Is This The Last Goodbye? No Way!
Wow. I knew today was going to be hard. And it was. But I am proud of us all. We knew we were going to cry. A lot. And we did, but we really kept the cheery denial thing going until the very end! Our lovely Kristen has flown the coop (cluck! cluck!) , but hopefully not for too long. Kristen and I were up late last night and up early today. We went to the airport with Jorge and Ray. We had random conversations in the car on the way to distract us from getting teary.
Thursday Night - Farewell Drinks
Thank you so much to Chad for helping organise the 'do at the Stock Exchange Hotel, which is a very lovely + comfy place, I must say. I only just remembered that I ended up there after my b-day dinner last year while on the way there on Thursday. Too funny. HUGE thanks to Chad, Fidelma, Shay, Sal, Damian, Ruth, Andrea, Gavin, Kuan, Rocky & Co. and Jorge and Ray for coming. You guys rock! We had a very fun night and good chats and I might as well plug The Sydney Writer's Festival again for good measure! (p.s. Fidelma, if they ever have a suitable competition again, please enter your story - it's a winner! ;)

Friday Night - Farewell Dinner We did dinner at our usual special spot - Wolfies @ the Rocks, Waterfront. Yes, I ordered the kangaroo there again. I can't help it. It tastes just like steak and I must be iron deficient because I've had more red meat this week than I've had in the last 6 months! Dinner was excellent but I nearly smacked our waiter when he came over and asked loudly, "So who's birthday is it?" I turned and gave him a Look. I smiled and said quickly, "Oh, no, it's no one's birthday - this is a farewell dinner, can we order our drinks now, thanks!" Of course the reason why he thought it was a birthday was because I sneaked in to the kitchen and handed him a cake we'd gotten for Kristen. A surprise cake. I didn't want this little twerp to ruin the surprise. I excused myself to 'the loo' later on and found him in the kitchen and said, "Hi, just to re-cap, it's the cute blonde at the table who's leaving the country and she doesn't know about the cake, it's a surprise. He grabbed my hands and winked madly at me and said "Okay, I understand, we'll be very discreet!" The chef came over to me and said they'd stick some sparklers in the cake. Excellent! So I told him, "The code will be, 'Can we see the dessert menus please?' and that's the signal to bring out the cake!" They agreed. Phew. It all went to plan - yay! And we even made sure Kristen was sitting with her back to the kitchen, so she didn't see it coming. Yay again - the tiramisu cake with the sparklers went off just as we'd hoped. We ended the night by walking around circular quay, soaking in the gorgeous harbour views. God, this city is beautiful. I think I take it for granted sometimes, so it's good to remind myself of that.

Today - Liftoff
We just love trying to plan surprises at last minute. While poor Kristen was madly packing this morning, I excused myself to go purchase a re-charge card for my phone. Heh heh heh. Well, not really. Jorge, Ray, and I were planning an Aussie care package for Kristen, so we had to organise all our goodies. The care package included Australian jokes, the Homebake 2001 CD, Minties, Cherry Ripe, Picnic Bar, Golden Rough, multiple Cadbury chocolate delights, Dolly Magazine (ha!), a koala-photo filled address book, tasmanian devil stickers, panadeine (you can't get it in the states!), postcards, cards. I wanted to stick in Tim Tams, but I knew Kristen would by herself some for the plane, and she did! ;-)

We were going through the motions and all sitting around this little airport cafe pretending that Kristen wasn't just about to hop on a plane and fly 11,000 miles away. We knew one tear would create group waterworks. Finally it was time to head towards Kristen's gate. She took some video of all of us hugging and was about to take some pics when Jorge took a gander at the TV screens to see a "Final call" notice next to Kristen's flight number. WTF? It was still over an hour until her flight and they were doing a final boarding call? CRAP! And so that's when the crying began. Panic set in. One second we were all hugging calmly then we get the 'ohmygod, it's the final call' notice and the bawling began. I rarely rarely cry in public, but I just didn't care. Hugs, tears, more hugs, more tears. We just didn't want to let the poor girl go. And then we all hugged and cried, the three of us, as we watched Kristen disappear in the corridor to her gate. :( Right before we said goodbye, we whipped out the Aussie care package and told Kristen to wait until she was in the air until she opened it. I wanted to put some sweet chilli sauce, vegemite, and a stubby of VB in there, for kicks, but franky, there's just no care package big enough to fit all the stuff we'd have liked to stick in there.

I HATE goodbyes! Anyway, we've decided this is not 'goodbye,' just a 'see you soon' sort of thing. I know what it's like to be missing people on the other side of the world, no matter where you are. It's so tough. But I certainly have no regrets about caring about people all over the globe.

