Hunter Valley Wine

Yesterday, we all woke up at the crack of dawn. At 7:45 AM, a tour driver picked us up for a private wine tour. Shane, Laura, 3 of their friends, and I went together on a private day long tour. The drive to the Hunter Valley took two hours.

Our first stop was a small vineyard that only has three employees. The vineyard's power was out, so we sat outside for our tasting. The wine maker was very direct and gave us the inside scoop on all things Australian wine.

Next, we went to another vineyard for a cheese tasting. We tried five or six kinds of cheeses with a small explanation by the staff.

The third stop was another vineyard. It was a larger production winery with a bar that we stood along to taste. They were quite old and family run for about six generations. The highlight was their ports. They had quite a few different ones of different ages.

Lunch was next. We ate at a casual little place. I had the chicken schnitzel. It's a lot like chicken fried steak in the US, or a German schnitzel made with chicken.

The last vineyard was just a year old. It was a vineyard previously that had gone down hill. Four wine makers came from a more established vineyard to start this one. Their tasting room was very nice, but the wine left a little to be desired. I didn't care for the whites at all, but the reds were fairly good.

After finishing at the last vineyard, the driver whisked us away to a local brewery. We had a brief tour and tried a few of their beers, including one made with oysters. The biggest surprise was that they had Kölsch beer. I've never seen this type of beer outside of its native home in Cologne, Germany. After talking to the tour guide, I learned that one of the brewers had spent a significant amount of time in Cologne and had brought the style back to Australia with them.

We left around 5 and made it back around 7 PM. We had dinner at a Thai place and I headed straight to bed. A day of drinking can certainly make you sleepy.

Comedy in Sydney

My second day in Sydney was very relaxed. Shane and Laura knew that I was quite tired from traveling and let me sleep in.

When I woke up. Laura made me a tasty breakfast and I did my laundry.

In the evening, we went to a comedy show. First though, we stopped at a bar for a beer. The bar had the word "hotel" in the name, but Laura explained that's normal here-- especially when a place is not a bar. Next, we stopped for pizza at a place appropriately named, " Eat, Love, Pizza."

When we finally made it to the comedy venue, we realized it was a huge space. The Sydney Comedy Festival just started. It seems to be all of the same comedians as those in Melbourne. Just relocated. We saw a comedian from the UK named Ross. He was a random comedian that stayed away from political issues, but was fairly funny.

Afterward, we caught a cab home and I fell right to sleep.

Quantus sucks

The Quantus flight from Melbourne to Sydney was nothing short of a small disaster. The flight was packed full, so I ended up in a middle seat in the back of the plane. Things were relatively okay until the plane started to shake and dropped down quite a bit. I held onto the seat in front of me just to keep from hitting the passengers next to me. In the US, the flight attendant would come over the speaker to apologize and reassure the passengers. In this case, the flight attendant came over the speaker laughing and apologized for ending the in flight entertainment. No explanation. At all.

Shane and Laura were both at the baggage claim to greet me. It was very exciting because although they have been dating for years, we have never met.

We took the train from the airport to their new apartment. They've only been in Sydney for six months and moved to a new apartment less than a week ago. It has an incredible view. Incredible. Really. It overlooks the water and bridge. There's a picture below.

After soaking in the amazing view, we walked to dinner. On the way, we stopped by their old apartment. The old one was equally beautiful only bigger, but with no view.

For dinner, we went to a local restaurant called "Your Place." It's Thai food, owned by an Australian and Thai couple. The food was probably the best Thai I've ever had. To make things better, the owners love Laura and Shane and gave us lots of attention.

After dinner, I fell asleep quickly. I think I'm growing very tired of public transportation.

I petted a kangaroo!

I'm a few days behind. It's been busy, and I'm just getting caught up.

My next day in Melbourne was relaxing. It started off with me sleeping for 11 hours. Yes, 11. I didn't sleep at all on the flight over and I was tired.

When I finally woke up, Julie took me about an hour away to visit the zoo. It's not your typical zoo with animals from far away. It is an animal rescue place that houses local Australian animals.

We saw birds, koalas, and kangaroos. The zoo was very open to its guests touching the animals. First, I held a small bird. Then, we fed the kangaroos. They were surprisingly friendly and reminded me of a dog. We had also planned to hug a koala, but apparently this is now illegal in Melbourne. One too many koalas scratched one too many tourists.

On the way back, we stopped by Julie's gym. She and her brother Adam are on a net ball team and they had a game. The game setup looks a lot like basketball. Since I've never played either, it makes it a bit hard to compare and contrast. The good news is that their team won!

After net ball, we headed to a local Irish pub. It was nice to have pub food, since I had such a hard time finding it in Ireland! Nicole from Memphis joined us with her boyfriend Ben. It was so nice to catchup with Nicole (despite the screaming singer on stage next to us!). We drank Guinness and caught up. I ate a shepard's pie, Nicole had the best calamari I've ever tasted, and Julie ate a chicken parm. Apparently chicken parmesan is very popular here.

We called it an early night around 11 since we were all tired, but we vowed to meet for breakfast the following day.