Lesley got me a few bottles of DRY soda for my birthday. DRY soda is very lightly sweetened and comes in a few unique flavors like "Kumquat", "Juniper Berry", "Rhubarb", and "Vanilla Bean". They're good carbonated beverages with subtle flavors that aren't overpoweringly sweet. The company is based in Seattle and has a retail store in Pioneer Square. It's nice to have something to drink other than water when I don't feel like something really sweet or hot tea.

I'm a fan of the Dallas Cowboys, as some of you may know, and I like to watch every game if I can. However, being in Seattle, the local attempt at a football team is often televised here instead of the Cowboys. I do like the Seahawks but they're terrible and get in the way of me seeing my team.

Last year we watched pretty much every Cowboys game that wasn't televised here at a local sports bar, which was inconvenient and kind of expensive. This year, we were able to find video feeds online to watch most of the Cowboys games. And, this year we were pretty fortunate, as 10 of the 16 Cowboys' games were broadcast on local TV.

The game this weekend is the last game of the regular season and is fairly important, as the winner of the game will win the division and gets a higher seed in the playoffs. Unfortunately, while much of the country will get to see this game, the game is not being televised locally. Fortunately, all playoff games are nationally televised, so we will at least get to see the Cowboys playoff game(s) on TV.

Merry Christmas everyone! We woke up early around 7 when Troy's parents called and opened their presents over the phone. We got Troy's dad some Tully's coffee and his mom some chocolate, smoked salmon, and a Space Needle charm for her charm bracelet. Then we opened our gifts from them. They gave us some windbreaker jackets that have the Olympic rings on it and say "Victory in Vancouver." I also got some Beatles magnets and Troy got a pocket knife.

Once we got off the phone, Troy and I opened the rest of the gifts. I got a gift card to Old Navy from my Uncle Bob and Troy got a gift card to Whole Foods from my parents. My parents also gave us a bottle of Three Rivers Malbec-Merlot wine that we really liked when we had it at Red Fin with my cousin.

Finally Troy and I opened our presents from each other. I gave him the Simpsons Season 5 on DVD. He bought Season 6 on Amazon since his brother gave him an Amazon gift card. And I gave him Season 7 for his birthday, so now we have Seasons 5 through 8.

I opened mine and there was a note in it from Troy saying he had to go get it from under the bed. He pulled it out and it was our drawing of the hale we stayed in on our honeymoon in Hawaii framed in a nice black frame with beige matting. It looks really nice! I had been wanting the drawing framed ever since we got it, so I was surprised that Troy remembered and actually did it.

Soon we'll eat more of our ham for lunch and maybe go outside later. Merry Christmas!

This year we're spending Christmas in Seattle. We've had our tree up since Thanksgiving and there are actually a few presents under the tree. I made an apple pie today when I got home and then we watched the SMU-Nevada bowl game in Hawaii. While the game was on, I made green bean casserole and mashed potatoes to go with our honey baked ham and Franz rolls. All the food was really good.

We also talked to our parents on the phone. Mine called us back after they opened their presents and were very happy with them. I got them a few souvenirs from Australia, including a Sydney calendar, a Sydney magnet, and a small wooden painted kangaroo. We also got them some mint Frango and probably one of the best gifts I've ever given anyone: a personalized picture frame with a picture of our cat Sassy in it.

We also went to look at lights at Candy Cane Lane in the neighborhood of Ravenna. After that we went back home and watched a Charlie Brown Christmas and ate a few pieces of my apple pie. I'm looking forward to opening our presents tomorrow morning.

When we moved here, I was kind of amazed by all the new building construction. We could see 12 cranes from our window at one time a year and a half ago. A lot of that construction has finished, which is nice, because now the sidewalks we use most are no longer blocked.

Still, despite the downturn in the economy, there are 8 cranes we can see from our window, and construction continues. There is a lot of underused land north of downtown in the Denny Triangle area as well as in our neighborhood. As Seattle continues to grow, these areas are prime targets for development.

We finally received our tickets to the two Olympic events we requested at the end of October last year. We're going to a speed skating event on February 13th at noon and a hockey game on the 16th at noon. The actual tickets are pretty cool looking and rather large.

I'm getting really excited about going to Vancouver and being a part of the Winter Olympics. The city will probably be very busy and swarmed with tourists and spectators. It also happens to be Valentine's Day on the Sunday while we're there, so maybe we can eat at a nice romantic restaurant or something. I can't wait!

Troy and I made chicken enchiladas last night for dinner from a recipe we found online. We’d had a hard time recently thinking of recipes to make that sounded good. Then Troy suggested we make our own enchiladas. It was a lot of work and took about an hour and a half, but they tasted really good.

We had to make the salsa verde mixture (onions, chicken broth, green chilies, and spices) and lightly fry the corn tortillas to soften them up. Then we dipped the tortillas in the salsa verde and then put chicken and cheese inside and rolled them up. We filled our 13 x 9 pan with 8 enchiladas and cooked them in the oven with green onions and cheese on top. We also made our own refried beans from a can of pinto beans and we made Mexican Rice-a-Roni. It was all really good and smelled and tasted like real Tex-Mex. Although, after making them ourselves, I realize how bad that kind of food really is for you. I was pretty full after eating almost two enchiladas and couldn’t finish my plate. Now we have yummy leftovers.

