g'day mate!!!

oh man!!! you guys have no idea how i feel right now. just completely overwhelmed! you know... throughout my travels through southeast asia... people have told me... "oh i cant wait to go to america... i cant even imagine what it would be like" and all i kept thinking was... "geez... its jsut america... no big deal"

well... this must be the way those people feel when they first step foot on american soil.

so after my 9 hour flight into sydney, my friend from home, jesse, was to pick me up at 3 a.m. we had gone over this a million times because i know (and have known for quite a few years now) his lack of any kind of sense of urgency. so i get off my plane.... all anxious to see a familiar face... and no sight of him.

however... i must take ALL the blame ... i realized as i was standing there looking around at all these "aussie faces" that i had told him 3 a.m becasue that was 9 hours later than 6 pm when i left...... THAILAND... i told him THAILAND time... i'm such an idiot! i was really hoping he would be a bit smarter than me and realize i completely forgot the time difference.... but no the blind is surely leading the blind.

luckily i was able to check my email from teh airport... saw that he tried to show up there at 3... and then went back to the hotel room. so i was able to take a cab and meet up with him in just the amount of time for him to be checking out. we literally almost missed each by minutes.

so we go walking around down to the concert hall... teh rocks.. the bridge... you know all the "touristy" places so that i could take my pictures... i was in absolute awe... really.. had tears in my eyes looking at all of it.

after an all day search ... going back and forth with car rental places... and taking trains and buses ( very expensive transportation around here by the way) we finally get our car.

we are heading out towards Manly and then getting out of sydney asap. we have some ground to cover and are quite anxious!

so until the next time....

xoxoxox

p.s. for those of you that i have talked to about this... i will NOT be putting my hand in a kangaroo pouch!!!