The Fam

I awoke early on Sunday morning and caught the shuttle to the airport arriving just before my Mom and Danelle's flight. I took my spot at gate D in the arrival hall, where they would be exiting from, and waited. And waited. After an hour and watching a couple thousand people walk by, I was tapped on the shoulder. I turned around to see: Danelle! And Mom! Hugs followed.

After that we took the shuttle back into the city, to the apartment that Mom had booked for us to stay in. It was a shared accommodation type deal, where the owner of the apartment rents out rooms for people to stay in. So far the guy has been nice, but is obviously a reclusive nerd since he has hardly left his room for the three days we've been here, and isn't anything remotely close to social. Fine by me though, we can enjoy his very nice apartment in peace!

The past few days I've been showing Mom and Danelle around Sydney, being the valuable guide I am. And that's not an understatement, I (and they) can't imagine them(selves) negotiating the Sydney public transport system alone. Fortunately I am experienced with this system and can use it quite proficiently to my advantage. The first day we trained it to the Rocks, where we had a couple beers and walked around the outdoor markets, circling around below the bridge back to Circular Quay, and then down George Street.

The second day we headed back along George Street, mainly to the Queen Victoria Building, where Danelle had become mesmerized by the amount of shopping to be done there, and to Myer so they could buy an umbrella for the crappy amount of rain that had been coming down. After the shopping spree, we walked along Hyde Park and had a coffee, before returning to the apartment and heading out for some delicious Thai food.



Today the weather finally broke, allowing us to head to Manly after a walk around Chinatown and a meal of Dim Sim. The ferry to Manly was a little chilly but otherwise the weather was warm and the sun was shining. Unfortunately upon departing the apartment we didn't think the weather would have been this nice, and didn't don our swimwear, so we had to sit on the steps of the Manly Beach instead. After that we had a pint on the wharf, caught the ferry back, and wandered around until we had some pizza and called it a night!

As today exceeded our expectations in weather terms, hopefully tomorrow will as well. Bondi awaits!