Exploring Sydney (Australia Part 3)

I'm sure you've seen plenty of photos of the Sydney landmarks so I thought I'd do something a little different and take photos of people taking photos in front of Sydney landmarks.

An asian tourist taking a photo of a serious asian tourist in front of the Sydney Opera House:

As seen in Finding Nemo.

Asian girl (me) taking picture of an asian guy taking picture of an asian guy:

Wait...he doesn't seem v.asian.

Much better:

syndey harbour bridge in background.

Do you like to travel alone? (Australia Part 2)

Lest you think I have completely abandoned my posts on our December Australia trip...

----overdue post as we've been back for 3.5 months---

Jamie had a couple more days of his project left so he continued his commute to the client site while I had free reign on all of Sydney by my lonesome. It. Was. Fantastic. I easily managed the public transit system there, figured out the challenge of simple things like looking the opposite direction while crossing the street (gasp! honk! eek!), and even mastered the international method of buying a SIM card for mobile phones (honestly, the most economical way to handle mobiles ever). 

• Jamie et al. immediately tied into Vodafone when they landed and most companies have free company-to-company calling or texting so I only did a superficial price comparison before identifying the best plan for me at the same company.
• They all got pay-as-you-go mobiles as soon as they landed. Dinky flip phone things that didn't handle data, limited the number of minutes they could make phone calls, and now they own these dinky phones. Silly tuckies.
• I came in with my global-enabled iPhone, having called Verizon before leaving the country to unlock the device (important to do for Verizon customers!), picked up a SIM card for $1, and bought a $14 data plan.
• This $14 included: free calls & texts to Vodafone customers (uh...everyone I knew in the country), 450 mobile minutes which included international calling (if only I could figure out the time difference), 150MB of data (don't really know what that means, but didn't come close to using it all), and free access to Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn, and Myspace (huh?).
• What more could I have possibly needed? SO CHEAP.

ok, enough about the phone. 

I started off each morning with a flat white or a long black:

Might I add that we have limited coffee options in Hanover?
These were über-luxury moments.

And set out on full day-long excursions on my own:

Old. 
(notice which side of the street the cars are on)

New.

Um...oldish/new? 

Don't know how to qualify artificial floral walls.

With my map-ready mobile device, complete with foursquare capability, I hardly did any research before hitting the streets. I chose to do more of a go-as-I-please couple of days, popping in and out of shops, taking in some local magazines at delicious coffee joints, soaking up some sunshine in the local parks, and enjoying the fact that I was in a fun metropolitan area.

Had to try a mini pie from Pie Face.

It's like the Starbucks of hand pies; they're EVERYWHERE and conceptually v.cool.

Taste = meh...probably really good hangover food.

Rechargeable batteries in glittery colours.

"Regular" batteries were hard to find. Other countries are fun.

I had done the most efficient job of almost immediately adjusting my clock by forcing myself awake while hopping on and off of planes until Sydney bedtime and crashing on the longer flight over. Unfortunately I only had a window seat for my to-canada and cross-canada flights and a MIDDLE SEAT for the 15 hour journey. It took a whole lotta "getting zen" and maybe some light pharmaceuticals to get there, but the effort was well worth its weight in gold once I got across the ocean.

Racks of false eyeballs (designer contacts).

"Naturally", they were next to the thousands of false eyelashes.

Waking up slightly early each morning, I was able to cram in so much exploring before meeting up with friends for post-work dinner, drinks, and going out. And while I did my fair share of window shopping, the multiple flights remaining on my agenda prohibited me from doing much purchasing. That and the insane exchange rate that made everyday items 150% more expensive than in the US. Oh, and our grad school family budget. All these things, limiting my natural tendencies.

This drugstore-brand-in-the-usa nail bar was in a high-end department store makeup section.

The row of nailpolish moved about on a track like toy train.

There were juicing bars everywhere with piles of fresh veggies/fruits!

Cucumber? Apple? Kale? Lime?

I love these things!

So exciting!

BLEAGH.

It was horrible.

I bet even this prehistoric bird would even toss out my kale, apple, celery juice:

BLEAGH. CACAW!

26 Hours.

Ok, now onto the Australia trip!

----overdue post as we've been back for 1.5 months---

The day before my flight out to Sydney, I left Hudson at home for friends to pick up that evening, threw everything into the car, kept my fingers crossed that I had turned off everything sufficiently (the lights? the stove? the tv?), and zoomed the 2.25 hours south to Brook and Marissa's for the night.

