Botanical Gardens

Yesterday was the wedding.  It was held at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney, which was absolutely beautiful.  So enjoy the pictures of the flowers, even though I don't know what most of them are.

The Taronga Zoo



After arriving in Sydney, we spent the first day sleeping, then had a lovely dinner with Joe's new in-laws and family.  So far the food her has been top-notch.  It turns out in Australia, fruits and vegetables are actually much cheaper than what they consider "junk food"- ie all fast food.  If only it were the same in America.

Yesterday we went to the Taronga Zoo, to experience some of Australia's venomous animals in a safe setting.  To get there we got to take a train into Syndey and a ferry across the harbor.  We also walked a little bit through Sydney. It was fabulous! Enjoy.

This is Central train station.  Sydney has some absolutely beautiful architecture.

My first encounter with an Australian spider. After I got  Joe to stop screaming like a girl, he was nice enough to take a picture of me with it.

This is us aboard the ferry.

The opera house.

My second encounter with an Australian spider.

Grey Kangaroo.  You can actually buy their, um, bits, as souvenirs.

 If you look carefully, you might be able to spot the 30 or so GIANT stick insects behind me.  The craziest part was when we turned around we found an escapee.

He was a small one.

This is a frilled Lizard.  Joe spent about 10 minutes staring at it hoping it would frill up. 

Well, that's all for now. G'day!

I believe I can fly

That's obviously me pretending to use the air sickness bag. Little did I know that I would almost have to use it for real several long, cramped hours later.

Our flights went very well, despite the fact that the seats are roughly 5 inches wide, whereas my backside is considerably wider.  The long leg from LA to Sydney even had individual touch screens in our seat which allowed us to watch movies and play games.  In fact, the 108 year old woman I was sitting next to had me teach her how to play solitaire.  We hit some nasty turbulence about 3/4 of the way across the ocean, which left both Joe and I reaching for our air sickness bags, but other than that, no real problems.

We are staying with relatives of Joe's future brother-in-law, and they are a great couple. There will be many posts later, so for now, just enjoy some plane pictures.

We've made it

Just a quick note to let everyone know we have arrived in one piece.  The plane ride was horrendous, but we're safe and sound and ready to begin our whirlwind Australia tour. 

We're off!

Welcome to my blog everyone!

Some of you may be curious about the title of this blog. While looking up the various animals in Australia that will kill me, I came upon an interesting bit of information.  Not only does Australia have venomous snakes, spiders, mammals, and gastropods, they also have venomous trees. Enter the trees in the genus Dendrocnide.  Turns out that the trees in this genus are covered in fine hairs made of silica.  These hairs are also coated in a potent neurotoxin.  When you brush against these trees these small glass hairs penetrate under your skin and release their toxin.  This can result in pain lasting up to months, and there have been stories of it causing death.

"So just avoid touching the trees," you might say.  But not even that is a surefire way of avoiding the sting. If you stay among the trees for an extended period of time (say, an hour), you run the risk of breathing in the hairs that are shed into the air, leading to massive reactions in your lungs. Fabulous.

So which us luck on our trip to Australia, which hates people so much that even the trees try to kill you.