and we wandered downtown Manly to kill some time. We happened to pass an amazing looking deli that had rolls in the front window that Tim couldn’t pass up. We got one shell roll to share, and it was ooey and gooey and perfect. Something about Southern Hemisphere bread. Can’t be beat.
We picked up another man along the way on the shuttle, and the Santalike driver and him had a more personal conversation, including the statement, “A fine filly suggested we have lunch….of course it will be dutch.” It was beyond adorable. We were a full hour early, so we walked down the dock outside, saw lots of schools of fish swimming totally erratically, it was quite strange. We were the only ones on the tour, and our guide seemed very scattered. She told us all about the healing powers of the Quarantine Station, and that was really the only time she was very animated. It was weird though, it was a government facility, used all the way through 1984, and yet, they keep saying they know very little about it. Like where certain buildings were, and other pieces of information that should have been well documented since it was a government institution. It was just very strange. There were buildings and rooms that she said were still in the exact condition that they were left in, and yet, she didn’t have a key and couldn’t show us on the tour? It was just odd. Its like the concentration is solely on the Ghost Tours and Spa Hotel services (90% of the buildings had been turned into resorts and spas and such buildings) and not at all on people that want the actual history of the place. We did get to go into the shower rooms, where they showered in a carcogenic material, the hospital (part of which had been rebuilt since it burned down earlier this decade), saw where the tram up the hill was, the boiler and generator room has been turned into a bar. She was clearly into the sacred grounds of it, a decent enough guide, just a bit looney.
We walked all the way down the Corso and got to the Manly Beach at the end. Beautiful beach, long too.
It was relaxing to watch the ocean and the beach, there were a ton of people still out on the beach considering it was the middle of a work day too. On the way back through, we stopped in all of the clothing shops, which I don’t know if it was a good idea or not. We both could have spent thousands of dollars. Roxy, Billabong, Element….all were absolutely fantastic and I wanted everything. Tim wanted everything. But everything was so expensive. Like, more expensive than the States, which makes no sense since this is the country of origin! It was just obnoxious to try on the sweaters or a jacket or shirt and then have it be over $100. Because this is the clothing that we will never see anywhere near us in the states. Ever. Because its too much out of the Midwest fashion schema
Bought our dinner (our first night of the ever famous Chicken Tikka Masala) and back to the ferry to take us back to Sydney. I could have easily fallen asleep. I was sleepy and comfortable, the gentle rocking and breeze. Just give me something to lean on, and I would have been out. We hauled our load all the way back to the hotel and I was super sick of walking by the time we got back, but it didn’t help that we saw two grocery stores close to the hotel when we had just hauled four bags from Manly.
Things got reorganized and we left for our Ghost tour. Walked all the way back down to Cadman’s Cottage, We got checked in, and while standing in line realized that we were not the only Americans on this tour. Ghost Guide proceeded to hand out props to everyone, giving everyone a character to play at some point in the night. The props were somewhat large, and you wore them around your neck on a lanyard. Tim and I tried to avoid getting one, but then it was clear that he was going to pass them out until everyone had one. Somehow, he finished giving everyone one, and started the tour, only I still hadn’t gotten one. I was the only one off the hook. Only minutes into the tour, I was bored. It seemed to never end. I was hungry and tired almost right away as it started, and I hoped that I would get so enthralled with the stories and the tour that I would forget that my feet hurt and I was hungry. Not even halfway through I was ready to leave. Just chuck the prop at him and leave. Or hand it (and our self wound flashlight) to someone else and scram. We paid for it, we could tough it out, plus, maybe it would get better as it went on? His delivery of the decent stories was awful. I also saw more cockroaches in the tour than I have in my entire life. Also two dead rats. Too many pauses, stuttered and stumbled like he didn’t remember the stories. He seemed very unprepared or just flat dumb because he would stop mid sentence. His pausing style was absolutely awful.
But it finally ended, and there was a big hubaloo about finding the main part of the city again to take the train back to the hotel, but they dropped us off in nowhere and we kept getting stuck in sketchy dead ends.
Finally, chicken masala touched our lips, and life was whole again. ☺

