Where to begin! I don't know. One of the more memorable trips to an land down under. I loved every single minute of it, from the views from the top of Sydney Bridge to the cold beach in Melbourne's Great Ocean Drive, from the 10 am wake ups to wander a wonderful city to 4 am wake ups to catch flights, from exhausting walking around, to simply hanging out, from dry days to thirty odd wine tasting marathons, and so many from-to pairs, I loved it all.

The book will be printed in september, is the lofty goal for this month. But I am determined to get the 1500+ pictures and my 15 chapter document of the trip all put together and printed. Printing may depend on the financial comptroller, but there may be wiggle room (lol).

As I sort out all the pictures, I will post them up here for all. But, till then Australia the land down under is a completely different from what I expected, completely different in reality from the books and the advertisments bombarded on US televisions. It is land of plenty of diversity in every possible way. Jostling around in Sydney with peoples from China, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Philipines, and every other country in the far east along with Australians one learns a lot. From the earliest penal colonies to the sizzling cities it has come a long long way. There are strains of integration and separation of ethic backgrounds. Together and within their own communities maketh Australia. One great advantage of all this mixed ethicities, is that one gets to eat all sorts of authentic foods. I landed up having to really think about what food type of eat to try and taste all of them. No, I did not eat Kangaroo's.... because I simply did not get around to it! Food is incredibly good quality and fresh. Even the simplest and smallest dig had great tasting and freshly made food and I am not saying freshly defrosted and heated! Fast food is well made.

Most of the time I spent in Sydney. Lived with my sisters family in Surrey Hills. I highly recommend doing that, as we could roll out of bed and get to all possible different ethic foods, from Thai to Lebanese. We wandered around together and also me on my own all around the Sydney water front, bridge, Opera House, The Rocks, Macquarie Street, City Center, Manly beach, Harbour, Botanical Gardens and so much more. For couple of days I visited a family friend (lovely couple) in Melbourne. Two days visit does not do Melbourne justice, there is so much to do see and yet we packed a lot in the two days. Melbourne deserves a lot more time. While in Melbourne, it was great to walk through Victoria Market, the Melbourne University and take trams/trains around the city, seeing the Parliament house and a demonstration by Labor unions, Flinders station (gosh - reminds me of VT, Mumbai) and so much more.

The trip there and back on Qantas was quite decent. I had not expected it to be that comfortable. But the 13+ hours from LA to Sydney and then 12ish hours on return was not too terrible. It was just okay.

This trip was firsts for many things:
1. First time to Southern Hemisphere, that is crossing the Equator
2. First time to crossing International Dateline.
3. First time to Australia (duh!)
4. First time to travel in flight for more that 10 hours.
5. First time to trip that I had not really planned out in excruitiating details, because my sister was there and I was happy to go with the flow.
6. First time to leave kitties for 15+ days
7. First time to use a tiny notebook for a computer with no development tools on it! Hmmm.... I am liking this little computer thingy
8. First time to cross 1000 pictures in one trip
9. First time to travel light to the point of silliness. Roughly 24 lbs in check in for outbound trip and 40 lbs on return.
10. First time..... to have so many first times... ;)

So much more about the trip coming here mostly now reflections in tranquility.