Sydney was great. We had some beautiful weather on Thursday and made our way to Manly Beach via ferry and then did a 10k walk to "The Spit." The Sydney harbor area is so nice and it was also nice to sweat and be a little warm (and to get some more color back on my skin). There were some crazy lizards just wandering the track and sitting on trees. I also bought some sunscreen and got a free lunch box cooler thingie. Score! Thursday night we ate at a Thai BYO. I don't even think twice about BYOs anymore given that Philly has tons. Evan hadn't been to one and kept his beer under the table because it felt illegal. I proudly displayed my bottle of wine on the table and proudly finished it as well.
Yesterday we had some cloudy drizzle so we attempted the koala breakfast. It wasn't on and Evan was kind of sad. I'm sure we'll get to hug koalas soon enough. Instead we went to the Sydney Wildlife World place and the Aquarium. The wildlife place was very cool and I learned all about Australia's poisonous lizards/snakes/spiders ants. Lovely. Even better was seeing real live koalas and kangaroos and a huge crocodile (who apparently didn't mate in captivity because he kept killing all the lady crocs he met). The aquarium would have been better if it wasn't filled with hundreds of waist-high school kids.
We tried out the Inner West neighborhoods last night for dinner/drinks. Met a bartender from NY who hates the Phillies...and the Red Sox. Oops! He was nice to us anyway though and hooked me up with a fantastic cheese plate and Evan with some Australian beer (no, not Fosters). I honestly think my greatest skills are wine drinking and eating (esp sweets and anything with cheese).
After making a rough plan for our drive today and agreeing to meet at 7 this a.m to run, we went to our hostel rooms. Although I should have just chilled so I wouldn't die on my 1st run in 6 weeks, I ended up wandering around with the Irishman (Eoin = Owen) and Tom and joined them in their quest for a pizza. They acquired this pizza at a Kebab house and decided to get the supreme and, in case it wasn't enough, they added jalapenos, extra cheese and kangaroo. Despite their peer pressure, I did not try the kangaroo. I may. But maybe not at a kebab house.
After the kangaroo pizza walk we found all the other guys playing drinking games in the room and they successfully peer pressured me into going to the hostel bar with them. It was worth it. The dancing that went on down there was priceless. No one was on the same beat, one girl was doing a strip tease, and a young asian man was practicing some quality ballet moves (I'm not sure if it was intentional or not).
I did successfully wake up this morning with enough time to skype (yes, in Australia thus far the computers are fast enough that I can skype) with Preston and gchat with Kiran and Dorothee before running a great 4ish miles, including sprinting the opera house steps and feeling like I could run plenty more in the end...even in my Payless sneakers and dealing with Evan's long strides (although he did slow a bit for me). Vegas 1/2 marathon in December looks like it could be a reality depending on the finances.
And that's about it. I'm beach ready, I've got clean underwear and I'm back to running. Australia is good with me.
Oh...and FYI, the law firm I quit, cut the hours of 1/2 the secretaries to half-time, ended up laying one secretary off and also let 1 lawyer go. Looks like I got out of there just in time.
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