Going Down Under... Aussie Style

 This year's annual Lions Club International Convention was held in Sydney, Australia.  OMG, it was sooo great to be there.  Although, I can have done without the 15 hour plane ride from Los Angeles.  Jay and I got lucky, since we arrived at LAX so early, we were able to get an emergency row exit and no one sat in between us, but unfortunately, the arm rests didn't go up. 

We arrived early in the morning, checked into the hotel, and went to find some place to eat.  Jay really wanted to try kangaroo, so that is what he did.  I even tried a bit.  In fact, here is a reaction shot of me eating a bite of it...

It really wasn't that bad... but, if you know me, I don't like exotic-adventurous foods nor vegetables...lol  We very quickly found out how expensive Australia is, especially along the harbour. Ouch!

Our hotel was great, minus the cost of internet.  We ended up going to vodafone to buy a wireless internet hotspot drive, which was much cheaper than $30+ /day.  The view of the harbour was breathtaking.  It was also set up for the World Cup.  They had a big screen floating in the water and crowds and crowds of people would come out late at night to early morning hours watching the games rooting for their team.  It was quite the experience, since the states could care less about the world cup.

Jay also found 3 Irish bars, and we probably visited each 2-3 times.  One we went to for Sam's birthday... She also came to Australia, but arrived a couple of days after we did.  We had a good night meeting a lot of Aussie boys, even a professional rugby player, unless he was just messing with us... 

The convention was great!  It is always wonderful to see all of the Lions out and about.  As well as the Lions who I haven't had the pleasure of meeting and those who I talk to on a regular basis who I haven't seen in a while.  My meetings and seminars went great.  Convention is such a great time to make you remember what you do on a daily basis makes a different to these 1.35 million Lions across the world.  I love my job!

After convention was over, we went to the Blue Mountains - which was breath-taking.  We really enjoyed being away from the city of Sydney and seeing some of Australia's natural beauty.  It was just what we needed, especially before heading to New Zealand.