Ok, well I'm actually back from Australia, and very sad about it. But I shall digress, I've got a bunch of pictures that I've yet to show everyone so I'm just going to continue my blog even though I'm back in the states.

On one occasion Eric and Dave and I took a road trip to some of the northern beaches, those being north of Sydney. As you can see from the first picture it was a pretty stormy day, the rain clouds you see look like they are fairly close but it actually took quite a few hours for them to catch up with us, we got a good soaking.

The next picture is taken from North Head looking at the Sydney skyline. There's North Head and South Head and in the middle is from where ships enter and leave Sydney Harbor. The water you see there in the Harbor is what the Australians refer to as very "sharky" in other words, don't swim there. The waters in and around the harbor are teeming with sharks, mostly bull sharks, very dangerous to swim in the harbor!!
The third picture is one that I like because it rather well demonstrates the topography of the land north of Sydney, rolling hills, very green and picturesque. Of course you also get some very jagged cliffs too but you already knew that.

The final picture is taken from the House of Ken and Maureen, long time friends of Dave and his family. The bird in the picture is a Kookaburra, Ken put out two small pieces of fish and the Kookaburra swooped in and took one, now what Kookaburra did next is slam the piece of fish on the railing to "kill" it. They do this with their natural prey which is usually snakes, easier for eating I guess. You know the typical sound that is meant to represent a jungle environment in the movies? Anyone? Anyway that sound is made by the Kookaburra, to hear it in person is really cool, makes you think the bird might be a celebrity for a moment.

More pictures!! I know!! I went on a tour of the Sydney Opera House and before hand I took some pictures, it was a very overcast and rainy day but despite that I think the pictures turned out pretty well. I decided to take many of the Opera House Pictures from different angles, angles that you don't often see. You'll notice that the "Sails" of the Opera House are actually covered with thousands of small tiles, this was a surprise to me, we've all seen many pictures of the Opera House but they're all wide landscape shots, too wide to see the detail of the structure itself. I was very intrigued by the tiles and enjoyed them very much. I zoomed in very tight on some of the tiles, if you didn't know that they were on the Opera House you'd never guess it would you? I really liked the convergence of angles which is another reason that I took so many pictures of parts of the Opera House. While I was on the tour we went inside the main concert hall, to everyone's surprise the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was right in the middle of rehearsal!! It was a very cool experience, I've never heard musicians that were that masterful!! It was a case of very good timing. Yeah I know, I haven't taken any pictures of really beautiful women, too bad. If you want to see lots of beautiful women then get yourself to Australia, see them for yourself, there are tons of them, especially in and around Sydney. Gotta go!! Ian

More pictures!! Sunrise at Bondi, the next picture is taken from South Head, the south side entrance to Sydney Harbor and looking at North Head. The third picture is a silhouette of a church steeple with Sydney Harbor behind, I think it turned out fairly well!!

OK, I'm back!! Eric and I moved out of the hostel we were staying at and we finally rented an apartment, it's only about two blocks from the beach here in Bondi. It's kind of a pit really, not a 5 star location to be sure, it's very utilitarian and gets the job done quite nicely. Finally got some surfing in again today and as a consequence am quite tired. The last two days have seen some fairly decent waves but because of all the rain we've had surfing was more or less out of the question. Rain brings runoff, runoff brings in the smallest of animals to feed on said runoff. When small creatures feed you can count on larger creatures to feed on the smaller ones, follow this path all the way up the food chain and at the top you'll find the apex predators, most notably the bull shark and great white shark. So in a nutshell when it rains the sharks show up, to make matters worse the rain causes the water to get very murky which makes it harder for the sharks, or toothy guppies as I like to refer to them, to differentiate their normal diet from the forms of surfers and swimmers. Now when a bull or a white shark takes an investigatory bite it's doing so in order to determine if it's really worth the trouble. Unfortunately an investigatory nibble, even a small one, is more often than not fatal to humans. More to the point such a nibble is fatal to pretty much everything under the sun, sharks don't mess around. So Ian, and many other surfers and swimmers, didn't go into the water for the last day and a half. But I digress as I got in a pretty good two hour session early this afternoon. Go me!! OK so I've been trying to get my pictures to upload but for some reason I'm not having the slightest bit of success... you'll just have to believe me when I say that they're awesome!!