Troy and I went to my work Christmas party this past Friday night. The weather was actually decent for mid-December, so we just walked to it. It was held at the Hotel Andra downtown again, which is only two blocks from my building. Just like last year, we had food catered by the famous Tom Douglas restaurant called Lola.

We started out with appetizers and drinks as everyone mingled around. There was also a small live band that played music. Then we sat down for dinner around 7, which consisted of a salad with beets, fish with brussels sprouts (which I'd never had before), and some kind of steak with a vegetable I can't remember. Then they brought us a dessert plate with a small chocolate cupcake, a small coconut cream pie bite, and a small dish of creme brulee. All the food was good and it was fun hanging out with Eric and my other co-workers.

Downtown Seattle is a fun, exciting place any time of year, but it's especially festive right now.

We went downtown on the day after Thanksgiving for the traditional tree lighting like we did last year. Like last year, it was a huge attraction. Unlike last year, the sound system didn't fail and they were able to launch fireworks. The tree is lit each evening along with a large star on the Macy's building.

There is also a carousel across the street. And further down Pine, Nordstrom has a Santa, who is always awaited by a long line of people to see him.

A lot of the buildings have changed their lights to red and green and and the trees downtown are covered with lights. And Pike Place Market has a cool holiday light display near the main entrance.

All this makes going downtown especially fun this time of year. Now, if only Seattle homeowners were as festive in their holiday decorations...

I read this morning that a 104-year-old church building in the Dallas neighborhood of Oak Cliff will likely be demolished so that a school can be built on the site. I suppose I've been living in Seattle for too long because I found this pretty shocking.

But now that I look back through the news at the recent history of preservation in Dallas, I remember how poorly the city and community treat historic buildings. A couple years ago, an 85-year-old East Dallas YWCA building was demolished. And last year, preservationists were shocked as a 1950s office building was demolished without warning.

Yeah, now I remember, this is how Dallas does things - it's in the name of progress.

One of the problems in Dallas is that the inner-city has been so neglected that anything seems better than abandoned buildings. But when you demolish a historic building, you destroy history, which is something that you can't get back, and one of the attractions that can help to revive and enliven the inner-city. That's not progress.

By contrast, Seattle recognizes that history and progress aren't polar opposites. New buildings stand side-by-side with re-purposed old buildings and the contrast adds further to creating an interesting and livable city, moving towards the future but respectful towards the past.

Heck, in Seattle, preservationists got landmark status for a former Denny's restaurant. The building was eventually demolished, but it came very close to preservation and was a top news story, showing the importance of preservation here.

Unfortunately, Dallas doesn't yet seem to know how to make progress while preserving history and in the process fails at both.

Four days last week had record low temperatures and temperatures barely got above freezing each day. But, on the bright side, the sun was out last week. Even though the days were short, the skies were clear and we were treated to a rare stretch of sunlight in December.

Because we're so far north and nearing the winter solstice, the sun doesn't get more than 20° high in the sky anyway. And unfortunately, this week it's cloudy again, and as the afternoon sun nears the horizon, the clouds make it get darker much earlier than it did last week. In fact, with the clouds dimming the sunlight, for a significant part of the day it looks as if the sun has barely even risen.

Fortunately, the winter solstice is in less than a week at which point the days will begin to lengthen and the sun will get higher in the sky. While there will still be quite a few more cold, cloudy days this winter, more sunlight will be very welcome.

Today is Troy's 26th birthday. This past Saturday we did several things to celebrate it. First we went to a restaurant we'd never been to before called Portage Bay for breakfast. It's only 3 blocks from us, so we walked there in the cold morning air. It was really busy, so we had to wait about 20 minutes. The food was good though and it was very filling. I got a ham, mushroom, and cheese scramble that came with toast and red potatoes. Troy got the breakfast sampler which came with eggs, toast, red potatoes, and his choice of bacon or ham. If we had gotten toast or pancakes, we could have used the fruit/topping bar which had several bowls of all kinds of fruits, butter, and whipping cream to put on your food. It all looked so good! We'll probably go back some time.

After breakfast, we walked to Lake Union and spend a few minutes there. Most of the park is blocked off because of construction and has been pretty much ever since we moved here. Hopefully it will be done soon. Then we went back home for a while before taking the bus to see a movie at the Varsity Theater in the U District. We saw Earth Days, a documentary about the history of the environmental movement. It was pretty informative and interesting because of all the archival footage from the past 50 years.

After the movie, we took a bus to the Space Needle to use our coupon for two free glasses of wine. It was dark by the time we got there around 5. We had turned our tree lights on before we left so we could try to see them from the Space Needle. Even with the telescopes, it was difficult to see our tree.

