Advertisement
Published: January 20th 2008
Edit Blog Post
It's summertime Christmas in the land Down Under, and that means Beaches, Sun, and dinner from a microwave? 😊 I rented an "apartment" for the holiday week in Sydney, because I knew me and the boys were going to want to make a real meal and celebrate traditionally! Except when I checked in, the kitchen was basically a micro (that was also an oven?) and a small portable two burner deck that I could precariously balance over the sink (boiling water was dangerous!) I got into town on Chrismas Eve, so shopping was crazy, and I was grocery shopping, gift shopping for the boys, and shopping for any last minute decorations to try and spruce up the place! All at the grocery store! I pulled it all together and we had a very festive backdrop for our super UN-traditional festivus! I had to plan a very careful meal, given the cooking circumstances, but still pulled off a ham, beef roast, baked potato bar (with bacon, cheese, sour cream, the works!), corn on the cob, and of course some homemade guacomole and chips as well as cheese and sausage appetizers! What Christmas is complete without that!?!?
We had these popular things
called crackers, that are basically paper pull toy things that crack really loud when you pull on them and out pops a RANDOM plastic gift (my favorite was the pink elephant key chain) and a ridiculous paper crown that we all were caught wearing at one point or another! We exchanged gifts, ate tons of food, and then headed down to Bondi Beach on Christmas Day where we met up with my friend Tom (a dive buddy I met in Malaysia) and tons of other travelers from around the world! (mostly UK...seriously, are there any people left in that country?) Even though the weather wasn't great, there were tons of people on the beach and we had a super MERRY day!
The following two days I spent down in the harbor area exploring both the botanical gardens and the city's famous sights - the harbor bridge and opera house! Mark and I went to the museum for contemporary art one day and saw some really insightful and interesting photographic exhibits! My last night in Australia we took a harbor hop on-off cruise around town and decided to hop off in a super fun little village called Watson's Bay. We
did a short hike to the other side of the penenisula to find huge cliffs and awesome rocks overlooking the sea! We went back down to the dock to catch the last boat back to the city....which never came....so we decided to make the most of it and enjoy dinner and some drinks overlooking the bay with a-ma-zing views looking back at downtown sydney!
My last morning in Sydney was spent at an internet cafe trying to figure out a)why I deleted the email from Ryan saying which hotel we were staying/meeting at b)which hotel it was - I remember that the website had red in the pictures? c)how the heck I was going to contact him since he was already in-flight d)where we would meet e)where i would stay f) oh geez! Lucky for me, I actually recognized a website (after looking through abouty 30 of them) called the hotel, and yes! They had a res for Ryan Mason! Well, here's to hoping it's the right Ryan Mason and I don't go knocking on some stranger's door! 😊
Advertisement
Tot: 0.058s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 15; qc: 29; dbt: 0.0292s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb