Moving on to Sydney, Australia!

We left home one month ago today (September 18th).  Last night after our Milford Sound trip, we were strolling along the streets of Queenstown looking for a place to eat dinner.  Richard happened to be wearing his hoodie with the Muscle Shoals documentary logo on it.  Suddenly, three very nice ladies ran up to him and announced that they were from Florence, Alabama!    Some students from the University of Alabama were on a study tour and one of the girl's mother and her friend came to visit her.   Naturally, after talking for two minutes we realized we had common friends and one of them was my sister's neighbor.   It is truly a small world.  But had it not been for the Muscle Shoals music documentary, we would have never met.....at least not in Queenstown, New Zealand!

We headed back to the airport this morning to go to Sydney, Australia.  Richard has been here before, but its a new country for me to check off.   We are flying Air New Zealand and have been impressed with them (so far....I'm writing this while flying).   When they began the boarding process, they announced that rows 1-15 would board through the forward door and rows 16-32 would board through the rear door.    Makes perfect sense, you've got the back door, why not use it to make things more efficient!   The safety video was shown on the TV monitors and it was a rap rendition of a Men in Black spoof.  The All Blacks are New Zealand's rugby team and are as highly thought of as our favorite SEC team.   It was pretty innovative and definitely kept everyone's attention to the end.  We also noticed that all the female flight attendants wear their hair in a neat bun at the back of their head.   I'm not sure what the hair requirements are for the men!

We continue to be thrilled with our decision to disembark the ship in Dunedin.   We did hear that the Golden Princess made it to Milford Sound after all.  As the people in Queenstown said, two days is too early to make a prediction regarding their weather.  

We look forward to exploring Sydney and the surrounding area for the next few days!   Until then.....