We got up early, said goodbye to Trumpet, packed the car and headed to airport. I made a new friend when filling up the car with gas. Cool system to pump gas here – lots of trust. You pump the gas and then go inside and pay. So I go inside and pay and… Continue reading Day 13- Sydney Day 1 – Arrival!

Another late start after another late night. We got back to the house last night about 1, so we slept in this morning. Instead of our usual breakfast of yogurt, granola, cheese and fruit, we decided to go out for brunch at one of the local Lebanese restaurants in the neighborhood where we are staying.… Continue reading Day 12- Melbourne Day 4 – New Years Day

Another late start after another late night. We got back to the house last night about 1, so we slept in this morning. Instead of our usual breakfast of yogurt, granola, cheese and fruit, we decided to go out for brunch at one of the local Lebanese restaurants in the neighborhood where we are staying.… Continue reading Day 12- Melbourne Day 4 – New Years Day

Another late start after another late night. We got back to the house last night about 1, so we slept in this morning. Instead of our usual breakfast of yogurt, granola, cheese and fruit, we decided to go out for brunch at one of the local Lebanese restaurants in the neighborhood where we are staying.… Continue reading Day 12- Melbourne Day 4 – New Years Day

Another big walking day! After breakfast at the house, we decided to depend on Melbourne public transportation since we’d be out past midnight and didn’t want to deal with driving in crowds downtown. Heather and Ryan left early and bought transit cards. Holly and I met them near the tram stop and we caught the… Continue reading Day 11- Melbourne Day 3 – New Years Eve

Today started as each morning does in Melbourne – with Trumpet, our house cat, waking Trumpet is a very sweet and laid back cat  – a little scratching and he’s ready to go outside for the day. Today we drove a couple of hours south of Melbourne to Phillip Island. Our first stop was the… Continue reading Day #10 – Melbourne Day #2 – Animal Day!

After the museum closed, it was time to find a place to eat dinner. The supermarket cashier recommended Vietnamese restaurants so off to the ‘Yelp’ app on our phones. We had the choice of at 20 restaurants downtown, but most were ‘small plates’ (think Tapas) and we were pretty hungry. We passed a ‘Pie Face’… Continue reading Day #9 – Melbourne Day #1 – part II

Melbourne actually started on the night of the seventh when we caught a flight from Auckland to Melbourne. For anyone planning international travel, we highly (really highly!) recommend Emirates Air. They run commercials with Jennifer Anniston dreaming about not have a personal shower or access to a bar – we didn’t fly first class with… Continue reading Day #9 – Melbourne Day #1

After packing up and cleaning the house, we loaded up the car and headed out for the Glenbrook Vintage Railway Station, a working steam locomotive south of Auckland. We arrived in time to buy tickets and then climbed up to the second floor of the building where the station master used large levers to manually… Continue reading Day 8 – Auckland Day #6 – last day in NZ

The casino was fun, but the ñight was still young, so we headed out to an arcade to play some games. We found an arcade that Ryan had been to before we came. It was price game night, so tokens were half-price. About an hour later, Ryan had beaten me in basketball 421-309, Holly and… Continue reading Day #7 – Auckland Day #5 – wrapping up