God Bless,

Ian

 

Pictures!! A cove just south of Bondi, waves were building at this point. Next picture, onshore breeze blowing the mist up the cliffs, very cool sight!! And a panoramic view of Bondi from the South. I have more pictures but don't have easy access to the internet right now, sorry about that!!!  

Dave's Little Accident

The pictures we have here are of my friend Dave and his recently broken ankle, more to the point his very seriously broken ankle. Dave was an ocean lifeguard with Eric and I in New Jersey and he's a volunteer lifeguard here at Tamarama. Anyhoo, Dave and one of his mates, as they say here in Australia, were doing a shark sweep in an IRB, inflatable rescue boat, in some pretty hairy conditions when Dave was confronted by a 2.5 meter meter wall of water. Dave was driving and he wasn't able to get the IRB squared up in time so the wave pitched Dave, his friend and the boat upside down. This happened so quickly and with such force that it instantly snapped Dave's ankle, he didn't actually hit his ankle on anything nor did his ankle get caught between two objects, just a simple and very rapid change of direction. Now I have on occasion flipped a rescue boat (I imagine Eric has as well), I've gone over the falls backwards (it doesn't get much scarier than that), I've been hypothermic on more than one occasion, however I never stacked an IRB into a wall of water and broken my ankle in the process. Dave wins the Life Guard Worst Injury Award hands down. Take into account that Dave's ankle isn't in shadow, it's really that color, not pretty.

More pictures!! Behold the glory of pictures!! The first picture is one of the sun peeking through the clouds, this was taken whilst I was on a ferry in Sydney Harbor, God did an outstanding job when he made the sun didn't he?

The second photo is also taken from the ferry and I thought it might be interesting to see if I could frame the flag in the foreground and the Opera House in the background and see what kind of picture it would make. Let me know what you think ok!!

The third picture I took while we were crossing the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The HUGE freighter entering the harbor makes for a good point of reference to give you an idea how big the Opera House is. Click on the pictures to make them larger if you'd like. 

Here I've included some pictures of Eric, Fran and myself. The first is Fran, Eric and me on the Sydney ferry, next is Fran and Eric with the Opera House in the background and the last one is Eric at the North Sydney Olympic Pool which is next to the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

Ok here we go!! Yesterday was a great day!! Eric and I along with Fran ventured into Sydney proper. Fran, one of Dave's roommates, she from Berlin, is here working as an intern as she finishes her law degree. We took a bus into downtown Sydney, did some shopping, and then walked across the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Check out the pictures!! Pretty cool huh? The Harbor Bridge is an amazing structure, very picturesque!! 

The only thing that would make it even better might be an unbelievable opera house located right next door. The Australians, being a people with moxie in spades, actually did just that and constructed the most beautiful opera house right next to the bridge!! Who knew!! The Sydney Opera House is stunning and much larger than I had anticipated. I'm hoping to catch a show of some kind, don't know what kind yet, opera, maybe a symphony, we'll have to wait and see. Anyhoo check out the pictures and let me know what you think. Feel free to compliment me on my photo taking skills, not too bad for an amateur. Yeah, I pretty much rock!! Also, I'm really awesome!! 

