Dad, Jillian, and Davin dropped us off curbside at the airport without any major hoopla. Davin was promised a trip past Boeing field and was excited to get going and didn't even notice that his parents were leaving. Besides having "invalid passports" and "no visas" (according to the United ticket agent), we left Seattle without a hitch.

We arrived in LA on time and headed to the International Terminal to meet the other trip winners and our sponsor from the US branch of Rosemount Estates. We gave up after a couple hours waiting in the Quantas club, and headed downstairs to find something to eat before boarding. Chris saw a man wearing a Rosemount Estates shirt and got his attention. It was our Rosemount contact. The ticket counter hadn't given us the message not to go to the Quantas Club, but instead to meet everyone at the Daily Grill. We missed out on a couple hours of dinner conversation, but scored the last glass of champagne and a Rosemount bag.

Chris started to get a stomach ache during dinner and felt worse and worse as the clock ticked. His entire 14 hour flight to Sydney was spent getting sick in the bathroom or in air sickness bags. We found out later that Jillian also was sick all night. The last thing they both ate before we left was a bowl of knoephla soup that Dad had brought from ND. He got stuck in Detroit on the way here and the soup sat out for about 24 hours before it was refridgerated.

Day One - Dec. 30th

We arrived in Sydney in the morning and got to the hotel around 10:00am. Chris took a bath and a nap, while I wandered around the gay district on Oxford Street looking for a bank to exchange money and a grocery store to buy Chris toast and 7-Up. Later, Chris was feeling better and we decided to take an easy tour of the aquarium. The weather report on the TV stated the weather would be "fine", which seemed sort of vague, but found out from the tight-knit tank tops in line at the aquarium that we were definitely not in rainy Seattle winter anymore. The best part of the aquarium was the underwater tunnels which allowed us to walk under Darling Harbour to observe sharks and rays.

Day Two- Dec. 31st

We were hard pressed to locate things in Sydney that distinguished it as a foreign city. We could only find minor differences like cars driving on the opposite side of the road and the outlets with different voltages and prongs. Besides these two differences, the city compared closely with coastal cities in the US, like Baltimore or San Diego, with touristy harbors and a submarine museum.

We had been warned on the news about the 1 1/2 million people expected to fill the city for the fireworks, so planned for only minor sightseeing. We took a ferry across the harbor to Tarango Zoo and were reminded several times that the last ferry would be at 3pm- due to the holiday. It was a beatiful day and we spent three or four hours exploring the paths of the zoo. The architects of the zoo built it on the side of a hill with the entrance at the top, so as you zigzig down the paths of the zoo, you get magnificant views of the Sydney skyline across the bay. By the time we made it to the bottom, at 2:30pm, the boats had filled the harbor so full that the ferry was having a difficult time making its final trip to the zoo for our 3pm pickup. For about 45 minutes we wondered if we were going to spend New Year's Eve on a ferry dock across the harbor. Luckily, the ferry manuevered its way and we made it back to the growing crowd at Circular Quay. (Quay is pronounced "Key")

That Night- New Year's Eve - The Millenium Bash

After changing at the hotel, we headed into the masses for early fireworks, dinner, and more fireworks. Rosemount had arranged for our dinners at the Rockpool and the chef Neil Perry had prepared a scrumptious millenium feast, all detailed in our personalized and autographed menus. I had never eaten most of the food we were served and the Rosemount wine came free flowing. To see the menu, click here. After the feast, we went outside to watch the fireworks explode above the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.

Day Three- Jan. 1st 2000

Like most counties except the US, Australia takes its holidays seriously and between noon on Dec. 31 and the morning of January 4th, many businesses were closed or on restricted hours. When we woke up on the 1st, we took a taxi to the QVB (Queen Victoria Building) to see some classic architecture. The stores were closed, but we wandered around and strolled to the Rocks- the oldest part of Sydney with a great history- from the convicts who settled there, to the plague, to its restoration into a social gathering place of fine restaraunts and pubs. It was amazing that after 1 1/2 million people had littered the streets of Sydney until the wee hours of New Years Eve, the city had managed to pick up most of the trash by noon of New Years Day. This added to our appreciation of the way the city had seamlessly transported the crowd out of Circular Quay with minimal delay the night before.

We walked from the Rocks (where we saw the ship used in the filming of the Mutiny on the Bounty with Mel Gibson- pictured below, through the Botanical Gardens, through the Domain, up the city streets towards our hotel, looking for a place to eat dinner. I read Access Sydney before the trip and had it with me, so I pulled it out and found some restaurants near our hotel off Oxford Street. After circling the blocks a few times, we ended up walking uphill to Oxford Street to a nice little Greek Restaurant. After a long night of drinking, and a day filled with constant walking, we huffed back to the Marriott and poured our tired bodies into bed.

Day Four- Jan. 2nd

The walking tour, while everything was closed, helped us determine what we wanted to see open. Since it was rainy, we headed to the Australian Museum- one of the top five natural history museums in the world. We spent four hours learning about Aborigines, the theory of evolution, bats, and Australian natural history. The pictures below were taken from an outback church were Christianity and Aboriginal beliefs meshed. The left painting represents the three kings bringing gifts (definitely not Frankincense or Myrrh) to the baby Jesus and the right picture depicts the last supper with one disciple turned away (again, not bread and wine, but Aborginal food and drink).

