Well, I left Toronto yesterday, Thursday afternoon and woke up in Sydney this morning, Saturday. The weather is beautiful here - spring and I'm guessing low 70s. I basically slept the whole way and woke up feeling fantastic. Didn't mind the long wait to get off the plane while they sprayed everything down with their "non-toxic decontaminant", and the long time it took to pick up our paddles since a bunch of surfers had just returned from a competition in Bali. They got all of their boards off first. We're staying at a hostel in Sydney for the night and will meet up with the rest of the team tomorrow in Parramatta. We have internet access here but not sure what we'll have after this.
We ran into a bunch from the men's crew in vancouver. We know some of them and recognize others from the race-off. A nice bunch of guys. Anyway, I'm really happy to be here and will try to keep updating. Thanks to everyone for their good wishes!

PM update. We've been all over Sydney today. My feet are sore but it was great checking out a new city! People here are super friendly and it's easy to meet people when you have an "exotic" accent. The sales girl in the Billabong stre was particularly excited to meet us as she's heading to Canada in 2 weeks. She said she was going to toronto to do some skiing and we didn't want to disappoint her by saying there wouldn't be any snow. She said later that she was heading to B.C. so it's all good. We're heading out to a pub we passed earlier. Will see how long before jet lag brings me down - I've been licky in the past since it usually only hits me on the return journey.