Sydney

Hello!

Sorry I haven't written a post in a few weeks.   I hope all of you are all right.   Everyone has to stay alive so we can all go surfing together.   Well, I mean all of you will go surfing, and I'll watch!!   Seriously though, it's really nice here.   I hope you come to visit sometime.

We're in Sydney now.   We left Kiama late this morning.   The drive was shorter than I expected; less than two hours.   We're in the lobby of the hotel; waiting for check-in time.  I don't have time to write much because my dad wants us to do some sight-seeing.   We're going to balance wizars stuff with Muggle stuff.   This afternoon we're going to see the Opera House and take a ferry ride to Manly.   Then tonight we're having dinner with a wizarding family my dad's been talking to on the internet.   They have a son who's Julia's age, and a daughter who's eight.  

We're having dinner at their house.   I'm excited about that.  I've never been to a wizard's home before.   We've been trying to figure out how to get there.   They live in the suburbs.   We could just take the bus or train; but they suggested we use a Portkey in the Royal Botanical Gardens.  That's not too far from our hotel.    The problem is the Portkey is a tree, and there are many trees in the garden.   They've given us details about the tree, but I'm thinking it's still going to be hard to find it.

Well, I'm kind of excited to try it anyway.   They said as long as we hold onto Julia while she touches it, we should make it through okay.

Tomorrow, we're all going to go the wizarding village.   I found out that there's not a lot of wizards that actually live there.   It's mostly business rather than residential.   The entrance is in this puppet shop right next to our hotel.   I'm excited to see it.    The wizard family is going to help us enter.  They said it's a bit complicated because the place gets quite a few Muggle tourists.  Someone has to distract the tourists so they don't see wizards suddenly disappearing.   Sometimes things get messed up, and magic is needed to alter the Muggle's memories.  

The wizards told my dad there's bit of controversy over the whole thing.   Many in the wizarding community want to move the entrance to a place not visited by Muggles, so there doesn't have to be any worries about that.  But a lot of wizards see the puppet shop as part of their heritage, and they don't want to give it up.   My dad's new friends want to have the puppet shop closed to Muggles so it just looks like an abandoned shop to them.   That's a good idea, but maybe not fair to the Muggle tourists. 

Who knows what will happen.  

All right.   We just got word that we can check in now, so I better go.   One quick thing.   I might sort of have a boyfriend.   Do you remember that guy I mentioned in my last post....Jason?   Well, he kissed me when we said good-bye!   I didn't expect that.  We had been hanging out a lot together...mostly with Julia too.   I didn't know he liked me in that way.   I didn't like him in that way.   But then he kissed me, and now I sort of maybe do like him in that way.   We've been writing to each other every day.   He's really nice.   I get sort of annoyed though because it turns out he really loves fantasy stuff.   He likes books about magic and aliens.   He's open-minded about all of it.  Sometimes, he'd say things like "Do you ever wonder if there are real witches and vampires?"   It's so tempting to say, Yes, because there ARE real witches and vampires.   My sister is a witch...a real one."     But I'm good, and I keep my mouth shut.   I hate the lying though : (

Oh...I need to run.   Now I'm getting evil looks from my mum. 

Please say hello and tell me what's going on in your lives.   SC Mather, if you're reading this....I hope you've gotten away from the Snatchers.   Oh!   And we're going to try to find your friend tomorrow.   My dad's friends don't know her, but they said they'll ask around for us!