Cockatoo Island

When I last wrote about our trip to Australia, I left off with some beautiful photos from Bondi. The following day, we spent some time strolling throughout Sydney. We took the metro into the city and went exploring. In the afternoon, we decided to take a ferry out to Cockatoo Island. Cockatoo Island is located in Sydney Harbor and has a history as both a convict prison as well as being an old shipyard in which they drafted plans and built ships. The entire island's history was incredibly interesting to learn about and the remnants of the buildings left for some pretty fantastic photo opportunities.

After our day at Cockatoo Island, we headed back to Sydney for some record store shopping so that I could snag a few records that I can't get in the US. We took the metro back to our apartment, took a nap (we were ridiculously tired and the jet lag was catching up big time!), and then got ready for dinner. We headed to Manly, again by ferry, where we had a delicious meal and beer, of course, at a local microbrewery called 4 Pines. The next morning we would leave to fly into a totally different part of the country for a new adventure.

Bondi

It's taken me quite a while to get through all of our photos from Australia. Setting aside time just to sort through them all is hard to do, and then once I have the time, choosing the ones that I like the most becomes quite the chore! On our first full day in Sydney, we took a ferry to Watson's Bay for some lunch and then took the bus to Bondi. (You know you want to click that link. I was only singing this song in my head the whole way there...)

Bondi is home to one of the most popular city beaches and was a place I often went to just to relax and chill out. When we arrived, it was cloudy, which made me a bit sad. However, as we stayed for a little while, the sun came out and the weather warmed and we were able to enjoy a beer while watching all of the surfers take on the waves.

Our first full day in Sydney was busy as we took in the Royal Botanic Gardens and the Sydney Opera House before heading to Bondi, but we knew we were short on time for our entire trip. There was no better way to get over our jetlag than to just jump right in with all of the adventures.

Up next, I'll share some photos from our second day before we headed out to the red center.

Sydney Opera House

We continued our first day in Sydney by making our way along Farm Cove and on to the Sydney Opera House. Andrew was in architect heaven. He walked amongst the sails scoping out all of the little details-- the materials used, the way seams in the building came together, that sort of thing. Even if the Opera House is that cliche tourist attraction that you MUST see, I have found that it never gets tiring to look at. It is an architectural beauty.

After a couple weeks of adventure elsewhere in Australia, we made our way back to Sydney for one more day. Our last night there, we took a night walk after dinner to take a few spectacular night shots. Day and night, this structure is impressive and paired with the Harbour Bridge, the two are a true icon of the city.

While the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge are those natural icons we often think of when the name Australia comes to conversation, there are also plenty of other amazing things happening in this city. I'll be sure to share a few more photos from our time in Sydney before I move on to the red desert.

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!

Perspective

After leaving you with a rather dark post for about three weeks, I am finally back. We returned from Australia on Saturday afternoon after an incredible and epic adventure.

During our first few days in Sydney, Andrew seemed slightly annoyed with how things worked. These people are crazy! or This country is ass backwards! he'd interject when he had forgotten to look right before crossing, or when I failed to tell him to order a long black instead of a black coffee, or when he realized there is no such thing as a one cent piece in Australia, or when a group of men in their mid-twenties began singing Advance Australian Fair as loud as they could on the metro.

As our trip continued, we reached the red center of Australia and spent a day hiking around Uluru, a massive rock structure that jolts out of red earth sand dunes. We thought about the Anangu people that still live in the region and how they live off of this land despite its harsh conditions. Not a cloud in the sky, not a bit of humidity, not a trickle of water, and spring temperatures of 90 degrees and even hotter in the sun.

It was humbling. It was perspective.

That perspective is what continued to grow as our adventures unfolded. I was reminded of the passion that Australians have for life, and Andrew was exposed to that passion for the first time. Slowly his These people are crazy! comments became These people know how to live! or This country is doing things right! or Why can't Americans be so excited about the simplest things in life? 

We noticed a lack of unsmiling people, a lack of overweight or unhealthy people, a lack of rude behavior, a lack of poor service in restaurants, bars, and stores, a lack of negativity, a lack of disrespect for their environment. And the more we noticed that these thing were lacking, we realized perhaps that's actually how life should be. To think of something as lacking is to think that it is not complete, but to be happy, healthy, friendly, hard working, positive, and environmentally conscious is not to lack, but to gain something in life.

Things we often save for vacation or rare occasions only were things people were doing on a daily basis. I'm not talking about things that require spending money because we tend to be tight-budgeted travelers, but I'm talking about soaking in the daily life. They were living life to the fullest in their own cities, towns, and villages. They didn't care what people thought about them if they were doing what made them happy and weren't harming anyone else.

That's perspective.

