sf 2 oz

Upon arriving in Melbourne for the Australian Open we quickly realized that people here don't watch tennis, they watch "the" tennis.

Well, we really enjoyed the tennis. I was actually surprised at how exciting it was to see such a high caliber of players battle it out on the court. The first day we had tickets to Rod Laver arena and watched some highly ranked players like Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray...we also got a peek of the Williams sisters playing doubles! The second day we bought grounds passes for $20 each and ended up seeing some great tennis PLUS Roger Federer warming up. It was also a fun atmosphere with beer gardens, live music and sponsor tents everywhere. This whole experience is making me want to see Wimbledon..hmmm.

A lot of our Sydney friends were actually in Melbourne as well - some for tennis and some for other stuff. We had fun during the evenings going to dinner and bars. We even got to celebrate Jess' Dirty 30 at Coda Bar + Grill followed by karaoke in Chinatown (which I think the girls enjoyed more than the guys).

The last day we were in Melbourne was Australia Day, which appears to be a day off from work for people to be patriotic, BBQ, go to the beach and do other Aussie things. Officially it commemorates the first explorers to arrive at Sydney Cove in 1788, the hoisting of the British flag there, and the proclamation of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of Australia. We didn't really have a typical Australia Day as we were busy exploring a few other parts of Melbourne including St. Kilda and Chapel Street. Oh well, 4th of July is still better!

I've had my share of long-ish stints without seeing my parents or being home, but never before had it reached a period of 8 months! Needless to say, I'd been looking forward to their visit to Sydney. They stayed for about 10 days and we had a lot of fun showing them what we love about this city, sharing meals and even traveling to the Blue Mountains and Jervis Bay. Some highlights include:

• A fabulous sail boat ride on Sydney Harbour in perfect weather..it was even hot enough that we all went swimming off the side of the boat!
• We were also fortunate to experience the St. George Open Air Cinema. It was incredible...never seen anything like it. It's an outdoor movie theatre that's positioned on the waterfront right by Ms. Macquarie's chair. We watched Invictus, though sometimes it was hard to concentrate given the the city, Opera House and Harbour Bridge were on either side of the screen!
• After being in the Blue Mountains for a day and night in pure fog (we couldn't even see the 3 Sisters or mountains), we stopped at a wildlife sanctuary called Featherdale that my mom had learned about from a friend. We were able to get SO close to koalas, kangaroos, kookaburras, tasmanian devils and other Australian wildlife. I'd highly recommend it, especially going later in the day after all the tour buses have cleared out.
• Unfortunately we didn't get great weather in Jervis Bay either, but still had fun exploring a new area together. I think one of our favorite parts was where we had dinner on the last night. Called The Gunyah, it's basically a tree house located at a luxury tent camp - Paperbark Camp. We ate outside on the deck among the trees and possums (one came dangerously close to jumping on our table, eek!). A really unique experience.

Here's some photos from our time together. We're looking forward to hosting Mike's parents next!