Then we rode the bus to Capitol Hill to try a Vietnamese place called Monsoon. Unfortunately we didn't have reservations and they were booked until 8, so we ditched that idea and went to Seastar near Whole Foods instead. Seastar is a really nice place and the food was excellent. I had a cup of crab and corn bisque and the penne with sea scallops. Troy had the mahi mahi with rice and vegetables and a glass of Riesling white wine. The bread was really good too. We had been planning to get cheesecake for dessert at the Cheesecake Factory downtown, but we were both too full, so we didn't get anything.

It was a pretty fun, full day. Troy has a few presents to open when I get home from work today. Happy Birthday Troy!

I love cats and wish I could get a kitten. I'd like having something to take care of and the company. It's been a while since I've consistently been around a pet, specifically a cat. I miss our old cat, Sassy, and think a new kitten would be so fun to watch grow up and play with.

Unfortunately I'm allergic to cats (allergies actually come from the cat's saliva and dandruff, not the hair) and don't really like all the hair they leave everywhere. I don't want to have an outdoor cat either because I couldn't stand the thought of it possibly being run over or getting in a fight with another animal. We can't have an outdoor cat right now anyway because we live in an apartment building.

I wish I could just get a shot or something so that I wasn't allergic to them and could get a cat some day.

Tim Tams are an Australian cookie that we had on our first day in Australia. We really liked them so we bought some to take home with us and sent some to my parents.

Ironically, just a few weeks after we got back from Australia, Tim Tams are now available in stores in the States. They're made by Arnott, but are branded as Pepperidge Farm here. We found the original and caramel varieties at QFC and supposedly Target has a dark chocolate variety.

Anyway, they're really good. We already bought a couple more packages. If you go get some, you have to try the Tim Tam Explosion (also known as the Tim Tam Slam).

Below is a list of cities that are farther south than Seattle, along with the average low temperature in the month of December.

• Boise, ID: 24 °F


• Fargo, ND: 4 °F


• Minneapolis, MN: 11 °F


• Duluth, MN: 9 °F


• Green Bay, WI: 13 °F


• Toronto, Ontario, Canada: 18 °F


• Buffalo, NY: 24 °F


• Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: 12 °F


• Bangor, ME: 16 °F

By comparison, the average low in temperature in the month of December in Seattle is at least 12 degrees warmer than all of those cities farther south - at 36 °F. Being close to the ocean, our weather is moderated by the moist ocean air that soaks the region every winter.

However, we've been under a zone of high pressure over the last several days, which has given us clear skies, as well as cold weather with lows around 22 °F until Thursday.

I'd never been to a foreign country before, not even Mexico or Canada. But spending two weeks in Australia makes me want to visit foreign countries more now than ever before. It was just so cool being in a different country and experiencing so many new things. I've already started a list of countries I want to visit some day. Hopefully Troy and I will be able to visit all these places.

• New Zealand - I've heard lots of good things about New Zealand. It has lots of natural beauty and is where Lord of the Rings was filmed. I'd love to spend a month there some day.


• United Kingdom (England & Scotland) - I've wanted to go to London for a while, probably since I first became a Beatles fan. I want to see Abbey Road some day. I also want to go to Liverpool to see where the Beatles started out and visit all the famous places, like the Cavern Club. Scotland would be cool too.


• Ireland - Seeing all the old castles and architecture would be cool. Going to Dublin would be the main thing to see. I don't know much about Ireland, but I think I'd like it.


• Italy - Florence, Rome, Venice, the list goes on. There's so much history in all of Europe, but I'd probably want to visit Italy the most, after England and Ireland.


• Spain - I'd like to see Madrid some day. I remember learning all about Spain in my Spanish class in high school and it seemed pretty cool.


• Mexico - Seeing the old Aztec ruins would be pretty neat, as well as spending several days in Mexico City. Maybe some day Sofia can show us around her home city. Cancun would also be nice and relaxing.


• Prague, Czech Republic - My cousin has been to Prague before and actually took her family there last month. She loves it and I think I would too because of all the cafes, shops, and cultural things to do.

We're very fortunate to have been able to travel to Australia. It was our first trip overseas and we learned a few things on our way to having an awesome trip. There were so many impressive sights, interesting scenes, and memorable moments that we brought back with us that it took us almost two months to share it all with you.

Our first day there was a lot of fun and our first night hanging out with our friends was possibly the best night of the trip, as we all had a great time together.

One of the best things we did was our day tour along the Great Ocean Road. It was nice to be taken around to all the sights and it the scenery was amazingly beautiful. We were fortunate to have good weather and be able to appreciate such wonderful natural beauty of the ocean, shoreline, hills, trees, and - most impressively - the rock formations in the water.

We had a great time in Melbourne. The whole city was amazing - the CBD, the neighborhoods, all the shops and restaurants, the tram system, etc. However, one of our favorite places was Federation Square in the middle of the CBD. It was a great location to see Melbourne's architectural history and to experience the city.

Sydney was great too. The harbor was beautiful and the very curvy shoreline offered plenty of scenic vantage points to see the skyline, the opera house, and the bridge. I also really enjoyed relaxing in the sun and watching the waves come in at Bondi Beach. And, I had a great time exploring some of Sydney's suburbs, which were historic and lively with lots of places to eat and shop.

