“Once in a Lifetime”

At least that’s what I called the Word.doc version of the following.

I posted my edited down version (the following) on the family computer downstairs. It turns out that I might have a sense of humor in my writing.

Well, let’s just say I had a lot of help.
I’ll definitely post some of the better chapters on my Facebook for the rest of my friends [and family] to take a look at.

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December 4, 2010

 

 

Fact of the day:

When converting °C to °F, multiple by 9/5 and add 32
Sydney is no different from the rest of the world, meaning they operate in metric.

 

9:16 am EST

 

            On our way to Flanders where there’s a limousine about to pick us up in an hour, give or take.

            Its 31° in the Lexus and the roads have a small coat of flurries. They started coming down around 8:45 and within 10 minutes, our deck was coated and the flakes were getting bigger by the second. My attempt to document the thermometer via photograph came out fuzzy. For the record, it was at least 32° ± 1°F. I wanted to find a thermometer in Sydney to compare the extreme difference in temperature. (Utmost all the chaos and good times, it was something I completely forgot about).

The main roads, on the other hand, appear to be clear with no sign of skidding cars. Got to see the sun to our right, cloudy to our left. Might see it in San Francisco (we didn’t). “The 12 pains of Christmas” was our biggest highlight and the last we heard of the radio. (Heard a song that repeated the lyrics “too much time on my hands” that I hadn’t heard before, but liked. After looking up, it turned out to be Styx. Who knew?) .

Nothing sticking to the ground and one slow Mercedes later, there were flurries up here in Flanders. For once, we were able to get to the house without one distraction, courtesy of yours truly, that resulted in missing a turn. Then within five minutes, the sun came out and the white stretch was waiting for us when we got there.

 

10:05 am EST

 

Inside the house, we picked out the other two members of our travel party. After saying our goodbyes to Scott, Janay (still searching years of old email for the recipe for “Lou’s Famous Nuts”) and tail-chasing Moose, the question of the moment was: “Where’s Larry?”

Answer: Already inside the Limo.

We opened the back door and there he was waiting for us (lol).

Our trip was bright and sunny with scattered clouds. We caught sight of the New York skyline. I thought it was Philly at first, but I know for a fact you can see that from the Camden Adventure Aquarium. NY isn’t quite the same without the Twin Towers, but apparently you can see the skyline from Newark. Four cops were pulled to the side of the road on three different occasions. Two were bookending the first situation.

 

 

12:30pm EST

 

            At the red carpet club now.

The limo had a nice mix of Christmas music, brain-freeze trivia questions and monuments. We saw to our left the Mets’ Citifield stadium, where they play the US Open (Tennis) and where they had the World Fair years ago. The globe was part of a crash scene in “Men in Black,” Larry pointed out. I hadn’t seen the movie in a while, so it took me a while to remember it was part of that movie. We nearly got a 360 view of the NY skyline including the Chrysler building on the left of the Empire State building.

There was barely anyone around when we check in. The person who helped us was probably one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Very accommodating and took care of us all the way through the check-in. The four of us took along a carry-on each as well as three check-in luggage pieces. The two garment bags, different only by color, I dubbed “The Twins” and the name stuck.

After giving our fond farewells, we headed to the notorious security portion. I was expecting a lot more in the ways of, well, invasion of privacy. Supposedly the full body scans arrived a week ago, but none were to be found.

The four of us girls went to the gift shop and spent at least 20 minutes in a bookstore.

Returned to the Red Carpet club at around one, after taking a picture of the blue Christmas tree (it was only the beginning of them). There were more people than before, filling the lounge. Larry gave me a little tour of his Nook between buying, turning pages and changing fonts. I’d still prefer an iPad with its multiple apps. Dad told us that we had to try the chocolate covered raisins. They were white on the outside, but delicious on the inside. Other little snacks included a mix of Cheez-its, pretzels and spicy sticks.

 

~2:45pm

 

            On our way to San Francisco.

            The tail of the plane was outside the red carpet window turned out to be our plane. I took a picture just because it was there and it just turned out that way. It was a little nerve-wrecking taking off, but it turned out all right. Our pilots were Rich and Ted. They aired an episode of “The Office,” a show that I more or less had become addicted to. Call it a guilty pleasure. It was overall very funny.

 

~5:30 EST

 

            “Eat Pray Love” was decent. It wasn’t excellent, but it wasn’t too bad. Definitely one of those self-discovery films.

 

10 minutes ahead @ the halfway point of the flight

 

            May have seen this episode of House before… it was when House had students and was choosing his new team. Cashcab had a couple different endings. The first group got to the end and walked away with the money. The 2^nd guy got three wrong. The last group got the first 2 questions wrong, but made it to the end. After flipping a coin, they went against fate and bet it all on the last question. Epic Fail! They kept repeating “shouldn’t have gone against the coin,” after walking out of the cash.

            The appetizer was a roll, a salad with balsamic and asparagus wrapped in smoked salmon. For dinner, I wanted chicken as my first choice and got stuck with lasagna in alfredo sauce with spinach inside. Yeesh, that tasted weird, especially with the lack of red tomato sauce. Then there was a scoop of vanilla and strawberry ice cream with whipped cream. So good…

            After a while, the cabin started to smell like someone was making pancakes. But it was fresh cookies. Omg, super gooey and delicious. Too bad I didn’t hear them when the attendants were asking if we wanted more, I so would have gone for seconds.

The in-flight headphones were amazing, so much that I wore them over my ear buds to keep out some of the plane noise.  

            Slowly, the lights were becoming visible. So pretty and breathtaking. We passed over a bridge (the golden gate?) and what looked like a golf course on a small island. We arrived in SFO 20 minutes ahead of schedule around 5:54pm PST

 

 

6:15pm PST (9:15pm EST)

 

The red carpet club at SFO is HUGE. Dad said there were two clubs and the one I caught sight of was the bigger one, but the other was closer to the terminal. After going down the walkway, admiring different artworks from China, we admired the other half going to the larger club. Tried to get a few pictures, but they don’t put a candle to the real thing. It was beyond belief. The minute you walk in, you see large beige tiles on the floor and a HUGE clock hanging from the ceiling. Not to mention the seats were very comfortable and the snack bar wasn’t too shabby either.

Travel started to wear on me a bit after we moved to a cozy corner to catch the end of the Oklahoma-Nebraska game. We were sitting together in one area, but mom was on a quest to find really comfortable seats. She tried in a few different places until we discovered the TVs. Oklahoma won 23-20.

After a long series of walkways and stairs (dude, I was already exhausted at this point and this wasn’t even the half of it), we were at gate 98 in the International terminal. There were two doors, the one on the left was for duty-free liquor that people bought in the terminal shops. They were carted over in clear plastic bags.

 

~10pm PST (1am EST)

 

Upstairs in the 747 (opposed to the one-level 757 earlier), it was unbelievable. The seats were so roomy that they could go all the way back and they wouldn’t disturb anybody. The TVs in front of us were touch-screen AND had a remote that you could operate from your seat. There were so many choices. The best part was that it said on the screen how much time was left on the flight. I’ll bet that people would start to go a little crazy if they didn’t know that particular detail, although on the way back, I found it a comfort not to know that.

At first, it felt like it would last forever. You figure you can fit in 7 two hour movies within the flight. I ended up watching four, three I fell asleep during parts.

Avatar was as amazing as ever and had new footage for the special edition. Then food came during “Killers” with Ashton Kutcher and Katherine Heigl. I think it got a little too unbelievable as the movie dragged on.

A spring roll and salad with Caesar dressing started things off. Ugh, I really am not a fan of these apps. First the smoked salmon, now this? Luckily I got my first choice of salmon and fingerling potatoes. Then chocolate ice cream instead a hard-to-crack chocolate shell—it was like heaven, so good.

Overall, I’d say “Going the Distance” was the best new movie I caught, also the most light-hearted. I figured it was worth seeing again on the ride back by the end of the week. I spent the last hour playing games like Sudoku, Solitaire and Bejeweled.

 

December 6, 2010
Aussie Time

 

Fact of the Day:
Australia is like England—the steering wheel’s on the wrong side and they drive on the wrong side of the road

 

~7:15am

 

            We officially landed. The last few hours flew by in contrast to the previous 10. Shockingly, we got through the rest of the airport formalities in an hour. There were no real things to slow us down. We were at Quarantine and dad asked us to go through because a) we had nothing to declare and b) we didn’t want to wait behind a bunch of people hauling boxes. Our last obstacle, if you can call it that, was passing the Beagle test. Nothing came back to him as something worth howling at, though he liked the smells in Aunt Susie’s purse.

