Blog — "travel"

We continued our first day in Sydney by making our way along Farm Cove and on to the Sydney Opera House. Andrew was in architect heaven. He walked amongst the sails scoping out all of the little details-- the materials used, the way seams in the building came together, that sort of thing. Even if the Opera House is that cliche tourist attraction that you MUST see, I have found that it never gets tiring to look at. It is an architectural beauty.

After a couple weeks of adventure elsewhere in Australia, we made our way back to Sydney for one more day. Our last night there, we took a night walk after dinner to take a few spectacular night shots. Day and night, this structure is impressive and paired with the Harbour Bridge, the two are a true icon of the city.

While the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge are those natural icons we often think of when the name Australia comes to conversation, there are also plenty of other amazing things happening in this city. I'll be sure to share a few more photos from our time in Sydney before I move on to the red desert.

After our vacation, it has taken me a while to get back on my feet again in my shop. Catching up on emails, ordering supplies that I let get really low before we left, and just getting into the general swing of things again has taken me about a week. Yesterday, I was determined to start the week off right and I finally feel like I'm sort of back on my normal schedule. Slowly, but surely, I've also been making my way through all of our photos from vacation.

We left Baltimore on a Tuesday afternoon, flew to Dallas-Fort Worth, and then took off for Sydney around 10pm that Tuesday night. From there, a 15 hour flight ensued as we made our way to Sydney, finally arriving at 8:30am on Thursday. Missing a day is the strangest sensation. You feel like you've missed out on something at your final destination, but realize that you've missed nothing back home. You sort of feel like shouting across the Pacific, "Take that suckers! You still have to do Wednesday, and Thursday is a pretty damn good day!"

In Sydney, we rented a gorgeous apartment in Potts Point that had huge picture windows overlooking the Sydney skyline. After dropping off our bags and taking much needed showers, we managed to keep ourselves awake by stumbling through the neighborhood to explore, pick up some groceries for the next few days, grabbing a beer at a local pub, and organizing a plan for the next day.

On a side note, if anyone is planning on visiting Sydney anytime soon, I'll gladly give you the information for this gorgeous apartment. It was perfect! ;)

After a good night of sleep, we spent the day doing the normal touristy things that one should do, I suppose. We hopped a metro with the early morning commuters and then walked through the Royal Botanic Gardens. When I lived in Australia, I often took the train up to Sydney to spend time in the gardens enjoying the beautiful, lush flora while I would read and study for my classes. It's a beautiful haven that almost makes you forget you're in the city until you glimpse up at the skyline.

We enjoyed the rose garden first, made our way through the native tropical plants, and on to see the succulents before finally arriving along Farm Cove for a glimpse of the Opera House. And the white cockatoos! I'd missed the white cockatoos sitting, flying, squawking about everywhere!













These gardens are certainly beautiful and were a peaceful way for us to start our first early morning (thank you jetlag) in Sydney. Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with more photos from Sydney!

After leaving you with a rather dark post for about three weeks, I am finally back. We returned from Australia on Saturday afternoon after an incredible and epic adventure.

During our first few days in Sydney, Andrew seemed slightly annoyed with how things worked. These people are crazy! or This country is ass backwards! he'd interject when he had forgotten to look right before crossing, or when I failed to tell him to order a long black instead of a black coffee, or when he realized there is no such thing as a one cent piece in Australia, or when a group of men in their mid-twenties began singing Advance Australian Fair as loud as they could on the metro.

As our trip continued, we reached the red center of Australia and spent a day hiking around Uluru, a massive rock structure that jolts out of red earth sand dunes. We thought about the Anangu people that still live in the region and how they live off of this land despite its harsh conditions. Not a cloud in the sky, not a bit of humidity, not a trickle of water, and spring temperatures of 90 degrees and even hotter in the sun.

It was humbling. It was perspective.

That perspective is what continued to grow as our adventures unfolded. I was reminded of the passion that Australians have for life, and Andrew was exposed to that passion for the first time. Slowly his These people are crazy! comments became These people know how to live! or This country is doing things right! or Why can't Americans be so excited about the simplest things in life? 

We noticed a lack of unsmiling people, a lack of overweight or unhealthy people, a lack of rude behavior, a lack of poor service in restaurants, bars, and stores, a lack of negativity, a lack of disrespect for their environment. And the more we noticed that these thing were lacking, we realized perhaps that's actually how life should be. To think of something as lacking is to think that it is not complete, but to be happy, healthy, friendly, hard working, positive, and environmentally conscious is not to lack, but to gain something in life.

