Sydney

I've been busy/lazy and haven't posted since arriving in Sydney, so here goes. We arrived yesterday morning and checked into the Intercontinental Hotel. Yet another stunning temporary abode. This isn't my personal picture (haven't finished uploading the new ones yet) but this is actually a picture from the same side of the building that I'm on, thus this is the view out my window.

So yesterday we took a 3 hour cruise all around Sydney Harbor. The experience itself was fantastic but they just HAD to stick cruise director Julie on board to add her trite, if not fanciful history of the harbor. The only thing worse than a bad cruise guide is a bad cruise guide who attempts humor yet fails and is a raging bitch to boot. My uncle asked her a perfectly legitimate question regarding flags on the ships and she deferred the question to Aunt Flo who unleashed some veiled vitriolic verbal vomit (how's that for alliteration). That's V to the 4th power which is twice as annoying as your run of the mill verbal vomit (V squared). Seriously though, this woman felt that it was worthwhile to inform us all that, "just last week over there on the bank they held a wedding for 14 couples at the same time and I'll tell you what...not one of those bridesmaids had the same color dress!!!". Honey, if I wanted to hear about women with big hair wearing an array of putrid colored bridesmaids dresses, I would have passed on the 15 hour flight to Australia and hopped a shorter one to Lubbock thank you very much. Yet another prime example of a guidance counselor failing miserably at his job. I digress.

Following the cruise we moved on to an extremely over priced dinner at a lackluster restaurant. My proper southern upbringing prevents me from mentioning the establishment's name. It would be unseemly. Fuck, who the hell am I kidding...it's called Manta and I say two thumbs down. A now running family joke has formed about our first day experiences in Sydney. Though, if yesterday (while fun) ran a bit a muck, today over compensated for it.

We tore all over the city and saw some of the most awe inspiring views of my life. After our long trek the group fractured. There was the "Shoppers Guild", the "Walkabout Guild" and the "Insane Guild". I joined the Insane Guild as our self imposed mission was to walk to the base of the Sydney Harbor bridge, plop down $170 and sign up to fully climb the exterior arch of the bridge (fully exposed to the elements). Here's a picture of the structure we climbed. I have hard prints of us on top but need to digitally scan them when I get home.



This was one of the most incredible experiences. You have to go through a huge orientation during which you're required to take a breathalizer test.....I passed....WOOHOO! After you get all geared up in their jump suits you hop into a modest harness and clip into the meager cable at the base and begin walking. At first you're on wooden planks below the entrance ramp to the bridge (still over land). You walk a bit and a bit more and they you reach the massive stone pylon at which point you begin climbing some internal catwalks (very behind the scenes type stuff of the bridge). The next thing you know you step out, the wind is blowing and you're on a tiny steel grate which flexes when you walk on it looking straight down into the bay. As if this wasn't unnerving enough, you now must climb 4 vertical ladders which your feet barely fit into and which you can see straight out all around up through the actual road deck where cars are zipping by your head before you reach the massive steel arches that you can see in the picture above (we're talking the larger of the two arches). At that point you walk up the top battling 35 mph winds which are strong enough to upset your center of gravity. I'll admit a certain degree of trepidation but ultimately that melted away to pure adrenaline. IT ROCKED!!! Out of our group of 10 only 3 of did it. Bragging rights ;)

Anyway, to make an already long story short, we then went to a fantastic dinner at a restaurant on Darling Harbor called Nick's (yes, I know..I'm branching out). If any of you visit here, go to Nick's and order the Bay Bugs; you most certainly will not regret it. After that we hit the casino and while Jake doubled his money, I ended up down. So we're back at the hotel room, drinking and typing out blogs for everyone to enjoy. Tomorrow we're catching a flight to Cairns (pronounced Cannes). Since tomorrow is going to be a moderately low key day, travel aside, I'm probably going to hold off on posting until Thursday night (your Thursday morning) since we'll have just returned back from scuba diving off the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef.

Later!