            Considering there were six of us, we figured it would be easier for us to take two taxis to the hotel. I’d go with Aunt Susie & Larry. Luckily we found a van to fit all of us and our luggage. Our destination was the Marriott on Pitt [as in Brad Pitt] street. A bell hop took our bags, but later dad had to hunt him down to make sure they were delivered to our rooms.

            Mine & Kim’s room was 3016, mom and dad were at 3202, and Susie & Larry were 1623. We didn’t watch much TV, but “I dream of Jeanie” was on one station. After we finally got our luggage and unpacked our clothes in perhaps the smallest amount of drawer space I’d ever seen, we met at 10:00 in the lobby.

            The four of us arrived. Larry, who had made fast friends on the last two flights, was already friends with “old Pablo” at the lobby gift shop. They were in negotiations over hats, but he came away with a T-shirt.

 

10am

 

            We strolled Pitt street and beyond, checking into multiple souvenir and opal shops. Among the opal shops were Rockhounds and Flame Opals on George Street. I’m not sure where we were, but Aunt Susie came up with a brilliant idea. Dad didn’t go for it until she brought it up a couple more times. Since we were here, we should get a small koala as our “photo-op mascot.”

After taking pictures of the Opera House at every conceivable angle, we headed for the Botanical Gardens. I took pictures of the many interesting trees, and of all things, seaweed. I believe the green stuff was Caulerpa, an invasive species that’s nearly impossible to get rid of. We also saw some shells that dad thought were oysters. It was low tide, so they were easier to see on the rocks. Other interesting wildlife included ibises (we didn’t know it at the time), bats and lorikeets (both were really noisy). The bats were literally everywhere in the garden’s center. Clearly, they were getting on each other’s nerves, almost squawking at each other for space. Before entering, though, we got pictures of both of the guys standing in between the guardian statues at the entrance. Aunt Susie called them “Fuddhas.” Something else I noticed was a lot of Greek mythology representations. One statue near Pitt Street was most definitely Hermes, although mom thought his body looked female. Then there was another statue she pointed out in the middle of a lake. I had to go back and see and take its picture. I ended up giving her a history lesson on Aphrodite, how she rose from the foam of Uranus’s newly amputated “man parts.” I also saw somewhat of a pirate boat named Athena in front of the Park Hyatt, future hotel of the Oprah crowd.

            There was a tree with pink flowers (a Norfolk Island Hibiscus) that was really noisy, but we couldn’t figure out why. Then we spotted half a dozen Lorikeets living in it. This turned into a quest for a picture that took me 10 minutes with what I thought to be little success (one picture came out better than I thought, once I saw it on the computer). At the time, I was glad we found the answer to the mystery of the squawking tree.

            On our way back, we stopped at a pub at the Observer Hotel. My feet were getting sore at this point and I just wanted to sit down. The local in the bar was Larry’s 3^rd new “acquaintance.” A couple of us had very tasty hard apple cider (I thought it was like a heavier sparkling cider). Dad got a bottle of VB (Victorian Bitters—THE beer of Australia, not Foster’s) and the sample I got wasn’t too bad at all. We watched a little cricket and I was profoundly reminded of Whack-bat, which makes even less sense. (I gave an attempt at a lesson of Whack-bat at dinner later. For those who don’t know, it’s the pastime sport in the world of ‘The Fantastic Mr. Fox.’ Great movie). All the while, we were walking about and the adults concluded they couldn’t understand the guy because he was already trashed.

            Our trip back to the hotel was reminiscent of Atlantic City, but my feet were numb and I thought I was on the verge of collapse. Going around in circles until dad caved and asked for directions. I opted with a little Aleve and crashed for a short nap.

 

~5:30pm

 

            Ugh, I was still tired for a good 20 minutes. The Waterfront was expensive, the apps were around $14-$20. The Sauvignon Blanc was good… the whole table used an entire bottle within a round of glasses. My app was shellfish bisque, which was a little gritty for my liking (Aunt Susie finished hers. I guess she was a bigger fan). Mom handed me my first… and last Sydney Rock Oyster. Ugh, nasty, slimy and still salty. Then I had a salmon culet. It was a u-shaped cut, but bones lined the outer edges. It would have tasted better if they served filets instead. My plate was literally covered with shredded salmon by the end of the meal. The Voluptuous Chocolate Delight sounded amazing, but everyone else opted out of dessert (darn it).

            We found the hotel within 10 minutes (double darn it). Had a tiny bite of dessert and champagne at the lounge. Larry stroke up yet another conversation with someone at the lounge. He was visiting from Washington D.C. and it was his last two of a two week trip. I managed to get into night clothes before I crashed. It was 8pm.

 

P.S. Larry henceforth became our “spokesperson” and “residential conversationalist”… and quite possibly our traveling party’s “Mr. Congeniality”

 

December 7, 2010

Aussie Time

 

Fact of the Day:

Kangaroos, Wallabies, Koalas, and Wombats aren’t Australia’s only residential marsupials

 

~8am

 

            Breakfast was all right. The flakes weren’t frosted, so that was a bust. The coffee machine, on the other hand, was amazing. It had four different tubes going into it full of coffee beans. After 2-3 tubes of sugar, the café lattes were amazing. The scrambled eggs were sub-par and the chicken sausage was a little funky. Thank God for pouches of peanut butter (like the little packs of butter you get at restaurants).

            We hung out in a lounge. A couple of the lobbyists (our lounge personal) were trying to figure out how to work the TV. Once Charles got it working, we caught some of the morning show. Oprah’s crowd was coming in today and we were bracing ourselves. As if it was already bad enough there were orange flags everywhere with her face on them. We considered doing the zoo today to avoid them tomorrow, but we decided it was big enough for both of us. It had a little on Bristol Palin’s Facebook page, baby names (Chloe cause of the Kardashians? Ugh), and Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhal are around here somewhere promoting their new movie “Love & Other Drugs.”

            After getting our things together, we headed for our first ferry ride. We went through gates where we shot a card through one end and by taking it out on the other, the doors opened. My mom said it reminded her of going into the Ministry of Magic in the 5^th Harry Potter movie.

            Darling Harbor was the fourth stop. All of us took a lot of amazing pictures, mostly of the Opera House and some million dollar homes we could never afford. There was an amusement park at Milson Point, but it didn’t appear to be running. Towards the tail end of the journey, a few pirate ships were around, mostly surrounding the National Maritime Museum.

            The first stop that day was the Sydney Wildlife World and we got a lot of photo ops with our new koala friend. Several people were taking pictures with a large kangaroo statue and Larry wanted to get in on that action. The kangaroo had him by at least half a foot, but he didn’t seem to mind. After figuring out the entrance via pre-entry passes, creepy crawlies were first on our list. There was a honeycomb full of lots of bees, varying sizes of stick insects, giant cockroaches and lots of spiders. It didn’t matter that they were behind glass, but they were making me freak out after a while. The infamous “funnel web spider” did it because it was Deadly with a capital D.

            The varying stick insects ranged from creepy to cool to amazing to really cute (the smallest ones). After the piggybacking grasshoppers (at one time, three were piled on top of one another), we saw lots of butterflies and learned about Big Rex, our residing lone saltwater (unfortunate misnomer) crocodile. Gates went up on land and a trainer came to tell us about him. Going to get fatter around, but done growing length-wise. At least 20ft and 45 years. By the end of the talk, all of us came away with at least one fact of information we didn’t know before.

            One particularly interest tidbit: Big Rex, he’s a lady-killer. Tried to introduce a female twice, a couple months part. He’s brutal, doomed to be a bachelor for life. Dad was disappointed, he thought they were going to feed him. Supposedly, because reptiles tend to hibernate when it gets too cold, they don’t want to feed him during the winter months. Need that energy to digest the food and if it sits there, it could kill him.

            There were five sleeping koalas that you could have a picture with, for a price. Two Asian girls opted for it, and we took dozens of pictures of just them. Then it was over to the nocturnal creatures, perhaps the most frustrating place for a photographer. Many of my pictures came out blurry, doomed for the recycle bin. Found there were more marsupials than I realized from the spotted quoll to the little Spinifex Hopping Mouse and a Bilby—a rabbit-eared bandicoot. Sugar gliders were around as well, refused to hold still, cute little guys.

