Because the train to the Melbourne airport is not built yet we had to take a $65 cab ride to make our flight on time. Our flight was uneventful and we arrived back in Sydney around 10am, gathered our luggage and took the metro 5 stops to The Circular Quay in the harbor. This cost $16 each. Really? We are still amazed at how expensive Australia is. No wonder Lesley kept marveling at how inexpensive everything was when she visited us in the US a couple of years ago. Oh well, it is what it is and we are having the time of our life. We can't think about it too much or it will make us crazy.

We are meeting Ray and Lesley at The Holiday Inn On The Rocks. This is a premiere location just under the harbor bridge and near the opera house. We cashed in some points and got two rooms for the night so at least that is free. We checked in at 11am and decided to go walk around for a few hours. Eric and I found an old hotel to have lunch at. We decided we needed a bottle of Campaign to celebrate Eric’s last day in Australia so we asked a pirate for directions. Yep, a pirate. I think he was actually a ghost of Captain Cook and was getting ready to do a ghost tour of Sydney.

We got back to our room around 2pm and drank our champagne and waited for Ray and Lesley to arrive. They brought nibblies and a bottle of wine for themselves so we relaxed for a couple hours. We did go to the roof for a while to take in the views of the city and the harbor. There was a giant cruise ship in harbor that was blocking a lot of the view.

We all got ready for dinner and headed out on an adventure to find a good place to eat. We decided to walk to Darling Harbor and check out the waterfront restaurants. This turned out to be a bad idea. It looked nice online but it turned out to be a giant meat market with load clubs and drunk business people still hanging around after Friday afternoon happy hour. We ended up walking back to Circular Quay. Unfortunately the big cruise ship was still blocking the view but we found a restaurant and finally ate around 9pm. We were so happy to get off our feet and eat. After dinner we went back to the hotel. Eric and I stayed up way too late hanging out. We fought sleep for a while knowing that he was leaving in the morning and we won’t see each other for 18 days when we will meet up in the Baltimore Airport.