Kerri's Wedding

On May 5, my kick-ass cousin Kerri Ann tied the knot with her beau, Robin. I was still slightly deranged from only having just returned from Australia, but that may have only added to my enjoyment of the wedding. ;-)


The happy couple at the reception.


Me, my cousin Laura (Kerri's sister), Aunt Maureen and cousin Terence


As much of my immediate family as could make it: me, Kim & Tim, MaryBeth, Dad & Mom, and Tommy. Unfortunately, Tommy's wife Malgosia couldn't attend, nor could my brother Patrick make the trip from Michigan. (I'm pretty easy to pick out in this bright purple shirt, aren't I?)


Terence and me


MaryBeth, Tommy, my uncle Denis and me

Tommy, Timmy and me. 3 of 4 the brothers -- hopefully, next time Patrick will be able to make it, too.

Here are me and Tommy in the foreground, with some of our cousins standing behind us: Bryan, Jackie, Eddie, Jamie & Karen.

As always, it was great to see everyone, but the time goes by so fast!!!

Final Days in Australia

I'm sure gonna miss Australia -- not least of which because of signs like this:



On May 1, the "Fab 5" made a day trip via ferry to Manly Beach. It was awesome, and the weather was gorgeous just like us.


Me, Christine, Steph, Elliot and Jay on the JetCat Ferry en route to Manly.


View of the Sydney Harbor Bridge from the ferry. I love this photo because Elliot and Jay are engaged in synchronized photo-taking, and judging from the foreground, Christine and I must be as well...

Can't get enough pics of the Sydney Opera House, right? This one's from the ferry...

View of Manly Beach

Christine on Manly Beach

Elliot, me, Steph and Jay on the boardwalk heading to Shelley Beach

Christine and me at the Hero of Waterloo, an Irish pub with great live music and lotsa friendly folks.

The day after our Manly outing, Christine and I explored "The Rocks" a little bit, then finally walked over the Harbour Bridge.

Christine and me crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge

View of the north shore ("Kirribilli") from the bridge.

View of the south shore (Opera House) from the bridge.

Me and Christine in Milson's Point on the north shore just after walking across the bridge (behind us in the photo, obviously).

All in all, I had a fabulous time on my first visit to this wacky continent/country. Especially after having traveled solo for so much of my South America trip, I really appreciated being able to share so many experiences in Oz with Christine (obviously) as well as Stacy, Patty, Elliot, Steph and Jay! It was so awesome that we could all be there at the same time!

View of the sunset out my airplane window on my way back to the US from Sydney.

Sydney Aquarium and further hijinks...

On Monday, Christine and I hit the fabulous Sydney Aquarium! ("Fabulous" because they actually let you bring ice cream right in with you -- my kind of place!)


Christine being swallowed by the aquarium's entrance.


Can we just take a moment to appreciate how adorable and frolicsome the platypus is???


And now a moment to appreciate just how creepy and primordial the crocodile is? Here are a couple of close-up pics of a pretty good-sized "salty," as they call 'em here.



My apologies for intermittently turning this blog into some kind show-and-tell on marine life, but I just can't help myself. Especially now that I've gotten into SCUBA diving, it seems like a good idea to learn about these critters I might be encountering on my next dive. Anywhoosie, here are a couple of video clips from the aquarium:


Long-necked turtle


Jellyfish -- aren't they totally hypnotic?

One of the really cool things about the Sydney Aquarium is these long tubes which pass under massive pools, one of which is home to a beach of seals and the other is full of sharks, rays and other fish.


Christine and me in the seal tube


Videoclip of seal tube


Videoclip of shark tube


Really big sea turtle

Okay, I'm almost done with the aquarium, I swear! ;-) But first, a short video of my new favorite fish, the clownfish. We already saw a couple of orange ones in the Great Barrier Reef, here are a couple of black ones at the Sydney Aquarium. I just love how these guys adopt a sea anemone and basically never stray more than a few inches away from it and will defend it against any intruders. (I'm totally cheezy when it comes to clownfish.)


Videoclip of clownfish

Lastly, here's a video of a shark ray -- how crazy is this thing???


