We’re on the home stretch! Literally. Our stop in Sydney, though for some reason counted as a full day during planning, was little more than a glorified layover on the way home to Seattle.We got to add yet another viewing angle to our Opera House collection as we flew in.
We grabbed some of those cute little sushi rolls from a trains station (bring the sushi kiosks to Seattle!), and then we decompressed for a bit in our cute little hostel. I booked us a private room, so it was like a cute, cozy hotel with a shared bathroom, though we never saw anybody else using the bathrooms. I think we must have been the only ones staying on the floor with the private rooms. Woohoo!
We wandered downtown to watch some crazy bats, though since the sun was already well set, they were much less crazy than the ones in Cairns.
Then we met up with Lil Baby Terry for one last hurrah.We walked along the waterfront in search of food.
I’m not sure how, but we decided our best bet was pancakes. There was a restaurant near the water that was like a mix between Outback Steakhouse and iHOP. Pretty wild. Hahaha.
By the time we came out of the restaurant, loud Latin music was playing from the (much hipper) restaurant across the street. Turns out it was free salsa night! I creeped for a while until an older guy finally asked me to dance. So fun!
Our next goal was to take a gander around the Sydney Google office, but Jonathan’s badge didn’t work for some reason, and he refused to just ask the security guard sitting behind the desk literally twenty feet from us. I very nearly had a breakdown because I had to pee so badly, and in the end, we slow-walked back to the salsa place so I could sneak into their bathroom. Ugh. My poor little bladder.
Amazingly, we spent the next hour playing in a park filled with climbing things, big slides, water features, and a zipline. Gotta love parks.
Not sure if you remember that trashy HSP meal The Boy was obsessing over for the first half of the trip, but Terry is the reason behind this obsession. Seeing as it is a pretty good late night snack, we traipsed around until we found a tiny shop to buy one from, and then the boys ate it in a fancy McDonald’s. What a wild night.
Still not ready to call it quits, we finished off the night in a hotel. Bahahaha. Bars are called hotels in Australia because there used to be a law that a business serving alcohol must also provide places to sleep. So all bars were also hotels, and all hotels might as well be bars! Our bartender looked exactly like Emma Stone, and when I let her know this, she said it was one of her favorite comments and that all of her American customers tell her this. So I guess I’m not special.
After so many hours, we finally bid Terry farewell. Until next time!
We got about four hours of sleep before we were off to the airport for a fourteen hour flight. And, to come full circle, we encountered a bin chicken on our way out of the hostel, the very first crazy animal we found on Day One in Australia.
This flight was much less productive and restful than the flight to Sydney had been. I should have napped right away, but Jonathan watched The Martian, and I got hooked. I had some fitful sleep in between meals, and by the end of the flight, I knew I was in for a rough day. I barely shook myself into consciousness enough to watch Parasite. That movie was wild. Still had my mind turning!
Though we departed Sydney at 11am, we landed in LAX at 6am that same day. That international date line’ll getcha. Jonathan’s badge actually did work at the LA Google office, so we snacked a bit and then I passed the heck out in a kitchenette. My face hurt, dude.
When I zombied awake so we could explore a bit, we found a Google Maps explorer thing, and Jonathan managed to find Uluru. I miss that rock. Doesn’t it look like he’s exploring Mars?
The office is right next to Venice Beach, so instead of having a bike rack like a normal hip and happenin’ metropolitan office, this one had surfboard racks. What is this madness.
I guess I didn’t take many pictures in my near delirium, but we wandered the beach and all the shops in the area. Was pretty cute.
Then we had our last leg of the trip up to Seattle. When we got home, we lay down and woke up fourteen hours later, just in time for me to miss my carpool and stumble in late for work. I’m still working on making up that sleep deficit I worked up during camping!
And that’s the end of yet another adventure. It’s pretty surreal. I didn’t know when I would ever make it to Australia because it’s just so far away. It didn’t make sense to go there unless I could dedicate a full month or more, and I couldn’t imagine giving up a month that I could spend in Europe! We only met one other couple (the Welsh couple on our Uluru tour) who was on a two week trip from home. Everybody else we met was either on some year-long travel break, a month long vacation, or a years-long stint on an Australian working holiday. Regardless, I think the two weeks was super full. I didn’t feel like we were leaving too soon, though to be fair, I’m sure the flies had some part in that convincing!
Australia was lovely, as any vacation can be, but what really struck us was all the amazing wildlife. Some was expected, but a lot of it really wasn’t. Such a wonderful surprise. I mean, I swam with a swim turtle, we rode a camel, we fed wallabies, and we were scared out of our wits by midnight dingos.
If that’s not an adventure, I don’t know what is.
Until next time (or until I continue my saga of writing blogs for old trips)….
Venlig hilsen/cheers!
-Lizzy-wa