We're off to Sydney this afternoon. We're flying there via Los Angeles, with a three hour layover. We leave at 4pm on January 31 and arrive in Sydney, Australia at 8am on Feb. 2. Should be quite a trip. We're very excited to do another culinary cruise with Holland America. But we are leaving with slightly heavy hearts because Patty had surgery on her ear this past Monday. She developed a nasty hematoma from flapping her ears that had to be removed,along with some torn cartilage and various yuck. She will be recovering with a huge plastic tube around her head for the next three weeks. Fortunately we got her settled at home yesterday, with lots of love and attention, and we know that she has a very capable nurse in the form of Aunt Marie. We hate to leave her but the show must go on.
Once we've done the demonstrations, we'll post the recipes here to share with all of you. We're looking forward to meeting new culinary enthusiasts and experiencing as much as we can of Australia and New Zealand during our time in the ports. It's not quite real to me yet, that we're actually going there. I don't think it will sink in until we get off the plane in Sydney. We'll be out of a touch for a couple of days although we've set up some posts to publish while we're traveling. It'll be our first experience in Business Class, one of the perks of the cruise, and I don't know if there will be Internet access or not. We'll just have to see how it goes.
We'll be stopping in Melbourne, Burnie, Milford Sound, Fjordland Park, Dunedin, Christchurch, Picton, Wellington, Napier and Tauranga. We'll be in most of these ports for a good eight hours to explore so if anyone has any suggestions please send an email or leave a comment. Any advice would be appreciated! And no, unfortunately we won't be going to Tetsuya, we're not in Sydney long enough to make that happen. There are shore excursions through the cruise but we may just rent a car and explore on our own. It's a once in a lifetime experience for us and we plan to savor every moment.
