We arrived on our flight from Christchurch at about 5 PM on Wednesday night in Sydney, picked up our car and made our way to the home of our hosts, Ivor and Ruth David.
Lovely people who are close friends of the mechutonim of our cousins in England. They have a real open home and made us feel instantly like part of the family. We had a delicious dinner with them consisting of Lamb Chops, Beef Steak and Sausages.
The next morning we went to the airport and picked up Irving and Ruchama who arrived from Israel. We checked them in to the David Hotel and then we went off to explore downtown Sydney.
It was kind of overcast so we decided to take an indoor tour of the famous Sydney Opera House. What a magnificent building and there is an interesting history to the construction of the building which we will fill you in on when we see all of you. After the fascinating tour where we actually saw the Beach Boys and Brian Wilson preparing for the concert that they would give later that night, we sat outside having coffee and actually met Jeremy and Debra Berkovitz of Jerusalem who were on our Tuscany trip with us last year....small world.
We then walked around the famous picturesque Sydney harbor and thru the Botanical Gardens and then, given that the Alters were working on very ittle sleep, decided to call it a day.
The next morning we were up bright and early to catch our flight up north to Surfers Paradise for Shabbat. Surfers Paradise is part of the Gold Coast which is like the Miami of Australia. Miles of clear sandy beach with gigantic surfable waves and hotels and high rises lining the beach for miles. We stayed at a very nice little apartment on the beach which was a block away from the shul and the kosher store.
We had a very relaxing day on Friday after preparing for Shabbos and then we were off to shul. Shabbos was very nice and pleasant...very nice people, a nice rov who gave a sermon at every tefillah and a shiur in the afternoon and very relaxing afternoon. After Shabbat, we went out for Baskins Robbins and then got caught in a tropical downpour which we are told is quite common here. In fact they are predicting alot of this kind of rain over the next few days...we will see....
Tomorrow, Sunday, we are off to Brisbane and then on Monday to Cairns (about 2 and a half hours north by plane) which places us in real tropical country. There we will see the barrier reef and some rainforests...we will catch up with all of you then....
Hope all is well....
Best regards and Shavua Tov
Fran and David
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