We're Here!!!!

Greetings from Down Under! I have quite a bit to cover since I took off from Mason City International Airport on Tuesday morning at 11.26 a.m. Myself, Al Hayward (one of my room mates), and Roger & Lisa Schinagel took this 45 minute hop to Minneapolis. Four more of us travelin Dogs joined the crew in Minneapolis: David and Ramona Aguilera, Billy Bielefeld (my other room mate), and Isaac Luten. Since we had a few hours until our flight left for LAX, we did what comes naturally, drank a few cold ones!

Our 3-1/2 hour flight to LA left at 5:15 p.m., and was nice and smooth. The Schinagels and Aguileras were heading down on Australia Air, so parted ways with us to get to the other terminal. Isaac had a flight at 11:45 p.m. to New Zealand, and ours to Sydney was at 10:35, so we grabbed some pizza and a few more cold ones.

 Yes, the pattern is emerging already! I have to state here that unless you fly business or 1st Class, a 15 hour flight from LA to Sydney is not a real fun time. I have a very difficult time sleeping in a moving vehicle, and that held true to form once again. As I am updating this it is 7:22 p.m. in Sydney on Thursday evening. It is 4:22 a.m. Iowa time. I have been awake since about 6:15 a.m. on Tuesday morning! Gonna sleep like a dead man as soon as this is posted!


We arrived in Sydney right on time this morning at 6:30 a.m. The checkout through customs went smoothly except that the TSA agent took my Rugby boots and washed them off because I had some mud left on them from Scotland in 2008. Apparently you can't bring any dirt into this country from anywhere else in the world for some reason??


 Marty "Slabbs" Rodgers was waiting at the gate for us, and proceeded to give us a very fast paced tour of Sydney common. Marty mentioned that at one time he was a taxi driver, and the way he got us around for about three hours was absolutely amazing! We stopped at a few places to get some pics, then settled at a nice little pub at Bondi Beach for a couple cold ones before we went to our Hotel to check in.

We were able to get in our 2 bedroom apartment around noon, and are VERY happy with the setup! Quite the step up from The Clarendon in Scotland! Here's a few pics of our digs:

Once we had unpacked and gotten settled we went about a block away to a grocery store to stock our kitchen up with some basics. As I was putting a sixer in the fridge it slipped out of my hand and broke on the floor! Three of the poor souls did not survive the mishap. We had a moment of silence for our friends, then cleaned up the best we could and called housekeeping for someone to give the floor a quick once over with a mop.

By this time it was around 5:00 p.m. and we were all rather hungry. We strolled about 4 blocks down to the harbour and had a nice, filling meal at the Waterfront Cafe.

I could have gotten into quite a bit more detail here, but wanted to make sure I got this posted while I was still able to. I will update as often as I can, and am sure there will be countless more memories to share before we head home on the 3rd.
The three of us already here owe a HUGE shout out to Marty "Slabbs" Rodgers for going above and beyond for us today! He was an amazing tour guide and made our first day in Sydney very fun and informative. Cheers Marty!!