Tuesday Travel Day: April 27th.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010
We both slept awful last night. It was hot and humid all night long. We woke up to the alarm at 7 to rain, but both of us were up numerous times during the night. Ugh. But it was the last night in the van!!! Yay for that.
We drove around Devonport, perused to the town a bit, but ended up parking near the New World. Across from the car was a Stonebakery Café place that looked amazing. We looked in and knew that that is where we would be getting our lunch from later on. The Devonport Library was amazing. They had free internet computers (30 min) for visitors. Tim even saw a kitty, but it ran into the office before I could love on it.
Left the library, and up the block was the pet store with four 7week old kittens and one 11week old kitten. All black and white and puffy and adorable.
We finished up all of our business in Auckland and filled up the HellVehicle with gas. We pulled off a few blocks away from the return place and pulled out our sandwiches. Mine was a Brie Vegetarian that was awesome. Lettuce, tomato, cucumber, roasted red pepper, squash, and brie on a seasame roll. Tim had a HUGE BLAT (blt with avacado).
Got to the car place, Tim ran in. We pulled up to the door and unloaded our bags. We told the girl about all of the insane problems with the car. Numerous lights out, electric key didn’t work, chiller didn’t work (“It’s a chiller, its not a fridge”), windshield wipers barely worked, dvd player kept falling, and the van was absolutely filthy with crumbs and crackers. She was rather snippity, but apologized. She had us fill out a survey for some grad student that was ridiculous and long. By the end I had given up. And like, if we had been expecting a regular van, that had some bars welded into it, with a couch cushion, it would have been different. Even if it had been clean it would have been different. It was the fact that they oversold their product in the advertisements and didn’t give what they said they would deliver. That was our big problem. She called a cab for us, and soon we had left the piece of crap behind.
Checked in at the airport, not too bad a line, had to show our tickets out of Australia, got to the first point, NZ passport check, no one told us we had to fill out forms, so we had to step aside to do that, but they weren’t upset about it at least. Next step was security, kept our shoes on, zero line, walked straight through. It was fantastic. The Auckland Airport is super nice, at least the international terminal is. I would fly through here anytime.
Onboard, looked at our movie options, chose Bad Leiutenant, and got started on it right away. Take off was quite bumpy, as was the first 20 minutes or so. My tv shut down for a bit, and totally restarted, but at least it came back! Got served our meal.
We landed, and passed through the first customs passport check in under a minute. Stamp stamp, done. Picked up our luggage, but it took awhile to come out, and ours were some of the last ones and I was beginning to be a bit worried about it.
We were a bit worried about customs, our food was easy, wine and coffee packets, but we had to mark that we had been in nature basically and my hiking shoes had mud on them. We got sent to the guy, asked about our food, no problem, asked if we had been to farms, no problem, see ya. And straight through with no checking. Awesome.
Train station was right there in the airport, we got our ticket easily, and the train was right there seemingly waiting for us when we got to the right platform. It was a double decker train, just like the train we rode in Paris. I forget how much I like trains. They are very homey. It took us five stops to get to the Museum stop, and then we had to haul our luggage up four different sets of stairs to get out of the station, and then it was a bit of a hike to the hotel. It really wasn’t that long, but at that point, it seemed a lot longer.

Russell with a side of syrup please.

It's impossible to come to Australia and not see a Russell Crowe movie. No matter how much you think he's a pompous butthead who can't act, right?

So there. I saw Robin Hood in Aussie Land. I took one for the team.

That being said, it wasn't as bad as I expected. His crew of merrymen made it worth it. Mainly, the Canadian. :)

And now I go to consume pancakes where British convicts were once sent to do manual labor....tasty social retribution!

Sydney Snippets.

I know I am jumping the gun a bit, but this stupid internet situation is just not peachy keen! I will get back to the daily stuff, but for now, here's a glimpse of time in Sydney!

Madre in Sydney.

Lori Nordyke is safely in Sydney. Today, she pranced around the Sydney Opera House, ate kabobs, and grooved at Hillsong.
Not to mention the Justice and Police museum, and the Hyde Park barracks, and the Rocks, AND grocery shopping.

Now she is curled into bed like a tuckered puppy, and has been since 8pm. Now lets see how early she gets up :)

And whiskers on kittens!!

Today has been awesome.

My sweet friend Heather posted us in her Gratitude blog. For those of you visiting from her site, I promise that the lack of pictures is unusual for me. And should be solved shortly! Welcome. Come back every now and again! The lack of pictures is from the fact that the last two weeks in New Zealand I lived in a van and had serious lack of wireless. And now Sydney seems to have the same problem! In fact, I am in a mall right now. But this shall be remedied. So come back!! Leave comments, post questions, I love it.

Number two awesome. We just got done seeing Iron Man 2 on the largest IMAX screen in the world. Robert Downey Junior at seven stories tall, is fantabulous.

Three. My mommy comes tomorrow! We are touring Australia for two weeks with her. Sydney (been here a few days already), Melbourne, Adelaide, Ayres Rock, and Cairns. We are spending some extra days there, and then back to Sydney in a couple of weeks. Its going to be amazing.

The weather was gorgeous yesterday. We did a touristy bus tour and sat on the top deck. This also included Bondi Beach for the best smoothee of your ENTIRE life.

Speaking of food, we have had the same exact meal for the past two nights, and plan on having it again tonight. Chicken Tikki something or other with some bread and a huge tasty salad. I must learn to make indian food. MUST. Iowa severely lacks this.

GLEE AIRED LAST NIGHT!!!!! Most shows here are a full season behind. NOT GLEE! The second season opener was bright and shining at 8pm. LOVE.

Ok. Today is happy.

Sydney.

We should have moved to Sydney.

I wish I had a million dollars for clothes.

Everything here is adorable.

No wireless in the hotel, and expensive on kiosk. More to come.

Promise.

My mommy is here on Saturday!!!!

Suckface.

We have another reason to hate HATE HATE Spaceships.

I won't go into details.

But its miserable.

Although thanks to the brilliance of one Sydney pharmacist, we avoided a $200 copay.