Dabysan in Hammersmith Palais

Well that's about it for Australia. Today we took a ferry out to the beach town of Manly for lunch. Among the very few things in Sydney that are cheap, the ferries are a great way to get around, and as a bonus, offer probably the best views of the Sydney Opera House. We're going to futz around our little neighborhood here, then get ready for tomorrow, otherwise known as the Longest. Day. Ever. We leave at 2pm-ish local time and get back into DC at 9...after 20 hours of flying. Weird business.

Final verdict: Sydney rocks. The city is beautiful, diverse and culturally stimulating (also expensive, but who's counting?).  If you ever find yourself in this hemisphere, I strongly recommend stopping in for a visit.

Excelsior!

Y'all come back now

Today was a good day. After a week of conference rooms and long work dinners, CarrieNation and I finally got out and about in Sydney. Our first stop was the outer Sydney suburb of Blacktown for a visit to the Featherdale Wildlife Sanctuary, where we had it on good authority we could have a Koala "encounter."

We chose Featherdale because it had a reputation for being an actual sanctuary, rather than just a place where they hang bedraggled Koala's on tourists (though we hoped there would be a little of that too). I'm happy to say that Featherdale delivered in every way. While they don't actually hang the Koalas on you, they do let you pet them, which is almost as good.

Here's what I learned today. Koalas are not mean. Koalas are not drugged. At least one Koala (pictured here) is capable of leaping fairly substantial distances through the air. It was something to see.

Star of the show

Although the Koalas are clearly the stars here, the other animals were pretty awesome too. Various kangaroo variants just roamed throughout the park, mooching alfalfa off of sentimental tourists. My favorites were these little walaroo guys. One took a little nip of my finger, but I could swear he looked apologetic afterwards.

Careful they bite

Tomorrow, we're going to do the famous Sydney Harbor Bridge Climb, where I'm told the traffic-spitting is world class. I haven't been over to the Opera House, but I have had some good looks at it.

Here's this thing

And here, as a bonus, is my incredibly shitty photo of the field from my seats at the Aussie Rules game from Saturday.

Local color

It's day two for me in Australia, and I might be starting to get the hang of the time difference.

I got in yesterday at about 6:30 a.m. local time, and made it to the hotel by 8ish. I checked in, video chatted with CarrieNation (who is on her way here now) went to the gym and grabbed a quick shower. I figured I'd take a quick nap, then go out and see the town.

Five hours later, a call from one of my colleagues woke me out of a dead slumber just in time for the sun to go down. So the town will have to wait.

I DID manage to make it to my first ever Australian Rules Football game as the hometown Sydney Swans took on the Collingwood Magpies at the Olympic stadium here. Verdict: Awesome. I'll try to put up some shitty cell phone pictures later, but suffice to say the game is even more fun to watch in person (and it's not bad on TV).

We really need to get this game in the U.S. It's got everything we like: violence, high scores, violence.

Sydney reminds me a lot of London, with a couple minor exceptions. The weather is better, the people are nicer, and all the young hipster dudes wear white canvas boat shoes. I'll get back to you when I figure that out.

In the past two years at my job, I've been dispatched to Brazil, France and Egypt, and just barely missed a trip to India. Although these are hardly pleasure cruises, I am fully aware that all this international travel is a pretty sweet deal.

Tomorrow, I'll go as far away from my home soil as I've ever been as I embark on a 24-hour exodus to Sydney, Australia. I am both excited and nervous. Excited, because a free trip to Sydney is much, much better than a swift kick in the eye, and nervous, because air travel makes me nervous and I'm about to do a whole heck of a lot of it.

Still, I think excitement trumps nervousness at this point, and I'm actually kind of stoked for my first trip on a 747.

For those interested in that sort of thing, I fly from Washington to San Francisco, have a 3-hour layover, and then go from San Francisco straight to Sydney.

Unlike past trips, CarrieNation is actually joining me on this one, and will make her way out to Sydney two days after I leave, making things a lot more fun.

The only remaining consideration is how this will affect my 104P52W obligations. Australia is approximately eleventy billiion hours ahead (behind?) making hitting deadlines a tricky business. I may keep one clock set to Eastern time just in case.  I don't intend to let my victory pies escape me, on account of a little trip around the world.

Excelsior!

Not to turn this into a wedding blog (I've learned in recent weeks that there are quite enough of those on the Interwebs) but on matters musical, it seems the Voxosphere has a great deal to contribute.

As any post-ironic hispsters worth their salt would, we're making our own iPod (TM) wedding mix. This kills a lot of birds with one stone: saving money, assuring a complete moratorium on line dancing, and allowing us to foist our clearly superior musical predelictions on all of our friends and family.

But making your own list begs a very important question. To wit: how filthy/inappropriate can we make it before we start scaring off/alienating relatives?

I, for instance, am extremely keen on having Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines" on the mix. Now in its defense, White Lines is technically an anti-drug song, but it still contains many loving cocaine references, including the shouted, one-word refrain "FREEBASE!"

Things got even dicier when we started trying to wedge some Liz Phair onto the playlist, and settled on the comparatively benign "Supernova." Of course, relatively benign is, in fact, relative, as this song does contain the phrase "fuck like a volcano."

You can see the bind we're in. What should be off base? Sacrelige? Swear words? Overt drug references? Two or more of the above in the same song?

I'm sure the moral compass that is the Vox readership will help sort it out.

Hotrod is right. Those Yacht Rock videos are must watch. I think this ends up making the final cut.

CarrieNation has long harbored an idea for an addition to the NOW! musical compilation series called NOW! That's What I Call Coke Party. It would feature all adult contemporary mega-hits from the 1970s and 1980s, and star titans like Steely Dan, Orleans, Boz Scaggs, Christopher Cross, Earth Wind and Fire in all their homogenized glory, banging out tunes in which it is impossible to discern any individual instrument (except during the ubiquitous sax solos).

This has become such an excellent running joke, that we've decided to take it to the next level and make the soundtrack to our wedding's cocktail hour NOW! That's What I Call Coke Party - Volume One. We figure this is a good time to do it, since people will be less likely to flee in fear before they get a chance to eat.

My secret shame is that I actually enjoy listening to these terrible songs, so if nothing else I (and my dad) will enjoy the bizarre musical interlude between our ceremony and reception.

We welcome any recommendations on what should make the final cut. There are just so many good coke party songs to choose from. Here's one that's a lock:

This song is called White Unicorn. That's probably all you need to know.