Part II: Sydney, Australia

I think our plane may have crashed on the way here because I’ll be damned if we didn’t die and go to heaven. Amie’s “Uncle” Ian was waiting for us at the airport, helped us scoop up our luggage, and before we knew it we were on a driving tour of Sydney in route to the 1.7M house he had just finished building that we will be staying at for the next few nights (maybe more if Amie has her way!). From what I saw of Sydney today I was instantly impressed, it feels much like a cleaner, sunnier San Francisco.

On the way to Ian and Marie’s we stopped at their daughters place to meet them and spend some time at the beach picnicking while Marie finished up the open house (the home is for sale). Their ridgeback-mix Choko really made us miss Candy. When we got to Ian’s place we were blown away. We felt like celebrities checking into a five star resort. The home is gorgeous, we have our own room and bathroom (no camping tonight!), dinner was sumptuous, wine was delicious, all and all amazing time.

Before dinner we stopped to meet Bill and Marion (Ian’s parents, and Amie’s Grandmother’s sister). They were very friendly and happy to meet me—Amie saw them last briefly when she was here 6 years ago. Incidentally, she left Australia early because she was missing me so much (and I her), so the relatives were more than a little curious about me and happy to see things were working out so well for us.

We will be here for at least a few days, then will head south to meet some more relatives out on a ranch near Canberra, from there, we plan to come back to Sydney for Amie’s B-day on the 9th, then head up the gold coast to Brisbane. We were both feeling really home sick as we watched Pele and Jeff head off towards San Francisco—almost wishing we were going with them—but now that we are here we are having a great time and are really excited about the next 3 weeks!

Sydney from the sky