Sydney part 1

I'm still new at this blogging page, and apparently you can only add 5 pictures at a time. Here are some requisite, but nice, tourist pictures of the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge and me with a bridge coming out of my head. Traveling a far distance alone isn't easy, for me at least, plus starting out in a city makes it harder. I don't feel like I've gotten too much beyond seeing the things I "should" see to finding a place I want to explore and come back to. Two signs I like...Casual Parking and Male Toilets. While I do understand what Male Toilets means, I don't think Casual Parking will be got until I ask someone (which I won't). While in an elevator an aussie dude asked me what part of North America I was from. When I said Oregon, he replied "that's far from everything!" Many responses went through my head, but I answered

"well, not really". His answer was "the longest bus ride of my life was from Las Vegas to Dallas, two sunrises!" Perfect time for the elevator door to open and aussie dude to step out so I didn't have to come up with a reasonable response.

The last 18 hours...

Here's an idea, don't get food poisoning 6 hours into a 10 hour flight. First it's never fun to throw up and have diarrhea, but when there are a limited number of toilets and lots of people sharing, it's obviously worse. I won't go into extreme details, but I did end up with vomit down my shirt and on my socks. Luckily I had another shirt to change into. Better a smeely bag then a smelly front. The only medical type person on board was an OB-GYN, he was very nice and cute, too. The upside of the hurling turned out to be getting a wheelchair ride to the front of the quarantine and taxi lines. I thought staying in a small boutique hotel would be fun, however the entrance is on a gross alley with either garbage or (my luck) vomit covering it. There's quite a popular nightclub downstairs that kept awake for too many hours. The lighting and cooling are controlled by the telephone, which was way beyond my comprehension while feeling so poorly. i'm moving to a new hotel with a view of the harbor and hopefully my stay in Sydney will start getting better.

Cockroach playing dead by my bed (don't ask why I took a picture). It didn't move til I picked it up causing me to drop it and run screaming out of the room. I'm such a wimp.

We've had incredible rain storms in the evening and through the night, but have been lucky to enjoy nicely sunny days.

The ocean has been really rough, with rip tides bad enough to warrant signs with Strong Current! No Swimming! and a picture of a stick figure drowning. A lifeguard came by to update us on the conditions saying "it's better than yesterday, but still rough. If you want to swim head down toward the pier". My sister asked "can we go in here just to cool off? Lifeguard..."If you want to cool off there's a shower by the lifeguard stand and for productive swimming you should head down by the pier". Cool off in the shower? At the beach? Productive swimming? What the hell?

starting out...

being new to the land of blogging, i'm gonna jump in and hope i do okay. currently in hanalei, kaua'i adjusting my time zone slightly before heading to australia and new zealand on thursday. backyard to the left and hanalei outriggers finishing up practice (barely visible in my phone pic) on the right.