We arrived in Sydney, took a crazy cab from the airport to our B&B located in the Rocks District. The Rocks is one of Sydney’s oldest neighborhoods and is within walking distance of the Opera House, harbor bridge, and Circular Quay. (The well-known icons of Sydney). Our B&B was an old Victorian house that was quite cozy and included a delicious cooked breakfast in the am. Mum and dad were up early and thoroughly enjoyed themselves making friends at breakfast each morning. The first night we ate in a bustling authentic German restaurant with good food, goulash and all, and good a stein of beer. On our way back to our B&B we passed Oprah’s good-bye party! We saw a busy place, beautifully lit and decorated, with tons of security and mum was right…the next day we saw on the news it was Oprah. We should have tried to join them! Sydney weather is iconic of Australia, sunny, then raining, then chilly, then sunny all day. We checked out the Opera House and rode the bus to all the major sights including Bondi Beach, a cute little beach town just outside of the Sydney CBD. They have a man-made lap pool facility coolly built right on the beach. A beautiful place to get some exercise, but you can’t use it unless you are part of the club. You are only granted membership to the appropriately named Bondi Icebergs once you have swum in the pool every Sunday for four years…all seasons, all weather, it has to be every Sunday. I wonder when those people go on holiday. No weekend trips for 4 years! That takes dedication.
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Harbor Bridge and Oprah banners |
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Bondi Iceberg pool |
It rained on and off all day and after dinner we headed back to our B&B. Jaime and I were sitting in bed talking when all of a sudden his eyes drifted past my head and got really big and he stopped talking mid-sentence. (Why is everyone always stopping mid-sentence!). We do that joke sometimes where you look past the other person really scared that something is behind them so I thought he was joking. I giggled and calmly said “what?” and then he started to slowly move back off the bed and said “Ok…now that is big!” and I screamed “what! What!” and jumped off the bed. Jaime told me not to look but of course I was curious and when I looked around the back of the bed-post, at first, all I saw was a large hairy leg. On the bed post, right behind my head just a few seconds earlier, was the BIGGEST spider we have ever seen. And I mean huge and furry and scary!
And going back to one of my earlier blogs, Australia and specifically Sydney has tons of spiders that are dreadfully poisonous and we have no idea what this spider is. But he looks big, he looks scary, and therefore to me, dangerous! I calmly went to my parents room next door and asked my dad to call the owner with the downstairs phone. I explained why and dad went downstairs to call and mum, who has been saving me from animals my whole life came in to check it out with my dad’s shoe in hand. Mum always taught me that it was bad luck to kill a spider and although it was what we wanted to do, I was pretty sure that it was too big to be successfully squashed by a shoe and would likely get away and then I would have to check out of my room. So I found a glass and Jaime and mum discussed strategy. I sat on the bureau with my feet nowhere near the ground, not knowing that this was actually a “jumping” spider. It started to move and mum quickly moved the bed while Jaime captured the spider in the glass. We slid a piece of paper over the top and took it downstairs to await our host. When we got downstairs dad was still trying to call the owner but was having trouble getting an outside line on the old-school phone. I joked that we all would have been poisoned by now! When the owner finally got there he took a look at the spider and told us it was a Huntsman spider, they live in the garden and may come inside due to all the rain to dry off. Not sure how he got into our corner second story room but he looked pretty dry to me. He said they were mostly harmless, not sure what mostly meant, and while he was telling us this he took the paper off the top of the glass and was just holding the wide-open jumping spider cage, in movement with his arms as he spoke like it was nothing! The phone rang and he excused himself for a minute just after he set the still wide-open glass down on the shelf next to us. I quickly slid the piece of paper back over the top, not taking any chances of a sudden escape. He took the huntsman back out into the garden and we all went to bed a little paranoid. The huntsman is in the “mildly dangerous” category and essentially a bite would be very painful but by no means lethal, which is good compared to the many other deadly spiders I feared this one could have been. Looking back now, he could have a. jumped right on my head b. jumped in bed with us or c. crawled around on us while we were sleeping! Ugh! We were lucky he wasn’t hiding.
