OZ, Anyone?

Yes, I am in Sydney, Australia.
Yes, I have had a super-swell time.
No, I have not gotten after it in the drinking dept.
No, I have not spoken with any hotties except to buy the wares in their stores.

The. . . uh, Sydney. . . uh, Opera House?

We flew out on the 26th of Oct. and got in on the morning of the 28th. Thank you international date line. Travelling with the two older Bros and our Pops is a different kind of experience. Good and a sometimes not as good. . . but still good.

So we got into Sydney Friday morning and checked out Darling Harbour, Sydney Tower, Hyde Park and I suppose the airport when we first got in. Darling Harbour is just super-McDonalds-Hyper-Expensive-Tourist-Land. . . but still rather beautiful. Sydney Tower provides a rather kick-ass three-hundred-sixty degree view of the city and is was worth every penny. Unfortunately, we opted for the combined ticket with a little something called OzTrek. Yeah, um, if you've got the chance to pass on that you may want to go ahead and take that chance (to pass, mind you). The OzTrek 'Experience' was a terrifically terrible mixture of cutting edge technology (circa 1982), more information about Oz than one person can take (because the info was truly common sense and full of super-fun (moronic) cliches) and to cap it all off my fat-ass was treated to the back-tweaking expertise of a 4-D movie experience where you strap your butt into an older-than-GW's-lies hydraulic chair while the screen provides you additional information about Australia that a two-year-old happens to already contains in his tiny noodle.

'Nuf o' that crap.

Aside from wasting a little money on that mandatory tourist trap things have been amazing. Our hotel is located in the Haymarket district which is basically Chinatown for Sydney. We've had some good Chinese, Japanese and Turkish meals so far. We've also eaten at an Irish pub. Sydney is a lot like SF. .. good place to find almost any kind of food that you've got a hankerin' for. As far as I can tell Aussie food consists of anything they throw on the barbie and beer.
(Fun fact for the post: On a news ticker one morning the news was, "In a recent poll taken almost 50% of Australians believe that getting drunk occassionally is part of the Aussie way of life." Now here's a country I can relate to.)

. . . . the dots are there to symbolize that I had to stop writing at that point but I had every good intention of getting back to it before we left Syndey. Unfortunately, I did not get to it and now I'm in Port Douglas. Just wrote a couple of beautiful entries on my Pops' laptop with the hope of plugging it into the network here but that backfired on me and I'll have to find a way to do it later. Figured I'd better get this posted just in case anyone remembers that I have this site. Port Douglas and the rainforest in gorgeous. Too bad I'm too broken to appreciate it.

That's Blogtastic

(Everyone can thank the Middle-Dit-Bro for the title of this post.)

I'm here to temporarily change the function of this blog. Until now I've been posting as a tour leader as I spent all summer attempting to ensure that other people had a good time in the United States. For the next three weeks if I have the opportunity to post I will be doing so. . . .(gasp). . . on my own holiday.
Crazy.

Late tomorrow afternoon I will be traversing the wonderful world of BART with my Brothers and our Pops on our way to SFO and then to the beautiful country of Austria. . . oh, um, yeah. . . Australia. (Do you think they'd like it if I made that mistake whilst in their country?) That's right boys and girls, over three weeks of the world's most beautiful beaches, amazing views and dangerous insects for our vacationing pleasure. The rough itinerary involves Syndey (four nights), Port Douglas (near Cairns, nine nights) and the Island of Tasmania (nine nights).

The specifics are not important and not planned. . . as they should(nd't?) be. There'll be some bridge hiking in Sydney, some snorkeling above the Great Barrier Reef and some Tasmanian-Devil-Dodging in Tasmania (I missed the cut for that event by two Devils in the last Olympic trials).

Truly, I am unsure of whether I will be posting at all, given that the vacation will be short lived and only two of the four people attending will have laptops. I am also unsure of whether anyone will be monitoring this site since I've been back home for a few months now. (Allowances will always be made for the random soul who is continuously clicking the 'Next Blog' button at the top right of this page. . . a great way to kill time and look for people who be writesin good.)

In other news;
*I am currently unemployed. (That isn't completely true because I will be employed with the Shipyard for certain vessels but not full time. No worries cause I plan to return to my tour leading duties next May anyway.)
*My elbow will require surgery to remove a bone chip that is preventing full motion. (I will have this done as soon as Kaiser approves it when I return.)
*um. . . yeah.

In closing, I hope to expand this site (or create a new one) that will be a little more random and all-inclusive. In the future I'd like to post stories of my indignities following the model of my man BadNewsHughes
. . .or perhaps completely random bike-based rants like my man DC.

Don't think I won't be answering any emails while I'm in Austria. I will.
You're all beautiful people and someday I'd like to try on your underwear.