Another big goal completed! The City2Surf run on August 10, 2008, sponsored by the Sydney Morning Herald was a total blast! It was way more fun than I had expected. I read about the running race in my Lonely Planet Guide to Sydney before I came and the incentive....my name in the newspaper if I finished! I have to admit I was nervous leading up to the 14km race. Although the training schedule published by the City2Surf committee was taped to my wall, I hadn’t really followed it and was wondering if I would even finish. But we had a big [View Full Entry]

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Well that was a close one. If someone had of called my bluff, I would have been back in Canada by now! Luckily I wasn’t in Sydney on July 27 when rumours of snow were flying around. Earlier this year when I was whining about the weather not living up to my unrealistic expectations I said (outloud with witnesses) “That’s it, if it snows in Sydney, I’m outta here.” Well, luckily we were in the Blue mountains and I didn’t actually see this ‘snow’ first hand or I would have had to make an early departure for Canada! From all accounts [View Full Entry]

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So, 'World Youth Day 2008' (http://www.wyd2008.org/) - the week commuters have been dreading - has just wrapped up here in Sydney. Ugh. It ended up to be over a week of more than 200,000 'pilgrims' from all over the world taking over the City and surrounds, the sidewalks, the parks, the transportation, the markets - everywhere. Basically, we've been told months ago to avoid the City and if you had to go, not bother driving (roads were closed, hundreds of people looking the wrong way before crossing the street, etc) and take the packed public transport - Fun! That's more people [View Full Entry]

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Check out some of these videos we took while on vacation - hopefully they work! It seems that, depending on your computer and video setup they can be a little blurry. May have to get myself a new camera... [View Full Entry]

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Ningaloo Reef - My vacation from my holiday! We spent Tuesday night in Balmain with Matt’s Aunt and had a delicious dinner and were a little closer to the airport for the 6am red-eye flight to Perth - that means up at 4:45 am. It was an uneventful day of travelling to get from Sydney to Perth to Exmouth (1270 km North of Perth). We stepped off the plane in Exmouth into the hot, humid sunshine ….ahhhhhh. After a 30 min shuttle into town, we landed at our home for the week - the Ningaloo Holiday Caravan Resort. A two bedroom [View Full Entry]

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It's been a great month! Lots of ocean related updates for you... Last Friday, Matt got tickets for the Sydney Showboat Dinner Cruise! So I rushed home to find a bunch of cars parked hap-hazardly at the end of Addison Road, in front of our apartment. My guess, which turned out to be right, was that the humpback whales were in town! The peninsula on which we live is a great place to have a look for the whales which play around in the Sydney Harbour this time of the year. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to investigate as we had [View Full Entry]

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Canberra, the capital of Australia, does not usually make the list of 'Places I'd like to see in Australia' however I eagerly accepted Matt's offer to meet him while he was there on business. He did live in Canberra for a bit and thought we could spend the weekend seeing the sites. It's a 3 hour drive South of Sydney or a really short flight. I chose to fly Friday night and drive back with Matt but got teased since the only one who normally flies to Canberra is the Prime Minister (Kevin Rudd)! The only hitch to this plan was [View Full Entry]

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My laptop was acting up and the repair has wiped out my camera software so no pics this time except for some that Matt took on his phone. Hopefully I will figure something out for the next entry and be able to get the pictures off my camera. This also meant that I wasn’t able to SKYPE for the last few weeks. If you don’t have SKYPE (www.skype.com) - you should get it!!!! Then we can catch up on webcam for free!! Here’s the low down on what I’ve been up to in no particular order… Before I left Canada, one [View Full Entry]

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As you are seeing the light of Spring in Canada, we are heading into Fall - or Autumn as it is called here which makes me wonder where the term Fall came from, leaves? Anyway... I hate to say it but I might miss some of my fall clothes. As I was packing for Australia, it didn't really enter into my thoughts that I might not be on the beach every day in 30C sunshine. Sydney weather seems to be like Florida, which would make sense latitude wise. Oh well, more shopping I guess! Update for the last couple of weeks... [View Full Entry]

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Time is just flying by - all of a sudden it is Easter Weekend and Bluesfest time (http://www.bluesfest.com.au)! Here in Australia the school kids have a couple weeks off and we get both Friday and Monday off from work, but that wasn’t quite enough time to get to the Bluesfest 2008 (aka Byron Bay East Coast Blues & Roots Festival) so I took Thursday off too. Byron Bay is a famous beach and backpacker haven and is a 9 hour drive North from here (just 2 hours south of Brisbane). We left early and got there in time for the Thursday [View Full Entry]

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