Sydney: Days 1-4

Day 1:
We arrived Monday night in Sydney to pouring rain and here we thought we were leaving that all behind in New Zealand!


We hopped in a cab to Becky's apartment on Bondi Beach (she's a friend from SF that has been living here for about 3 years). We were greeted with a familiar face, a bottle of wine and Thai food. It could not have been any better.

Day 2:
Nelly and I hopped on the bus to downtown Sydney and did some exploring. We found a free 2.5 hour walking tour of the city that took us to all of the highlights. It was a great tour because it did not just explain the history or the obvious, but also some quirky things, like what Australians nickname their money (a yellow $50 bill is called a pineapple and the red $20 bill is called a lobster). We ended the tour in the Botanic Gardens which has a really bad fruit bat problem right now. Those suckers are huge and I will let Nelly explain his encounter with them.




After our trip around the city we met up with Becky when she got off of work for drink and Trivia Tuesday. We won the prize for 3rd to last place. Apparently you need to know a lot about Australian sport, music and candy to do well. We had a great time though with Becky and some of her friends.

Apparently we stayed out past Nelly's bed time.

Day 3:
I woke up to this. Becky lives right on Bondi Beach (consistently named one of the top 10 beaches in the world) and the views from her place are amazing.


We then headed back downtown to meet Becky for lunch and then to have a closer look at some of the sights we had seen during the previous day's tour.

We then met Becky for a drink at the Opera House and watched the sunset.

And finished the night with our first encounter with a kangaroo...on a pizza at the Australian Hotel. It was actually really good...tasted just like steak.


Day 4:
We spent the day yesterday at the beach. It started with a 2.5 hour hike along the coast to all of the neighboring beaches.

Check out this rugby pitch!

We then just spent the day reading and relaxing at Bondi.

Bondi graffiti.

This is from the roof of Becky's building. Notice the lack of sky rise hotels!

To say the least, we are loving Australia!

Location:Sydney