my my my my my

i just returned from a week of retreat down under...i'm going to provide my take on australia and please don't be offended. i was only there 8 days and only had a chance to explore one small portion of the country.

anyway flew into sydney, much to our sadness it was cold!  atypical for summer, but whaddya gonna do. 

we rode the "airport shuttle" for the experience of it...it held 14 ppl, but maybe only suppose to have 10.  we were crammed in little tiny asian-style seats facing backwards, the wall of luggage cramping my legs...however, we got a nice tour of sydney outside the downtown area in a 5 km trip that took 45 minutes (ha!).  pulled up into the swanky park hyatt, where the staff was amiable, but looked slightly away as we disembarked our less-than-presentable caravan.

our view was quite pleasant -- looking right onto the rocks...the entry point of colonization of australia...australians seem to take their british ties and dependence so very well -- not all huffy like americans or canadians.  aussies have even more than embraced american culture...the ease and convinience of being a first world nation.

looking to the right out the balcony, we found a lovely view of the opera house....can't take too many pictures of the opera house now can you...the most exciting thing for me was being able to take a backstage tour of the various performance spaces...we were allowed onstage, upstage, backstage, in the orchestra pit, the sound box, the lighting box, behind the stage manager's controls...in all the nooks and crannies to my delight.

more to come...