Now, I've decided to tell you all about the highlights of my trip but not necessarily in chronological order. Also as the stories are posted, feel free to look at more photos on my flickr site.
Where to begin?
How about Sydney?!?!
Sydney was where my plane landed. As for the 14 hour flight, it wasn't that bad. On the way there that is. You see I left LAX at 10:30 p.m. Friday, and landed in Sydney 6:00 a.m. Sunday. Australia is in the future. I think because I felt like it was night time I was able to sleep almost nine hours of the flight going there. Not so much on the flight back, but more on that later on.
Since I never traveled overseas before I didn't really know what to expect from the flight. I got to say I enjoyed it. There was a touch screen monitor on the seat in front of me that played On Demand movies, tv shows, and also video games. I didn't know it was free to use for almost two hours into the flight. The credit card swipe for use of the phone and internet usage confused me at first. I heard people complain about the food on flights before, but clearly they have never flown U.S. domestic flights where they give you NO food. I loved the food. They gave you a choice of your meal and feed you twice with snacks in between. Also I was able to walk around the plane which was huge. They even allow you to go to back and grab your own free drinks (water, soda, etc).
Once I landed, passed through customs, and got to the taxi line, I was just thrilled about the idea that I was in a different country. Hell I was in a different hemisphere! I had the biggest smile on my face as I rode the taxi to my hotel. I reserved a hotel room for the first two nights so I could have a base camp until I figured out what I would do. I wanted the trip to be an adventure so I decided to not plan anything in advance. I wanted to discover my way through the country. It was much easier than expected. As for the hotel I picked, it was in the best location. Near a very large city park called Hyde Park and the main downtown area of Sydney known as the CBD (I think it stands for Central Business District????). Also to my surprise there was a fun run that morning with the starting line at Hyde Park. More on that in another post.
Sydney is awesome! There is a fun hip vibe within the city and it does hurt that the scenery is beautiful.
The Sydney Opera House is amazing of course. It is hard to describe seeing one of the world's most recognizable buildings. It is a lot bigger than I thought it would be. The roof looks like a fan blades. There were a ton of tourists around taking pictures of that famous roof, but I think I was the only one taking pictures of the windows.
That is the reflection of the Harbour Bridge. There is a bridge climb on it that I wanted to do but just ran out of time. I later found out that they don't let you take your camera to the top. What is up with that?
I believe that I walked more around that city my first day than I ever thought I could walk.
In the next post I will tell you more about some of the cool Sydney sites. As of now I am quite tired just like my first day in Australia. I walked around all day and was in bed fast asleep by 7:00 p.m. I leave you with a few more pictures of the Circular Quay.
Remember to look for more photos on flickr
