After an uneventful 10 hour flight, we arrived in Sydney mid afternoon Friday. Because we crossed the international date line we lost an entire day! We navigated our way through various stations of immigration, collected our bags and after a final look at our papers we were finally released to be met in the arrivals area by my cousin Norman and his friend Sasha. I believe that Norman and my dad were 2nd cousins but I’ll have to review the lineage on that. Norman drove us to Sasha’s where we will be staying with him and his wife Ruth while we are in Sydney. Norman and I spent the afternoon catching up on family while Richard and Sasha talked travel. Sasha and Ruth have been to over 50 countries around the world so they are a wealth of information.

Norman had to “bugger off ” so Sasha, Ruth, Richard and I went to a nice little Tex Mex restaurant about a 20 minute walk from their flat. It looks like a wonderful neighborhood that we are staying in and I can’t wait to begin exploring! We appear to be quite close the the opera house and Sydney harbour (Google maps is a wonderful thing!). Looking forward to a great day in the land of Oz!