There I sat with my hand in the air. Me, the single mom with no one to help out with her home life, had raised her hand volunteering to commute to Sydney, Australia once a month to manage the newly acquired team building our international websites.

At that moment in time it seemed to be an opportunity I couldn't pass up. And, I was right to do it. It has been an amazing experience. Amazingly wonderful ... sipping a Carmel Miachiato while watching the sun come up behind the Sydney Opera House. Amazingly exhausting ... to do 18 hours in planes and 6 hours in airports every other week. Amazingly difficult ... to parent a teenager from 15,000 miles away. I would not have missed it for the world!

Sydney

No matter how many trips I've taken, no how long or short the period of planning, anticipating, and preparing, the actual moment of departure always arrives with a great rush of excitement. This trip was no different. I was headed Down Under.

I arrived in the wee hours of the morning, with dawn still an hour away. A quick ride to the Renaissance Sydney Hotel to check-in and drop off my bags and I'm sitting on the wharf awaiting the sunrise. With the first light of day rising skyward, I realized I could never have imagined such a beautifully serene place, for all that I had imagined the great cities of the world, dreaming throughout my life of all the places on earth that I longed to visit. In that brief moment, Sydney had captured my heart.

Of course, 'serene' is not meant to imply that Sydney is not a large, cosmopolitan city. Or, that it is sedate in its offerrings of that which appeals to the wilder side of human nature. It's just that Sydney seems to incorporate it into the fabric and rhythm of the city better than do other large cities. The juxtapositions have a more seamless presentation, giving the many transitions a fluidity that is somehow calming, and comforting, while allowing for excitment and awe to abound.

Mother's Day

I went on a guided safari tour of the Blue Mountains for Mother's Day Sunday. In addition to the regularly scheduled sights and attractions, I was attacked by emus, got a python stuck in the backpack I was wearing and burned my leg with scalding water. As you can see, I'm such a nature buff ... NOT!

The safari also included off-roading along the cliff edge of a mountain on a pitted, dirt track barely with enough for the hummer-on-steroids type vehicle we where riding in, as well as leisure hiking, and breathtaking vistas. Not to mention a wildlife park with fabulous animals, where I took a photo with a koala, handfed kangaroos, and cuddled a baby wallaby! That would also be where the python crawled through a loop on my backpack while I was wearing it and got stuck. The staff was not happy at me but it really wasn't my fault!

Oh yeah, I also banged up the vehicle with a boomerang even though it was no where near the target I was aiming at. And right after that, at 4 o'clock tea, I managed to spill a cup of scalding hot water on myself. And, as I sat there in a daze thinking "this is not ANOTHER incident involving me", the water, pooled in the crook of my leg, which was curled under me, burned a fist sized-area pretty badly. The scar it left will long be considered a souvenir.

All in all, I really enjoyed the whole day but I think the guide was glad to see the last of me. I did overtip him for all the trouble I caused!