The Most Incredible New Years of My Life!!

Today is the big day!! Time for the big extravaganza.  The brits and myself head back down to the main area by the Opera House where everyone gathered to see the fireworks.  Some of the locals and security guards told us to go to the gardens aka "grass area."  We head up to that section, everything was specially blocked off.  There was a giant area that had several food trucks and porter potties outside.  The brits bought beers and we were ready to start our mission.  Find the perfect view for the show.  People had they're spots already arranged from the day before.  So we were way behind the game.  Piece of advice to all of you, make sure you show up the night before.  Have blankets and plenty of food to hold you until the following night.  Once you get there and find a great spot you won't be able to leave.  As we walked around we got lucky and there was a small spot perfectly aligned with the sydney bridge.  We met this great local couple who allowed us to sit with them.  They fed us their goodies and gave us their drinks.  What hospitable locals.  We discovered that there were 3 showtimes for the fireworks.  The first time was at 9 which was for families who didn't want to stay late.  The second was 10:30.  The grand finale was 30 to 45 minutes long and started at midnight.   Hands down the grand finale was the most spectacular thing I've ever seen.  It had me in tears.  Please put this on your bucket list of things to do.

Going Out With the Brits

My brit boys came all the way from Salsbury to go on a different tour throughout Australia.  They came and met me at the hotel.  Great chaps if you ask me.  Since they arrived on December 28th they had a chance to scope out the area.  They took me to the famous opera house and bridge.  It was roughly a 10 to 15 minute walk from the hotel.  There were so many people walking around. So much life, the weather was perfect.  When I saw the opera house it was just so surreal to me that I am in Australia.  I thought maybe I was dreaming.  After we went and took some pictures near the opera house we went and met some of their friends at a restaurant/lounge nearby called the Opera House Bar.  They had a large outdoor lounge area where you could sit at tables that overlooked the water.  The breeze felt so good on my skin.  I didn't want to leave.

We stayed at the bar for a couple hours, after that we decided to walk around the area to get ideas of where to go for New Years.  We discovered a lot of places were sold out.  So we decided we were going to just wing it, maybe talk to the locals and see what they could recommend.

What does it take to get prepared for a trip like this

Well people, I am no expert on what it takes to get prepared.  All I know is the tour company made things so much easier by providing a list of things to bring.  For me as a woman, I find it to be exhausting just looking at this long list of things to buy.  With this being a last minute trip for me, there are so many things to get and so little time to do it.  And then you sit and ask yourself questions like, "did I pack the right things, did I pack too much, did I pack too little, if I didn't pack these items can I get them easily down in Australia, will I have enough time to get those items, will it be easy to find the places to get the items.  So many questions, the more I think about it and try to answer those questions, the more anxiety I get.  Ahhh in my mind you can't do everything in one day. You can't answer all those questions at once.  So the easiest thing for me is to take it one step at a time.  My suggestion is to first go through the list and see what things you might already have at home. I will tell you for me, I came to Las Vegas not knowing that I would be going on a trip. So of course I am not at all prepared.  I had to search through my closet to see what I already had and what I need to get. I pretty much had nothing. So I have to start from scratch.

Last Minute Decision

My original plan was to go to Europe for New Years but after talking to different people about going to Europe they had informed me that it may be too cold. In addition I had found a really amazing tour company thats named Contiki vacations, that would take me to different places throughout Europe as well as Santorini and Mykonos.  I fell in love the minute I saw that 35 day tour option, but the tour does not start until April or May 2014.

After deciding to wait on Europe I sat and thought hmmm where can I go that would be warmer weather and a really awesome place for New Years.  My mother is a travel agent and after talking to some of her colleagues they recommended for me to go to Australia.  It just so happened that contiki vacations offers a tour called Reefs and Rainforests tour.  The tour is 20 days long including travel time to get to Australia.  I thought, "Wow this would be amazing to see kangeroos and koala bears.  See the men down under and travel through an amazing adventure.  The tour starts in Sydney on January 1, 2014 and goes till January 18, 2014.  I decided to fly in two days early so I would be in Sydney for New Years and be a part of the huge celebration they have every year.  My flight officially leaves for Sydney out of Los Angeles on December 28th, I fly out on Qantas Airlines which I heard is an excellent airline company.  The flight will be around 15 hours total non-stop.