Not dead, just vacationing

So yes, still among the land of the living. The place we're staying in Sydney appears to be in some null zone where there are no free hotspots to tap into and all the internet places charge obscene rates per hour. Plus, we've been busy, trying to cram all the vacation we can into our last few days. We leave Sunday morning and begin the long journey back home. Needless to say, it's a blindingly depressing thought.

So, let's see, what have we been up to since last we updated. Spent Thursday with Chris and Lisa. In the morning was the aquarium, which was very nice, although I can't help but think that Pixar must have an interesting relationship with the Aquarium given the volume of Finding Nemo toys that were kicking around. In the evening Chris and Lisa made a small mortgage payment and got a babysitter so we were able to go out and have a nice supper and a few drinks. The supper was interesting in that we accidentally stumbled into an Italian restaurant that clearly caters more to locals than tourists. Which meant it looked dingy, but the food was spectacular.

It was good to see Chris and Lisa again. I so rarely get to see my old Muse friends and what with those guys living in Shanghi, it's an even rarer event to catch up with them. I'm trying to convince them to go to San Diego for the comic con next year, so we'll see.

Most of Friday and Saturday was spent shopping for last minute stuff. We found a wonderful Saturday morning market down by The Rocks and dropped a healthy amount of money, but came away with some great stuff. And yes, I finally broke down and bought a kangaroo leather hat, so I should make for an interesting sight when I get back to Iqaluit.

The highlight of the past few days thought was a show we caught at the Sydney Opera House on Friday night. We'd been hoping to catch a show there, but most of the shows there were opera, classical music or odd Shakespeare productions (such as Romeo and Juliet told in 45 minutes...with puppets). But then we noticed there was going to be a show doing the entire Beatles White Album by four Aussie rock stars. Seriously, I've never heard of these guys before and I don't have their names in front of me, but they're a big deal here. They're playing three shows at the Opera House and they all sold out immediately.

Fortunately, we were able to rangle a couple of tickets. Not great seats, but still, we got inside to see the show.

And it was amazing. We might never have heard of these guys, but they're obviously gods here in Australia. And they were all top flight musicians. They dude who played guitar and sang for Helter Skelter just about brought the place down (his guitar did not survive the experience). So it was a great show inside a simply spectacular building. The acoustics have ruined me for other buildings for many, many years. I'm glad we splurged on the tickets.

So that's it for our adventures in the land of Oz. We catch a flight tomorrow morning, arrive in Vancouver 4 hours before we left, and then off to Ottawa. We're back in Iqaluit on Tuesday. I'll recap everything once we get home. But I think it's safe to say it's been one of the better experiences in our lives.

See you on the other side...