Roach Counts, KFC, Visa Cards, and The Drugs

Roach Counts
You know, I just have to say that the Roach Counts Kristen keeps track of on her blog aren't as amusing anymore now that she's staying with me. :( Yikes! At least I know what I'm getting into when I go home! :-)

KFC Runs
I never go to KFC. I've been there maybe 2x in 2.5 years and I rarely went in the U.S. except for quick mashed potato and gravy and BISCUIT (mmmmmm!) runs, but last night I had a craving. I was walking home from work, though Central and I figured I'd stop at the grocery store on the way home, when all of a sudden the smell of chicken hit me. Must have it! I rang Kristen to see if she wanted anything and I had to hold the phone away from my ear as the poor hungry dear was squealing! 5 pieces of chicken and two tubs of mashed potatoes and gravy later, we were happily full....and thanks to Rammstein, I had to try the Popcorn chicken tonight. Yum!

Visa Cards
All you crazy kids and grown-ups (Hi, Auntie Kate!) keep inquiring about the status of ye olde Visa card. You know I love you guys, but I honestly don't have any new news! HUGE thanks to Sal and Shay for being so incredibly sweet, particularly today. I am sincerely touched by your concern and I appreciate your help! You guys rock! :-)

The Drugs
I can't remember if I already blogged about The Drugs' new EP, The Bold & The Beautiful, probably because I'm senile as all hell, but in any case, it absolutely rocks. I LOVE it - it cracks me up every time and I've heard it about 400 times! You can purchase the single from RubberRecords. Excellent value for your money! It's funny and contagious. I also just found out that I'm in the video for the single, "The Bold & the Beautiful." Woo-hoo! It's funny cause I had a dream that I asked if I could be in it, and what do you know? Sometimes dreams do come true! The Drugs are touring VIC now, but they'll be back in Sydney on June 1st @ the Annandale. I highly recommend!

p.s. The pics are from the Bridge Climb we did on Sunday - still have the group photo and the photo with the Opera House behind us coming - how could we resist? Can you beat the view? Can you??? ;)

Chats with Strangers, Writing Exercises, Italian Food, Leisure Suit Larry, and Bridge Climbs

[pssst, the photo is of me and Jorge @ his graduation from UNSW a couple weeks ago - don't I look like the proud mum? ;)]

Birthday Bonanza
Friday night was so much fun! Chad, all I can say is: You have really nice friends! It was excellent to see Shay, Fidelma, Bart, Sal, Amanda, Andy, and the rest of the crew @ Chad's B-day bash, as I hadn't seen them in ages, but what was funny was that I ended up hardly talking to anyone I knew that night and spent most of the night chatting with people I'd never met before. I hadn't intended that to happen and I'm sorry I didn't get to talk to the gang more, but I met some super new people. So thanks to Marvin, Rocky, Mona, Claudine, Ted, Jennifer, and Damian for being so much fun to talk to! [BIG thanks to Sal for being so incredibly, well, Sal! Her kindness and concern never cease to amaze me.]

Writing Frenzy
I finally turned in my writing piece for the "Can You Survive the Drive? writing competition for the Sydney Writer's Festival. The festival runs from the 27th of May to the 2nd of June and there seem to be a lot of cool things happening this year. I decided to enter one of the comps this year simply to use it as a writing exercise. I wanted to give myself a deadline to write a story and while I'm convinced my story is boring as hell after reading it 1000x, I met the deadline and that's all I care about ;) Thanks to Saint Kristen for helping me time the story - such the little actress!

Italiana!
Jorge, Ray, Kristen and I went to a great Italian restaurant in Leichardt on Saturday. I'll be damned if I can remember the name - it might have been Alba's? I seem to remember reading the name of the restaurant upside down on the bill. This funny woman with long painted finger nails and tight snake-skinned pants serenaded us with Italian and French songs on the accordion. It was very good, albeit loud. I was impressed she could play the keys or chords with those nails and I could hear my old piano teacher whispering in my ear, "Cut your finger nails, Lori!" The old woman threw a fit if she could hear my nails hit the keys. ;) Anyway, the food was amazing - just what I needed. I hadn't had red meat in ages and I was craving steak so badly, so I was such a happy camper!

Leisure Suit Larry
Is there a conspiracy going on here? At first I thought I was the only person who had never heard of Leisure Suit Larry, but so far it seems like it's mostly a guy thing. I might be totally wrong, so if there are girls out there who played this game, please let me know! Anyway, thanks heaps to Rammstein for being so sweet as to burn me a copy of Leisure Suit Larry 1-6! I'm so psyched. I popped it in when we got home last night and I LOVE it! I haven't gotten very far yet as I only had it in for like 20 minutes, as I couldn't figure out how to turn off the sound so as not to disturb poor sleeping K, but I can tell I am going to become addicted. It is hilarious! As Rammstein said, I will learn to love the polyester! I am going to make up for lost time now as from everything I've heard about LSL, it sounds so fricking funny - I feel very deprived. Just call me Leisure Suit Lori! :-)

The Bridge Climb
"Now I've....had the climb of my life.....no, I never felt this way before, yes, I swear, it's the truth, and I owe it all to you..."Finally. It's only taken me two years, but I finally did the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb. It was fantastic! My lord is this thing organised! I've never seen a more organised tour in my life, and I've been on plenty of tours in my day. I felt like I was in some NASA training camp, getting ready to become an astronaut! So they were extremely thorough and thought about absolutely everything - there was absolutely nothing that could go wrong! And everyone who worked there was unbelieveably nice and funny. Really friendly and hilarious, without being annoyingly perky. Our bridge climb guide Anne, was so cool! She reminded me a lot of my friend Zoe.