Overall, it was a great trip and it's been a lot of fun reliving it over these past several weeks.

• Introduction


• Long Plane Ride


• Day 1: Seeing Adam and Sofia


• Day 2: Melbourne CBD


• Day 3: Como House and Shrine of Remembrance


• Day 4: Aquarium and Park


• Day 5: The Great Ocean Road


• Day 6: Melbourne Zoo and Thai food


• Day 7: Lygon Street and soccer


• Day 8: Last full day in Melbourne


• Day 9: Flight to Sydney


• Day 10: Gardens and Scenery


• Day 11: Neighborhoods


• Day 12: Blue Mountains


• Day 13: Paddy's Market and a few last things


• Day 14: Goodybe Australia... until we see you again


• Public Transportation in Melbourne and Sydney


• Things in Australia that I'd like to see in the US


• Things we missed while in Australia


• Favorite Australian Restaurants


• A few things we learned

Our trip to Australia was our first international trip and there were a few things that we learned from it.

We were a little intimidated by traveling internationally, but it wasn't that big of a deal. The worst part was connecting in Los Angeles, so I'll try to avoid flying through there again, if at all possible. Otherwise, it was fine.

We exchanged some cash once we arrived in Australia, and it was very helpful that we were able to use our friends' bank and avoid exhorbitant fees. Without that luxury, I suppose we would've had to use one of the many expensive currency exchange services. We realized a few days into the trip that we could use our Capital One card without any foreign currency transaction fees that many credit card providers charge, so we could've spent less cash if we'd planned for that from the beginning.

We also traveled at one of the worst times for the exchange rate. The Australian dollar was reaching record highs while we were there, meaning that every dollar we spent in Australia cost us more American Dollars than it would have if the exchange rate were a little more beneficial.

I'm really glad we went when we did, though. Being able to visit a foreign country, or anywhere new for that matter, is so much better when you know someone there who can take you around. That's what made this trip so special - that we were able to spend most of it with some of our best friends. Not only did their guidance around the city help us to experience the best of Melbourne, but we just had a great time hanging out.

Nando’s - Nando's is probably Adam's favorite place to eat at in Melbourne. It was nicer than a fast food place, but not quite a restaurant. They have "Portugese-style" chicken sandwiches. I'm not exactly sure what that means, but the chicken and fries have a special seasoning on them that makes them taste really good. I got the chicken sandwich on a ciabatta roll all three times we went there. The food there was way better than anything I’ve had at a fast food place in the US. They also have a special spicy “Peri-Peri” sauce you can add to your sandwich that isn’t too spicy, even for me.

Bob’s Kitchen - I don’t know if I was just especially hungry or what, but the food at Bob’s Kitchen was amazing. I talked about it the entire time we were in Australia. We all shared several kinds of dumplings, which are basically small pockets of dough that contain pork, crab meat, chicken, and other meats. We also shared a noodle dish with vegetables. I wish we’d had a chance to go back.

Max Brenner - This place was so good that we went there three times. Most, if not all, dishes have some form of chocolate with them. The chocolate soufflé was just incredible and probably really bad for you, but who cares! I especially liked the gigantic cinnamon roll with chocolate sauce for dipping. Why aren’t chocolate cafes more popular in the US?

Peking Duck place - I don't know what this place was actually called, but it was a good introduction to the Peking Duck dish that originated from China. We tried this place in Chinatown and the food was really good. We ordered one and a half ducks, which came with tortilla-like pieces of bread and plum sauce. It was a lot of food for the four of us and we barely finished it.

Ying Thai 2 - I had some of the best Thai food I’ve ever had here. The ambiance was neat inside and the portions were huge. The coconut jasmine rice was really sweet tasting and almost could have been a dessert. I had the Pad Thai, which was excellent and wasn’t too spicy at all.

Bread Top/Barby's - I really wish we had these places in the US. They sell pastries (sort of like dim sum) that taste so good and are pretty cheap. We ate breakfast at these places probably 4 times when we were in Australia. My favorite was probably the coconut bun or the blueberry twist. It’s just so hard to find good, cheap pastries here besides donuts which are too sweet sometimes.

Australia and the US are pretty similar, but in our two weeks in Australia, there were a few things that we were used to finding in the US that we missed.

• I mentioned how the pedestrian signals make sound in Australia, which is great, but they didn't count down. In Seattle, most pedestrian signals count down so you know how much time is left (though they often don't give you enough warning), but in Australia we didn't know how much time was left before the lights changed, which made it hard to judge if we still had time to cross or should wait.


• It's nice not having to tip at restaurants, but on the flip side of that, service was not as attentive. It wasn't negligent, but it was slower-paced. At times it would've been nice to have had more attentive service.


• Furthermore, when we went to restaurants, getting a big bottle of room-temperature water for the table to share was common practice. It was nice having water there, and I didn't mind not having ice. The only problem was that they hardly ever brought us more. As if four people are supposed to share a single 1.5 liter bottle of water throughout an entire meal after spending all afternoon out walking around the city.


