Arrival in Sydney

Hello from the land down under!

It is 7:30 am and we are sitting in the club lounge overlooking the Sydney Harbor.


We can see the famous bridge (which we will be climbing in about 2 hours) and the opera house, which looks more like two viking helmets perched on the water.










Our highlights so far are that (1) I made eye contact with George Lopez at JFK airport (I always love a good celebrity sighting); (2) we saw two hen parties yesterday (bachelorette parties) -- one of which was all out -- there were three younger women totally punked out with the leather skirts, fishnet stockings, multi-colored hair and collars on; two older women dressed as princesses with tiaras and wands; two dressed as police officers; and the oldest woman, who was in her late 50's was dressed in her finest lilac dress with matching hat. i didn't have the guts to ask them for a group picture, but the ones below are decent shots; and (3) we saw a commercial being filmed about a block from our hotel.








So what about Sydney, you ask? Well, the weather is fabulous, and we took the obligatory town bus tour to get our bearings yesterday. All the buildings are made of sandstone, and they are all named after landmarks in London -- George Street; the Strand; Hyde Park; Queen Elizabeth Park; etc.; not much originality in the late 1700's I suppose. Later we walked along the harborside and then into the area called the Rocks which is full of good shopping. I didn't know it before, but apparently Opals are the gem of choice here in Australia --boy is Rob in trouble now!