Marissa had kindly offered to take me and my oversized suitcase over to Logan Airport and store our car for the duration of the trip. There's really something to be said about someone who will take you to the airport (or pick you up in their pajamas as the case turned out to be - thanks max & brook) let alone store your vehicle in their driveway. it's not like, "hey, can you carry my id in your back pocket for the night?" it's a CAR. Driving to the airport is like the bane of peoples' existence, there are plenty of other ways to get there, but it's expensive and time consuming. How comforting is it to have someone you know take you to departure and greet you upon retrieving your bags? I heart the Rosenbaums.

Max's mobile lulled me to sleep that night.

The next morning, I watched as Brook risked his life for some holiday cheer:

(made my knees wobbly)

Got to the airport at 3pm EST.

Grabbed a hot coffee to keep me up as long as possible: 

I'm not even that big of a fan of their coffee.

 It's just a bit of a novelty at this point what with the living-far-away-from-one thing.

Grabbed some snacks to nosh on:

So. Good. 

Flight took off at 4:45pm EST.

Did I mention I was flying Air Canada (english/french = awesome)?

Landed in Toronto at 6:45pm EST.

Oh man. Ran into some major issues in Canada.

Fun fact: you need a visa to go to Australia. 

Was. Not. Aware. 

More fun facts: 

• If you book a flight, but the Aussie government doesn't send your verified visa information to the airline (because you never applied for one in the first place), they put you on a Do-Not-Board list. Eep...that sounds bad.
• If you show up in Toronto and try to get through customs/immigration during your layover, only to find out you're on a Do-Not-Board list, you start to sweat bullets. Be cool.
• If you get the Canadian airline people to try to apply for a last-minute visa to get you into Australia, you get put on a Do-Not-Fly list. Start to freak out.
• Do-Not-Fly lists are bad. Like...shoe bomber bad. 

Luckily, they were able to "call Australia" (huh? like the country number?), it was 11am there, and they were able to get a hold of the right person to get me through and on my original flight. PHEW.

Fast forward through:

-5.5 hour flight from Toronto to Vancouver, landing at 1:20am EST.

-2 hour layover in Vancouver (did some yoga in the empty terminal, tried not to sleep).

-and a 15.5 hour flight to Sydney, landing at 8:30pm EST or just after noon in Sydney.

-4 movies, trying to sleep in a middle/coach seat (on the aussie clock), 1 book.

Airplane wing + Sydney Harbour Bridge + Opera House

Just after we landed, immigration officers boarded the plane, opened all of the overhead compartments, and started spraying. 

That's right. SPRAYING. Ack! Cough Cough!  

It's a common occurrence for Australia-bound flights, to spray the cabins with an insecticide or disinfectant, but definitely not something I recalled from my last trip there, 8 years prior. I was feeling righteously indignant about it, but defeated by the long hours of travel and it smelled like Lysol so I gave up. Definitely kept my scarf at my face the whole time.

Got through another round of customs/immigration, retrieved my bag, and found the right train to get me into Downtown Sydney. Someone overpacked and it was a little bit of a pain to navigate all of these places with my heavy bags.

Oh man, was I glad to see the hotel:

One piece! 

I had enough time to shower, change, and take a one hour nap before Jamie and the other Tuckies returned home from their day of work. He had filled the room with all sorts of Aussie goodies so my nap dropped to 1/2 an hour while I got distracted by opening packages. Fun. Fun. Fun. 

'ello, mates.

I woke up to these emailed photos from Jamie and wanted to share them with you.

 Rocking the Deep-V with some new friends:

I LIKE THEM!!

 I thought they were going wine tasting, but I think these look like beers:

"this is how you SMASH a beer, see?"

New South Wales has an ordinance in place to prohibit unauthorized people from carrying koalas.

This is as close as he could get:

The more I stare at this, the more the koala looks like Jamie. 

Ok, now I really have to start packing. Trying to get out the door in a couple of hours.

Pack, pack, pack it up.

I'm knee-deep in packing/cleaning (again) as we are t-minus-5nights from moving out of FRI (friggin'rhodeisland) and back to idyllic Hanover, voted #6 in Best Places to Live. 

On our agenda from now until Sept 12th:

• Clean out our subleased apartment and move our belongings/cars (holding one for a friend interning in Seattle) back home. Jamie will be a TA for a week-long summer course back at Tuck.
• Try to squeeze in a visit with the Rosenbaums while they're at the beach house in Connecticut.
• Fly to San Jose (CA) and head out to Carmel/Monterey for a whirlwind Tuck wedding weekend + quick meet-up with Jamie's mom and stepdad (we haven't seen them since May2010).
• Back across the country for a stop in Orlando. 
• Down to Cancun for some sun-soaking and stocking up on some hard core warmth before hunkering down for our second New England winter (bring it, snow. bring it).
• Then Jamie will jet back up to Boston for a school meeting while I bid him adieu in Mexico and head over to Chicago. He's a little worried about leaving me at the beach (or airport) for the few hours between our flights, but Mrs. Cuneo taught me enough elementary Spanish to communicate with the federales and stay out of Mexican prison. I think I'll be fine. 
• Hang out in Chicago for some days with devon, trish, katherine, etc. before flying home to what will probably be a perfectly autumnal New Hampshire.

