December 9th (Thursday)

The people here are very friendly and helpful.  We are going to tour the downtown area of the city - it is very cultural and artsy.  We are hoping to have cell phones hooked up today and open up bank accounts.  The weather is nice (23 degrees) but is cloudy and muggy.  Most poarts of Australia are getting more than usual amounts of rain right now.  Farmers are having troubles taking their crops off and many areas are flooding.  Josh wanted me to add in that the engineering and architecture of the buildings is amazing.  Tons of people and the traffic is very fast paced.  Josh isn't sure yet if he's up for the fast paced traffic while driving on the wrong side of the road.  I already counted myself out.  Today is our first morning here visiting with people and Josh has already snooped out some people form Vancouver who have relatives in Balcarres.  The relatives last name is Legacy.  We are excited to start our first day - not sure of the rest of our adventures for the day, but will keep posting updates and pictures as often as we can.

Outside of our Hotel: