Sunday, August 19, 2007

For Davinie

Davinie has some scrappy goodness planned and requested these pics, and this is the easiest way to get them to someone. Plus, it counts as updating my blog (or maybe just 'dating' me...), and you all get to see how long my hair was in 2001 and the one time I wore those shoes. I cannot walk in shoes like that. Sadly, I discovered that while walking from the car to the Space Needle.



Friday, August 17, 2007

My new 'purse'/travel bag for my camera

Very cool, big enough for all my stuff and I don't feel like a total idiot carrying it around (like a regular purse)

Found at REI but available on the internet. It will fit my camera perfectly so I can take it to Sydney and do my day trips without the current ratty camera bag I have.








Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Much ado about Sydney

Still attempting to finalize things with this trip.

Today, I booked myself a ticket for the Australia National Orchestra's "Adventerous"
concert for Sunday, September 16th. My plan is this--dope myself on the plane once I leave San Francisco and get some sleep there....I land at 6:30am, and I will go to my hotel and drop off my luggage (can't check in that early). I am pretty close, so I am going to walk from there to the Harbour Bridge and do the Pylon viewing station--only $9AUD and has awesome views. For $180AUD you can climb to the top of the bridge, but this is almost the same thing and a million times cheaper.

I will putz for a bit, then walk over to the opera house, have some lunch and go to the orchestra performance. As an 'under 30', I get the best available tickets for only $33AUD. I am sitting in the 7th row almost in the center!! And I turn 30 exactly a month later! After the performance, I want to walk over to a park area with a cut out rock ledge called Mrs. Macquerries's chair. From here, I want to get sunset pictures of the Opera house with the Harbour bridge in the background. I am checking to see if that is a safe plan for a female alone at dusk, but I am fairly certain that is a tourist trap sort of area that will be teeming with dozens of people trying to get the exact same picture I am.

Monday, the 17th Mom and her team will arrive, and if she ever gives me her flight info, the plan is for me to meet them at the airport and we will all go on a city tour for the day to waste some time before we are able to check into our hotel (where we stay for a week).

Tuesday and Wednesday, I am on my own while Mom practices with the team, so I am heading to the nearby Blue Mountains for a little light hiking and sightseeing. I might go to Sydney instead one day, but I am not entirely sure.

Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday are race days, so I am not sure what other fun things we will do. There is a big closing ceremony on Sunday at the Sydney Olympic park.

Monday, we fly to Cairns and are doing a rainforest tour.

Tuesday, we are going out snorkelling on the Reef. Mom and I are staying aboard a boat for the night for some serious snorkelly goodness and lots of sunset photo ops. I bought an underwater camera housing for my Nikon that I will use for the snokelling pictures. I hope it works!!

Wednesday afternoon we come back to Cairns, and have a nice dinner/evening at our hotel

Thursday, we fly back to Sydney and explore there

Friday afternoon, we fly back to the States.

Woo and hoo.

Mom, this is your public calling-out for not yet giving me your flight info. Oh, and the Visa info (if they got mine, when it will be mailed to me). And stuff. But we are going to have lots of fun! I am bringing my laptop to blog along the way (much cheaper than internet cafes and we have free internet in our hotel room)

Monday, August 06, 2007

Reasons why we love living in Seattle

We went out on Kim and Erica's boat with them for Seafair Saturday. What a blast! There were a billion other boats out there jockeying for the best position to watch the airshow. We were in the midst of it all and had an awesome view. The boats are all so close together they have water balloon fights and super soaker attacks on each other. No hard feelings anywhere--the college kids are throwing at the little old ladies who are wielding super soakers. Lots of fun!
After the airshow, we headed up to the northern end of the lake where there were no boats and it was calmer. Kim and Erica showed us their tried and true method of floating in the lake with a beer. It involves two lifejackets and at least one friend to hand you the beer,and was tons of fun. We stayed out until about 9pm then headed for home.