            After that were some of better known marsupials. The lone wombat was asleep. I mistook a pademelon for a wallaby, but so cute. [I want one, lol]. We learned a little on the cassowary when we backtracked later to see Rex from above. They’re the world’s most dangerous bird. The crown of their head made of keratin has an undetermined function scientists are trying to figure out. The 2^nd heaviest and third tallest bird in the world. The one guy had a board out front for protection and kept the bird away from the other side where food was being put in the trees. There were 5-6 male kangaroos lying around and one female with a Joey in her pouch. The wallabies had stripes, but were great. They were, if anything, very photogenic. Saw some more exotic birds and got lorikeet pictures at Rex’s home. We also went by the kookaburra exhibit twice amidst our backtracking. Truly amazing creatures. We also happened to get a little show the second time around. The one nearest the glass was mangling the remains of a dead mouse. Got a lot of enjoyment out of that and we were talking about it for ages. The true question was whether the mouse was dead before or after the kookaburra got a hold of it. Then went to see the butterflies, so many. Took 2 videos, though one was a little better than my first futile attempt. When we got out of the butterfly house, we discovered that one got out. We were trying to save it without touching it so the wings don’t fall apart. Mom used her hat to return back to its home and we all cheered once she accomplished her mission.

            The trick afterwards was finding an affordable nice place to eat. On the other side of the bridge (and LG Imax, largest in the world, now playing Harry Potter), were a couple of places, one of them related to Nick’s in Hawaii. Opposed to a food court atmosphere, we opted for an Italian place. My samba drink was icy green, banana, [Midori] melon, coconut and tasted amazing, as was my first [seafood] risotto. The squid stripes were the best part, getting tomato sauce on me was the worst.

            We took the bridge to the aquarium, which was surprisingly quick. The aquarium was probably one of the most informative I’d been in, very decent. I’m not sure how I’d rate it among the aquariums I’ve visited. Hands down, the best tunnels, chock full of fish and small sharks. Also two dugongs that were eating lettuce from a tray on the bottom. Such amazing creatures and I thought they were extinct before I went to college. Everything else, I had seen on “Finding Nemo” and nothing else really exclusive. A large animatronic shark the size of Jaws was in the first area. There was also a Port Jackson shark nursery, the only breed/release facility in the world. They had such success with Wobbegong sharks that they moved on to this species. Along the walls, all the types of sharks had posters listing number of fatalities, status and size. Also had a wall full of “man vs. shark” history. This prompted Larry to spend the remainder of the day bringing up his opinion that ‘shark fin soup’ was the reason the overall population of the species declined. Me, I say and I’m pretty sure it’s more closely related to “Jaws” and the fact people literally went out to catch sharks and killed them because they thought they were bad. This particularly affected the Great Whites.

            At one of the gift shops, we got a kangaroo buddy for our koala. I believe it was the one after the Wildlife Park because we took their first picture together with a menu or the species book Aunt Susie got us. One way or another, I was being asked to ID some fish. I wasn’t even aware all these butterfly and unicornfish existed. I found Nemo, Dory and Gil. There were also a lot of jellyfish that we studied in my Poisonous & Venomous Animals, although they just had Chironex [box jellyfish] on the wall, the most deadly jellyfish around. (FYI: Its venom could kill you in four minutes).

            The plan was to get food at the lounge and go swimming. There really wasn’t much of a selection so I dined on pecans. Our plans for Japanese fell through that night, so we had nowhere to go. At the lounge, we asked one of the lobbyists, Rosalee, for some Australian names for our new little friends. We decided on Adelaide for the kangaroo and thanks to a generous donation, we now have a whole family for the 2^nd cousins. Therefore we made a note that one of our new friends would have her namesake. She definitely went up and beyond for us, very sweet.

We went down to the street to look in a shop. Came out with three hats, 2 t-shirts and other stuff. Aunt Susie was on one of her many shopping sprees and it took somewhere between 30 to 40 minutes to finally get her out of there. In the meantime, my dad was looking around and saw this guy coming out with a bag of wine. Knowing he had to have gotten it somewhere, he turned a corner and went up the street until he found a place. It turns out he was right about us coming back with something before the rest of our party was ready.

The four adults were hanging around in the hot tub, but apparently the water wasn’t quite hot enough despite pressing nearly every conceivable button on the number pad. We had drinks to Jerry Seinfeld and his smelly car before calling it quits.

 

December 8, 2010

Aussie Time

 

Fact of the Day:

4 words

Shrimp Tempura is Awesome

 

            Breakfast was a lot better than yesterday. Crispy golden flakes and rice krispies, a muffin with peanut butter spread, baked beans and a banana. I was asked if I was going to share these contents. My answer, “of course.”

Dad was freaking that we’d miss the ferry to the zoo, but we were just fine. The ride was at least 20 minutes, long and only one stop. I got a cool view of the Opera house so we could see all the scales that make it up. We had the option of a bus and a cable car. Everyone seemed to be thinking along our lines… the cable car. We saw some chimps and a mom and baby elephant. It was an amazing view, much better than the bus. Forget the air-conditioning, it was nice and cool in our cable car too. My camera started to run low on battery so I used Mom’s. The koalas were first.  

We went through a reptile house early on. There was no Burmese python, but it had an Egyptian cobra, fierce snake, iguanas and a basilisk. We got a show when a keeper went into the croc pit to give dead rats to the two crocs. The first caught his in the air and wanted seconds. The other croc didn’t appear to be hungry, but the first kept going after the guy. He was armed only with a broom. Very exciting stuff. We saw a drooling komodo dragon as well. On one path, kangaroos and wallabies were roaming free and literally within 3 feet of us. We also saw a platypus, echidna, quolls, sugar gliders, lions, tigers, fennec fox, lots of birds, gorillas, chimps, giraffes, zebras, elephants and another sleeping wombat. Can’t say enough how cute those wallabies and Tasmanian devils were. The only Aussie staple missing was a dingo.

The best parts were coming back and the lioness coming close for photo ops and the fact the tiger was out in the open for pictures. I never saw those guys so close and never get good pictures ever. The closest was probably the white tigers in Great Adventure that were just on the other side of the glass.

The silverback gorilla was HUGE and there was a new baby gorilla that had some time on his mom’s back. A few “troop” members were out and about. We were at least a minute away from one of the daily shows there. Then two of the younger gorillas started fighting with one another and everyone disappeared off screen. Ah well, time to move on.

There were lots of baby animals around, including the tiniest elephant I’d ever seen. It was so small compared to the other females and even the yearling elephants. The zebras were great as well. The little brown birds [common mynas] were literally everywhere even under the tables at lunch the other day. We caught sight of peacock that was just roaming free minding its own business along with some guinea fowl (Susie & Larry mistook them for peahens, but I knew that wasn’t right. Dad ID’d them to save us the trouble of an argument like what would have happened at the man vs. shark exhibit the other day). At one point, I heard a kookaburra doing what it became famous for, making jungle sound-effects the only way it knows how—naturally. But this one sounded a lot closer than it’d be from the exhibit we passed a while back. Apparently one of them was roaming free as well. One second he was making noise in one tree, the next he flew a mere few feet above my head to another tree. Not many can say they got buzzed by a kookaburra.

Halfway through the excursion, three of the girls went for a bathroom break and we came back in awe of the hand drying machine. Instead of just pressing a button or putting your hands under a metal opening, we put our hands into a hand dryer that probably bared more resemblance to a bivalve, but it had two curves. Anyway, it was loud, but it was really powerful, almost like a Dyson vacuum that went the reverse direction.

We had seen just about everything except for sea lions, but luckily they had a viewing tank at the gift shop. Two types of them, either sea lions or fur seals. They had the species ID’d on the wall, but I forget what they were. According to the website, the best I could manage was the Australian sea lion and a New Zealand fur seal. Although there were probably leopard seals at the official exhibit.  Aunt Susie was in souvenir mode yet again and my dad was literally dying to get out of there. Again, he was worried we wouldn’t make the ferry, but we made it within a minute of it departing. Hakuna matata, dude. Or as the Aussies say instead of “you’re welcome, “no worries.”

Upon our return, the question came about where to go from there, seeing as our Saké reservations weren’t until 6:30. Susie & Larry were easygoing as usual with the usual response “whatever you guys wanna do.” We decided to hit the pub called “Philip’s Foote” for a VB and Cider break. We discussed plans for tomorrow and we wanted to rendezvous at 5:30 to head out to Saké. It was a nice little place. Moments ago, I committed something worthy of protest and it was my last photo with mom’s camera.

