Mardi Gras Madness
Mar 14, 2000

Greetings everyone, We have just returned from 10 days in one place. Probably a personal record for us. We spent our time in Katoomba, a town in the Blue Mountains, 2 hours West of Sydney. It was a great spot to relax, hike, read, watch the latest video releases and get some illegal work in. The hostel, now are second home, was too comfortable and several days of rain kept us indoors. We did, however, get the chance to do some medium labor landscaping for a local guy, which got us some much needed dollars. Mike wants to buy a surfboard with his earnings (though he still is a little fragile around the ribs). He also got his first haircut in 10 months, though it is still long, his hair is no longer uneven.

We left Sydney after the crazy Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade Finale on the 4th. It was a lot of fun and by far the best parade either of us have ever seen. If any of you have ever been to Halloween in San Francico's Castro District, this parade is 100 times crazier. It began with 100s of dykes on bikes (Mike's favorite) and featured sleek well tanned, dancing men and women. Lots of sexually suggestive, creative and entertaining floats. Many floats featured current political hot topics (some difficult for us Yanks to comprehend): Australia is beginning a GST tax in July and the debate now is whether or not to add a tax on tampons, hence lots of dancing tampons in the parade. We took many photos of it all!

We loved Sydney, though it is a very Americanized city. Lots of culture, sites and people watching. It is Olympic chaos here, most people are very excited for the games to begin (Sept 15-30). However, there are those who can't wait for the madness to end. Lots of people wearing shirts that read "F@#K the Olympics!". Linda just bought herself an Olympic hat to fit in.

We stayed in Newtown, with Alistair, a Scottish transplant and his Australian wife, Lesley. They were great and we got to experience life in a funky and diverse inner neighborhood. Sydney has lots of great restaurants, no cooking for us here. Other than eating lots of Asian food and drinking delicious Australian wines, we enjoyed a piano recital and symphonic concert at the picturesque and famous Opera House. The pianist was a French man, Jean Yves? Some thing or other, we had seen 2 years ago in a small church recital in Perugia, Italy. Linda insisted on telling him after the concert, small world.

Linda's mom and brother are due to arrive tomorrow morning and we will spend another 4 or 5 days touring the city, before renting a car with my mom to visit some neighboring Australian regions. She really wants to see kangaroos and koalas in the wild! We just want to spend time with her, since we haven't seen family members in 9 months.

Well that is it for now, we miss home, but are really loving doing nothing but travelling. It is too much fun.

Cheers and as always love from the road,
Mike and Linda

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