Sunday, 5th of March

Today was a fantastic day! The weather was just gorgeous! Since we had spent a couple of days looking for apartments pretty strenuously, we decided that we would go out for an adventure today! We went down to Circular Quay on the train. This is the area just outside of downtown Sydney and it has lots of great restaurants and little shops in an area called "The Rocks." They also have a huge market during the weekend. We wandered around there for a little while - there was such neat stuff to look at! We found this little look-out type area above a restaurant that had the greatest views of Sydney Harbor.. it was gorgeous! Such vibrant colors!

From there we decided to go to Manly Beach. This beach is one of their most famous - We had to go see why! One of the most popular ways to get there is by taking a Manly Ferry. I took this picture of the Opera House from the boat... This is a view you don't see too often!

We figured most of the crowd would be gone as we were getting there around 3:30 pm... Were we Wrong!! Manly Beach had more people than I had ever seen on one beach before! It was packed! We found a little area to set up camp and tried really hard to look like we belonged there! I think our lack of tan gave us away!

We found a restaurant for dinner that advertised $10 steaks! We were a little skeptical, but the place was packed so we decided to give it a shot. Glad we did!! The food was great and the atmosphere was too. They were showing an Australian soccer match so the crowd was pretty rowdy. Later we made our way back to the ferry and saw this fantastic sunset! It was gorgeous!

Monday, 6th of March

Today was Bill's last official day of holiday, so we spent most of the day at Cronulla Beach! It was a perfect day to start really working on our tans! We realized after a couple of hours that we were really dumb for not bringing sunblock.. we were starting to burn! Of course, all Australians will warn you about their HOT sun.. we knew better! Fortunately there was a really sweet older lady that walked by and noticed us looking at each other's backs and asked if we needed some sun screen! See... the people here are just that nice!! :) We thanked her and decided to keep working on our tans! Bill worked on school readings (he has so much to read!! Even before the first class!) and I finished one of my new favorite books The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters. Later we got ice cream and tried to cool off - it was so hot!

We went to see another apartment around 5. This one was in Caringbah, which is the suburb of Bill's host Rotary Club. The apartment was the nicest one we have seen so far! It had a great balcony overlooking the gardens in the back of the property and was only about 3 years old! It is also right across the street from one of the main grocery stores - Woolworths. You can understand how valuable that would be since we probably won't have a car!! There were about 8 other parties looking at the apartment too, so we are keeping our fingers crossed!

Later that night we attended our second Caringbah Rotary Club meeting. This group is so cheeky ("funny")!! We had a great time and really enjoy meeting all the great Rotarians in this club.

Today, Tuesday, 7th of March

Today was Bill's first day of class! I have talked to him a few times today - he mentioned he was one of two Americans, out of about 35 students, in one of his classes! We will have to update you all again with more details!

Thanks for reading! Have a great day!