Cain Manor

We finally made it to Sydney proper, and we are getting closer to making our trip into a vacation.  Justine was feeling a bit better in that we had a plan, and we were finally in a place where we weren’t worried about getting stabbed by a hobo.    We were staying at the Victoria and Albert Court B and B on Victoria Road in Pott’s Point (apparently there are many Victoria Roads.  Ours was in Pott’s Point.) The room was nice, but it was facing the road, which we’d find out later meant it could be quite noisy at night.  Considering the work that went into getting this place (I guessed, more or less), it ended up being a great location.  Take a right, and go a block or two, and down a long staircase, and you were on the waterfront, near the relatively famous Harry’s Cafe De Wheels at Cowper’s Wharf.  Most of the food and travel shows I’ve seen on Sydney end up eating here at least once (Anthony Bourdain, Samantha Brown, etc.)    From there, it was a short walk to the Royal Botanical Gardens, and then the Opera House.  And the Opera House is the true heart of Sydney, and once there, many of the tourist things you’d want to do are close by (The Rocks, Harbor Bridge, etc.)  Once we got there we made a big loop from our hotel to see many of those sites listed above.  On our way back, we walked by a “Pack and Send”, and wondered if they could help us better than the Castle Hills branch.
Continue reading ‘SYDNEY!!’ »

Posting a bit late, but trying to keep them in correct order

Continue reading ‘Taronga Zoo in Sydney’ »

Justine arrived in  Australia on the 12th of November – several weeks after I got here.  We spent a decent enough weekend with her Aunt & Uncle over the weekend.  On Sunday the 14th, we went to Bondi Beach, had a bite of lunch and looked at the Sculpture by the Sea exhibit.  The weather was wonderful, if a bit hot for Justine, but the location of the art was beautiful.  Felicity wanted to go swimming, so we (by we I mean Tom, her husband) drove all over the greater Sydney area looking for a beach with an available parking spot.  After one or two hours, and three or four beaches, we found a nice location near the airport – Botany Bay – to swim.  It was pleasant enough – not too many people, and parking aplenty.

We then made our way back to Kellyville, where things got weird.   Tom and Felicity got into an argument, or Tom was yelling about something to Felicity, while I was making dinner.   It may have been about us, or it may not, but it made Justine very uncomfortable.  I grew up where music blaring and people fighting while you’re stuck in the suburbs was a way of life.  It was the 80′s all over again for me, and I was just hoping they still loved me. Regardless, Justine was pretty upset and wanted to leave. We went for a short walk, and came across a weird Chinese couple, where the man was wearing his pajamas as they walked along (apparently a very popular thing to do in some parts of China.)  It was near dusk, so I assumed he was getting ready for bed.  We asked them if they knew of a reasonably priced hotel nearby.  They gave us the rough approximation of a business chain hotel, it seemed reasonably close (for Kellyville, so within 5 miles or so), so we decided to head back and move into a hotel for the night.
Continue reading ‘In Which The Shit Hits The Fan’ »

Not much has been posted from the time from I arrived in Sydney until Justine and I started our Journey, part two. This is a quick and dirty summary of how my dream of moving to Sydney came to be considered a failure.
Continue reading ‘In which moving to Australia is considered a failure’ »

After my long ass flight, I was tired, a bit worried about going through customs and immigrations (thanks TSA), and wondering if I was going to be able to find my in-laws. Turns out, that once I got off the plane, it was pretty easy. The most difficult part was finding my NAS (I found that you can take two boxes on international flights – my $500 computer was oversized for the flight, and I thought it might be hard to explain to immigration why I had a 27″ iMac if I’m on a tourist visa. So I brought my NAS. I think this verifies that I’m a geek. Oh – NAS = Network Attached Storage. It’s a storage array with 5x 1TB disk, giving me 4 TB of disk space. It’s full of Movies, Music, Photos and more!!) Apparently that came to an area separate from the luggage. Once I figured that out, and one sniff from a beagle, I was off to find Tom and Felicity – Justine’s Aunt and Uncle.
Continue reading ‘Made it to Sydney!!!’ »