• Furthermore, drinking fountains are uncommon in Australia. We often got thirsty and, well, there just wasn't anywhere to drink from or to refill our water bottles. How inconvenient.


• Credit cards were not accepted nearly as much. Some places didn't accept them at all and most places had a minimum charge of $15 or so. As someone who charges basically everything so that I don't have to deal with cash and can accrue points with my credit card, not getting to charge stuff like normal was an annoying adjustment.

Overall, though, there didn't seem to be that many things that we're used to in the US that we couldn't find in Australia, but it would have been nice if these few things had been different.

I was a little surprised with how similar Australia is to the United States. But, having a heavy British influence and being on the other side of the world from the US, Australia did have a few interesting differences and a few things that I'd like to see here in the US:

• One nice thing about making credit card charges in Australia was that rather than signing a piece of paper that nobody ever verifies, you entered a PIN for pretty much every transaction. It seemed like a much more reliable way of verifying that you were the owner of the credit card you were using. I really never understood why you have to sign your receipt here because, really, nobody ever looks at it and it's more work than typing in a PIN.


• Crosswalks in Australia all featured sound, which was helpful when crossing, since the sound changed when it was time to walk and when the time remaining to cross was running out. Some of the crosswalks here have sound, but not as many, and the sounds at the crosswalks in Australia were more useful, and I'm sure appreciated by the blind.


• All prices at stores and restaurants include tax. Having tax included is so helpful and so much more logical than the way we do things. Plus, at restaurants, tips were not expected, so I didn't have to multiply by 15% every time I ate out and what we saw was what we paid. It seemed like such a convenient and sensible way of doing things.


• Melbourne and Sydney both had a lot of cafes. It would be great if there were more sidewalk cafes here. You know, an inexpensive place to stop for lunch or dessert or tea or whatever.


• All toilets in Australia have two buttons for flushing - one button to flush with a small amount of water and another button for, um, bigger flushing needs. But that makes so much sense. Why should every flush use the same amount of water, when there's normally not a need to use that much water. Just another simple and sensible idea.


• Another common environmentally-friendly feature is that electrical outlets have switches. So, rather than unplugging something you're not using, you can just flip the switch to turn it off. There are a lot of things that use electricity when they're plugged in, even if you're not using them, such as cell phone chargers and electronics. It would be really convenient to be able to just turn them off at the switch to save that electricity instead of having to unplug them.


• I saw the best hand dryer in the world in the Melbourne Airport. Not only did I see it, but in fact I got to use it. It's a Dyson Airblade and you insert your hands and it blows a blade of air, which blows the water off as you slowly pull your hands out. It dried my hands more completely and quickly than using a regular hand drier or paper towels. This isn't unique to Australia, and it wasn't common there, but it's the best way I've ever dried my hands, which is saying something considering that I've washed and dried them a lot of times since I was born.



• Australian bills of currency were much more interesting than ours in the US. They were very colorful, for one thing, which make our bills look very boring in comparison. One thing that is better, though, is that the bills have various different anti-counterfeit measures. And, they're easier to use by blind people because of the differences between denominations that you can feel. By contrast, United States bills can't be told apart by blind people because they all feel the same. Also, Australia doesn't have pennies, and even though we were using more coins because they have $1 and $2 coins instead of bills, not having a 1 cent piece makes it easier to pay with cash.

I'm sure there are some other things in Australia that would be worth bringing over here, probably some not quite as trivial as what I've mentioned, but I'd be happy if we could see some of these good ideas in the US.

We took some pictures of our Thanksgiving meal yesterday, so I thought I’d post some. I brined the turkey this year, which made it taste a lot better than last year. I let it soak in vegetable stock, sugar, salt, and sage overnight and then baked it in the oven for two hours. It turned out really moist and flavorful.

The only thing that went wrong was that I broke one of our drinking glasses. I was reaching for something on the bar and when I pulled my arm back, I knocked over a glass with water and it broke all over the kitchen floor. The worst thing about it is that now we only have 5 glasses instead of 6.

After lunch we watched the Cowboys-Raiders game and the Raiders lost of course. We had some of the pumpkin pie I made and it was really good. We were really full after all that food! Then we watched Up one last time before we return it to Netflix. It’s a really cute movie and definitely one of the best Disney/Pixar films I’ve seen in a while.

Anyway, we hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend!

Today we’re spending our second Thanksgiving in a row in Seattle. Last year was the first year that I made all the food myself. Everything turned out surprisingly well, so I figured I’d make everything again this year. Last night I started the dressing by making the cornmeal and I also made the pumpkin pie (I remembered the cinnamon this time). I’d say the hardest thing to make is the dressing because it requires so many things and takes a while to mix properly. We’re having turkey, dressing, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, deviled eggs, rolls, white wine, and pumpkin pie for dessert. We ran out of green bean casserole and cranberry sauce last year while we were eating leftovers in the days that followed, so this year I got extra.

