Taxi drivers, more trouble than they're worth...

I'll start out by saying that Sydney is more beautiful than I remember. It may (definitely) has something to do with the fact that we were staying in an incredible residential area filled with harbor side expanses built in the early 1900's. Todd and I had two very nice planned walks through the winding streets, and one unplanned walk.
The wedding was at a ladies college (6-12 grade) in the outskirts of the city and the reception was at a restaurant straddling the water on the north side of Sydney. After a beautiful ceremony, Todd and I returned back to our hotel which was very close to the reception (not a coincidence ;-D). We decided to taxi it because I was a bit tired of driving stick through a city with hills that could give SF a run for its money. We called the cab and waited, and waited and waited until it showed up, zoomed passed the hotel and screeched down the street. Not the best start to the trip.
The cabbie proceeded to pick us up and then go the wrong way down a dead end street. A few minutes later he dropped us off at what we thought was the correct location. Boy were we wrong. iPhone maps gave us the wrong address and we were 3.5 k away from the actual location. Already 30 min late, we decided to hike up our skirts (Todd's theoretical) and find the place ourselves. I took off my heels, he loosened his tie and we were off! 35 minutes later we sweatily reached the restaurant and fell into chairs right before dinner was served. Lessons learned: never trust iPhone maps or cabbies that miss your hotel and go into a dead end street and Todd and I need to step up the exercise ! It was only 3.5k after all, obviously we have nothing to complain about :)

Getting hot hot hot

I definitely remember the heat last summer. The dripping, stifling, as soon as you walk outside you can't breathe hot but I forgot about the storms. Believe me, we welcome the rain. It means a chance to catch up on work and the possibility of a day off. The thunder and lightening, however, still slightly terrify the little girl inside of me. This is why Todd took pictures of the storm while standing outside and I took pictures from the window :) I don't think I did too bad though! The heat is something else here. Worse than I remember CA heat although that might just be because there isn't a movie theater nearby for me to take refuge in. Actually I think it is worse here. Wayne (a surveyor) was just saying that when he worked at mt iser it got to 50 degrees Celsius. Look it up, it's HOT. So hot in fact that when he set up his Total Station and pushed the tripod into the pavement, it pushed right through. The tar was melting under his feet hot. Definitely fry and egg on the bonnet of a car hot. So if you are freezing this Thanksgiving, remember me and send some cool weather my way!