fifteen minutes til go time

just had a late breakfast. have been having only two meals a day here, getting up later than usual and eating around 9 ish every night. Our plane takes off at 3:30. I am sitting here waiting for the shuttle to take us to the airport. Keeping my fingers crossed. Want to get on the plane and on my way. Not sure what we will do if there is no room on the plane. Will have to stay another night and money is getting tight for both of us. It is a beautiful day and we ate in an outdoor cafe next to a circular shaped fountain that shot water out of little metal spikes. Our night last night was uneventful. Went across the street to the Bada Bing to get Kurt a shirt and people watched for awhile. This is a very ecletic area. Hookers, druggies, tourists and lookey loos (like me) are everywhere. GOing to miss being on vacation and am dreading the jump back to reality. Miss all my buddies and babies, though, so hopefully we will be back monday around 10ish. am Going to try to stay awake to combat the jet lag that is going to hit be like a bus. See you soon.....

last nite down unda

spent an awesome day at the beaches. went from Bondi to tamarara to bronte to cogee to gordons bay. quite a walk. We didn't stay at bondi but stopped at tamarara and laid out on the rocks. I went into the water and got beat up. The waves are for surfing for sure. There were three rescue guys yelling at the people to only go in up to their waists and to stay between the flags which were only about 20 feet apart ( I kid you not). After that we walked to bronte and swam in the rock pool. It is basically a pool carved out of rock that is filled with sea water and the waves crash over the wall and splash into the pool. Met a local who swore that getting smashed in the face was the greatest thing about the pool. Tried it and disagreed. Walked to cogee and had a few beers and moved on to Gordons beach. My initial intention was to go snorkeling but it just wasn't in the cards. Bought gear at a store in Bondi Junction but it was a kids size and the flippers were too small for my big giant size 10 feet and the mouthpiece was missing as well. Tried not to flip out too much about that, got a little dose of Zen going on... all in all a beautiful last day here. Hopefully we will be on a plane tomorrow coming home, have to fly standby so we will see. Had THE best thai food again tonight waiting on the floor beneath me and the computer. gotta git. thanks for staying with me.

hand of god

some pics

bush-walking

we went bushwalking today. bushwalking in our language in california is taking a hike. We had to get up a 7 am this morning to meet up with the tour bus. Went to bed last night at 11, didn't want to take any chances. Our bus driver was pretty wild looking and made beep beep noises when he made right hand turns. THought he was going to have a heart attack or stroke climbing up one of our trails. I considered getting the keys from him just in case but instead offered him my water. Saw a baby joey and its mom and dad. They are like deer to us. They get hit by cars just like them. Really cute though. We saw some falls and a rock formation called the three sisters. Used my film camera today so wont be posting them. Made it down 800 steps to the bottom of this trail and was hoping to climb back up it for exercise but the driver made me take the rail car back up due to the fact that I lost track of time and would have made everybody wait for me. He was sort of pissy with me because at first I tried to evade him and go up anyway and he sort of chased me (he is not in the best of shape). The rail car was crazy. It was like a rollercoaster but it went backwards really fast between rock canyons. Took us three minutes and it was scary. The tour took all day. We had 7 Danish kids in there early 20's on the bus with us and they were really entertaining. Just had the best thai food ever and am going to go up to our room and put some sweats on and relax. Tomorrow is our last full day. Today was in the 80's. HOpe tomorrow is as well, going to go snorkeling if I can find some gear for less than 40 bux. It is really expensive here. Little bottles of water are 3.50. Night.

some pics

kick back easy day??

we went to the beaches today. Took the bus to Bondi and walked this amazing trail along the coast. Finally ended up at Clovelly beach and hung there for a few hours. It is a holiday today so lots of people (again) dressed in the flag and having drinks and BBQ'ing. Talked to this guy who was snorkeling and he told me that they had just seen a shark. He had his kids with him and they weren't fazed at all. I guess not all sharks are bad although there has been some buzz in the news about a diver who had a run in with a shark and he punched it in its eye and got away. I would prefer to have a stun gun but not sure how that would work with water and all if you get my drift. Maybe I will get a chance to snorkel on sunday. tomorrow we bush walk, have to get up at 7 so early to bed tonight.