Apparently American movie actors are a big deal over here because George Clooney was in at least three different ads on the street corners. Matthew McConaughey was in one for men’s cologne. I saw it the first day there and it took me a few seconds until I recognized him as the actor rather than just a really hot guy. You can see where this is going, although just for the latter. George Clooney’s a gentleman more than a heartthrob. So my dad was shaking his head and Aunt Susie was patting me on the back “good choice… copy a picture for Grandma, she loves him.”

Once at the pub, mom took a few pictures of Mike & Adelaide with the pub’s Christmas tree and the goofy reindeer staring out the window. Meanwhile, I took note of the fact that Australia plays a lot of American music. We’re hanging around and catch the midway point of “Layla” by Derek & the Dominos. Then we found ourselves in a medley of Bruce Springsteen songs and Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.” The station was really likin’ Jersey folks at the moment. The VB was pretty good, though the hard cider left a lot to be deserved (their words, not mine, I didn’t get to taste the unfortunate concoction).

I had the fortunate in the hotel room to catch that weekend’s Giants game vs. the Redskins. Long story short: The Giants killed it, go Eli!

We got downstairs and I felt very overdressed compared to everyone else. The new Oriental dress I hadn’t worn yet looked awesome, though later on not warm enough to withstand the wind’s chill. We arrived 15 minutes early at Saké and had a round of wine glasses to start. The dinner table had the feel of sitting on a bench except there was a hole in the floor around the table and we put our feet there. We sat on blue cushions. Sliding in proved difficult for some, but it was least troublesome for me. At least our waitress thought so.

Lauren came over recently with her Melbourne boyfriend when his American visa expired. She was from New York around 31^st and either 5^th or 6^th. We all thought she was great. Her partner, Rubin, took care of drinks. The sake’s fragrance reminded me of mushrooms. We started with tuna, bonito, flying fish roe, cuttlefish (mine) and one other type of tuna sushi. The cuttlefish and bonito were really good, but the Ahi tuna was amazing. That was my “When Harry met Sally” moment of the trip… mom’s was the Sydney Rock Oysters from two nights ago. It’d been too long since my last piece of sushi.

The only downside was the fact the entrees weren’t coming out together. I tried the popcorn shrimp tempura because nothing else really popped out at me on the menu. Best choice I could make… it was hot, but not too hot, very crunchy. Aunt Susie and I were having a ball with our portions. Then we had desserts that did come out at the same time. Three chocolate puddings and a soufflé. Amazing, hands down awesome dinner. Mom told me to make sure to grab the bill so Susie & Larry wouldn’t pick up yet another tab. That I did Wind made it extra cold on the way back. We had more champagne at the lounge with some chocolate for dessert. Retired around 9:30.

 

December 9, 2010

Aussie Time

 

Fact of the Day:

Shop owners don’t like it when you take pictures of their merchandise

 

Our wake-up call (via room 3202) came.

 We were having Pancakes on the Rocks for breakfast. It was just past the Waterfront and down a few side streets much like London would be. Quite possibly, it could be similar to some other European country I can’t name. Rumor had it that day that we were in for some thunderstorms, so we came prepared. The restaurant had the diner atmosphere up to the bell counter that meant “order up.” They played even more American music from Madonna, “Angel of Mine” (totally takes me back) by Monica and “Fifteen” by Taylor Swift. We each ordered pancake masterpieces except for Larry who had his with sausage and a scrambled egg. I was between three expressions of chocolate, each as deadly as the next. I opted for the first on the list: Hot n’ Troppo, on the grounds that included walnuts. It’s hard for me to resist walnuts.

Along with the excellent playlist, the TV monitors had scrolling lyrics that had “jukebox” in them somewhere, how odd. Didn’t know there were so many. Each pancake platter was a masterpiece so we took pictures before we destroyed them. Mine had some bananas hidden on the edges, walnuts migrating to one side and chocolate ice cream literally melting on top of it all. Eat this, IHOP! Best pancakes I had in my life! So Good! And luckily, no consequences came from finishing my plate.

As we were leaving our hotel room after breakfast, we saw a troop of at least 7 firemen running towards the hotel (We never did find out where the fire was). Me and Aunt Susie were checking out a couple of the guys, though I didn’t think to snap a picture of the tall, hot blonde guy. She missed the same opportunity, but we were both in “OMG” mode until our first stop. Mom saw a sale on dresses and we stopped for a good 20 minutes. She came away with a nice blue dress top and Kim found a t-shirt donned with large colorful flowers.

The view was spectacular from the Sky Tower. The highlight more or less was looking down on all the places we’d already been and ID’ing what they are. I also caught sight of a few things we didn’t see like a couple of stadiums they used in the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics. They were piping Christmas music up here for the first few minutes and changed their playlist to something else. Dad said Aunt Susie went straight to the gift shop and he had to turn her around and say “the view is this way.” A smile broke across her face when she saw what we came to see… an amazing view. I took this opportunity to sit down and write down some of my previous entries, catch up, if you will. Some of the souvenirs were pretty cool including some postcards called Aussie Hunk, Alcoholic Koala and Buns & Beachballs.

We had taken a picture before we went up the elevator, but turned down picking it up. Apparently there was a fee that went along with it. Around the corner was the Queen Victoria building which was like a fancy mall with stores like Gucci, Versace and Coach. There were a couple of clocks that showed the time, month and date. There was also a huge Christmas tree with Swarovski crystal trunk. It was 24 meters, but definitely wasn’t real. I automatically thought of the Rockefeller tree and couldn’t live with knowing that there was a tree around that was taller than it. We took the monorail to Chinatown to look for the Jade Couch. Mom asked a woman in the mall where it was because we hadn’t seen it. She said it was moved to Chinatown. It was raining a little bit outside, but it wasn’t too bad.

The ticket guy said it was the 4^th stop at Paddy’s Market. Three monorails later (got ridiculously crowded on the first 2). We found we were going the other way around and it was the 5^th stop. Then the Chinatown shop was closed so we had to go a stop over. There were several street performers, especially around the entry arches. One of them was a Veteran and he seemed to be having a good time entertaining us. The stands were selling everything from abalone to sticky rice balls (dad wanted some but didn’t think some of us would enjoy them). There was also a stand full of Chinese propaganda about the “evils” of the Chinese government towards women. Supposedly those who pledge against the government and anyone caught with the flyers would “disappear.” Dad told us this when Aunt Susie got caught up in reading some of them.

Then we shot over to an indoor flea market full of stands selling anything and everything. After a while, it was getting very hot. A couple times Aunt Susie stopped and bought more stuff. That was her thing and haggling was Larry’s.

This all started the first day when he was trying to talk “old Pablo” in our lobby gift shop down for a price on a hat and t-shirt. After he bought the hat elsewhere, “Pablo” said he’d bring the price down for him. Ah well. Now Larry was trying to negotiate a $7 belt down to $6. The little Asian girl wasn’t buying into it for a second. He asked more than once “are these good quality belts?” They were like any old black belt I’d ever seen… though I heard a wise man say once that you can never have enough big white belts. He then said “Susie has my wallet,” lol. Dad lent him a 10-spot… the verdict was: no deal, including a settlement of $6.50. $7 is $7.

I also got my first souvenir: a really sweet navy zip-up hoodie with Australia across the front. I saw it for $20 and $30 in other shops. Mom was adamant that I should get it for $10 or she wasn’t going to bother… the Chinese guy in charge of the stand was very helpful when we were trying to find a couple of shirts so we could get everything for $30. It came out to a little more, but he took a couple of dollars off. Overall, the highlight was, hands down, the graphic tee stands because they had new sayings I wasn’t aware of or seen before.  Aunt Susie’s favorite one said “In Australia, we drink beer, we eat meat and we speak &%$&’in English.” Another said “I used up all my sick days, so I’m calling in dead.” I was tempted to take a picture, but I didn’t want the shopkeeper to yell at me (like he did at the mall when Aunt Susie was about to take a picture of some expensive jewelry).

Throughout the day, Mom and Aunt Susie took turns saying about different dresses “that’d look good/cute on you.” We decided, after some deliberation, to take the monorail to Darling Harbor and catch the ferry back. Once back, we bought 2 bottles of wine to take back to the room: Katherine Hill Chardonnay and Wickham’s Fox Shiraz. The Shiraz was pretty good. In that corner of George Street, it became clear that Oprah fever had officially hit. They already had “I ❤ Oprah” t-shits. We joked about either stomping on one or buying one and burning it on the street. One window also said that the Oprah crowd would get a discount on jewelry (darn it).

