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The pictures on here are random because I can't be bothered right now to sort them out. Okay, really I tried to put them in order, but I was up late last night watching the fellowship of the ring and it's seven thirty in the morning.

The first picture (trainsyd.jpg) is us sweltering on the train in our jeans and long sleeves. Stepping out of the fridgedly air conditioned airport and into the warm breezy suntan lotion smelling vacationy air of Sydney Australia was wonderful - but it got hot. You could literally smell the hot sand and coconutty scent of beach lube. The scenery was gorgeous - there were trees and art all over the outside of the building. We had nothing. The airlines lost our luggage. Most people on our flight had at least one or two pieces of their luggage and then there was us - Patrick and I, a girl with dreadlocks and another person were the small few who had absolutely nothing except our carry ons. It was the first time in my life I didn't pack a small outfit into my carry on. I will never do that again.

We took the train as close to our hotel as we could get. When the woman blew her whistle at me, I froze and turned around to look at her. What that trill tweet meant was to hop onto the train! I didn't know that. Mr. Know It All knew that - but failed to tell me, instead leading me from one door to the next in some frantic we need great seats hurry. Anyway, we got to the hotel, checked in, turned on the air conditioning and decided we absolutely had to go shopping for something clean to wear as the thought of showering and putting our travel clothes back on was unappealing.

We came to Sydney during peak shopping season. Everyone was on holiday, everyone was shopping and I got a skirt and two tops for fifteen dollars! I'm not sure if it was worth standing in line for forty minutes - but one of the tops was only two dollars and fifty cents! Patrick's shops were of course less busy. We went back to the hotel, showered, changed and headed back out. We walked to Darling Harbour. On one of the buildings it says, "Hello Darling!" Thats where we saw the Canadian performer (she's a comedian),

the australian ibis (that long beaked bird)

and where I had to soak my aching feet. I got new shoes because they were too hot in the sneakers I'd worn on the plane. That fountain is pretty cool - you can walk the spirals all the way down to the center. Lots of children were taking advantage of that. The water was warm and chloriney.

We ordered in excruciatingly expensive delivery (and later found out it was a restaurant in a food fair at the mall) that night and went to sleep early. The next day we ventured through the gardens in the heart of the city. We passed the bed

and the hospital.

Oh right - we were also on hold with qantas trying to find out about our luggage. They said they had it so we might have it that afternoon. We decided to stay close so that if it came, we'd nip out to Bondi beach (with my bikini) and get to put on clean clothes! We walked past the Rum Hospital, past the bed in the middle of the field, compared the Aussie Tower to the Sky Tower

(the oz tower is pretty ugly eh?) and panicked when we looked up and saw BATS.

They are actually called flying foxes, they have red chests (like the red panda) and were just hanging out in droves in the trees, one occasionally flying around. They are HUGE!

We had lunch in the gardens (you can get a decent salad across the ditch) and headed towards the Opera House.

They were setting up for a huge concert (proceeds going to the Tsunami victims) and we found the tickets were sold out. There were jelly fish in the water, and some cool ball of silver pinwheels hanging off of the Harbour Bridge. We walked all the way back to Darling Harbour ( I think we checked on our luggage first) and went to the museum to check out The Lord of the Rings exhibit! That was pretty cool - seeing some of the costumes, armour, how they filmed things, weapons, and other very cool stuff. On the way, we stopped at the Queen Victoria Building (the QVB)

where we saw the chocolate fountain (and thought of Gord) and that beautiful stained glass. We did try some of the truffles at the chocolate fountain shop (which were pretty good) and found out that there are absolutely no rubbish bins at all whatsoever in the QVB. It's a huge three level mall with hundreds of shops, and not a single garbage can to be found anywhere at all in the building. Bizarre eh? but it's the cleanest centre I've ever seen!

We went out to dinner at something like Planet Hollywood but called something else (across the street from the movie theater) and had some bland food there. Everything else about that place was super cool, the history, the deco, the service was mostly okay, and the food LOOKED so good, but it was awful. We watched Ocean's Twelve and it was a pretty crappy movie.

The next day, we tried to phone the airlines again to see about our luggage. We couldn't get through. Defeated, frustrated, we prepared to put on our three day old clothing again (we'd washed our delicates in the sink :P) and got the call!!!! The phone started ringing!~!!! I was all PATRICK, ITS THE PHONE - ANSWER IT ANSWER IT!!!!! He was pretty excited too and then the girl downstairs told him our LUGGAGE ARRIVED!!!!!!!!! We were so happy! We had clothes everywhere, we had to look at everything! life was good again.

We took the train to the Blue Mountains. We had a most excellent lunch at Cafe Zuppa and paid for all day trolley tickets to tour around. :P The food was very very yummy, and the service was pretty good - but I didn't see anyone wash their hands. We caught a trolley, which was super touristy and found the Three Sisters

and an Aboriginee man. There were two, but the younger guy was having a smoke break. There was all of this yellow rock, and lovely greenery, but there was litter and all of the rock had some teenager's signature carved into it. . . so there are no pictures of that stuff. It was very crowded, there were tons of tourists looky seeing at the gorgeous view.

On the two our train ride back to the city, I did some cross stitching. The view from the train the entire way is filled with graffiti on all of the fences facing the train. It was somewhat disheartening. You know you're having tourists come and visit your mountains - clean it up.

I'm going to be late for work this morning if I don't sign out right now.

missing you millions!

April mom

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