I spent a lot of time researching and figuring out what we wanted to do while we were there. A lot of people assumed I would go see a lot of people from my mission but most everyone I keep in contact with have moved away or I've lost touch with them. I served my mission before email, and Facebook, etc. so a lot of people I never really kept in contact with. So this trip was basically a tourist trip to see all the places I never got to as a missionary. So please bear with me as I basically write our travel log of our trip to Australia for 11 days. I only took 450 pictures myself!
I'll start with that I loved our trip so much. It was fun to be back, and brought back a lot of memories. I found myself on the bus one day looking at the houses and streets pass by thinking 'I can totally picture myself tracting on this street' even though it wasn't even in an area I served in. It was just all so familiar. I fell in love with Australia all over again. Since being home I keep finding myself thinking 'we should move to Australia, even if it was just for a year.' I'm pretty sure it would never really happen but besides actual downtown Sydney, it really does feel more laid back there. Even in Sydney all the stores and malls, even most restaurants close about 6:00pm.
So we left on a Thursday evening flew from SLC to San Francisco and had a 3 hour layover. Then we boarded an 11pm flight from San Francisco and flew 15 hours and with the time change landed in Sydney Saturday morning about 8am. I took a sleeping pill and slept better than I thought I would. We got through customs, got our luggage, freshened up, bought our train passes (OPAL card) and headed to our hotel. We couldn't check in so we dropped our stuff off and headed out for the day.
Our first stop was a ferry ride across Sydney harbour to Manly beach. This is the best ferry cuz not only does it take you to the beach but you get great views of the the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge. Jeff kept making funny jokes about how Manly he was being at Manly beach...haha. We walked around Manly, found some lunch to eat and just enjoyed the views. It was windy at the beach which made it pretty chilly so we didn't stay super long. The picture of all of us was us taking a picture to send to Cameron since it was his 16th birthday that day.
We got back and were able to check into our hotel and lay down and rest. I forced myself to stay awake so I would adjust to the time better but it was nice to lay down and rest for a while. We stayed the first 2 nights in a hotel in downtown Sydney. We got a great deal on a very clean, fairly new hotel room. The rooms were pretty small but we loved the location and how clean they were. And we got 2 free snicker bars and bottled water each day. Bonus. That evening we walked over to Darling Harbour where they have a lot of shops, restaurants, street performers and every Saturday night they have a fireworks shore over the harbour. I was nervous at one point because we were watching a street performing group where everyone was crowded around and this random girl came up stood so close to my mom that her chin was literally one inch from my mom's shoulder, almost resting on her shoulder. It was pretty funny until I saw her hands moving around right by my mom's purse so I grabbed my mom and made her move over away from her. I think she had just had too much to drink but didn't want to take any chances.
One other thing to mention before I forget. My parents are 70 and 74. I was a little worried I was going to age them 15 years on this trip with all the walking and things I had planned. I fully expected them to wake up one day and say, 'we're going to rest today and do our own thing, you guys go ahead without us' but not once did I hear that. They never complained and did every single thing we did. If we hiked to a look out point, so did they. We did a lot of walking and they kept up with us every single day. I was so glad they did so they could see everything and I was amazed at their good attitude's and willingness to go along with everything.
So Australia, here we come for the next 10 days.
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