Sydney!

...and we have arrived...

Mama Dukes's bag got lost somewhere between Collegeville and Syndey... we'll blame it on US Airways. Other than the bag incident we both got here in one piece. My nice little 3 hour flight wasn't near as fun as the 15-hour one Mom endured but she's a trooper. And besides, a 15-hour airplane ride is payback for that horrible spinach casserole she used to make us eat when I was in 3rd grade. Dad, you remember? Mom was in night school and you used to feed it to us and tell us it was good for us... then we'd ask you why you weren't eating it and you wouldn't say anything (you thought I forgot about that didn't you?)

The hostel is really nice and superclean. We have our own room that is the size of an apartment in NYC, but hell, we're not spending time in the room other than to sleep so who cares.

Last night we ate in Chinatown... god I love all the asian food here... almost as much as $3 Japanese stores. Then we hit up some cool little betting bar that had some fantastic Belgium Blonde Beer. Today we walked all around the city, I'd say at least 5 miles. We went to the harbor and did an Opera House tour and walked through The Rocks, which is old skool part of Syndey. The buildings are old and painted cool colors, it actually reminds me alot of England. We went to this huge market today called Paddy's (aka Zerns of Australia but much cleaner and more like a mall) and got mom some back-up clothes just in case the suitcase didn't make it today. We also went to this awesome Chinese garden. It had all these beautiful buildings and waterfalls that lead into ponds with Koi fish. It was so peaceful and quiet, I'd pay $6 to get in every day! Tomorrow I think we're going to go to Manly Beach for the day. My friend Sophie that I traveled NZ with arrives tomorrow. I'm real exicted to see her because she's extremely cool and she makes the F-word sound so polite with her little English accent.

We'll write more in a few days... my US cell can text here, so text away if you'd like. The NZ pre-paid phone still has some $$ on it so you can text that as well. Oh, also instead of a 6-hour difference, it's a 9-hour difference (Sydney is 3 hours behind NZ). So if it's:

12pm in Sydney on Friday, March 9
then it's 9pm Thursday, March 8 (for all you Phillysiders)