Sydney - Opera House 3

Did you know the entirety of the Opera House is actually tiled? Me neither.

Ooh moon over Sydney

Sydney Harbour at night

more of the opera house, note the blurry people, bustling by and not enjoying the view

Sydney Tower, apparently the architecture of the tower allows it to withstand wind speeds expected once every 500 years, and it also has a water tank at the top that acts as a stabilizer.

Sydney - Opera House 2

picking out boomerangs, is a long and arduous process

view of the bridge from the opera house

Luna Park from the Opera House, Mike is getting good at taking pictures!

I took this picture, I'm not expert, but it's pretty cool.

More of the me in front of the Opera house

Sydney - Sydney Opera House 1

Ready to go out on the town

View of the Opera House from across the harbour, it is breathtaking!

Never thought I would have this picture

I like how Mike looks cut and pasted into this picture :D

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney's China Town

Picking some Hello Kittys for Dalin

Me in the madness of Chinatown

Greatest sign, reminds me of stinky kitty

Inside Morning Glory, the shop was super crazy for being so late at night

When in China town, you must indulge in Asian poses

Sydney - Darling Harbour

Sydney Tower

St Thomas Cathedral

Cutest pic EVER!

sunset over Darling Harbor

Street performer jumps 4 1/2 people...it was impressive

New Zealand War Brides

New Zealand servicemen and their war brides shown shortly after their arrival on the Rangitata, photographed at the Christchurch railway station

22 Oct. 1946

Private C.W. Smith is shown with his wife from Crete, Mr P.R. Blunden with his Greek wife

Source: Christchurch star-sun, 23 Oct. 1946, p. 5

File Reference: CCL-KPCD-07-031

From the collection of Christchurch City Libraries

Collated for Heritage Week 2010

Last night, I managed to catch the last bit of a story on the news about New Zealand war brides. The story had an elderly couple sitting together, holding hands and telling of their experience as a war bride during World War II. The story ends with the man looking lovingly at his wife and saying, "My mother didn't want me to marry an Englishwoman, she wanted me to come home and marry a kiwi girl. We've been married 66 years now, and I would do it all over again." Then he kisses his wife on the cheek and smirks for the camera.

*Sigh* Don't we all want to be that couple...madly in love for 66 years.

The 2 minute glimpse I saw of the story sparked my curiosity. Apparently the story of war brides has been widespread over the various wars with thousands of women leaving with soldiers they met during their tour of duty.

Kind of like Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, without all the tragedy.

In New Zealand between 1942 and 1948 4700 women and children made the long journey to New Zealand by boat. Did you know it took six weeks to travel from New Zealand to Perth, Australia....that's a lot of motion sickness. The Minister of Defence at that time was a man named Frederick Jones, and his job was to take care of all the arrangements for the brides to come to New Zealand, in turn the brides were nicknamed, "Mr Jones' Wives." I thought making the 13 hour flight to New Zealand was terrifying, I can't even fathom being on a boat for weeks on end. This story does however remind me of my own family. Both my parents and Mike's parents were married as a result of military deployments. It looks like we all share a piece of this story.

Confessions

I have logged onto my blog every night for the past week, and yet no new posts. I spend all this time musing about wonderful, witty things to put on my blog. Something to entice readers, a contest maybe.

I even wrote an entire blog about the progress of my eczema, excruciatingly detailed....it is never to be posted. Although, it is much better after a round of heavy duty steroid cream and an intense round of internal steroids. Yes, I am off of them, no it wasn't long enough to do any sort of damage, and no I didn't have "roid rage."

The funny thing about living away from home is, the

longer you are away from home, the more homesick you become.

So, I have been having a a pity party for one about how lame my blog is, and sulking with blog envy after a prolonged session of blog-stalking when a conversation my dad had with me a month or so ago popped into my mind.

My dad reminded me that first and foremost, I am a good writer, and people actually do read my blog. Secondly, the blog is for me (and Mike, who blogstalks me), it's a journal of my adventures here in New Zealand.

So, I am removing all ads from my blog, yes I made about 13 cents, yes I know some of you cursed the ads each time you popped onto my blog. Next, I have vowed to blog about the things I find interesting, the things I love, the things I miss (like peppo the smelly cat), and how life in the down under under is wonderful, but it's hard to be so far from home, and sometimes all you want is somewhere to feel at home.

Maybe what my blog should really be is a place that feels like home, like when you go to your mom's (or mother-in-law's) house and it is warm and inviting and there is food cooking and people laughing, and if you are at my house there are

two crazy cats wreaking havoc. Perhaps I should add a fireplace and a rug....to tie the blog together.

Like my dad always says, "Just remember, wherever you go, there you are." Well I am here, and this is my blog, and this is Peppo, the smelly cat.