Videoclip of shark ray

Okay, enough of the aquarium -- I'm clearly documenting too much of our visit there. Moving on from daytime Sydney to nighttime Sydney...


Cockle Bay Wharf at twilight


Brian and Richard are a couple from Seattle whom Christine and I first met on the Opera House tour, then we were randomly seated at the same table at Varla Jean, then of course I ran into them out on the town. Here we are at Stonewall. The guy in the black shirt is Brian and the guy in the white shirt is Richard, and the guy with the crazy eyes on the left is an "actor" in Sydney, but I don't remember his name. :-(

Jay, Stephanie and Elliot in their apartment in Sydney, getting ready for a big night on the town.

Stephanie, Elliot, Jay and me out in Kings Cross, Sydney.

Next up, last shots of Sydney! My Oz tour is nearly over! *sniff*

Reunion in Sydney!

Finally! After months of heart-wrenching separation anxiety, I finally got to meet up with Elliot and Stephanie and their friend Jay in Sydney! The entire blogosphere must be rejoicing as all the blogkeepers I've linked to on my blog and I have actually met up in the flesh! :-)

Immediately upon meeting up, the five of us went to see the film "300" in IMAX in Darling Harbour. (Apparently, Elliot and Jay had already seen it twice, and Stephanie once, but you just can't enough of ridiculously well-developed Greek bodies in tiny leather codpieces and maroon capes!) It was an amazing film, but I can't help but be a bit disappointed at the continuing "queerification" of villains in movies (in this case, Xerxes) and the undercurrent of homophobia (e.g., King Leonidas of Sparta deriding Athenians as "boy lovers," which is ironic since what he is presumably referring to was, in fact, an integral component of Spartan military training), especially since this movie's target audience is most likely young straight men. But even these misgivings couldn't take away from the sheer spectacle of it. Sydney claims to have the largest IMAX screen in the world, and I guess I didn't really appreciate how an eight-story tall screen could truly showcase hundred of male torsos, thighs and the aforementioned codpieces until now. What would we do without modern technology??? :-)

After the movie, we caught a drink overlooking Darling Harbour, then some dinner at an Irish pub, then visited the great variety of nightlife on offer here in Sydney. In keeping with the randomness of the evening, we somehow wound up at the Taxi Club along the way, which I can only describe as a tranny pokie bar. (Pokies are what they call slot machines here, and to say the Aussies are infatuated with pokies is an understatement. Every bar seems to have a "pokie room" full of entranced patrons robotically feeding these festive and voracious machines.) Here's a photo of Jay, Elliot and me with Melissa, a new friend we made visiting from Kuala Lumpur.



I'm slightly worried about the fact that we have another 4 nights here together -- I'm not sure I can handle this much fun... ;-)

Next up, Christine and I are about to take a ferry over to Manly, so I'll be reporting back soon...

Sydney!

Ohmigosh!!! I'm in Sydney! Christine and I saved the crowning jewel in the Australian crown for the end of our trip. (Well, end of my trip anyway; Christine is continuing on to Perth after I desert her to fly back to New York on May 3.) Here I am catching my very first glimpse of the Sydney Opera House, which even more visually stunning in person than in all the photos you see of it before you arrive.


Frankly, everything about this city is visually stunning, as perhaps you can tell from some of the following photos. I think Sydney benefits from one of the most beautiful natural settings for any city in the world, perhaps second only to Rio de Janeiro...


Like the lemmings we are, Christine and I arrived and made a beeline for the Opera House, the #1 tourist destination in the city. We took an awesome tour of this architectural wonder (which sorta made me feel guilty, since I spent the last 3 years living a stone's throw from Lincoln Center, walking past it every day, and stopped in perhaps once in that whole time--but really, there's no comparison, right??).



The Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House's largest and most impressive venue. Its acoustics are amazing, it seats 2,676 and that organ in the back goes another 27 feet or so in the wall behind it -- that's a huge organ!




View of part of the Sydney Opera House from another part of the Sydney Opera House.




