The First Week

We made it! We haven’t died, although we did pray for death a few times during the mammoth 30-hour journey. We spent the first 8’000 km sitting next to an angry drunk American woman who Lee made the mistake of starting a conversation with. We tried to sleep for the next 10’000 km over the Pacific Ocean but ended up catching up on every movie we hadn’t seen in the last 6-months whilst harassing the flight attendants for tea. Because we had rolled our watches back in L.A. and stayed ahead of sunrise as we flew over the Pacific, when we crossed the international dateline we jumped from the 10th to the 12th June. We may have experienced the 12th and 13th of June, but we spent those days dealing with so much jet lag and the uncomfortable situation of sharing a small inflatable mattress that it wasn’t until the weekend that we did anything.

At 7.30am on Saturday we headed out to Bondi beach to catch some early morning waves. Since we’re not exactly what you’d call experienced surfers, we were only trusted by the people we went with to use body boards (really small pretend surf boards for lying face down on, also known to local surfer-types as ‘speed bumps’). Unfortunately the weather was pretty bad. As we pulled in to the beach car park we were met with the sight of enormous waves crashing into the bay and a practically deserted beach. As Lee and I got out of the car and walked closer to the beach we could almost see the panic in the eyes of the lifeguards as they planted danger signs in the sand. By the time we got to the beach an ambulance had rolled up and the morning was over. I guess they saw us coming.

After the disappointment of the morning surf we spent Saturday evening at the SCG for our first Aussie Rules football match. In case you haven’t seen Australian Rules Football, it’s a kind of weird take on Football and American Football, but with an oval playing field and no offside rule. I’d go into it more but I really didn’t understand most of the rules. It’s a brutal game – it’s the only game I know of in which a player can run up another player’s back and get away with it. The teams playing were the Saints (from Melbourne), and the Swans (the local side). Lee decided to back the Saints and I went with the Swans. In your face Lee - the Swans won the game 101 – 66. A few jubilant fans thought they saw the Dalai Lama celebrating afterwards, but it was actually just your run-of-the-mill Tibetan monk. Still, not the kind of place you’d expect to find a Tibetan Monk.

So far we’re having a great time. The weather has been okay. As soon as we have a sunny day we’ll post some photos of Sydney. The only downside is that the tea here is not very nice, and it’s going to cost me $10 AUD to import a small box of PG tips each month.