We watched some of the parade this morning and of course we’re going to watch football too. My parents and uncle are actually going to the Cowboys-Raiders game today, but I’m sure they probably won’t like the outcome.

Unfortunately I have to work tomorrow until 2, but after that Troy and I might go to our friends’ apartment and hang out for a while. Then we’ll probably watch the tree lighting ceremony at the Westlake Center like we did last year. We’ll also put the tree up this weekend and decorate our apartment for our first Christmas in Seattle. It’s too bad we won’t be able to see any family this year for the holidays. We'll probably go visit family for Thanksgiving or Christmas next year, and maybe someone will visit us for the holiday we spend here.

The best cities in the world have good public transportation, including Melbourne and Sydney. Each of them had extensive heavy rail networks. Melbourne had multiple train lines and hundreds of train stations connecting the whole area. Sydney's rail network was similarly sized.

One thing that Melbourne had was a great public tram system. We have a single streetcar line in Seattle and are talking about adding more, but Melbourne is way ahead of us. The trams serve the CBD very well and go outside of the CBD to serve the inner city, similarly to how buses would, but easier to access and with a dedicated right of way.

Sydney didn't have trams, which made it more difficult for us to get around the CBD. However, Sydney has a pretty extensive ferry network to serve a lot of areas along its harbor.

Surprisingly, both cities are fairly low-density outside of the CBD, and part of this is because of the extensive heavy rail networks, which have been place for more than a century, and allowed locals to live more than walking-distance away from the CBD. The heavy rail networks were very well used, though, and very extensive.

We didn't get a good taste of the bus system in either city, but Sydney had more buses because they didn't have trams.

Overall, public transportation was great over there. Seattle's definitely a smaller city, but our public transportation system is a far cry from the great systems of Melbourne and Sydney.

Lesley and I went out to eat at La Carta de Oaxaca in September and loved it - it instantly became one of my favorite restaurants in town. Unfortunately we hadn't been back since then, until this Saturday, when we went out to dinner with one of Lesley's coworkers, Eric.

The food is from the state of Oaxaca in the southern region of Mexico, so it's different from the Tex-Mex with which we're so familiar. It's great food though.

We started with the chips and guacamole, which was great. I really liked what I had last time we came, but wanted to try something different. I decided to have the molé negro, which is popular in Oaxaca and is the restaurant's specialty. Lesley had the tacos fritos, which I got to try some of. We were very hungry and the plates are kind of small, so we also got the carne asada platter, which was great. Eric had two orders of the tostadas, which he couldn't quite finish, so I had some of those too. It was a very filling meal and everything I had was great. We already can't wait to go back.

We finally come to our last day in Australia. We had more pastries from Bread Top for breakfast and went through Paddy's Market again briefly. We finished eating our blueberry pastry at Hyde Park, close to our hotel. It was a nice morning to walk through the park and relax. We were supposed to check out of our hotel at 10:00 in the morning, but we were able to ask for an extension until 11. Our flight wasn't until 2:00 in the afternoon, so we wanted to drag around our luggage for as little time as possible.

We finished packing our suitcases and took everything to Hyde park to hang out for about another hour. We saw some guy in the park blowing really big bubbles, which was cool to watch. We wish we could have done more and stayed longer, but we made ourselves get on the train to go to the airport around noon.

There wasn't much to eat in the airport. We ended up sharing a big piece of overpriced pepperoni pizza for lunch. We got our passports stamped again when we went through security to leave Australia (which was really cool - we have one stamp for when we arrived in Melbourne and one for when we left Sydney) and stood around in the terminal for quite a while waiting for the plane to be ready. It boarded about 30 minutes late and we finally took off around 3:00 on October 10th.

I don't remember much about the flight back, except that I didn't like the food as much. It was also much more difficult to sleep on the flight back for some reason. I only slept 2-3 hours during the entire 13 hour flight back to Los Angeles. We also had seats on the left side of the plane, but thankfully the person sitting in the window seat only got up twice, so that wasn't too inconvenient. I did watch a few movies, including Australia with Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman, two Australia natives, and The Duchess.

We landed in Los Angeles on time, at 10am, also on October 10th, the same day as when we left because we crossed the international date line. We had about 2 hours to get through customs and security in the domestic terminal. Our flight left for Seattle at 12:30pm and we landed around 3. It didn't take long for us to get our luggage, thankfully it made it with us. We road Link Light Rail back to downtown and transferred to the 70 bus that takes us within a block of our apartment.

Man, were we tired. We hadn't gotten much sleep during the flights and had basically been awake for more than 24 hours. We actually put away a lot of stuff, did some laundry, and ordered a Pagliacci pizza for dinner.

Visiting Australia was one of the best things Troy and I have ever done. We wish we could have spent even more time there, because 2 weeks just isn't enough time. Hopefully we'll be able to go back some day.

The first thing we did on our final day in Sydney was exchange some money because by this time we had run out of Australian dollars. Unfortunately this time, the exchange charge was like $20 instead of $8 that it cost us when we exchanged the majority of our money at the start of the trip through Sofia's Australian bank. Also, the exchange rate at the end of the trip was much worse than when we first got to Australia, so we didn't get as many Australian dollars for our American dollars.

