We made it!!

After ~ 40 hours of travel and lots of stories, we made it safely to Sydney around noon on Saturday (+16 hours from US). Amy's friend Lucy has graciously allowed us to squat in her apartment (flat) and we have been all over Sydney in the past two days. Its such an amazing city and the weather has been incredible. Tonight is new year's and we still do not know what we are are going to do but we can see them setting up for a huge events all over the city. We found the internet cafe which is a couple blocks down the street from the flat, however, its hard to tear ourselves away from the beach and exploring the city to write however, so many stories to tell, we wanted to capture some. I will be able to download photos later since the battery died this morning. Anyway, we wanted to start off with a list. OH- and we heard about the pats!! Justin told us last night that they won, and we were telling everyone at the bar but no one cared. oh well.

Aussie Findings:
1. Are boots in the daytime and summer ok? Everyone here wears boots for fashion since its not cold, they are obviously for fashion- we think. I mean, big wooly boots. Ugs- everything. Its weird. All we want to do is put our flops on and definitly NOT boots. How's the snow back home?

2. To tip or not to tip- we have no idea. Some people told us that you do not tip. The tour books say if you want you can for exceptional service. An american waitress told us she gets tips all the time and that most people tip- what else was she going to say? But a cab driver made out big on the first day and since then, we have been calming it down a bit. But its nice at the bars to not have to tip like back home.

3. Sunblock- 70 spf? We all wore 70 yesterday and everyone at Bondi Beach (most famous surfing, city beach on the southeast of Sydney) was laughing at us. But seriously th sun is so hot and we spent a lot of time cooling off in the water yesterday so we wanted to play it safe on day 1 and not get burned. We still missed some spots but our vote is still for the 70spf.

4. Speaking of the beach- topless everywhere. Girls were just putting it out there all day. I'd again be concerned for the burn factor however maybe the locals know something we do not know. Needless to say, we kept everything covered up.

5. We really don't understand the international dateline. We've tried numerous times to figure out what happened when we crossed that line. We were awake watching a big screen that showed us fly over that line and somehow we still can't figure out what time it is here, what day it is and what it is at home. Its very confusing. Good thing all we have to do is walk around, go to the beach, and meet aussies.

6. Speaking of Aussies- they are HEAPS of fun. We met a couple out last night- I can't wait to post pictures, these stories really don't do anything justice but the Aussie accent is really cool- I think I'm picking it up, mates.

7. BATS- yes, they are like blue jays here. We took a strole through the Botanical Gardens which were beautiful. They are situated in the middle of high rise buildings but on the border of the harbor. Its so clean and it didn't at all feel like you were in the middle of a city. But, there are these animals here called flying foxes that are everywhere. They look like giant bats. Jenn has about 25 pictures of them and we will post in a slideshow. They are enormous and so weird. We thought it was so strange.

8. Buses. The buses are great- very easy to navigate around and with the location of Lucy's apartment, we are getting to see a lot of the city and not spending too much time getting there. But yesterday, we were on the way to Bondi and at one fo the stops, the bus driver just got out and left. He took his money drawer, left the bus running with everyone on it and left. I guess it was the end of his shift. But even the Aussies thought it was strange. We sat there for about 5 minutes before someone came and took his place.

9. Yankees. Apparently, even though the Aussies have no idea what baseball is, they all love the Yankees. I was tempted to break out in a Yankees Suck chant just to see the reaction but I refrained- we're trying to keep a low profile on the tourist front. Although, not many Americans over here right know that we can see. We saw a guy on the beach yesterday with a 33 Bird Celts Jersey. We've also seen some sox hats but they were Americans. The Yankees over here and NY are definitley a fad- Lots of I love NY t-shirts too.

Last night we ventured out to dinner at Zacharies which was a gourmet pizza bar (THanks Scott!) and had dinner. We then crossed the street to one of the hippest bars in Kings Cross called Hugo (look it up). We met some guys that were from Baltimore, DC and some Aussies. Bars are open late- sometime 5 or 6 am but since its holidays here they close earlier. I will definitly post pics before we leave on Wednesday for the tour since I'm not sure when I will have internet access after that. Until then- HAPPY NEW YEAR!