January 10, 2008

I finally got the photo upload thing figured out- my teeny old digital camera doesn't add the proper extentions to the photo files, so I have to go through and add .jpg to every single one. I'll have to see if that's a setting I can change. :)


As often as I've flown, I never ever get tired of seeing the clouds from the plane window. They are so beautiful, sometimes looking like lunar landscapes, and sometimes like mountain ranges, with valleys and peaks. I think they are absolutely beautiful and I always keep a camera handy on the entire flight (if it's daytime) so I can capture the best of the clouds. This trip we saw amazing stars- we were in the southern hemisphere, and could see all sorts of interesting constellations and super bright starts reflected on the ocean 36,000 feet below us. The stars were stunning- at that altitude the sky is so clear and you can see the stars in amazing detail. I'd never seen the stars like that- usually when I flew at night I was either asleep or it was cloudy.

The scenery coming toward Sydney was stunning- beautiful green covered mountains with crystal blue rivers running through them. Sydney is in the state of New South Wales, which is very lush and green and has a massive amount of park land. We're hoping to go to some of the mountain sections and check it out. The Outback is a long way from here, and visitors are recommended not to try driving in it, but if we could find a puddle jumper that flew there for cheap we could at least spend a day around wherever we could fly to. We'll see.

Sydney from the air

Our plane. It was huge and had a first class section with actual beds...for the low low price of $36,000 or something like that. :)

The people of Australia so far are very friendly, very used to tourists and immigrants, and I don't feel at all out of place speaking with my American accent. Although it feels natural to switch to a more British dialect here in Sydney. I noticed that many of the TV ads are British speakers, not many Australians which is interesting. People seem genuinely friendly.

You'll have to forgive me for rambling- the jet lag is catching up with me while I'm trying to wait for these photos to upload onto the blog. :)

We're staying in a northern suburb of Sydney called North Ryde. G's office is literally across the street, which is very convenient for him.

Our little living room.

View from our living room sliding glass door. It's nice to have a balcony to sit out on with it being so nice and warm here. And the eucalyptus trees in the garden smell really good.

Our teeny kitchen, and the desk where I'll be blogging from for the
next 3 weeks. :)

The bedroom- it has a window on the same side facing the courtyard.

Tonight we're going to try to navigate our way to a beach- preferably avoiding the nudist ones. :) For those who are wondering, the weather here for the next week will be right around 79, plus or minus a degree depending on the day. It's 79 and partly cloudy right now.

It's noon here right now, making it about 9pm in Michigan (we're 15 hours ahead) and it's time for some tea for me to keep me from sleeping. :) We found some great strong Australian tea, and if I'm awake enough I might venture out to try to find a shopping center and get some vegetables. I'll probably get lost since I won't have a navigator, but it'll be fine. :) Thanks for all your prs for us- Gd has been gracious to us and is watching out for us.