Our First Day in Sydney Part 2

Darling Harbour was real close to our hotel. If you've ever taken a short walk with a 2 year old, you know it isn't so short. On the way to the harbour, we stopped at Tumbalong Park where Jackson and Johanna played. They seemed to have a lovely time. We coaxed Jackson off the playground by reminding him there was water to be seen!

The truth of the matter was that Mommy wanted a Starbucks. The flat whites weren't doing it for her :) Jackson TOOK OFF running. Fortunately Aaron, Ricky, and Johanna had more sleep than us, and they were able to keep up. All of us sat on the harbour and enjoyed a Starbucks - including Jackson with a chocolate milk. As we sat there watching the boats come in and out of the harbour, Ricky mentioned that it might be fun to take a tour of the harbour, and off we went!

All of us went on a Water Taxi ride. The driver took us past many areas of Sydney that I'm not equipped to tell you about: The Rocks, The Sydney Harbor Bridge (a beautiful site), the Sydney Opera House, and Luna Park (which has a really freaky looking face as an entrance).

After the taxi ride, we continued our walk around Darling Harbour which included a fountain - in a non-traditional sense. Jackson, David, and Aaron made their way down to the center of this sea shell type fountain where Jackson really enjoyed playing in the water.

After we were finished exploring Darling Harbour, we went all went out to a Spanish restaurant for tapas, paella, and sangria.  It was a lovely way to end our first day in Sydney. At least one of us was pretty wiped out...

Our First Day in Sydney

After the incident with Jackson running through Customs, we were ready to get out of there! We still had to pick up our baggage and make it through customs again - for the baggage check. David and Jackson wandered around while I watched for our baggage to come out on the belt. They had a 'quarantine dog' that walked around smelling your bags checking for drugs, food, and other items that aren't welcome into the country.

Once we finally made it out of there, Ricky, Johanna, and Aaron were waiting for us. They had brought along a stuffed koala bear and balloon for Jackson. It was pretty exciting to see some familiar faces finally. And then they broke the news! They had secured a child seat, and we weren't going to have to take the train to our hotel! It was as if the heavens had opened up and a choir had begun singing! I was OVER public transport.

Now they gave us choices - go out for a nice breakfast at "Max's" or go to our hotel. My mind did some quick math where Hotel=Nap. Breakfast it is! Max had this terrific dish - ricotta pancakes with bananas and honeycomb butter. At first glimpse, honeycomb butter may sound odd, but it is butter with little dots of honey in it. So tasty. I didn't use any of the syrup on the table. The pancakes were so thick - it was so nice! Jackson had a 'fruit bowl'. I thought of my friend Valerie when they brought it out. There wasn't a lot of melon in the bowl. There was passion fruit, mango, lychees and a side of yogurt with honey. It really was lovely. David had [boring] bacon and eggs. I will say that the bacon looked real nice because it wasn't as fatty as you find it in the States.

After that we went to our hotel near Darling Harbour. We stayed at the Radisson, which was very nice with a kitchenette and a separate living area. After quick showers it was time to hit the town again - Off to Darling Harbour!

cont...

Things that are... interesting... about Australia

While we're 'Down Under', David will be writing most of the posts about what we do. I'll be writing posts about the things that are "different". I'm sure this will be the first of many posts...

1. Coffee - First you should know, you can't get cream here. Every time I ask for it the clerk looks at me as if I've got an eye in the middle of my forehead. Second, they have special 'coffee lingo'. You can order a flat white or a short black - I don't know what any of this means. I want a cup of coffee with cream and Splenda.

2. Iced Tea - It's summer here. It's HOT. They can make you all the hot tea you want, if you want iced tea - you'll have to settle for the bottled stuff. Go Figure.

3. Hotel Room Lights - This was particularly odd. In order to use the electricity in your room you have to leave the key card in this slot by the door. Now you may remember that it is HOT - the AC also does not work without this key, so it's 95 degrees (or whatever in celcius (whole other topic)), I can't get iced tea, and when I get back to my hotel room it's freaking hot. Great.

4. Hamburgers - When you order your hamburger you should be aware that it may come with a pickled beet on it. Some restaurants even charge extra for it. I'm thinking about polling people on the monorail to find out if people would really pay extra for it. You may note that you can't pick off a pickled beet, it leaves beet juice everywhere. Another thing about the burger which I found nice was that they don't put pickles on it, they use cucumbers.

5. "Fillet" - We went to a German restaurant the other night. I ordered Fillet. It wasn't 5 or 6 inches in diameter and 1.5 inches thick. I'm not sure what cut of meat it was. It may have been the flank of Kangaroo.

6. Taxes & Tip - This is actually real nice. It's included. If you see something is $15 - It's $15. You don't have to pay any more!

7. 10% surcharge - Today at a restaurant they had a note on their menu that they charge 10% more on Sundays and National holidays. I don't know if this is normal or not - but an interesting concept. I'm going to charge extra for my services on Fridays. If you'd like to utilize my services on Fridays, you'll have to pay me 10% more.

I'm quite sure there is more to come, because I think that I've forgotten some of the things that I've found to be weird. And I think that I could write an entire post on the fact that while we speak the same 'language' it sure can be difficult to communicate sometimes... just ask me what a pram or capsicum is...

Until next time,
Lisa Down Under

Jackson's Escape Into Australia

We touched down in Sydney on Monday morning after a fourteen hour flight from San Francisco. The flight went well. Jackson slept almost the entire way, and was adequately entertained by movies on our iPod Touch the remainder of the time. Lisa and I were not able to sleep quite so much, and so once we arrived in Sydney, we had a very excited child who was ready to run all over the airport. We made our way to the Australian immigration area. Fortunately, with me traveling on an Australian passport we were able to wait in the fast queue. Well, faster queue. It wasn't exactly fast. Jackson didn't think it was fast. After Jackson made it clear he wasn't going to stand still in this long line while the immigration officials processed everyone ahead of us, I decided it would be best to pick him up and hold him. He didn't like being picked up and held after sitting in a cramped space for 14 hours. I explained I could put him down if he would stay still. I put him down. He stayed still. For a little while. Then Jackson suddenly took off, as fast as his little legs could carry him. I had a big heavy bag on my back. By the time I realized I was going to have to get him, he had already ran to the front of the line. He kept on going, right over the red line that marks the end of immigration, past all the immigration counters, out to where all the security guards were, and he kept on running, out toward the customs area! I had to chase him! So, I ran right past the immigration officials too. It'd have probably been pretty funny if I had yelled out "I have nothing to declare!" as I did, but at this stage I was just hoping my son and I weren't going to get arrested. I did manage to scoop Jackson up, and smiling, apologized to the immigration officials as I walked back to my place in line. I think everyone there thought it was rather amusing. None of them pulled out any guns or handcuffs. I was happy about that. One of them came over and asked us if we'd like to just go straight to the front of the line, though we declined and just explained we'd hold Jackson carefully. I think that we will hold onto Jackson more carefully when we return to the United States. Bush will still be president at that time, and I don't want to find out what the PATRIOT Act allows immigration to do to two year olds who try to burst through airport security.