Hello from Oz

Well, we made it! After sleeping for 11 hours of the 14 hour flight, Molly and I arrived!!!!

What an amazing place. The Murray's and Daley's were so welcoming and picked us up from the airport and we began our adventure!

Day 1: Went to "Breakie" with Dean and Maira (Dean's girlfriend) at Freshies and had a milkshake that was actually chocolate milk. Then we went with Erik to have a swim at North Curl Curl beach... Don't worry, we swam between the red and yellow flags! Erik gave us the run down on the hottest going out places and some Aussie slang! After our swim, we showered and were off to Dinner at Dee-Why beach! There we learned that Entrees are appetizers and that they serve very strong drinks:) Not a huge problem! After dinner we came back to the Murriott and had a shot of Tequila before bed. The shot put me to bed!!!!!

Day 2: 12 hours later we were up and at em'. Dean drove us to the Manly Ferry Terminal and with our mates, Maira and Caitlin (Molly's friend from Cal Poly), we were off!!! Off to the Zoo, rather the Tarongo Zoo:) We took the ferry to Circular Quay (pronounced "key") and then from there to the Zoo. Lucky for us it hadn't started raining yet, but it was a bit cloudy. We saw Wallaby's, Koala's, Kangaroo's and their "Joey's" (babies). It was a big day at the Zoo with lots of animal sitings. On our way back the rain started coming down and our ferry ride was a bit exciting. A homeless soilder man was on the ferry yelling at a woman next to us. After a few minutes of harrassing her, the ferry security was all over him forcing him to sit in silence. It caused quite the disruption on the ferry! Us Americans thought it was pretty exciting. We came home to meet Adam and his girlfriend Emma and they are fabulous too! Now we are on glass of wine number two and looking forward to going out in "Man Town" at Manly beach to celebrate Erik passing his exams. So after dinner we will rest and hit the bars with our mates.

A couple of side notes: Yield signs here say "Give Way" and they drive on the left side of the road. additionally, it has been confirmed that the TOILET FLUSHES CLOCKWISE --- opposite the US! Pretty cool! And junior lifeguards are called "Neppies" -- David is Big Man in Curl Curl! EVERYONE knows him.

Tomorrow we are off to Hunter Valley for a 12 hour wine tasting! Late night tonight and early morning tomorrow! I am sure we will have updates tomorrow:) In the meantime, just know that it is EVERYTHING I imanged and MORE here! It's like hawaii on steroids! EVEN BETTER!!!!!

Love to everyone at home:)

Love,
Katie