The next day was another wet one, but we took the ferry to the much loved manly beach where we walked the beach, checked off another location for a rip curl store, and grabbed some lunch. That night we met up with some friends of friends that recently moved to Sydney from Florida. Sharon and I had been in touch through one of our mutual friends and had been emailing and this was our first meeting. We had a great dinner with them and learned that Sharon had a visit from a huntsman spider the same day as our little rendezvous. Her spider was just hanging out on the wall in her apartment. She freaked as well and got a fellow resident in the building to come over and take it away. They are so big and scary! We had a great last night in Sydney with great atmosphere, great food, and even better company!
Upon our return to Melbourne, we had a few days left to relax and enjoy my parents. We wandered around Melbourne, fought our way through the fish market to get our ingredients for our Christmas Cioppino, and checked out a few museums. We took an afternoon tour to a moonlight sanctuary where we were up close and personal with Australian wildlife. Mum held a snake and draped it over her shoulders while dad and I touched it standing as far away as possible. Dad fed tons of little wallabys that loved and crowded around him. And mum got bitten by an emu. It was very entertaining. The tour then took us to the penguin parade, my favorite spot, where we saw all the little penguins make their way home after a day of fishing at sea. They were quite rambunctious and chatty this night, which made it even more fun. My parents just loved it! And we learned that you are not allowed to take pictures of the penguins because with too many flashes the penguins get spooked and throw-up a belly full of fish and once one throws-up I guess all of them start throwing up. Quite a sight and then the babies don’t get to eat. We followed the little guys all the way up the boardwalk and I loved seeing the joy and amazement on parents’ faces.
The last day of their trip we just relaxed. Dad and I did some P90x workouts and went to the basketball court where he gave me some much needed pointers! Dad was a great basketball player and is a really great teacher, I still panicked every time he ran towards me when I had the ball, but we practiced for awhile until I beat him in P-I-G. And then, as family (of boys) tradition when the girls win, we play again, so that we each win. J It was a really great day! When we got home I helped mum make the cioppino (Italian 5 fish stew-white fish, shrimp/prawns, clams, mussels, anchovies) for our early Christmas dinner. When I say helped, basically I did all the easy stuff, like put everything in the pot. Mum had the hard job of “washing all the animals”. The mussels threw us off because when we took them out of the fridge they were all open and so we thought they had died! I felt so bad that they might have suffocated in the plastic bag in the fridge. So we kept one that was still closed and threw the rest away and sent dad to the store to get more mussels. (By now dad knew his way around pretty good, he usually woke up in the am and took a stroll, got a coffee, and made friends all around the neighborhood). Mum washed the lone mussel and set him aside. A few minutes later, we saw him open up on the counter and when we picked him up, he closed up again. We looked at each other and realized that they were alive! They were probably just trying to breathe in the bag. We fished the bag out of the garbage and sure enough they were all closed up. So weird. Mum had to put them in the boiling water, I couldn’t do it, I figured they had been through enough trauma. Once we were done, we took a walk down to the night market where my parents saw the carpets for communities stall that I volunteer for and all the activity and crafts at the market. We got a delicious espresso martini, mum doesn’t usually drink alcohol, but she enjoys a small one every once in awhile. Once Jaime got home from work, we had wine and our fish stew and gave thanks and celebrated and early Christmas in Australia with my wonderful parents. That night we sat around and soaked each other up as it will be eight months before we see each other again. Mum and I did our nightly chat, which I love so much, but since it was the last night we ended up staying up pretty late. When we realized it was 2 am and we were wide-awake, we looked at each other and simultaneously said “espresso martini!” We were wired.
The next morning was really sad as I took my dad and mumster to the airport for their flight home. We said a teary good-bye to each other and to a really awesome trip! The worst part of having them leave was returning home to an empty house. I moped around the rest of the day and although I was sad they were gone, having my parents here left my apartment feeling warmer and more like “home” with a love only your parents can bestow. They made it back home safe and sound, only mum’s bag stayed in Sydney for a few days. J And on opposite sides of the world my parents and I were still on the same wavelength, remembering fondly the awesome trip we had together. An Australian/New Zealand Griswold adventure that I loved every minute of sharing with my most wonderful parents and my new husband. A trip full of memories, laughs, and natural beauty that we will always treasure. There’s nothing better!
Check out all of our Australia/NZ photos here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2087931&id=1608184181&l=86ef69c009
Random video of friendly kangaroo and wallabys!
Good times and good stories! Miss you guys!
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