May 28, 2006

We're back from Australia. What a killer trip. I keep saying this but I swear by it....Every couple getting married needs a pre-wedding vacation. Ours was nice and long but even a short one would work. It was so refreshing to enjoy the fact that our wedding is a month away instead of planning non-stop. I feel completely rejuvinated.

The whole trip started with the Ultimo Wine Company. We landed, went to the hotel but couldn't get early check in. So we took advantage of the amazing fall weather and strolled through chinatown (totally ironic) and ended up at Ultimo. We bought a few bottles and got great advice for wineries to check out in nearby Hunter Valley, which has over 80 wineries. The trip was relaxing. We had great food. Went back to this amazing breakfast place twice (lonely planet recommendation) that served ricotta pancakes with honeycomb butter, syrup and banana. Yeah..so good. The prices in general were not bad either. I think we were just happy to eat western food in a western (basically but not technically) country.

We toured the harbours by ferry and saw Manly beach during a storm. Coincedentally, we found a chocolate cafe and spent an hour drinking straight up venezualan dark chocolate..no milk or anything. Oh..it was so good. We had all sorts of seafood...the calamari were one of Dave's favorites but I couldn't eat it after we saw one of the aquarium. They're really cute!

One major goal of mine was to see and hear a Kookabura!! I grew up singing that song..you know..the Kookabura song. Well, I can't really sing it to you. But we went to the zoo where I was sure I'd see one. And I didn't know what to listen for except something sounding like a laugh. Well, we saw koalas, giraffes, lizards, snakes, tasmanian devils, emus, wallabys, and womabts but no flippin kookabura. I was so dissapointed but then on wine tasting day I saw one! It didn't laugh so I wasn't totally satisfied. Then on our last day in Australia, we went to a museum with a bird exhibit. There were some speakers booming out bird calls and that's when I heard it...the famous laugh. I stayed and listened 3 times to the whole track to make sure. But there was no mistaking it...I heard a Kookabura! YAY! I wish I could imitate it for you but it kind of sounded like a chimp and went.. oo ooo ahh ahhh ahhh ahahhahhahahhah oo oo ahh ahhh ahahahhahahah. Something like that. haha!

My other big thing-to-see were the koala bears. We saw them during feeding hours so they were awake and all. Koalas are lazy and have no energy since the ONLY thing they eat are eucalyptus leaves. They're toxic to every other animal except the koala and even koalas can't eat too much or they'll get sick too. So since they get little to no nutrients from the leaves they sleep for 20 hours a day and eat the other 4!! Nice life. They also have walnut sized brains from having no energy to operate anything bigger. I wanted to take one home with me for Cheddar...they'd have been best friends!! haha...

We saw the blue mountains, which get their name from the forrests of Eucalpytus trees that emit oil from their leaves, filling the sky with blue shades. We hiked through a cool climate rainforest filled with moss, ferns and waterfalls. And of course..the wine tasting was amazing. I'm pretty sure it's b/c of the recommendations but each winery was really amazing. We went to smaller wineries, some don't even sell outside their cellar. Dave drove on the left hand side of the road on wine tasting day. We rented a car and he did a really great job. He only got too close for comfort a few times on the left hand side of the car. I guess he wasn't used to having so much car to the left of him...but no accidents and it was easy to get around. We ended up buying 9 bottles of wine total, we drank 2 there b/c we didn't think we could get them all here...I know..that was real tough, and yesterday we bought a tiny mini fridge for the wines! YAY!

That's sort of a sum up. Hope everyone had a happy labor day weekend! School starts up here in a week so I have lots of planning to do this week. It looks like I'll have a studio of 12 this year. Should be a fun year. Ok..BYE BYE BYE BYE BYE!