Its been a looooong time since I've blogged.

I must admit, the realization that I'm likely going to be hounded with the same questions over and over even if I do blog has created some apathy.  So if you're going to read the blog, be kind and help reduce the number of times I get asked "So how was Australia?" or "What did you do?," since this blog is sort of aimed at reducing the redundancy of such questions and keeping those interested informed.

About a month ago Nicole and I went to Sydney (make sure to check out her blog, it has pictures and such).  It was a pretty busy hotel weekend, I guess there was a mini-marathon like thing the day we left, so we ended up staying in 3 hotels in 3 nights.  

Sydney felt a lot less Australian to me, it was almost like London's little sister, just on the other side of the world.  Everything moved a lot faster and was more expensive, the mark of being the biggest, most important city for about 4,000 miles.  I liked Sydney, but I'm glad I'm living in Brisbane.

We did the obligatory Opera House (It wasn't as white and gleaming as I expected it to be) and Harbour Bridge (more impressive than I thought it would be).  We also visited the Sydney Fish Market, 2nd only to Tokyo in terms of variety. We went there twice actually.  The place was pretty awesome.  Nicole fell in love with a small little patisserie on the way where we got a mini lemon tart- twice, too. 

Sydney, despite its size and sprawling suburbs (4.5 Million) is a very walkable city, and the CBD isn't nearly as big as it looked on the map.  Darling Harbour, which I assumed would be overwhelming, was rather quaint for its size.  It has several hotels, a couple malls, the aquarium (we went there too), a maritime museum (old ships and submarines), and the convention centre.  All in all I think the 3 days we spent in Sydney were all we really needed.

The next week we went over to the South Bank Parklands early to stake out a spot for the RiverFire fireworks show- the biggest annual event in Brisbane.  Having been to Riverfest in Cincinnati several times, I had reserved expectations.  But after seeing a half hour fireworks show that encompassed 2 stretches of river (going around a corner), 10 downtown buildings, 8 barges, 2 RAAF F-111 dump and burn flyovers, and something along the lines of 3.6 tons of fireworks, it matches, maybe even surpasses Cincy's show.   It was totally overwhelming- there were fireworks going off everywhere.  Check out the finale here.

We just finalized our trip to New Zealand in 2 weeks- we're doing a whirlwind tour of the South Island, and I'm going to have an adventure driving on the wrong side of the road and car.  I promise I'll blog sooner this time.