australia day

today is australia day and everybody has been going nuts since last night. Australians love to party. Many people walking around wearing the australian flag in many different forms. One guy was wearing it as a diaper, missed that photo op. The concert was CRAZY!! Didn't get to go backstage like we thought but we had this whole area to ourselves that surrounded the Hand. Everyonce in awhile some crazy aussie would try to breach the wall. Took lots of pics. The Lotus gals were really nice and we spent most of the day hanging back with them waiting to light the hand up. Saw the Killers, they were great. Saw the Vines, Jet and of course Tool..I know why they call themselves Tool now...they were such babies about the hand being lit off during their show. They refused to play until the fire show was over. Then they came back over and told the head lotus girl not to say anything about what babies they were being. Saw the violent femmes as well, they rocked. After the show we went to an after party at some crazy three story bar. The bathroom was something out of a james bond movie. Once I was done using the toilet this picture on the wall slid up and revealed the sink and then when I was done it slid back. What the??? Was my usual charming self and got free drinks for us all. Can't believe how expensive drinks were. Couldn't be sure whether there were rock stars there or not, everybod sort of looked like one. Rumors were that there were members of Muse and one guy from tool but I have no idea what they look like so... got home around 5 am. good times.

re pics

that was our flight attendant. the sec. is the opera house, took tons of pics of that from everywhere possible..third is a bus ad..they spare no dime on their advertisement..too funny....

some pics

day three??

not really sure what day this is, this has been confusing for me. I keep asking erica what day it is.. I guess technically it is my second day. Woke up around 6 am with the sun shining in my room. Only time I didn't want to kill something for waking me up. rolled back over and went back to sleep. It is stifling hot here. We were 10 mins late for breakfast and they wouldn't feed us, gave us the "were sorry" look. Wanted starbux so bad so we walked a bit, couldn't find one so we went into Cafe Linda (go figure..). Three cockroaches tried to jump into my bag so we got the heck out of there and ate at Rocco's. Had beans with my eggs...hmm..they were baked going to have to include that in my menu at home. I thought the dude was saying "bit"and it caused a "bit" of confusion for a minute there. Nice old Italian guy, kissed my hand when we left. Took the bus to Circular Quay and walked for days to the opera house. took tons of pics. Then we walked up a million flights of stairs up the bridge. Not sure of the name but it is THE bridge that we see from everywhere. Last night we went to Balmain via the ferry. It was so perfect. It rained but not enough to ruin it for us. TOmorrow is the BIG show. Can't wait. Talked to One of the Flaming gals and they did a show last night and partied with MUSE after. Have two tix for tomorrow night so don't have to sweat it (thought that only one of us was going to get in). More tomorrow.

no monsters yet

okay, so our first day here. the ride was LOOOONNNNG...we had a few hours delay and finally we were able to get on with our trip. we flew business class and had lots of leg room. our steward set out to get us drunk right away but it back fired because a wheel was messed up and it had to be changed so we were stuck for a three hour wait... by that time I was sobered up and plenty awake. Took a pill after dinner and slept for 5 hours. thank god for pills... :) Watched a movie and ate and we were there. the steward took a liking to erica and plied us with more alcohol. He got a little excited when we told him that we were staying in the hooker district... thought we wouldn't be able to shake him. We spent the day walking around getting our bearings, we are in a part of town that looks sort of like the tenderloin but with pretty trees and no urine.. everybody is really nice here and we have gotten to meet lots of people who have been able to guide us to where we need to go (in a nice way). Going to take a ferry tonight and chekc out Balmain. Not sure about tomorrow.... Take care all.

5 more hours

it is five hours until takeoff. Have my bug spray and magazines. There are monsters in Australia and I am a little scared. Read a blog by the flaming lotus gals and they said that there are millions of sharks in the waters. Ugh, wish I had never seen JAWS. Not to sure what to expect, our hotel room is a little dodgy (like that word). Will post pics when I get there....