After an awesome snack in the Museum cafe of potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chili sauce (which prompted us to buy sweet chili sauce and bring it home), we headed over to Paddy's Market and Chinatown. We weren't really in the shopping mood and the flea market was very crowded with people off for the holidays, so we escaped to the City Center train station.

After a few days in the city, we were antsy to get away, but had little time since we were planning on meeting the other couples for dinner. We hopped on a CityRail train to the suburban town of Parramatta. Once there, we walked around the city center a little bit, but again everything was closed. The only thing we really ventured to see was the Parramatta River with an Aboriginal art river trail. By the time we got back to Sydney, the other couples had gone to supper and once again, we walked down Oxford St. for a bite to eat before crashing in bed.

Day Five- Jan. 3rd

We started the day at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. The featured exhibit was called "Michelangelo to Matisse- Drawing the Figure" which studied the revival of sketching and sculpting the classical nude from the 15th and 16th century. Listening to most of the discriptions of the drawings on a rented headset took about 4 hours. We were tired and hungry and buzzed through the rest of the musuem.

Because the Opera was sold out for the entire duration of our visit, we weren't able to buy tickets. Instead, we took a guided tour of the Opera House. The entire interior of the Sydney Symphony Orchastra concert hall is made of wood to better resonate sound. Since sound travels up, the walls were molded into waves to bring the sound back to the audience. Hanging from the ceiling above the stage were glass "donuts" to reflect sound back down to the players themselves. Outside, the Opera House is composed of small, white, ceramic tiles.

It was a beautifully sunny day, so we took the CityRail out to Bondi Beach for a look at the surf. At 4pm the beach was still covered with people. We sat in the incredibly soft white sand and watched the swimmers walk back and forth on the shore. After visiting a couple of touristy shops, we hopped in a taxi back to the rail station and returned to Circular Quay.

Feeling liberated without a 2 1/2 year old, we caught the late showing of Being John Malkovich.

Day Six- Jan. 4th

We joined a day tour to the Blue Mountains in a Land Cruiser. The Blue Mountains are similar to the Grand Canyon, except the canyon is covered with eucalyptus trees. It was named the Blue Mountains because the trees emit a gas into the air that gives everything a blue haze.

Our first stop on the way was to the Featherdale Wildlife Park. We piled out of the Land Cruiser, excited to be able to pet some koala, when an employee asked me to hold his bag for a second. As I stood there, the bag began to move and finally a small head peaked out. It was a wallaby (a small kangaroo.) Once inside, Chris stuck his arm into a koala pen and the koala tried to escape up his arm, giving him big red scratch welts. All in all, it was fun to get up close and personal with the animals we had seen in the zoo.

Our tour guide, Robert, was awesome. He grew up near the Blue Mountains and was familiar with the terrain. He would ask us if we wanted to go to the tourist lookout or if we'd like to take a less travelled road. Our group always chose the less travelled roads and we got to play a bit in the "bush". Robert would stop the Cruiser and tell us to get out and walk awhile then he'd wait until we had hiked a ways and would come pick us up.

We also visited Three Sisters, the rocky promontory over Jamison Valley. It is the most visited lookout in Australia. If you are planning a trip to Sydney for the Olympics, we recommend taking the Dal Myles 4-Wheel Drive Blue Mountains Tour. I would recommend asking for Robert. The trip was supposed to end at 4pm, but he let us savor the day and returned us at 6:30pm.

After the tour, we picked up a bite to eat by grilling our own steak dinner at Philip's Foote in the Rocks on our way to do the BridgeClimb. At 8:30pm, we suited up and went through training on using the harnesses and equipment. At about 9:30pm, we began the ascent to the top of the bridge. It was beautiful (and windy) and we thank Jillian for giving us such a wonderful Christmas present!! The picture below was taken by our climb leader at the top of the bridge.

Day Seven- Jan. 5th

We were picked up at the Marriott at 8am by the Marketing and Promotion Manager of Rosemount Estates for a trip to Upper Hunter Valley to visit the main winery and vineyard.

The drive took almost 3 hours and the scenery made it well worth it. Once there, we were given a tour of the winery and learned how they bottle, label, and package the wine. We also toured the storage building that houses the premium wines in oak barrels as they age.

After our tour, we enjoyed a great lunch and a great selection of Rosemount Estate Wines. Chris preferred the Balmoral and says it's the best wine he has ever had (when we got home, we found it at the grocery story across the street from us for $37 a bottle.) I liked the Chardonnay and the Sparkling Chardonnay, but the split label Semillon/Chardonnay was nice, too. After lunch we walked to the vineyard for a final glass of wine among the grapes.

Day Eight- Jan. 6th

We packed first thing in the morning and brought our bags down to be held until our transport to the airport arrived at 1pm. I was determined to build on my large-structure, earring collection (Eiffel Tower, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Space Needle) so we headed over to the Center Pointe (or AMP) Tower. We did some last minute shopping before and after, visiting the QVB while it was open. With a few more bags of loot, we headed back to the Marriott for final checkout.

Chris felt much better on the return flight and the Jet Stream helped the trip take 2 1/2 hours less. After a short lay-over in LAX, we were off to Seattle. Davin was a bit unnerved at seeing us in the airport, and is still pretty confident that we spent a week on an airplane. Mom stayed one more night to help us rest and get over jet lag. We were back on the road to normalcy when we woke up the next morning to Davin questioning excitedly, "Is it a train-store day??"

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