Sam's First Post

Well, here we are in beautiful Sydney! My flights were absolute misery (21 hours)...but it is all worth it now! My feet and ankles were so swollen when I got off the plane that it looked like I had never lost my baby fat from the knees down. They are just now getting back to normal, three days later. I really need to drink some more water...

Our first day was great...simply exploring the area around our hotel was great. It's called The Rocks, and it is the oldest area in Sydney. To me it looks like a hybrid of some old European town and San Francisco, with a splash of Downtown Disney. For dinner on our first night, we decided to dive right into the culture and ordered a kangaroo pizza. I just have to say that kangaroo...is...delicious. It's more like beef than anything else, but much more tender. As we were leaving dinner, I looked up and realized that there were massive bats everywhere! I've only seen tiny little ones from back home, but these are huge fruit bats; they fly like birds instead of just flitting around.

As for New Year's Eve, it was absolutely amazing. The crowds started packing in at around 6 o'clock by the water, dancing to some hilarious American songs that I haven't heard in years. Both fireworks shows were absolutely AMAZING...I've never seen anything like it. We were lucky enough to view them from the rooftop of our hotel, so it wasn't very crowded. The whole harbor was lit up with at least 5 barges that I could see shooting off in unison. The bridge was also lit up, and the downtown buildings were firing off as well. We were literally surrounded by the most beautiful fireworks I've ever seen.

I'm a little bit too tired right now to remember all the things I wanted to talk about, but I figured I would go ahead and get started on our little blog! We're color coding our posts, so I'll be red!