We took the train to Paddy's Market, in the southwestern part of the CBD. We arrived at the market after a little difficulty, since we weren't sure which way to go from the train station. Paddy's Market was similar to the Queen Victoria Market in Melbourne, but wasn't nearly as big and didn't have as much produce, food, or restaurants. We bought a few souveniers, including a small replica of a boomerang and a sweatshirt for me. The top level of the market is actually a mall. We were hungry and expected to find food at the market, but since we didn't, we decided to get some cheesecake at a coffee shop in the mall.

We continued walking through Chinatown, which is right next to Paddy's Market and then ate at an authentic Malaysian food place called Mamak for lunch. I had the chicken satay with sweet and spicy peanut sauce and Troy had the chicken curry soup with potatoes.

It started raining after lunch, so we decided to go to the Contemporary Art Museum in the Circular Quay so we could be indoors for a while. I'm not a big fan of contemporary art, so I wasn't that impressed. There was a lot of strange art, but we did like a few things such as a room full of small glass sculptures in ponds and metal wire sculptures. After the museum, we walked through The Rocks again and went back through the CBD, including the Strand Arcade again, where we sat and rested for a while.

We knew we'd have a hard time finding food for dinner, so we decided to try to find a Greek place we'd researched before the trip to see if we might want it. We finally found it, but the menu posted outside was a little expensive for our taste. For some reason we were really tired from walking all day (and all day the past 12 days for that matter), so we went back to the hotel to rest and check out the observation deck on the 45th floor.

View from Hotel Roof on Vimeo.

We decided to head back to The Rocks to eat at an Italian restaurant we had seen earlier in the day. I had some sort of ravioli and I forget what Troy had. We also had some wine with dinner, which was nice.

The last thing we did was take the train back to Newtown for some dessert. We had cookies and cream cheesecake and english breakfast tea. It was nice to relax and think about all the fun we had had the past 13 days.

Originally we thought we would take public transportation to the Blue Mountains, about 60 miles west of Sydney. However that would have cost us about $50 per person and we would have had to figure out where exactly to stop and what to do ourselves. So we decided at the last minute to book a day tour for $90 per person instead. This tour was not as good as the Great Ocean Road and it also wasn't as pretty, but it was still worth the trip and it was easier to do with a tour than by ourselves.

We waited at our hotel to be picked up by the tour company and they were about 30 minutes late, which was a little annoying since we had gotten up so early to meet them. We still had to pick up more people before we headed out to Olympic Park, where the 2000 summer Olympics were held in Sydney. There wasn't much to see there, but they did have the torch near one of the parking lots and plaques of all the medal winners. At the entrance of ANZ Stadium, there's a ring hanging on the building that has a feather from the national bird of every country that participated in those Olympics, which I thought was really cool.

After that short stop, we continued on to a small touristy town of Leura on the edge of the Blue Mountains. There were a few cute shops there, including a place to buy candles and other decorations and a candy store with lots of candy from all over the world. We didn't spend much time here either before we went to the next stop, which was finally inside the Blue Mountains. We rode a small train called the Scenic Railway down into the mountains. It claims to be the steepest train in the world, with a downgrade of about 52 degrees. It was pretty darn steep and there wasn't much to hold us in our seats except for the rail and seat in front of us and the cage above our heads. In retrospect, it probably isn't very safe. It was kind of funny though because they played the theme song to Indiana Jones as we headed down on the train.

Once at the bottom, there was a network of boardwalks going through the rain forest and it wasn't too busy, which was surprising. After spending about 30 minutes walking around the rain forest, we took the Scenic Cableway back up to the visitor's center. We had some good views from the top.

After that we ate lunch at a cafeteria type place, which was nothing special. I had the fish and chips and Troy had roast lamb. It was interesting talking to some of the other people on the tour during lunch. One guy was from New York City and had an interesting accent and smacked his food a lot. We also talked to a woman with her husband and kids and found out they used to live in Fort Worth, specifically in Wedgwood. They now live in Canberra because the husband works for Lockheed Martin and they transferred him there. It's a small world indeed I suppose.

The most popular viewpoint in the Blue Mountains is called Echo Point, where the Three Sisters are located. The Blue Mountains are named so because of the way the light reflects off of the vapors given off by the eucalyptus trees. One thing I would have liked to see was the Jenolan Caves, but it would have taken too long to get out there.

Three Sisters at the Blue Mountains on Vimeo.

On the way back to Sydney, we both took naps and then stopped at Featherdale Wildlife Park to spend about an hour interacting with koalas, wallabies, and other native Australian birds and mammals. I probably enjoyed it more than Troy. It was fun getting to pet some of the animals.

Koala eating leaves on Vimeo.

Pretty peacock on Vimeo.

Baby Koala on Vimeo.