After deciding on an outfit, we headed over to Wolfie’s, which was next to The Waterfront. They couldn’t find our reservation set by trainee Juliet, but when they did, we got a complimentary sparkling wine with some peachy accents. We figured the same staff was operating all of these restaurants in a row. Deciding was HARD because there was no filet mignon, I didn’t know the other cuts too well and I wanted steak because the restaurant was a noted steakhouse. But I settled on local specialty Barramundi, which was really good. The calamari app was too, especially with the so-so spicy orange mustard—amazing. The Shiraz dubbed “The Idiot” wasn’t too shabby either. All the while, we saw people in costume from army (camouflage), Na’vi from Avatar and others that stood alone like mullets and tigers. I’d love to go to that party.

On the way back, we saw barrages of bats flying from the gardens. It was around 8pm when this started happening. The only thing missing, in my opinion, was the bat signal… you’d think Gotham City was nearby. Mom took a picture of dad and Aunt Susie with the Opera house in the background, but kept shaking the picture up. Luckily I had the magic touch. The wedding across the way was playing “Yeah,” by Usher and the people with panflutes (taking the night shift for the didgeridoo people) were playing “Memory” from Cats.

We had champagne at the lounge and traded more stories from the Buxton and Fridays days. One of which was about a couple that did a “dine & dash,” but left a generous tip (according to dad). The shenanigans of Bobby & Gene and much ado about long days and non-eventful sunrises was the after-dinner special. I was very much wound up and I could probably place a good amount of blame on the champagne, no matter how good it was. That night before bed, the critters were having a party on my bed.

 

December 10, 2010
Aussie Time

 

Fact of the day:

Generation gaps tend to show a lot when it comes to music

 

There was more Oprah gossip going around at the lounge that morning. Ayer’s Rock was her previous destination and supposedly had a lot of trouble with the local pests, the black flies. Karma’s a bitch, I wanted to say, but decided against it. Barely made it to the ferry… again, and the day had its usual ups and downs. Literally. Dad said that for a few minutes towards the end of the trip, we would feel the ocean because we were crossing some of it to get to Manly Beach. The crowd across the way from us were really getting into it. Oh yeah and it was raining. It only lasted for five minutes, the only rain we got the entire trip.

So we headed down the way to the beach and stopped at Ocean World. It was comparable to the Jenkinson’s aquarium—a lot of good stuff for its small size. We found our old friends the Port Jackson sharks and a few of their friends that weren’t at the other aquarium. The walls told us about the grey nurse sharks, how they are protected here and the first one that hatches in the womb will eat its siblings so it’s the only one that survives. They reminded me of sand tigers, which look scary but aren’t necessarily vicious. (Whoa, hold the phone… they’re the same species according to Wikipedia).

There was a touch tank of sea urchins and fish. There was an upstairs, but it only had a tank with fish and one sea turtle with one of its flippers a little deformed.

The main attraction was a really cool shark tunnel full of sank tigers, stingrays, another sea turtle, Port Jackson sharks, some local fish, including the Barramundi. That is one ugly fish, but it sure tastes good. Some of the sand tigers had large lumps and deformed spines, much like the ones at the Adventure Aquarium. I believe it’s something that happens to them in captivity, but I should Google that just to be sure (still working on that). A little later, there were at least five scuba divers around. I was a little concerned about how high the tank went because it looked a little difficult for the sharks to get over the tunnel without being a little out of the water. With time, the pictures were getting clearer and I tried to filter out the foggier shots. 

We got to the end of the streets to where the beach was. It appeared to be a good day for surfing, so many people out. Larry, meanwhile, broke a personal record in his “friend-ing.” Within a minute, he was playing Aussie football with a bunch of local guys around my age. For the record, he got his butt kicked, lol. After that, it was a long walk on a narrow path to the other end of the beach. We saw groups of kids wearing different colors that were there for their daily surfing lessons. Larry joked that it was a good method of babysitting the kids—i.e. tiring them out before their parents pick them up at the end of the day. The majority looked like little red lobsters. The path had two lanes that ran the same as the roads, walk on the left hand side, but we rarely obeyed that rule.

The downside had to be the flies constantly buzzing around us, though away from my ears for the most part. (I’m guessing that’s when karma came back to bite me after what I wrote, but didn’t say out loud). With the lack of rain and warm temperatures, it was a good time to show off my new bikini top that I got just for this trip. Considering the humility, it felt nice and cool.

After perhaps the nicest beach bathroom we’d ever been in, although there was no soap (that makes a lot of sense), we made the trip back. We finally found some lizards as we tend to do in the tropics. There were at least three times we came across them. The first was a group of at least five at our left just hanging out in the sun. Then there was one on the right side peeking up from the cliff. Its stomach was really tan, so I was thinking he’d been doing too much sun-bathing while laying on his back. The third time, technically, was on our way up the road. He was on our left and quickly made his way to the other side after we passed. Didn’t seem to mind us one bit. There were also some loons in the water and birds of paradise flowers.

Once we returned to… the bugs… our mission was to find a place to eat away from said bugs. We settled on a place called Ivanhoe. My opinion, we need more places like that in the U.S. Although the only downside was how the place was staffed. We go up to the bar and register, respectively, to order drinks and food. We had to carry our own drinks back to the table. All the while, dad asked all of us what we wanted and he had to memorize it before going up to the register. The bright side for me, again, was the playlist. We sat in a corner of the upstairs across from a TV. The bar was to the right of that wall and the balcony was outside of the doors on our left. They played “Over my head (Cable Car)” by The Fray. Then as I watched the screen, I realized that it was playing the music videos for the songs they were playing. Some of the other songs were by Michelle Branch (“All you wanted”), Bob Marley, CCR, Huey Lewis (“The Power of Love”), John Mellencamp (“Hurts so good”) and Joan Osbourne’s “One of us”.

The waiters brought our food over, which was excellent by the way. Dad said after eating his steak that the Darling Harbor $10 steak would have to be really good to complete, lol. My burger was really good, although the beet I took out left some sweet residue. Ah well. There was a long table across the way from us literally packed with grannies, all of them wearing paper crowns of a certain color. I figured it was them celebrating living to be up and beyond 100, but we decided it had something to do with Christmas and Hanukah. Aunt Susie had the gears turning in her head again after taking a picture. She proposed a business called “Rent-a-Granny.” Then we spent some of the time trying to figure out the mechanics of it. (In case you didn’t figure, that was her favorite part of the day so far).

I saw a one-legged sea gull on the way back. At first, it looked like it was doing the flamingo thing, but then it started hopping. Looks to be in good health, though.

So… yet another rushing back to the ferry when we were perfectly fine making it back. At one point, I had been dubbed “the Brain” of the group as Brian Johnson was in The Breakfast Club since I was writing all of this down shortly after it happened and it would take longer for everyone else to remember stuff.

I got the chance to wear something I got at New York & Company in the mall a couple years ago, all for the dinner cruise for that particular Friday night. The pearls really helped put it together. We headed down to the wharf dressed in our best. We waited a good 20 minutes to get on the ship called Captain Cook Cruises Sydney 2000. There didn’t appear to be many people waiting, but the majority were at the Darling Harbor port. Larry started to ask us what our favorite part of the vacation was. I wanted to roll my eyes because he was talking as if it was our last day there. Hello, we still have all of Saturday to go. One group came on, a red-haired guy and girl. I spent the trip wondering if they were brother & sister or boyfriend & girlfriend. Then a group of five (3 guys, 2 girls) came around, the girls dressed up and the guys slumming it. It figures…

We were on the second level of the ship (Captain Star Club). The entertainment director, Lester Coons came over more than once for a nice little chat. Apparently people here know about New Jersey, but not Pennsylvania (hopefully not because of “Jersey Shore”). He was a cool guy with distinct white hair. He asked us about our football teams. Larry went full on into the Packers and we said Eagles and Giants. Lester said his daughter got him a Vikings jersey because he likes the team. He hates the color and Larry tried to convert him.

