Our hotel and how to dial.

We will be staying our first six nights at the Marriott Sydney Harbour. Each morning we plan to check email and sometimes phone loved ones in the US, but if you want to call us, here's how. Using a land line, dial 011 to get out of the US, then 61 for Australia, then 2 for Sydney, then the eight digit local number. For our hotel that is 9259 7000.

Sometimes on web sites you will see this type of number listed as "(02) 9259 7000" -- the preceding zero is a local reference, and is only to be used for calls within that country. The second digit, 2, is the city code for Sydney. A complete representation of this phone number would be +61292597000.

The country code for the North American Numbering Plan is 1; thus you will sometimes see Dan indicate his mobile number as +1.630.841.9682, which is a location-neutral representation.

Remember that if Sydney is 15 hours ahead of Central time. So if you want to call, wait until early evening. 6pm in Chicago is 9am the next morning in Sydney -- a great time to chat. But don't call our mobiles unless it's urgent; while they will work over there, the cost will be $1.49 per minute. Sending texts will set us back 35¢ each and receiving will be 15¢ each -- so take it easy on us.

Dan has set up a Skype account, which will cost us 2.1 cents per minute to call home, so don't be too surprised if you hear from us!