Things we often save for vacation or rare occasions only were things people were doing on a daily basis. I'm not talking about things that require spending money because we tend to be tight-budgeted travelers, but I'm talking about soaking in the daily life. They were living life to the fullest in their own cities, towns, and villages. They didn't care what people thought about them if they were doing what made them happy and weren't harming anyone else.

That's perspective.

When we travel, Andrew and I often ask each other at the end of the day, What was your favorite thing about today? On Sunday, our first full day back in Baltimore, we did the normal things we usually do-- go to the coffee shop, watch football at Max's, do laundry, go to the grocery store. But we did things differently and pretended we were still on vacation. We biked to to the coffee shop and bar so that we could enjoy being outdoors as long as possible. Instead of stressing out at the grocery store like I usually do, I made a conscious choice to make it fun even if other people thought we were crazy. We decided to enjoy each aspect of the day, just like we would do on vacation.

When we sat down to eat dinner, Andrew looked up from his plate and asked, What was your favorite thing about today? I chose the bike ride in the beautiful September weather. Andrew chose a Browns victory just slightly more over the bike ride. And then we decided that from here on out, we're going to live like we're on vacation.

Today while I was working, I daydreamed. Sometimes it's nice to just escape all pressing issues and just be with your thoughts. My daydreams were of travel. Maybe this daydreaming was brought on by our upcoming trip to Australia, or maybe it was something that was in my subconscious after last week's eruption of Yellowstone's Steamboat Geyser.

This time last year, Andrew and I were on an epic road trip across the United States to some of my favorite National Parks. At Yellowstone we waited with anticipation for nearly 45 minutes during a break in our hiking with hopes to see Steamboat Geyser erupt. Its time was soon up and we had nowhere to be, so we took our chances. Our luck did not pan out, but that was fine by us. After all, we were surrounded by some of the most incredible natural elements of our country, and that was enough.

As my work day concluded, I felt drawn to go back through my photos from those travels. Amongst them, I found an image I had snapped of one of the most amazing sights I have seen, and probably will ever see. Three times I've been witness to Yellowstone's Grand Prismatic spring, and three times I have left in awe.

The beauty that we find on this Earth is incredibly awesome-- and I mean awesome in the truest form of the word.

What are you daydreaming about these days?

I've written about Australia before, but only in a spattering here and there. During college, I spent a semester studying at the University of Wollongong, just south of Sydney. During my time living there, I spent as much of my free time traveling throughout Australia, a feat which is very difficult to do in such a vast land.

I spent a day snorkeling along the Great Barrier Reef. A friend of mine who lives in Melbourne hosted me for a weekend of enjoying the city and an afternoon of live music. I spent four days in Byron Bay enjoying the beach life and doing nothing but relaxing after a long midterm week. A weekend was spent on Bowen Island, a bird sanctuary in Jervis Bay, where I was lucky to see fairy penguins emerge from the water to nest on the beach for the night. And another weekend was spent in a cabin in Kangaroo Valley, where I saw wallabies in their natural element hopping through the forested land.
And then there were some things I didn't get to do because I simply ran out of time and money. I remember arriving at O'Hare in Chicago after a long flight back. My parents were happy to see me and gave me huge hugs. I began tearing up. I already missed Australia and didn't want to be back. And here I was, thinking I would never be able to go back.

Two months ago, while chatting with Andrew about plans after my final months of teaching, he suddenly said, "I have an idea. Let's go to the courthouse and get married and then fly to Australia." I responded with, "Are you serious?" A few weeks later, we had purchased round trip tickets to Sydney for September.

Slowly, we're reserving accommodations and flights for more adventures while in Australia. We've made plans to stay in an apartment in Sydney for several days before jetting off to the Northern Territory where we'll be staying in a cabin near Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. This was one of my bucket list items that I didn't get to do last time. We'll be staying in Cairns a few days to check off one of Andrew's bucket list items too-- the Great Barrier Reef. Never did I think I would get to see such a magnificent natural phenomenon twice in my life. And finally, we're heading to Byron Bay for several days of relaxation at the beach after a good solid two weeks of adventure. Byron Bay, my favorite place in the world. How could it not be when it looks like this?
Lots of plans still need to be made, and while we still have several months ahead of us until the trip, I am already counting down the days. It's been nearly nine years since I lived in Australia and this is a trip I've been looking forward to ever since I left.

For me, this trip will also symbolize a new start. It's a break in our usual lives. In September, when I would normally be starting a new school year, we will be traveling in a beautiful country, on our honeymoon so to speak, and celebrating my 30th birthday in Byron-- my favorite place in the world. Life doesn't get much better than that.