Um. Just realized that's about a month's worth of plans.

While we've loved the opportunity to get to know the one other Tuckie here, Debbie and Jamie are starting to dress alike. We gotta get out of here:

pink collared shirts + jeans

they didn't call each other to plan their outfits and it wasn't an isolated incident this summer.

In honor of the Royal Wedding.

 Almost a year ago, we did some wedding related celebrations of our own in London (honeymoon).

Our hotel and home for 2 weeks was right in Trafalgar Square.

NBC's Today Show's home this week.

We were not aware that in ~1year, NBC's Matt Lauer would be camped out here,

wondering about what knickers a future princess would wear to her wedding.

Trinket market was gorgeously hardcore...I wanted it all.

I neeeed it, Jamie.

Lovely.

I'd bet these were replaced with throngs of paparazzi.

 Hopefully Kate and William had better photographers than us.

(snippet of Tower of London behind our big heads)

But I bet their photographers wouldn't take "intricate sword photos" (read: crotch shots) of the guards.

Maybe they'd charge extra....I just talked my way through it.

"don't worry, guard, i'm not taking a shot of your crotch, just your fancy/shiny belt...promise!!

oops....no need for alarm, i'm just gonna take a few more....aw, man....the flash was too strong on that one.....shoot, i'm going to be here awhile...."

awkward.

And by today, England will surely have sprung for more consistent uniforming of their guards.

And more training of guard-horses to head-butt.

Everyday at 11:30am, this happened:

Right into Buckingham Palace.

Turns out, the exact opposite path the wedding procession made this morning.

These guards did a fancy routine in there.

What did Kate & W do? Just wave?

Sheesh.

Watching the hoopla transpire over the last week, I starting to think someone ought to schedule a royal-wedding-intervention for the Today Show. "Matt, Meredith, Al...we're here because we love you."

But it's nice of them to showcase our honeymoon location with such vigor!

maybe we can sneak in this way and stick around for a year.

wedding crashers...yes!

Our Spring Break Dormitory

For sale.

 -willemstand, curaçao 

Have you noticed those billboards for big apartment complexes next to the freeway? 

"If you lived here, you'd be home by now."

They're prevalent in southern California, seared into my brain, and I'm just assuming this "highly effective" marketing tactic is utilized nationwide, no? As people are frustratingly stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic on the 405, knowing that it will take another 30-90 minutes before they're home for dinner, they wistfully turn their glance to the aforementioned apartment complex and begin evaluating life were it so easy. 

Personally, those signs piss me off. 

"Ya, if I lived in my car, I'd be home by now too. What's your freaking point."

--------------

Our home for one week in Curaçao:

Opened in late spring of last year, this resort had all the signs of being pretty brand-spankin'-new. A HUGE golf course built by some famous golf course builder (architect?), slated to become a major player in the international tournament ring. Several restaurants, including a daily-used gelato stand (mmm), beach access, super nice staff, big/soft towels, and yummy food.

The only big drawback was that it was over 30 minutes to town so anything to be done off the resort, included the need for a rental car. No biggie! We took a cab from the airport and spent a couple of days "shackled" to our own pool and beach before renting a car from the hotel for a few days, capping the week with another day of pure lounge time. The island is pretty teeny and we felt the 3 days of exploring with a car were well more than enough.

We chose this resort specifically because of some crazy combo flight/hotel deal Orbitz was providing, including: flight/hotel (duh), $200 towards food at the resort,  and option for "free" breakfast with only $3 more per day. Having now visited all of the other options, this place was by far the nicest and bestest in our price range. Yay for solid decision making!!

Other resorts provide: casinos, better nightlife, closer proximity to the airport. We never took the time to look for or visit my dream hotel, but the website images alone may have ruined me for life. Yes, Jamie looked and yes, it was well out of our price range. Sad face.

This was just fine by us.

Hyatt Regency Curacao Golf Resort, Spa and Marina

Santa Barbara Plantation, Porta Blancu, Nieuwpoort ,
Curacao, Netherlands Antilles 
Tel: +011 599 9 840 1234    Fax: +011 599 9 840 1235