Lisa Visits: Day 1&2 - Sydney

Hey all! Long time no speak! Sorry for being tardy with the blogging, but nothing blog worthy has really happened until now (that and Stuart's too lazy to compose anything :P).
So the day finally arrived, Lisa comes to visit Australia. I was most excited to see a member of my family since it has now been ~8 months since I've been here. Crazy hey? I was also most excited to get a big fat tin of Timmy's and a lovely mug to go along with it as well (thanks pops & soonie!)
After meeting Lisa at the airport, the first two days for her were spent sleeping while I had two more days of work to get off my plate before my vacation. Once that was out the way, it was off to explore Sydney.

Our Itinerary....Day 1 to explore Sydney Harbour & Day 2 to try our hand at surfing.
Originally we wanted to climb the harbour bridge, but once doing the maths and realising it would cost roundabout $300, we said, 'Do we really need to Climb it? Why not just walk over it??' So that's what we did. Started our 20 min walk into the city to check out the harbour. Our first stop was The Rocks. I like to equate the rocks to the distillery district in Toronto for those who know. Lots of cool pubs and old buildings, with that cobble stone walkway kinda feel. A really cool place to have drinks in on the weekends. It's close by Circular Quay too so we walked down there so Lisa could take in the view - the bridge and the opera house all in one pan. There we just lazily walked around, paused for some lunch, and finished off with a nice stroll in the botanic gardens. The weather was gorgeous so it was a perfect day to do all that.

The Rocks - check out the xmas decos, weird eh??

Lisa & the bridge...

Christine & the Opera House

Stairway to the Gardens

After our feet could no longer do the walking, we decided to round off the day by going shopping. We had yet to start xmas shopping and with the coming week expected to be filled with traveling and activities, we jetted to Chatswood to begin our Spree.

Day 2....Surfing at Manly Beach....we were nervous!

But it wasn't as bad as we thought. The waves at Manly were the perfect size and the weather was superb. After getting some onshore lessons from our instructors, we wasted no time paddling out to catch our first wave. I must admit that I thought I would be the first to get up on the board, but surprisingly, it was Lisa instead. In fact, Lisa was pretty good at the sport - who figured? She got up quite a bit, but once experiencing the affects of getting dumped by the wave so bad (specifically the amount of water that shot up your nose and I could relate bc I got smashed every time), she developed this technique of standing up and plugging her nose.....here's what I mean.....

The hand hovers over her nose, but she's up!

And she's down!!!! Lucky she's plugging that nose!

But in all seriousness, she did pretty good. If anyone is to become a surfer it will be her. I had fun too....until I hit the point of exhaustion.....this is what surfing was like for me....hence the reason why you won't see me on the surfing scene.

We hung out at Manly beach for a bit and then went home to pack for our weekend away. Next up on the Itinerary, the Blue Mountains....