Thursday, July 30, 2009

First stop, Sydney


After a speedy drive in the boot (see attached video),we spent almost a week in California swimming and hanging out at with my family (Nathan's Family) and consuming large portions of sushi (thanks Jerad and Raquel). Monday arrived and we boarded for our 13 and a half hour flight. Since Matt was a slacker and didn't purchase his ticket the same time as me, we didn't get seating next to each other. We did both get to sit next to native Aussies that gave us the low down on all the things we should do and see. We left at 10:30 p.m. on July 27 and arrived at 6:30 a.m. on July 29th. Thus, we did not get to experience July 28th this year. However, we are living in the future and tomorrow will be warm and sunny but you might want to take a light coat because it will be a little chilly in the evening. We have walked all over the city, rode the ferry, and took a bus out to Manly beach. The opera house is pretty sweet. It seems that it is constructed of cement and then covered with tiles.. the kind you would put as a back splash behind your bathroom sink. The harbor is crazy busy with ferry's coming and going from different bays around the harbor. They are some of the main transportation for people commuting to and from work. We spent our first night in a Hostel since we didn't know where else to stay. They are a bit nicer than expected. We both crashed at about 7:15 being dead tired. There were 8 of us sleeping in one room (4 bunk beds). The bunk above me had some girls crap stung all over it when we went to sleep so her and some other dude ended in the bunk above Matt. Then he wondered why there was so much tossing and turning going on above him... This city has just about everything to see. There is a large section that is just the Botanical Gardens. Some of the trees there are pretty crazy looking. Some of the tree limbs will grow so far and touch the ground and actually take root. Supposedly there are giant fruit bats that come out around dusk that we have yet to see. We ended up with some amazing hook ups out here. It turns out that I knew someone that lives in Sydney. Once upon a time I taught snowboarding with a guy named Aaron Torline. A few years back he married a girl from Sydney and moved over here for good. Him and his wife were leaving town on a snowboarding trip so he kicked us back the keys for a few day. This means we have beds, a bathroom, a kitchen, and even some great Aussie television. I think they are a little behind the times however. They are just getting some of the shows that have been canceled in the states for at least 5 years or more. Who watches Hogans Heroes anymore? In the short, the scenery is beautiful and the people are super nice and way friendly. We'll spend a few more days in Sydney checking stuff out and then it's off to the blue mountains and Katoomba for a week or so. We will still be hit and miss with our blog due to the period of time that we will have the Internet. Thanks for checking in.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

The Trip Has Begun!



We successfully arrived in Reno, Nevada after an all night drive from Rexburg. We left Rexburg around 8pm tuesday with 6 bottles of mountain dew, two bags of blueberry bagels and an iron will. In Wells, Nevada I(matt) made a very good $5 purchase at a Flying J gas station sometime around midnight. A lovely wolf t-shirt caught my eye and I had to have it. Nate is still looking for a good t-shirt at the moment.
We even got nate's car(a 1990 Honda Civic Wagon a.k.a. "the boot") up to 95mph on a downhill stretch. With two mountains dews to spare and some interesting conversations behind us, we arrived at Dustin's(nate's brother) place at around 7am.

We have now caught up on a few hours of sleep and helped with some home construction work and gotten a little kiting in.

We leave for San Francisco tomorrow morning.

For those who don't know here are the known details of our trip:
We fly out of San Francisco Monday (july 27th) night on a 13.5 hour flight directly to Sydney. We leave from Brisbane(about a 15 hour drive north of Sydney) approximately 5 weeks later on September 4th back to San Francisco. It's going to be epic.

Depending on our internet access in the land down under, we will try to update this blog when we can.