For the meals, we had at least four choices for each course. I opted for a beef appetizer, salmon with potatoes and a flourless chocolate orange cake. I was just glad, for once, I knew what I wanted. Jenny was our server and she was of great help. She also looked the part of busboy very well from her toes to her ponytailed blonde hair. A little into the cruise, an Asian guy went around taking pictures, several of us, both singles, group and couples shots. We saw the bats flying as we moved away from the Opera house as they were playing Christmas music on the airwaves. I did my spiel on covering Christmas songs made great by the original versions (i.e. White Christmas by Bing Crosby… should not be touched by anyone else). Why bother if the original is more than fine, nay untouchable. The guy on piano played some as well. He and the guitar player were both named David.

Around the time our apps came in, our lounge singer joined David squared. Her name was Rosanna. I thought the atmosphere was a nice touch with an old school playlist. The beef salad wasn’t too bad, though not a lot of beef and some bites were as spicy as a jalapeño (on a steek). Mom’s mouth was on fire as well. We drank a lot of water to remedy it. There was a complimentary sparkling wine and a Pinot Noir we ordered for the table—very good. The gap between courses was huge, but it had more to do with the kitchen being busy with orders. Lester came over a few times and Rosanna had quite the playlist. Everything from “What a wonderful world,” “Hallelujah,” “I wanna hold your hand” to a few I hadn’t heard before. “I am woman (hear me roar)” was dubbed our worst song of the night under the category of “never play this again.” There were several interesting buildings in the dark including one giving off fireworks and an amazing sunset. Best of the trip.

The salmon was probably the best I’ve had in a long time… totally amazing. I wanted more. The dessert was good as well.

The photographer returned with our pictures, so many. But I didn’t like myself in either of them for a couple of tiny reasons I couldn’t sum up. We had to choose the ones we wanted to purchase. I didn’t want my solo portrait. Of course, after dad finds out, he ponders it for a little while and finally decides to catch the guy before the pictures hit the incinerator. He was probably thinking he’d regret it if he didn’t. Lester Coons helped him catch the guy and for that, he was most grateful. On his trip to find the guy, he found the real party on the top of the ship. We followed him out and the party was already over. Then we went from one floor to the next. Apparently everyone else was dancing and we really didn’t get the chance. We returned and they were playing “Honey Honey” from Mamma Mia! It was the tail end of it.

It became clear nobody was crazy about Rosanna’s playlist. As in the songs were for fogeys (from my folk’s childhoods) and not really for dancing. So anyway, we returned to the end of that song and I’m thinking “dude we shouldn’t have left the table to find a dance floor.” Then one table of old ladies and their gay son got up to dance for a couple songs including “New York New York” as more or less a tribute to us. Mom asked dad if the sisters ever looked that bad while dancing. He said no, but it’s hard to tell whether its sarcasm. I sure thought it was. It was funny to watch them can-can to the song, but it reminded me how much I’m really starting to hate that song. This was the same table of people who were getting into some of the songs earlier like “Sweet Caroline,” another on my “do not play” list.

Overall, I thought it was a great experience. Decent entertainment, nice people and great food. It also turned out to be the latest we stayed up since we’d been there. The cruise itself ended around 10:40pm.

 

           

 

 December 11, 2010

Aussie Time

 

Fact of the Day:

There’s a[n artistic] genius among us in Sydney

 

            Today was a day of accomplishments because we had ourselves a couple of missions to fulfill. Larry’s would be fulfilled tomorrow. Mom and Dad were walking around early that morning and Dad heard a cockatoo. It was on one of the buildings across the street from the Philip’s Foote pub. He said they lived in the Botanical Gardens so I don’t know what he was doing all the way out here.

 

Mission #1: Find the cockatoos.

Much like the lorikeets, I had no idea these guys just roamed around in the wild here. A little aside, Mick & Adelaide partied a little too much the night before and were hung over the toilet bowl all morning.

We got a little more perspective on the Oprah situation. The stage near the Opera house was almost complete. Lots of swallows were buzzing around. I was thinking how we could have used them yesterday at Manly beach with the flies. The lorikeets were squawking in the tree and we had a few sightings. Then we started hearing cockatoos. Dad said that you always hear them before you see them. I managed to get a couple of good shots of them. I figure the most common subjects in our pictures are 1) Mick & Adelaide, 2) the Opera house, 3) the bridge, and 4) birds (mostly my fault, lol).

A mission we had through the entire trip was to find out who Macquarie was. Today, we got our answer. There existed a few landmarks in the gardens bearing his name combined with Point and Chair. He was a governor of Australia around 1810 and he designed the extensive roads in the gardens. There was a pretty impressive rock formation, among other things, that I had to take pictures of.

Then we started to get imaginative with our pictures. In one, mom was holding up the Opera house much the way you’d press against the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Earlier there was an albino stingray sighting but no pictures to prove its existence aside from ‘the word.’ Dad saw a chopper hovering over the Opera house. He joked that it was Oprah up there saying “hey little people, kiss my butt.”

On our way through the Quay heading back, we lost sight of dad. He reappeared out of nowhere and had a funny explanation. A couple Asian couples asked him to take their pictures. I guess the large camera around his neck suggested he was a professional photographer. Just about.

 

Mission #2: Find a place to eat for dinner

            We went to the front desk to start to set up reservations. Apparently Oprah cornered that market already because a lot of the places were already full. Dad asked them to stay in touch. Mission to be completed at a later time

 

Mission #3: Find the Opal Museum/Hermes statue

            It really wasn’t too hard to find it, considering we saw it when we couldn’t find our hotel on Monday. The statue was, as I thought, around the corner and I snapped it from three angles. That’ll go really good with my pictures of the Aphrodite statue and the ship called Athena parked in front of the Park Hyatt.

            The museum was amazing and it was free entry. Who knew the time of opals went back to the dinosaurs. I got a couple pictures, though I wasn’t sure if I was allowed to be taking them in the first place. There were no signs. So much pretty stuff. Then it happened to have a gift shop and we could pick out something we liked. Once I knew my price range a little better, I picked out a really nice one instead a heart-shaped gold housing that had specks of blue, green and red. Aunt Susie didn’t budge even though dad said he’d get her something. One pair of jewelry on display at the desk went for at least $100,000, phew.

            We celebrated our purchases with a round of beers. We found the Belgian Beer Café. With all the commercials in the U.S., I opted for the Stella Artois to see how I liked it. ‘Twas good. Our bartender was cute, though we never found out his name or where he was from. His personal favorite, which we tried later on, was a little darker, but a little sweet too. With each beer he served, we got a show. First he put a glass over a jet of water. Then he dipped it in water, poured the beer, sliced the foam off the top with a knife and dipped it in warm water to make the bubbles rise. Dad liked his, called La Guillotine, which had a 9% alcohol content. Out of curiosity, he tried a cherry beer based on its picture on the menu. He liked it, but just wouldn’t order it again. It tasted like a cherry popsicle, but not nearly as bad as cough syrup.

            We liked the place so much that mission #2 was accomplished. We would eat here for dinner.

 

Mission #4: Find the infamous Australian spray-can artist

            After turning a corner or two ( and a Bentley later), we found the weekend flea market. The food looked and smelled really good. We eventually got a few samples of flavored fudges. It didn’t take too long to find the corner belonging to the artist who painted the picture of Australia hanging in our family room. Darren Germain. There were several paintings of his for sale and a little bio of him was hung to the right of the exhibit. All of the action happened on a cardboard box literally covered with paint and newspaper. We talked a little to his assistant and dad asked he was going to paint today. Word was he would be back soon, just out walking the dog.

            It almost felt like something out of a movie and parts in slow motion. First, a German shepherd wearing a small Santa hat around his collar (big dog too) was coming around the corner, minding his own business without a leash. Then Darren came into view a few seconds after him. His gray graphic t-shirt said “I do what the voices in my head tell me.” He was very hospitable and his dog just walked itself around the corner into his own little pen. Very well-trained. The only request was on a sign that read “no photographs.” Needless to say, mission accomplished, we found him and we were going to see him at work. Dad said the other day that he works with spray paint and I didn’t understand how that worked. There really is no describing it unless you see it yourself, but I’ll try my best.

            Darren put on a mask and gloves and turned on the stereo. He sprayed it on the newspaper on the side to be sure he had the right color and sometimes he’d use it to make a palette, knowing what colors certain colors made together. He sprayed a couple streaks here and there, always going from top to bottom. Then he’d use some pieces of newspaper to etch drawings with the wet paint. His specialty was space art, which meant a lot of planets and moons. After a certain time, he would put a large bowl and a small cylinder on the canvas while he sprayed the rest of it. When he revealed whatever came about under the circles, that was when the pictures were really starting to come together. All of these colors and shapes were there that you didn’t know how they got there. It was like magic. Occasionally, either for effect or show, he picked up a couple cans at once and tossed them in the air before using them. Once at the bottom, he would sometimes add birds, add a streak of white here and there and finish by signing his name. He did two paintings back to back, each taking about five minutes. The first was mostly purple and it came out better than he expected. His expectations, as far as personal experiences went, involved the first painting paling in comparison to the second. I’d say both were pretty brilliant.

