Holiday in Australia

It has been awhile since I have updated this, but I had been quite busy at work teaching classes.  We were quite slow the beginning of December with dive guests, but had lots of students come through taking dive classes from me, which kept me quite busy.  I finished it all up on December 17th, then left on the 18th for a holiday in Australia.  I have been seeing a girl named Emma, that I met this past summer, and we decided to meet in Australia to spend Christmas and New Years together.  It is a bit of a long story, but she is a medical student in England, and quite special to me, and am so happy to have spent the Holidays with her.

We met in Brisbane and spent a few days there so I could do some shopping and such for work, then flew to Sydney and spent 4 nights there.  We went to the zoo, bondi beach, the opera house, the harbor bridge, and met my old house mate Erin from Gizo.  We then hired a car to drive back to brisbane over the next week, and are currently in the middle of that trip, stopping in Hunter Valley for three days.  There have been some interesting moments, mainly around hiring a car and trying to leave Sydney.  We did finally succeed after 1 hour but only made it only about 10 blocks from where we started, and ran 3 tolls!  So hopefully no tickets come, but we did make it out alive.  It was quite entertaining, as I have not been in a fast moving car in awhile, and Emma has never drivin an automatic, so she got in and asked "What does the peddle on the left do?"  Neither of us knew how to read the road signs, hence the difficulty leaving.

For Christmas we are in Hunter Valley, and had a great Christmas meal that Emma Cooked.  She made a turkey, stuffing, mashed potatos, and some vegtables (which I ate some of :) ).  I made a chocolate peanut butter dessert that my sister used to make, thanks Theresa!  Which was probally the highlight of the day, besides opening presents at 6:00 AM.  We also called my family on skype, where they all met Emma for the first time, but most of the conversation was about farts, so I'm sure you all made a great impression.  We also talked to Emma's family, but no fart jokes from them.  I guess the English are a bit more sophisticated, and its not just the accent!

So in the next week we have 2 more days in Hunter Valley, which is the wine area of Australia, and quite rural and beautiful.  I have enjoyed being back out of the city very much.  Then heading up the coast North to Brisbane.  We are stopping at a few beaches on the way then spending New Years Eve in Brisbane before flying back home.  I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Oh the photos, the one with just Emma, is a sign at Bondi Beach where a man in a santa hat drinks, drowns, then gets arrested, quite a cute stick figure I thought, and some others of our trip.