The only drama we had was getting to The Rocks. Kristen and I caught a bus from Broadway and it took over a half hour to get there due to heavy traffic...we ran and ran once we got off the bus and just made it right on time. Phew! So, first we watched an instructional video and then we were herded into room where we had to sign a form saying we were in reasonable health and wouldn't sue anyone if anything happened. They had us take breathaliser tests to make sure no one was drunk. Hee hee. Then we were all given our jump suits which were oh-so-stylish. Seriously, compared to the flightsuit I had in New Zealand when I did my first sky-dive (I looked like a pregnant human banana!), I felt like a big ol' fashion plate! The jump suits were not bad at all. Then we got our gear - our harnesses, and our "parachutes" which turned out to be fleece jackets. Then we were off to get our "accessories," which turned out to be gloves, beanies, cords for glasses/sunglasses, and handkerchiefs. Hahahaha - yup, they even had hankies for us! How funny was that. Anne told us, "yeah, try to get a clean one!" She was kidding. The hankies, gloves, beanies (hats), absolutely everything had bands on them that went around our wrists like bracelets and could then be stuffed up our sleaves. Everything was attached to us or our suits somehow, so there was no way in hell anything could fly away. Finally, we each got radios and ear pieces so our guide could talk to all of us during the ascent and descent. "Astronaut Lori, can you please make your way to lift-off?" Seriously, I was so excited - I felt like a little kid walking around in astro-gear!

I don't know how I got to be first in line to follow our guide, but I did. I didn't think having the Super Klutz be the first to climb, but maybe I would show the team what NOT to do! As it turned out, I didn't do anything klutzy or embarassing, so all was well. The beginning which involved climbing up several ladders was a bit odd because only one person is allowed on the ladder at a time so my guide ran up the first ladder and disappeared and then I went next but she wasn't on the next level so I was like, "Umm, do I just keep going?" So I did, but there was no one ahead of me or behind me that I could see while I was climbing. When I got to the top, I looked at Anne who had flown up the stairs and said, "You little show off, you!" And she laughed.

The majority of the climb was easy as pie. It's simply going up and down stairs. You have your harness on the whole time, but really, there's no way you could fall off the bridge without the harness unless you were trying. You'd literally have to be trying to jump off. I felt very safe the whole time. Obviously, the view was absolutely amazing. Of course, my harness ring kept getting stuck through every little divet we went through, but I was able to pull my way free in about 1 second, so no problem. Now, to be honest, the Bridge Climb is NOT cheap. Pretty pricey, but the Sydney Harbour has to be the best damn harbour in the world, and you only live once, so why the hell not? I couldn't stop gaping at the scenery below. I've seen it all before, from the ground, and even from a helicopter, but this was still just as breath-taking as ever.

We had our pics taken and you'll be able to see the embarassing and highly unflattering pics of me very soon. It was very windy up there, winds reaching around 40kph, and we felt like we were going to fly off the bridge. Anne told us to stand and lean against the wind and put our arms out to simulate sky-diving. And it did really feel an awful lot like sky-diving. Very cool!

So, all in all, it took about 2 hours (plus an hour of prep time) but it just flew by. We learned a lot of history about the bridge and the making of it. We waved to George, the poor bridge-worker who is still buried within the bridge. He slipped and fell into some cement and wasn't discovered till he was buried to his forehead. There was nothing they could do, so they kept on pouring. So poor George is still a fossil within the bridge today. Something like 16 people out of about 1461 lost their lives in the making of the bridge during the Depression. Considering they had no safety precautions, I find that to be amazing. And we learned about this Irishman who fell off the bridge into the harbour and survived, but his boot soles pressurised into his feet and had to be surgically removed. The highest parts of his boots actually melded into his groin and also had to be surgically removed. Ouch! He had lots of internal injuries and broken ribs and whatnot, but he was back at work in about 3 weeks. What a trooper!

Anyway, you get the point - had an awesome time and I'm so glad we went. If you want a reminder of how beautiful Sydney is, give it a whirl! Afterwards, we went to City Extra for dinner - yum! So even though I had Fish & chips and bread and salad and an ice cream sundae, about a half hour later when we get home, I am starving. I just made myself 2 corn on the cobs - gotta love it!

Lastly, I just want to send lot of love and prayers to Heather and the Downies. My thoughts are with you guys - please stay strong!