SYDNEY...Day 1!

Ta da....we made it! After 26 hours of traveling we finally made it. I was just reaching my peak of patience with traveling when I sat up on hour 12.5 in the plane, opened my window for the first time and saw this:

It was literally breathtaking, this picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice. Seeing this though suddenly made everything worth it and I was VERY excited to get to Sydney! Traveling always makes me so inspired and give me the feeling I can conquer the world, this image was so bright and vibrant I could tell it was going to another great trip! 

We were fortunate enough to sit next to an Australian on the plane who encouraged us to take the train to our hotel instead of a cab. The train was a little crazy, but definitely worth it - it ended up saving us about $150 in transportation fees. (did I mention Australia is EXPENSIVE -  like $8.50USD for a small red bull expensive!) In our quest though to see everything and to get ourselves time adjusted (as I type this it's 5:45pm on Tuesday in Sydney, and my computer which is still Iowa time says 1:47am Tuesday) we decided to not let ourselves sleep and get out to see this city!

In my first hour here I noticed two things right away: 

1) Australians seem to be very anxious to help tourists out - they are VERY nice!

2) The progressive insurance commercial here has an australian FLO - she looks almost like our FLO, but she has a thick Australian accent.

We had a great tip from another seat mate on the way over to check Sydney Groupon when we arrived, so far we've found passes for four exhibits and I signed up for surfing lessons on Friday!) 

Since it started out foggy, we did not want to go on the bridge today - so this afternoon we went to the Sydney Aquarium and the Sydney Wild Life Experience first. We crossed off one of the things I was the most excited for - to meet a Koala. This little gal's name is Lara and she was super soft! The Koala keeper told us Koala's sleep 18-21 hours per day, Lara woke up for our meeting though which was only proper considering how far we traveled to meet her! She was very soft - which surprised me, I thought her fur would be a little more coarse. Also, with our "Koala Experience Package" we were given a key-chain with our picture with Lara in it. Mom - I'm glad your birthday is coming up!

After these two awesome stops we went for a drink and some lunch. They have Bulmers (an irish cider beer the states does not have) here! That made me very happy - and Derek found he likes Murray's - an Australian beer. After that we went to the Chinese friendship garden which was very pretty and friendly of course! Then we made our way back to the train station. 

We're supposed to be going out for dinner in a half an hour, but Derek is officially sleeping. We've made it SO long today, yesterday and the day before that which out much sleep. Hopefully we can push through just a few more hours and we'll be set! All in all today was great, I'm very proud of us for really getting our bearings and we have figured out how to get around. 


"green note" - Australia is RIDICULOUSLY clean! I noticed right away how little trash (or as they refer to it - rubbish) - was on the ground. It seems like they are very earth sensitive as well as what their carbon footprint is. I love that!


Cheers!