The Americans Arrive

This morning I was up at 6:20 and headed straight-away to Redfern in order to make sure I was there in time for the arrival of my guests.  I might have been a bit over zealous as I ended up waiting for just shy of an hour, but finally, at around 7:40 I saw Rebecca and Jason emerge from around the corner.  The travelers had arrived! 

We made the fifteen minute walk to my house with heaps of luggage and crashed in the living room to rest for a bit.  My roommates all came through and met everyone as they were getting ready for the morning as we munched on toast and Jason and Rebecca cleaned up from the trip. We offloaded some important imports before beginning the rest of the day.

American goodies - thanks to those who sent stuff!

Around 10:00 we headed out and toured around campus, covering pretty much everything there is to see at Uni Sydney.  From there we headed down to Broadway and popped into the Reject Shop, Target, and Coles to have a look around.

After dropping a few things at home we walked up King Street to grab lunch at Guzman Y Gomez in Newtown.  Following lunch we walked down King to Newtown Station before turning up to Camperdown Memorial Park - a large park with a beautiful old walled cemetary dating back to the early 1800s.  We saw some beautiful lorikeets and had a nice wander around the place.

The green, blue, yellow, and red lorikeets.

Wandering around Camperdown Memorial Park.

We walked up Church Street to Carillon and passed Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and a few of the Residential Colleges of the Uni on the way back to my place.  With a few hours to kill, Jason and Rebecca headed off to Circular Quay to see the Opera House and Bridge and I settled in to do a bit of work for architecture.  I had class from 4:00-6:00 and then Janene (who had invited the three of us over for dinner) headed down to the bus on Paramatta to take the trip to Central to meet Jason and Rebecca and catch a train out to Miranda (a suburb in the far south - 25km or so from the city).  Janene and I descended to platform 25 just as a train was arriving and were lucky to see Jason and Rebecca waiting right at the side of the stairs.  We all jumped on the train and had a nice time getting to know each other on the crowded trip out of the city.

At Miranda we got the car from Janene's office and drove to her house.  We had a fantastic dinner with her and her husband, their two daughters, and one of their boyfriends.  The conversation was lively and covered an array of topics - many pertaining to America.  To cap off the pumpkin soup, spaghetti, garlic bread, and capsicum-tomato salad, Janene had specially prepared a pavlova.  It was divine.

Janene's pavlova.

We had a fantastic evening and did not leave until after 10:00.  Rebecca was quite tired and fell asleep on the ride home.  After getting set up for the night, and sorting out plans for tomorrow, we are all heading to bed.  I think the other two are already out, their eyes closed before their heads hit the pillows.

Architecture in the morning, a sausage sizzle for lunch, and then off to Cairns.