After two days of jet lag I finally felt normal this morning. Marisha and I left Toronto on thursday and 24 hours later arrived in Sydney - on Saturday morning. We checked into a hostel in the Haymarket and immediately went out to see the sights. What a beautiful city! Everything is perfect - the weather is fanatastic and they even have amazing coffee. I can't tell you what a priority that was the first couple of days! So we toured around Sydney harbour where Marisha posed for photos with some aboriginal musicians, High Park, some other park and then the other OTHER park. They've really protected and nourished the downtown greenbelt. Around 3:00pm we were heading back up into the downtown core when I hit the wall. Marisha had to lead me to a corner bar, in what we later learned was Soho, to have a couple of pints of VB and a chat with a group of estate agents. We both felt much better and started to make plans for which pub we would hit on our last night before meeting up with the rest of the crew. We got back to the hostel, checked email and never made it out. We were both asleep by 8:00pm. I slept straight through until about 8:00 the next morning.

After hitting starbucks, we checked out of the hostel and stored our bags. We went to Darling harbour and jumped on the ferry for the trip around the harbour. I am stunned by how beautiful the Opera house is. No, really. I've always admired it, thought it was stunning but in real life? Even more! They've done wonderful things with their waterfront. We had been planning to take the train out to Parramatta but discovered there was a ferry we could take. We opted for that since it was such a great day and we had spent enough time trapped in metal tubes. It took about an hour and was well worth the $7.
The hotel is nice after the hostel. we looked out of our room window and saw we were surrounded by nice suburbs like Port Credit or Guildwood. We were overlooking the back yard of a house and Julie pointed out a really weird looking dog. Which turned out to be a goat. Oh and there was a sheep.

We met up with the crew around 6:00pm for a team dinner. Those poor girls were so jet lagged and the only restaurant close by was (I'm embarrassed to tell you) Hooters. Yep. Training table contains nachos, quesadillas and titties. We did our best with salads and whatever but it was tough going.

When we woke up around 6:00am in the morning there were thoroughbreds being walked through the streets. As it turns out we're right across from the Rosehill Racetrack. It's closed right now due to an equine flu. They're not even allowed to transport horses on the highway the quarantine is so tight.

We didn't have to practice until 1:00 today. Lots of time to explore Parramatta and find an internet access point that doesn't cost $27.00 an hour - Kinkos. Afterward, jumped on the team bus to the course in Penrith. So exciting to be at the 2000 Olympic racecourse! The wind was HOWLING! Unbelievable but they assure us that this is the worst conditions we'll experience. Carrie, I can't even imagine what it was like for you guys in K4 let alone the singles. I remember watching Caroline warming up and huge waves washing over the bow of her boat.