            The crowd gathered little by little and before you knew it, there were at least 25 people watching him at work. The soundtrack was courtesy of Pink Floyd, which I’m sure was a big influence, seeing as some of his paintings had the triangle and prism from the “Dark side of the Moon” album cover. The first painting was Earth reflecting on the ground against a purple background. The second one had some planets but also space ships going by too. Such amazing technique, and even better, he was a nice guy. Easily, this was the highlight of my day and probably in the top 5 of the entire trip.

            I really like the first painting he did, but when we looked around inside, there was another one that caught my eye. Mom saw it too and said it would look great in my purple rain bedroom. Mine had a blue and purple palette. It started with a bonsai-like tree and from it came a waterfall and a river that snaked to the bottom. Each painting was $40, so it was a good deal. Dad then concluded that he always had birds in the same place and it was the same position as the stars on the Aussie flag. Susie and Larry picked up one as well because they were so impressed. I was breathless/speechless for at least a good 10 minutes after we left.

 

            Needless to say, we completed all of the day’s missions and spent a few hours going up and down the flea market. I found another stand full of graphic tees. Dad saw one that really got me thinking. “How much deeper would the ocean be without sponges?” Boy, I knew just who that reminded me of. Larry didn’t get it, lol. A couple of them said things like “I know karate and 37 other dangerous words” and “I have a black belt in No Kahn Doo.”

            There were a lot of nice jewelry stands, one of them was where dad got us some jewelry before. He also found another ornament of a platypus wearing a Christmas hat. Mom saw one in the store we got all the hats and it was missing a toe. In parts, it got a little claustrophobic with all the people. Then we had to keep backtracking to find Mom or Aunt Susie.

            We had dinner at the Belgian pub and its hard cider was really good as was the rest of the dinner. The bartender was around, but not busing our table. I had some spicy calamari and more than decent char-grilled kangaroo. Dad offered me a taste of his at Wolfie’s and I figured it was worth a chance. It was really, really good, better than regular old pub food. After a while, though, it was clear they couldn’t manage rush hour. It took us a good 15 minutes before we could flag someone to bring the check.

            When we returned outside, it was super freezing with winds coming out of nowhere. Aunt Susie stopped for even more shopping and we headed back for more drinks. We deliberated over conditions for our Rent-a-Granny business from the return policies to the hotline phone number. All that’s left was walking the bridge and more exploring of the flea market. Before turning, we managed to catch a glimpse of some fireworks outside our hotel room windows.

 

September 12, 2010

Aussie Time

 

Fact of the Day:

Now I know how Bill Murray feels

 

            We booked ourselves a later flight out of Aussie land, so we had time to fulfill Larry’s sole request (aside from getting a discount on $7 belts and t-shirts). The past several days, we’ve pointed out the “ants” on the Harbor Bridge. These are the people who pay extra to strap on some harnesses and walk the outer arch of the bridge. Meaning they’re so tiny, they actually look like ants. It’s much easier and cheaper to just walk in a straight line across the bridge.

            At breakfast, our old friend Charles gave us a few names for our critters including Duncan (I believe that’s the only one we used). We also asked him how to get up to the bridge. As a whole, we probably rank Rosalee higher, but I thought he was pretty helpful. He also made a comment about how we could have a freak storm that would ground all flights out of here so we’d stay another couple days, lol. I also came across another Aussie specialty in the same basket as the peanut butter spread packets—VEGAMITE. At first look, it looked like black and sticky like molasses. OMG, we tested something like that at work, but it wasn’t called vegemite. Malt was the name of the company. As a precaution, I tried a little on the prongs of my fork and that was probably the best thing I could have done. Cough, that stuff is nasty. It tastes just like it looks. Forget about the fact it was a good source of Vitamin B.The entire table was in agreement, though a picture says that Mick & Adelaide were into it. It probably was something only the locals enjoyed.

Chaos ensued as we started packing and moving all of our stuff into one room. I.E. Room 3202. Naturally dad was starting to stress out a little bit to make sure that we got all of our things together. I guess it has something to do with working with “novices.” We can’t all be pro.

            It was off to the bridge, although we were going around in circles for a little while to find the actual stairway to go up. I don’t think I’d seen this many steps in my entire life. No joke, I counted at 126 when we went back down. There are so many good shots you can get from the bridge, but after a while, you could probably get a bad case of vertigo. We saw the pool being cleaned at top of the Park Hyatt and the Athena ship had returned. Between the day we arrived and today, it had been M.I.A. It appeared to be a good day for sailing with all the sailboats out and about. After a few photos of the hand at the mid-point, we prepared for the long trek back.

            We stopped at the Australian Hotel for drinks. It was my last chance to enjoy the local specialty, VB. That was probably one of the better Australian specialties along with kangaroo, surprisingly good. The bar tender thought we were Canadian because of the TD Bank Visa used to pay our bill. This prompted Larry to, yet again, make conversation for a good 10 minutes. She was from Montreal, got here in September and her boyfriend plays semi-pro baseball. The menu offered pizzas with all kinds of local toppings including and not limited to kangaroo and emu. This was probably the only place we’d been to that had emu on the menu, not that I’d like to taste it.

            A guy wearing an Oprah tag around his neck walked in 15 minutes later with a request for a large table—next to us. At least 8 people showed up including 3 cameramen. The eye-rolling commenced on our part and we left after one round. But it didn’t end there. On our way to George Street, we saw an “O” written in the sky and cried out “that ain’t right.” Once we figured it out, we stopped ourselves from taking pictures of it. At the flea market, we saw another, but it was spelling out “HONDA” for whatever reason (sponsor?). Darren was around selling his paintings. His dog was hanging very close to him. A stocking in his corner said “I bit Santa Claus.” The other day, I was wracking my brain to come up with something to write in his guestbook and I finally came up with something. His guestbook has so many pages and has a new page for each day. My comment was probably the first of the day “Your work is amazing and an inspiration.” Again, he made a comment about hoping that Oprah would be impressed, though he was pretty cool about it, not necessarily jumping up and down like a kid in a candy store.

            The overall opinion on Oprah (tee-hee, alliteration) in our group is that we don’t like her. Me, I’m indifferent. My belief is that the majority of us (not me included) think that Oprah is as egotistical as Prince’s older jaded fans believe he is. But then again, all the same, as much as I’d like Darren to see international fame, I don’t want any involvement from Oprah to take away from who he is. Like his calm, cool friendly attitude… i.e. his humbleness. I’ll just put that out there for mediation.

            As it was yesterday, the trick was keeping everyone together in the flea market. Aunt Susie kept lagging with her being a shopaholic this entire trip, lol. But at least it appears she got all of her Christmas shopping done here. The way I put it in my notebook was that she did her part by “continuing the stimulate the economy.” Once inside a shop near the candle store, we had to head back, but had 8 koalas in hand for gifts. Dad tried to sell me on one, but we were good with Mick & Adelaide.

            We fulfilled the wishes of two women from the lounge who wanted to see us one last time we go for “coffee.” Dad left a tip for the maids and a thank you note. He told me to do the same for our room, but I gave mine a smiley face. He didn’t. But if I’m being honest… the maid service ticked me off early on because they kept coming back minutes before we were ready to head out to dinner to turn down the beds and bring in extra towels. So aside from when we went out during the day and out for dinner, we had the “do not disturb” sign on our room.

            When we headed to the lobby to check out, a young guy with brown and red spiky hair named Faird offered to help us with our luggage. We had reserved a larger taxi, but supposedly, yeah the Oprah thing, was taking them off the streets. Meanwhile Larry was engaged with him in conversation, and we all added our two cents. We said how much we enjoyed the trip and we have to return to cold weather. Faird’s partner joined us just before we departed. He was saying how he can’t imagine snow on Christmas. “That’s just weird,” were close to his exact words.

            With little traffic, we were at Sydney International. We had to sign and fill sheets for customs… again. It must be a drag to have to do that for every country. The lobby was HUGE and full of all kinds of perfumes, make-ups and duty-free liquor. As was the New Zealand international lounge. It had fudge sandwiches and hot dogs. Definitely couldn’t resist a hot dog at this point. The only thing more American than that is a Big Mac, lol.

