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Published: January 5th 2012
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Happy 2012 everyone!
It seems a long time since my last entry! Our flight from Bali to Sydney went without a hitch and by lunch time we were settled into the hostel we spent an entire day picking back in July (which seems a very long time ago now!) We ended up being put in a family room which meant we had a TV, 3 extra beds (useful for airing clothes!) and a huge fridge which it took us no time to fill with food from the supermarket.
Sydney is exactly what we hoped for, and we spent the first few days wandering the streets without being hassled by taxis, eating in the park without being accosted by hawkers and eating food without worrying about whether it had been washed in tap water! Then Emma decided that she needed to do something more extreme so she did a sky dive! I can vouch from watching the flight details in our recent flight that 14,000 feet is far too high to be jumping out of a plane, that it´s a ridiculous thing to want to do and that in a million years you wouldn´t catch me doing it. But, inevitably,
Christmas Eve!
Ready for Carols I had pangs of jealousy when Emma came back having had the experience of a lifetime, her video is brilliant and her certificate is way cool!
We had a fantastically merry Christmas dinner on the 23rd (An open bar will make most meals very jolly!) with some friends from the hostel and on Christmas eve we went to a Salvation Army Band carol service at one of the squares in the city. Then we toddled over to the Sydney Cathedral, bobbed our head in on midnight mass and promptly went to the Light show which was projected onto the front of the Cathedral and was very Christmassy.
Christmas morning was spent on Bondi beach, where we had ice creams and managed to burn even more! Emma can´t imagine ever being cold again and a hot Christmas certainly felt very strange. From there we took an almighty picnic to the botanical gardens, and overlooking Sydney Harbour ate a vast amount of food including a roast turkey (ahem, chicken), mince pies and a tub of Celebrations, keeping very much to the Christmas spirit!
Between Christmas and new year was fairly uneventful then came the main event. We woke up
at 6.30 am and in a nod to Fenton firework tradition treated myself to a sausage and egg mcmuffin, divine! (Emma chose to stay in bed an extra 20 minutes, madness!) by 7.15 we were queuing up to get a good spot in the gardens to watch the NYE fireworks. Although we thought 15 hours before was pretty committed, at least 1000 insane people had camped overnight in the queue the night before NYE, each to their own I suppose! Once we had established our spot (and protected it fiercely with our lives for 12 hours) we knew it would be worth the wait and when the fireworks began I don´t think there will have been many people anywhere with a better view. There was a stunt plane flyby, sky writing, boat competitions and then, on the stroke of 12, the fireworks! They were utterly spectacular and completely painted the sky (for firework geeks out there, the biggest shell was 10 inch, so we had them beat!) it was the best show I´ve ever seen and the crowd made it so exiting. 40,000 people la la la´d Auld Lang Syne (as no one knew the lyrics!) and with that the
NYE
Happy New Year new year was bought in.
We had a relaxing New years day, catching up on some sleep. That was until around 11pm when I decided to double check our flight time to Argentina. THANK GOD I DID! It wasn´t the 3rd January at all, it was at 11:00, the following morning! AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!! Now apparently this is a (fairly) common occurrence in the Soper house, but for me it was a massive stress! Of course we got everything packed, managed to sort our shuttle bus to the airport and all was well again! (Sorry mum!)
Our 14 hour flight zoomed by because it had been ages since we could sit back and watch good films, (I recommend Moneyball!) and having flown over the spectacular Andes, we arrived in Buenos Aires ready to get back to some proper travelling. Yesterday we settled in and more importantly ate incredible 20 oz steaks and today while Emma slept off some residual jetlag I had a look at the Boca Jrs Futball stadium… Next stop, Iguazu falls!
Missing you all,
Adam and Emma
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kate
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Wow, sounds amazing, missing you too. Have a wonderful time in South America. Kate x