Whale Oil

Before I get to Vancouver, I'll begin with the first stop at Sydney. After a rather uneventful 1 1/2 Virgin flight, I arrived at Sydney airport and took a taxi to my destination: Louise & her partner Adrian's flat in Kingsford (about 20mins out, $18). I had the good fortune to be driven by a high-spirited Romanian chap who had some advice for me when in Italy: "These Italian women, they only care about the 3 most primal urges; food, drink and fucking!" Allllllrigggggght!!

Anyway, got to Louise's place (one of my relatives on the Irish side that I'm somehow related to) at about 6:30pm and we went straight out for dinner as she'd only just got home from work and was starving. We walked about 5mins to a small Thai restaurant which was pretty cherreh. We spent some time chatting over some Cascade premiums as we hadn't seen each other in years. As always, I really enjoyed delving back to my Irish roots. Adrian didn't join us as that day he had his last TAFE exam and was celebrating with the lads (however, I did hear him come in at about 5:30am - though he did manage to skillfully avoid stepping on me on the un-folded futon which took up 1/2 the floor space of the tiny flat).

Getting back to the apartment, Louise showed me photos of her wedding from July 2004 which were very nice - I wish I could've been there.........She also showed me some of the renovations they'd been doing which are a big improvement on what it looked like. However she was adamant that I was not to take any pictures of her!! Which was annoying. Got me good!

Woke up at 5:30am, got ready, said my goodbyes to Louise and had an Ecuadorian cab driver take me to the international airport for a fee of $25.

Now my real adventure begins..........................