Commando in Sydney

OH happy day, my darling youngest brother arrived. But not without mishap. Apparently one of his bags got lost, so he spent two hours at the airport waiting for help or for it's arrival to no avail. The bad news--no underwear, the good news -- he was delayed long enough that he got to miss church. I did convince him to wash his underwear in the tub last night for re-use today (thanks mom!) and he is now busily drying them in the bathroom with a hair dryer. Ah, life in rustic Sydney at a 5 star hotel.



Once Garrett did arrive he was pleasantly surprised by, I quote, "His facebook friend Loren" who again served as tour guide. It was a beautiful, beautiful day and we wandered through Hyde Park, the botanical gardens, and over to the Opera House and Harbour Bridge.



We stopped for lunch at a lovely cafe where we learned that not leaving tips does contribute to worse customer service. We had to ask 4 different waiters for water to drink before it was finally brought, and I believe we could have sat for hours waiting for our check w/o some serious prompting.

We were entertained by the little Yugoslavian GM who kept coming to our table to chat us up as he busily sat guests and taught us how to be effective sales people. All while kicking poor little seagulls to get them out of his area. He told us one particularly disturbing story of abuse to a seagull by one of his waiters, and how he had to hide it from his customers by pushing it in to the ocean. His quote, "I don't know what ever happened to it." Hello? It died. Odd.

Later Garrett and I stopped at the QVB and some shops across the street to see if we could find him more underwear (in case his never arrive) but he said he would rather go commando than buy some that weren't Fruit of the loom boxer briefs. And I assure you, none of the stories carried what he wanted. Although there was a lovely selection.



Garrett and I were happy to stay at the lovely Hilton (thank you points, thank you Gina) where they have a "magic" button on the phone. You press it and they bring you whatever you want. So last night they brought us the sweet DVD point break which Garrett and I enjoyed while eating our toasted ham and cheese sandwiches and wedges. Also provided by "magic."



We turned in around 8. There was a moment of discord in our joy when Garrett went to the bathroom at around 1am and turned on the lights. I screamed at him and he said, "How am I supposed to pee without light???" In the morning we laughed about it together, although I gently suggested he try sitting next time. I mean waking up in the middle of the night when you're jet-lagged makes it a challenge to go back to sleep. But bottom line, I do want him to hit the toilet.

We woke at 5am and it's time for me to end this post since Garrett is just wrapping up his morning bath. 2 more hours and we're off to Cairns and lovely Dunk Island.
Cheers!