 

~1:30pm (Aussie Time)

 

            Our flight would be about an hour shorter than the other time around. The guy sitting across from us was getting on well with the male attendant taking down our meal choices. The attendant with the beverages (I got champagne) said he’d have trouble getting his bag in the overhead. He insisted that it’d be fine because he’d done it on the way over. Clearly, he knew what he was doing because he was right.

            As I promised myself I would, I watched “Going the Distance” again to see the entire movie while I was still awake. The ending made a lot more sense and it was actually a little better the 2^nd time around. Then I watched “The Office” about as close to laughing out loud funny as you can get. I also caught a hilarious “Two & a Half Men.” I started to play a word game where you unscramble letters (anagrams) to form a word. First of all, long words. And second, it took practice. I went too fast with the remote and permanently froze my screen. Therefore I was without the TV and movie entertainment for the remaining 10 hours.

            First came the food. Another smoked salmon dish (what’s with these people) with a salad and I got my first stab at a filet mignon. The male attendant with the bearded face swapped our orders, but we swapped them back. The dessert was a toss-up between a pavlova and cheese with crackers. I didn’t know what the first was and opted for the 2^nd. Good choice. So began a long band of iPod streaming because of the video problem and lack of reading light. More than once, I saw this cute guy walking up and down the aisle. He reminded me of Zachary Levi from “Chuck” with his massive eyebrows. May or may not have been him or some other celebrity, but there was something familiar about him. The woman attendant came once or twice and was asking us a little about our trip. Generally, how long we were there, if it was our first time and if we were alone. Geez, how long is it going to be before they don’t look at us as kids? Hello, almost 25 over here.

            Everyone was nice, though. Got at least 5 hours of sleep. For breakfast, I had a plate of fruit from strawberries, cantaloupe, honeydew, kiwi to passion fruit—tastes sweet like grapefruit. For the last hour, I was in a bit of a fog with the tiredness and the fact we were beginning Sunday all over again. We rushed to baggage and went through security all over again. A few extra minutes we didn’t need. Unlike on our way out of Australia, they made us take our shoes off and we had to go through the scanners again. It was just a little time-consuming, although it wouldn’t matter later on anyways. Little did we know it was going to be a long day.

 

September 12, 2010 [Part Deux]

San Francisco Time

 

Fact of the Day:

Even United Airlines isn’t perfect. There are mechanical problems and there are mechanical PROBLEMS

 

            The red carpet club was packed to the gills, but seats opened up at the bar. Oakland was playing Jacksonville. So far, all of my teams appear to be doing well. The Redskins had a chance to tie the game and the long snapper screwed up the extra point. Larry’s favoring the Cowboys over the Eagles, but I’m guessing he’s sore about the Packers losing a sleeper to the Lions. And apparently the Metro Dome collapsed, postponing the Giants/Vikings game to Monday night. When Larry told me, I had no idea and didn’t believe him until I saw it multiple times on TV. Wow, I never thought that would happen. You’d think Minneapolis was always prepared for a little snow. Two feet is little to them, but definitely was enough to take down the roof.

            Dad saw “The Expendables” and “The Killers,” both had laugh out loud moments. Certainly made the later sound more interesting than I thought it was. It was probably worth another look-see. He also had seen two episodes of House from the season where House was holding auditions for his new team. Jacksonville won that game 38-31.

 

3:50pm PST

 

            It’s been a circus these past couple hours. The plane was delayed coming into the port from JFK. Larry was striking up a conversation with a random passenger and gushed about our trip. He was also talking to a guy at the bar about football much the way he does with any fan.

            There are several storms developing along the east coast and the Midwest/Chicago area. So when/if we finally get off the ground, its going to be a bumpy ride. What we need now is a delay due to the water.

            First, we were waiting for the plane to get in. Then there was supposedly plastic on the rear exit door that’s out of place and it won’t close. We then got back to the lounge assuming we had another hour before we left. Aunt Susie borrowed Larry’s Blackberry to call Scott. Then there was a guy that reminded me of ‘the plane doctor’ passenger in “She’s out of my league” that pointed out a sign saying no cell phones in the ‘quiet room.’ Where’s Molly’s friend Patty when you need her?

            Dad checked with the desk and they said the plane was boarding now. They switched planes between terminal 81 and 82. Apparently this one has water leaking from the first class cabin. Dude, we’re not going out to JFK today, all the planes are busted. They made an announcement to try the other plane despite there only being two available seats and not knowing when that plane is taking off. And quote “don’t go anywhere. Bear with us for 10 minutes.” This short guy with a duffle and almost camouflage colors was already heading in the other direction. “I don’t need this. I’m going,” that sort of attitude. Scrappy little guy. He did eventually return to terminal 82.

            The bottom line came after 10 minutes. There’s a plane coming in from Portland around 5 and hopefully, that will be the plane we’re taking off on. That won’t start boarding until 6:20. Meanwhile, we went back to the lounge for yet another time for a pre-course dinner. Pretzels, Milano cookies and crackers.

            In the football realm, things weren’t as favorable as they first appeared. The Patriots nearly shut out the Bears, the Jets fumbled last second to Miami, Denver lost and the Eagles/Cowboys game was pending. I didn’t want to be around for that game because it probably would be too hard for me to watch. On the other hand, though the 49ers blew the Seahawks out of the water with a score of 21-40. Yikes, where have these niners been all season?

 

6:20pm PST

 

            We tempted fate a third time with our fingers crossed. They double-dosed on flight attendants with at least six on board, most of them were only a couple years older than I was. I started with the ride with champagne and stuck with Coke. The head attendant joked that the crew would be handing out Kleenex to Jets fans (he himself was one also).

I don’t think I fell asleep for more than a couple minutes. The entertainment began with a beyond weird 30 Rock. Then a movie started and the title was never shown so I had no idea what movie it was until the ending credits. The only person I recognized was Bill Murray. “Get Low” starred Robert Duvall as a mountain man who wants to have a funeral where people can tell stories about him. He wanted to tell his story. I suppose it was good, just wasn’t my type of movie.

I ended up with my second choice for dinner. The veggie chili was surprisingly good. Anything with sour cream, I’ll take it gladly. The blonde attendant reminded me of someone, an actress—Katherine Heigl’s sister in “27 dresses” but with her hair up… or someone I went to school with. She was in a word, bubbly. She was great.

I went into my iPod for the remainder of the trip. Outside, there was fog lingering over some of the Midwestern states and I tried to get some good pictures. The crew was overly apologetic and generous about the fact we’ve waited this long. As we were coming down, he said it would be a rough landing and blah, blah, blah, if an emergency landing is necessary… we went from areas with land fog to being completely buried in white fluffy dense clouds. The plane was shaky at some points, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be. The crew handed out memos that apologized for the inconvenience and offered a gift to make up for it. You just need to put in a code at the website. The lead attendant remained enthusiastic and asked us to enjoy our trip in “beautiful spectacular” New York or wherever our final destination was.

At the baggage claim, it was like magic. All of our luggage was waiting for us on the carousel and our time there was only a minute or so. That has to be some kind of record. Lots of taxis were around outside, but no sign of our limo. Dad called the guy and he just had to bring the car around. Technically, he has to keep driving and not park. I got a picture of it as it came by. Earlier I got a picture of a 757 outside a window, but it wasn’t the one we were getting on. I was between closing my eyes and chilling to Christmas music on the surprisingly short ride back. My only nit-pick was the DJ. There has to be some kind of rule against playing the same songs within the same hour.

It was a bit of an emotional goodbye at Flanders and it was pretty much sleeping on the way home. It was 5:30am when we got back. It was an AWESOME trip and aside from the expensiveness of it, I’d love to live out there even more than San Diego. Walking the streets felt really good, but it may have something to do with the fact it was summer out there at the time. Simply Amazing.

 

 

Aftermath

 

I woke up at 3:46pm on December 13^th. My days and nights felt like they were in reverse for at least the entire week. Word was that we had left behind a carry-on. After making one call, it was discovered to be at baggage claim. Its contents included 8 of our koala friends and lots of money’s worth of jewelry. Naturally, mom was freaking out. The United staff told us we had to claim it in three days or it would be destroyed.

The good news was that we got it back Tuesday with all of the contents there, although they appeared to have shifted. Hey, if you were part of airport security and found a package left behind, you’d search it for explosives too.