I'm getting used to seeing and riding in cars on the side of the street opposite that of the United States. Here's the thing though, when crossing the street here in OZ you absolutely must look to the right first, then the left, then the right again, this is opposite of the norm in America. Now it sounds easy, look to the right before crossing the street, in practice however it's a very hard habit to establish. Eric and I both are so used to looking to the left that we don't even think about it, its been ingrained into our subconscious I believe. As hard as we try we still do it, we still look to the left, as breaking habits go it's extremely difficult. You learn fast though because it's bad form to step out into the street and get flattened by a bus. So we learn. Consider this as well, the same etiquette that one applies to driving here in Australia, also applies to walking. When you walk down a sidewalk you walk on the left, always, just as you would were you driving a car on the street. Walk on the right side of a walk and you immediately identify yourself as an American, or possibly a Canadian. It's impolite to ambulate the right side of a sidewalk and run into someone traveling in the other direction. Well, it could be fun if the other person is a really beautiful woman, of which there are plenty here in Australia. Seriously, plenty!! Never before have I been witness to so many beautiful women in one place, it's reason enough to stay in Australia, as if the beaches, perfect weather, spectacular waves and tons on other activities didn't do it for you. Oh yeah, click on pictures to enlarge them!!

Hello all!! The picture on the left is just down the street from Cafe M where I ate breakfast this morning, below is the view from a 30 second walk from my house here in Bondi, it's pretty cloudy and overcast so you'll have to excuse the picture quality, you can just make out the line dividing the pacific and the sky. Click on the pictures, you'll be able to see them in larger scale.

I must apologize for having not posted anything since my arrival in Australia. The flight from Los Angeles to Sydney was somewhere in the neighborhood of 15 hours and it just simply wore me out, I needed some time to recover. In any case, Eric and I got up this morning and with Dave, who's house we're staying at, went for breakfast and coffee. The coffee here is pretty phenomenal, I've been to two different coffee shops already and both were excellent. Eric and I then walked to Tamarama for a swim which was terrific!! The water temperature was around 22 degrees celsius, so about 72 degrees fahrenheit, we could have stayed in the water all day long at that temp. The water here in this part of the Pacific seems rather different than that of the Atlantic water that I'm used to. Eric and I both agreed that it seems to have a greater salt content than either of us has experienced anywhere else. Very salty. Also of note is that the ocean water here looks very much like the ocean water that we've seen off the California coast but it smells much more like the water of the Mid Atlantic, very interesting differences. 

I have to say that the women here in Australia are beautiful and there are lots of them. Lots. And again lots!! Eric and I have to keep our heads on a swivel around here so we don't miss any of them. The thing is that we've only experienced what it's like here on a weekday, one single weekday and already it might be more than Eric and I can take. Dave has warned us that come the weekend the women here are going to break us both. Well if that's the case, I guess I'll just have to be broken!! Now if that isn't bad enough it gets worse and here's why... Sydney beaches are topless! Eric and I weren't warned of this fact until it was to late and as you might well imagine our first encounter was, well an eye opener. Important to mention is that it's impolite to stare, take into account that even though Australia is western, english speaking country it is still a different culture and that must be respected. To be clear though most women do wear bikini tops, but not all of them, and it simply and clearly illustrates how uptight and, to be rather blunt, prude Americans can be. I have plenty more to write but it's getting late and I'm very tired. Right now it's 11:33 pm here in OZ but my body is still telling me that it's 6:33 am in College Station so I'm off to bed!! 

Ian

Los Angeles

Ok here we go!! I'm sitting here at a coffee shop, appropriately named "The Coffee Bean" on the corner of Wilshire and 9th. Sitting outside watching the cars drive by, the women, most of them beautiful by the way, walk by on their way to wherever they're going. If you're into cars of the exotic variety then LA is the place, just saw a Ferrari drive by, very cool!! I've seen more Ferrari's in the last 36 hours than I've seen in the last year. Today I'm going to rest up as much as I can, my buddy Eric and I take off for Sydney tonight around 11:45 or so and the flight is around 17 hrs or so, resting up is a good idea. Hard to believe I'm on my way to Australia!! I have no idea what to expect, I really don't. Ok I have to get going, much umm... resting to do. 

Laters,

Ian