Our tour guide was kind of weird and goofy too, so we weren't very impressed with him. We had to catch a ferry back into the city and we were running behind schedule so he drove pretty fast in order to make it to the ferry in time. In fact, he told us to run toward the pier so the ferry wouldn't leave us there. It was nice to be off the bus and to relax and have more room on the ferry. Sydney has a pretty extensive ferry network and so we stopped at like 10 piers before we finally made it back to the Circular Quay in the CBD. It was really cool riding the ferry underneath the Harbour Bridge and next to the Opera House. The only downside is it was incredibly windy, so windy it almost knocked me over. It was hard to take video in what was probably the heaviest wind I've ever experienced.

Ferry Ride into Sydney on Vimeo.

We were pretty hungry by the time we got back. I wanted to eat at Nando's one more time before we left Australia, so we went there for dinner and it was really good. There's actually a few Nando's in Vancouver, BC and one in Washington DC, but I've heard the one in DC is a lot different from the ones in Australia, so who knows if the ones in Vancouver are any good either. I guess we'll find out when we go there for the Olympics in 4 months.

We walked around the Queen Victoria Market and The National Gallery of Victoria a little more and then decided to take the train down to the harbour again to take some nice night photos of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. We walked around the Rocks briefly and then went back to the hotel to rest from the long day.

On Wednesday, the first order of the day was to get something to eat for breakfast, or brekkie as Australians often call it. We really liked the Asian-style pastries at Breadtop and decided to try a similar place nearby called Barby's. We walked to a nearby park to sit and eat. It was kind of cool in the morning, but our blueberry pastry was really good.

After that, we wanted to go to the Powerhouse Museum, which we had read about in several guidebooks. To get there, though, we had to navigate our way up a hill and across some elevated roads. It wasn't terribly difficult, but it wasn't as easy or pedestrian-friendly as I expected a world-class city like Sydney to be. When we got near the museum, it wasn't yet open, so we continued walking into the quiet, historic neighborhood of Ultimo. We sat at a park bench near an old hotel, enjoying the morning sunlight.

We got to the museum and walked around. It was a pretty cool museum. There were a lot of interactive scientific exhibits that were popular with the kids there. There was also a neat little exhibit about Australian inventions, including the bionic ear and Vegemite. Australia overall was a pretty environmentally conscientious place, and there was an exhibit at the museum with environmental facts and a model home with examples of ways to limit your environmental impact. Our favorite exhibit, though, was about outer space with a lot of amazing color photos of planets, galaxies, and nebulae.

Since we had spent most of our time in Sydney so far in the CBD and immediately surrounding, we had decided to spend Wednesday afternoon exploring some of Sydney's neighborhoods. After the museum, we hopped on the light rail tram to Jubilee Park, where we had a view of the Anzac Bridge.

Anzac Bridge in Sydney on Vimeo.

From there, we found our way to Glebe Point Road, which went through the neighborhood of Glebe. It was a neat area and there were lots of cafes that we walked past. We stopped at a busy Thai restaurant that we had read about and found a place to sit and eat. After that, we walked through the University of Sydney, which is the oldest university in Australia and had some impressive historic and contemporary architecture.

Then we came to the neighborhood of Newtown, which seemed to have endless eating options. We walked along Princes Highway in Newtown for like 45 minutes and the cafes and fast food and restaurants continued on and on. We kind of wished that we hadn't already eaten, but hoped to be able to come back later. We stopped at a cafe where I had some Russian Caravan tea, which I had never seen previously in the US, but seemed to be somewhat common in Australia.

Newtown, Sydney on Vimeo.

After that, we took a train to the neighborhood of King's Cross on the other side of town. That neighborhood has had a mixed past of drugs and crime, but has been cleaned up considerably and is now a somewhat bohemian area with some historic surroundings. There were more strip clubs than we'd seen anywhere else in Sydney, but otherwise it wasn't too much different from other neighborhoods. We walked to the Elizabeth Bay House, a historic home in the area, and sat at the park across the street with a peaceful view of the harbour. It had started to get windy, though, so we got up to walk.

The neighborhood of Darlinghurst was nearby so we walked south towards it. Unfortunately, it was somewhat cool and windy, and the walk wasn't particularly interesting. We did arrive at the Taylor Square area, which had lots of shopping and cafes and restaurants. It was a pretty neat area, but the public pay toilets weren't working and we were both pretty cold. We actually weren't that far away from our hotel, so we decided to walk there to warm up and figure out where to eat.

I thought I had read that the neighborhood of Paddington, which was in the same direction from the CBD as Darlinghurst, but just a little farther out, had a lot of places to eat. We figured out what bus to take and went out to take the bus there. We got off the bus at before we went too far, but we didn't see much to eat in the area. There were a lot of places to shop, and some places to eat, but even though it was only like 6:30, pretty much everything had closed. It also started to rain, but fortunately we were able to find a place to eat.

Dinner was pretty unremarkable. Afterward we caught a bus back into the city and went back to our hotel room. We were a little hungry for dessert, so we found the nearest Max Brenner and went there for the last time. It was kind of busy. We found a seat at the bar where we could watch them preparing food and we got the very rich and very good chocolate souffle.