Sydney's Royal Botanic Gardens

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!