Tom's in ________: Oz Day 1, 2, 3 - It's beginning to feel a lot like summer

Sunday 12/27: While Christchurch was rather temperate, like the Bay Area in fall, Sydney was hot and muggy, with a side of muggy. When we got to Sydney it must have been about 85 F with a humidity around 70. It almost made me miss the cold, rainy California winter. Almost.

Getting to our hotel was a bit of an adventure. Getting off the Metro led us right into an underground shopping complex with twice the people of Hillsdale during the Christmas Rush (in fairness, it was the middle of a Sunday with after Christmas sales). We eventually made it through and got to the hotel and just crashed (having gotten up in Christchurch at 4:00 am). Upon waking up at the crack of 2 we travelled across Sydney in search of the Australian branch of The Counter. After a lot of walking (and map reading) we found it. And it was glorious. Almost better than the Palo Alto one (probably because it was the most spicy food I've eaten in a week (NZ is culinarily bland) ).

Monday 12/28: Started off the day with a trip to the Australian National Maritime Museum, where we toured a submarine and a destroyer. I can definitively say that I will never join the navy, I'm too tall (and I don't like the smell of diesel). After baking for a few hours, we wandered over to the Rocks for lunch and to pickup a bike tour. The bike tour was called the "Highlights of Sydney," but they just as easily could have called it "All of Sydney" because the tour lasted 5 hours. I learned and forgot more about Sydney than I ever thought I would, at least we got to enjoy a great pub. We eventually found our way back to Darling Harbor for dinner, where we had a solid (but over priced) dinner at the Australian equivalent of Gordon Biersch.

Tuesday 12/29: Today we toured the Blue Mountains. But before we got to the mountains we stopped at a wildlife park in Featherdale. The wildlife park was very hands-on, I got to pet kangaroos and koalas. Frankly they didn't seem that interested in me, only the food I had (so, so similar to dogs). After the wildlife park we progressed into the mountains, where we stopped at half a dozen rock outcroppings to look into the valley. The views were amazing (reminiscent of Half Dome in Yosemite), but they tended to get repetitive (you can only see so many views of a valley before you get bored).

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