View of the Sydney Harbour Bridge from inside the Sydney Opera House (the bridge isn't actually rippling apart -- I took this photo through thick panes of glass...)



Sydney Opera House Veranda



Another view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge



View of Circular Quay and Sydney Cove from Sydney Opera House



Christine in the gorgeous Victorian-era Strand Arcade, opened in 1892 :-)




Christine and me in the lobby of the 4 Seasons Hotel. We're not staying here, but Patty and Stacy did. And we wanted to feel close to them. And we needed to tinkle.


Nighttime view of the Sydney Opera House



Nighttime view of the Sydney skyline



Nighttime view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. (If you look really closely under the bridge towards the right, you can see Sydney's Luna Park on the opposite shore.)



On Thursday night, Christine and I caught a drag show by Varla Jean Merman at the most intimate (i.e., smallest) of the Sydney Opera House's 5 performance spaces. It was fabulously bawdy -- I loved it, and was really excited to see Varla Jean again after only having seen her once before (in Provinctown with Miguel, back in 2001). Be sure to catch this show if you love hearing popular songs rewritten with new lyrics about various parts of the human anatomy!

Litchfield Park!

After finishing up with our Croc Cruise, we continued on our tour to Litchfield Park, about 130km south of Darwin. (The rest of the pics in this post are from within the park.)


Massive termite mound. Thousands of termites work together for decades to build mounds like this. They gather up nearby sand, mix it with their saliva and just keep building upwards. The finished product is hard as cement (or at least seems that way to the touch) and is impervious to rain, etc. This particular style is called a "cathedral mound." (Sorta looks like a cathedral Antoni Gaudi might design, no?)


Another view of the termite mound.


Christine and me in front of the cathedral mound, so you can get a sense of scale.


This sort of looks like a graveyard, but it's really a huge number of magnetic termite mounds, all perfectly aligned towards magnetic north. (No one knows how the termites are able to do this.)


Wangi Falls. Gorgeous, but closed for swimming on account of the crocs.


Florence Falls. Open for swimming, but required quite a trek down into the gorge.


Here I am swimming at Florence Falls. I'm not skippy dipping, I swear! My swimsuit (or bathers, as they call them here) just didn't make it into the picture frame...


Christine at Florence Falls

My foot. I can't believe I'm sharing this, but... I've pretty much inherited my mother's extremely delicate Irish skin, which means that I'm doing constant battle with eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, etc. (Thanks, Mom!) And oftentimes, when I'm subjected to a sudden and extreme change in temperature or humidity, my skin peels a little bit. Just a little. Sometimes on my foot. A tiny bit. Maybe you can see in this photo. Anywhoosie, the point of the story is that I stepped into the water near Florence Falls, where a bunch of other folks all seemed to be blissfully enjoying a refreshing dip, and within seconds, I felt a bite on my foot. Then another. Then another. I tried everything: shrieking like a schoolgirl, flapping my hands around in the water like a schoolgirl, batting my eyes coquettishly at all the handsome, well-built Aussie studs nearby like a schoolgirl. Nothing would make the incessant biting stop. I was then informed by our helpful tourguide that the checkered rainbowfish had taken a liking to me, and that I probably had a bit of dry skin on my feet. How mortifyingly embarrassing! Apparently, these little fish make it their life's work to groom other fish by biting off dead skin, etc. They get a meal and the other fish gets cleaned. Everyone's happy. Apparently, they saw me enter the water and summoned the troops for a massive concerted effort at cleaning me up. I was really touched by their effort, but it still totally freaked me out -- I didn't stay in the water at Florence Falls very long.

Me at the next swimming opportunity: Buley Rock Hole. No checkered rainbowfish here. And I swear I'm wearing a swimsuit.

Christine at Buley Rock Hole.

Me diving into the river at Buley Rock Hole -- excuse the horrendous form, please.

Christine getting washed down the falls at Buley Rock Hole


Back in Darwin after a long day of crocs, termites and rainbowfish! Our tour group toasted the sunset at Fannie Bay with sparkling wine and prawns.

Another gorgeous Darwin sunset.

Next up, Sydney! (My last stop in Australia -- *sniff*)