Our 40th Anniversary Trip

Not a lot to record today.  Last night’s dinner was quite horrible.  We went to a pub right next to the hotel.  You had to order and pay via QR code, which wasn’t a big deal, but no one came around to check how you were doing.  All of my food was cold.  I should have tracked down someone to tell them, but it would have involved a long wait and probably the kitchen spitting on my food. Check in at the airport was different.    We had to show our tickets out of New Zealand before they would let us in.   That’s a first, but I totally understand. Why wouldn’t an American want to stay in New Zealand – at least for the next four years.   Just as we were leaving, the skies cleared up. We flew on Latam Airlines.  It was absolutely wonderful.  The plane was comfortable and the food was excellent.  The best airline food I’ve ever had.  Quite made up for last night’s dinner.  I will never hesitate to book them again! We arri...

  This picture is out of order, but I wanted it to be the main pic for this post.  😁 Last night we were unsuccessful finding an Open Mic within a reasonable distance to the hotel, so Lee couldn’t wow the Aussies with his talent.  Instead, we went to a steak house for dinner.  Dinner was fairly unimpressive, but what did make an impression was Lee’s beverage.  He ordered a Maker’s Mark straight up.  It came in a rock glass, filled to the brim with ice and coke (perhaps a little Maker’s.)  So, then he asked for it again, but was specific – no ice.  The waitress says, “But you want coke, right?”  No.  This is what he got. So, I said, “Well, we can go to the bar in our hotel and get a drink after dinner.”   So we did, and this is what he got. Good grief!   Anyway, the bar is up at the top of the hotel so I took some pictures. We decided to not go to Bondi Beach because the weather was not very good.  Instead, I found an all-d...

Last night before we went to dinner, I noticed the cruise ship had departed, so I got a picture without one in the way.  (This morning another had replaced it.) Then we we headed down to The Rocks, an area in the city center, for dinner.  We chose The Fortune of War, which claims to be Sydney’s oldest pub.   However, we learned on the Hop On/Hop Off tour that at least two pubs in Sydney claim to be the oldest, so who knows?  I did have to spend some time googling ingredients before making my selections.  I learned that a pint is about 1/3 bigger than a schooner, grissini are breadsticks, baby cos lettuce is baby romaine, and a rump steak is a round steak.  All good to know. 😃 They actually had live music, so we stayed to watch a couple songs before heading back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep.   This morning we took a leisurely stroll from the hotel to the Opera House.  Came across this on the way. And this guy was having a...

What a looong flight!  We were delayed in Houston because of weather, so were about an hour late landing in Sydney.  But, we made it!  Got to our hotel a little after 9 AM.  Here’s the view from our room. We had added early check-in to our reservation, so our room was all ready for us.  After refreshing showers, we headed out to see the sights.  (There’s a heat advisory today, so the afternoon was over 100!) We decided to do the Hop On/Hop Off bus so we could see where everything is and plan out our next days.   One of the bell hops told us how to get to the closest stop, but unfortunately we were directionally challenged today.   I feel like we walked around in circles for way too long.   But eventually we found it and hopped on. By this point, I was starving (breakfast on the plane was a disgusting cold mess), so at the first stop with restaurants, we hopped off.   Our first meal in Australia was pasta bolognaise and fish and chips...

  We’re almost packed and ready to go.  I saw in the news a corpse flower dubbed Putricia has finally bloomed at the Royal Botanic Garden in Sydney. The plant, also known as  Amorphophallus titanum , has the biggest, smelliest flower spike in the world. Corpse flowers are rare and endangered and usually found in the West Sumatran rainforests, with estimates that there are less than 1,000 specimens left in the wild.  Putricia blossomed on Thursday afternoon after first showing signs about a week and a half ago.   Unfortunately, they only bloom for 24 hours so we have missed smelling putrid Putricia.  😂