Merry Belated Christmas!

We've been busy living the easy life here in Australia so far - but that's all about to change as we head off tomorrow on our bikes for our first taste of touring OZ.

We had a quiet but great Christmas with E.'s mom still here. Z.'s mom unfortunately had to head home on Christmas Eve due to a booking error on our part early on in trip planning. Susan landed in Seattle welcomed by a blanket of snow, and while she took with her a nasty cold, she did enjoy a white Christmas.

Here we enjoyed a movie and the baking sun down on the wharf on a day that felt not at all like the winter holiday we're used to savoring with close friends and family. We saw Slumdog Millionaire, which we HIGHLY recommend, at a great little theater that served beer and wine in actual glasses (as opposed to plastic dixie cups) and didn't hassle us with tons of ads during the previews. U.S. theaters could take a lesson from these guys...

We've ventured out around the Sydney suburbs and discovered some wonderfully queer neighborhoods boasting lots of secondhand shops, artsy cafes, and even a few decent bike shops. Not too surprisingly these neighborhoods feel lived in, which is something you definitely don't get staying right off Hyde Park in the city center. It still feels as if we could just be somewhere in the U.S. though; there haven't been too many striking differences so far.

Today we packed up the bikes and headed back to budget accommodations for our last night in Sydney. While we can account for a few small items that our mom's graciously tucked into their suitcases for us, we both experienced a large amount of pannier bloat whilst reassembling our rigs in the hotel lobby this morning. We rode away feeling lopsided, unsteady, and with bags clearly packed to their extreme limits. We certainly don't look like the minimalists that we felt like we'd become when we left NZ. This is something we'll have to investigate further...

We have both felt anxious about getting back on the road, it's easy to get complacent and we must cop to having watched an embarrassing amount of television while we've been "resting". We're tough though and we'll get right back into the groove of touring.

We hope everyone at home, and others like us on the road, have had wonderful holidays.

***Sorry to disappoint those of you who just look at the blog for the pictures, we'll post some pictures soon but the camera's buried in the luggage bloat right now!