Sydeeeeeeeeeers!!!

So we arrived in Sydney safe and sound which was surprising...Kevin Eddie may have to go back to driving school! The camper vans (Lucy and Moby) were put to the test down the east coast. I think Eddie reached the speed of light at one point. We are still waiting to see if we got a few speeding fines but I think we are in the clear!

Once we returned the camper vans we met up with the seniors - Colin (The Dog/Doggy), Courtney (C-Biscuit) and Cathal (Houlie). We stayed in their appartment over looking Darling harbor. Absolute class apartment with a great view of the harbour. The seniors had a plan made for our first weekend in Sydney. It started with a cruise around Sydney harbour. The boat was full of Irish with an Trad band playing tunes for the night. Daniel (Bockau) and Ross came along for the ride as well. It started off calm enough as people looked at the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney harbor Bridge while having a few sociables or scooners as they say in Oz (a phrase comes to mind...the calm before the storm!). The last hour on the boat things took an awful turn. The night turned into a bit of a ceili. The Irish dancing was flowing out of everyone with Darragh and Conor leading the charge... Michael Flatley/Jean Butler if you will! The night ended up with everyone taking their tops off and singing along with the band. Once the band finished up we were asked by the manager/captain to "please put your tops on and leave the boat". Great night and would advise everyone that visits Sydney to go on this trip.

On Saturday Bockau and Doggy cooked up a storm on the BBQ. Not joking the fire brigade was called! The flames coming from the BBQ were a bit out of control at the start and one of the neighbours thought the apartment was on fire. C-Biscuit and Eddie were on the balcony watching as 3 fire engines arrived below on the street. It didn't dawn on them until a fireman tapped Eddie on the shoulder that it was our appartment they were coming to save. All good though, no need to worry, the apartment did not burn down! That night we attended a party in Bondi beach. Jen Matson was the hostess. We met up with all the comm girls there (too many names to mention so com girls will cover all)...special mention to Orla who greeted us like this:

The girls arrived from south america so we had plenty of questions for them and they had plenty of questions about Asia. Great to see everyone and catch up on each others stories.

During the week while the seniors were at work we took the walking tour around Sydney. We saw the Opera house and the Harbour bridge. We also got time to relax in the seniors apartment and watch dvds which was excellent. We needed a break from traveling....this traveling malarky is hard work!! :-) Our one bit of excersize in Sydney (actually probably only bit in Australia) was one day when we ventured out to the Olympic Park (home of 2000 Olympics). We got a ferry out there which was a pretty cool way to travel. The stadiums and park was sensational. Loads of space, loads of big arenas. We went for a swim in the Olympic pool which Ian Thorpe won 3 golds and smashed 3 world records 9 years ago. The record we were after was a little more modest. That same Olymics, a lad called Eric Moussambani qualified for the Olympics on a rule that allows every country to send at elast one athlete to the olympics. Now Equatorial Gunea isn't knows for it's sporting prowess, but somehow they reconed this guy was their best hope of, well not making a complete fool of himself. Whoever decided this should be shot. Eric had only learned to swim a few months previously and had never even been in a 50m pool - his training had been in rivers. Then, once he got to the olympics, he actually won his heat as everyone else in the race flase started and were disqualified. We smashed his Olympic heat winning time by 15 seconds! London 2012 here we come!

Sunday drinks is a must in Sydney. Everyone goes out Sunday for a couple of drinks. The main spots were The Rocks and Coogeee Bay. On the Sunday night before we left Sydney we watched the Cork v Tyrone match in Scruffy Murphys. Ger Canning gave us a shout out during the game...good man Ger! Good game for Cork but we all know that Kerry will take Sam home again this year!