Loving Australia!

The Patnodes are loving Australia!! What's not to like?? It is summer here, so the weather is fantastic... warm sunny days and cool breezy nights. Sydney itself is very metropolitan... a good mix of beautiful old architecture and modern sky scrapers. The city it built around the harbour, so you get the most spectacular view of the bridge and the Opera House no matter where you are or what you are doing... amazing. The ferries cart you everywhere... right to the doorstep of the zoo, the aquarium, Manly Beach... whatever!

I love this shot of Andrew, taking a break at the foot of the stairs to the Opera House, just chilling out, checking the time on his new watch. I now call him Big Ben, because he is constantly reporting what time it is here, in India, in the US... how many minutes until the ferry arrives, how long we have been waiting for our food etc...

Today we went to "The Rocks" - just a short walk from the Quay... I love this place, because nearly every place has a witty rock related name... we dropped our laundry at "Wash on the Rocks" (on a side note... we brought just 2 checked bags for the 5 of us spending 2 weeks here-I even impressed myself with this feat!!)... thus the need to do laundry!! Anyway, you just drop off your duffel bag at Wash on the Rocks and they return it to your hotel the same day, all clean and folded!! We went straight from there to eat at "Pancakes on the Rocks" (seeing a theme here) and even came across a car-rock "meeting" in the middle of the road! We shopped at Rockhounds (jewelry) too!

Around the harbour, there are all sorts of street entertainers. And when they invite you to join them... well, you just have to go!

We went to the Taronga Zoo on Christmas Day. Wow, I am not really a fan of zoos... but I would say this is even tops the San Diego Zoo, which is saying alot!! I wont bore you with a bunch of animal photos... you know in Australia it is all about the koalas and the 'roos, right? Just steps from the entrance, in the kangaroo hop about, our day was made, with kangaroos hopping all around us! No fences, no gates, no barriers... just a bunch of kangaroos and us! This was my favorite little joey...

The koala encounter is terrific as well. This little baby boy koala had a thing for Lauren!!

I have so much more to talk about. More to come tomorrow... many people have asked about the food. I will devote an entire blog to food tomorrow!!! For now, I need to enjoy my latte... YUM!