When we travel, Andrew and I often ask each other at the end of the day, What was your favorite thing about today? On Sunday, our first full day back in Baltimore, we did the normal things we usually do-- go to the coffee shop, watch football at Max's, do laundry, go to the grocery store. But we did things differently and pretended we were still on vacation. We biked to to the coffee shop and bar so that we could enjoy being outdoors as long as possible. Instead of stressing out at the grocery store like I usually do, I made a conscious choice to make it fun even if other people thought we were crazy. We decided to enjoy each aspect of the day, just like we would do on vacation.

When we sat down to eat dinner, Andrew looked up from his plate and asked, What was your favorite thing about today? I chose the bike ride in the beautiful September weather. Andrew chose a Browns victory just slightly more over the bike ride. And then we decided that from here on out, we're going to live like we're on vacation.

Departures - Bernard Fanning

With a post about Australia yesterday, it only seemed natural to write about Australian music today. One of the things that piqued my interest in Australia from a very young age was music. This began at the ripe old age of six and will have to be elaborated on during a different blog post (one in which you will think I am a crazy lady). What is important to know now, is that I quickly became a fan of Australian music.

One such band that I came to love was Powderfinger. They were like no other band I had heard, and their singer had a very distinguishable voice that was like none other. Their sound was an instant success in my book. A couple years back, Powderfinger broke up. I very was sad. Yes, I get sad over things like these, don't you?

There is, however, a happy ending. Bernard Fanning, the singer of Powderfinger, released his second solo album, Departures, this month. I was looking forward to the release of this album for two months. Yup, two whole months I was counting down to the release date because I'm crazy like that. When the album was released, I hopped on iTunes to download it and to my horror I could only download it if I had an Australian iTunes account. Say whaaaaaat?

By Australian iTunes account, they mean an Australian address and an Australian iTunes card or credit card. Sad face. I have neither. Until.....

Me being the crazy lady that I am, I posted on Facebook about my sadness over iTunes' inability to realize that I should be able to download Australian music. And to my rescue, came an old friend of mine that I met in college that just happens to be Australian and just happens to know how to trick iTunes so that I could listen to Australian music once and for all. Haha! Screw you, iTunes gods!

And that my friends, was the longest intro to some music videos I have ever written. Sorry for that.

To be a bit more serious, when it comes down to it, Bernard Fanning truly knows how to craft an amazing song regardless of having a band to back him or not. He uses uncommon melodies and beautiful harmonies in a way I have heard few songwriters do. I leave you with Battleships, his new single from the album, and Departures (Blue Toowong Skies), an exemplary of his songwriting abilities that is written about his father's passing.

What music have you been listening to these days? Do you know or love any Australian bands?

Australia

I've written about Australia before, but only in a spattering here and there. During college, I spent a semester studying at the University of Wollongong, just south of Sydney. During my time living there, I spent as much of my free time traveling throughout Australia, a feat which is very difficult to do in such a vast land.

I spent a day snorkeling along the Great Barrier Reef. A friend of mine who lives in Melbourne hosted me for a weekend of enjoying the city and an afternoon of live music. I spent four days in Byron Bay enjoying the beach life and doing nothing but relaxing after a long midterm week. A weekend was spent on Bowen Island, a bird sanctuary in Jervis Bay, where I was lucky to see fairy penguins emerge from the water to nest on the beach for the night. And another weekend was spent in a cabin in Kangaroo Valley, where I saw wallabies in their natural element hopping through the forested land.

And then there were some things I didn't get to do because I simply ran out of time and money. I remember arriving at O'Hare in Chicago after a long flight back. My parents were happy to see me and gave me huge hugs. I began tearing up. I already missed Australia and didn't want to be back. And here I was, thinking I would never be able to go back.

Two months ago, while chatting with Andrew about plans after my final months of teaching, he suddenly said, "I have an idea. Let's go to the courthouse and get married and then fly to Australia." I responded with, "Are you serious?" A few weeks later, we had purchased round trip tickets to Sydney for September.

Slowly, we're reserving accommodations and flights for more adventures while in Australia. We've made plans to stay in an apartment in Sydney for several days before jetting off to the Northern Territory where we'll be staying in a cabin near Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. This was one of my bucket list items that I didn't get to do last time. We'll be staying in Cairns a few days to check off one of Andrew's bucket list items too-- the Great Barrier Reef. Never did I think I would get to see such a magnificent natural phenomenon twice in my life. And finally, we're heading to Byron Bay for several days of relaxation at the beach after a good solid two weeks of adventure. Byron Bay, my favorite place in the world. How could it not be when it looks like this?

Lots of plans still need to be made, and while we still have several months ahead of us until the trip, I am already counting down the days. It's been nearly nine years since I lived in Australia and this is a trip I've been looking forward to ever since I left.

For me, this trip will also symbolize a new start. It's a break in our usual lives. In September, when I would normally be starting a new school year, we will be traveling in a beautiful country, on our honeymoon so to speak, and celebrating my 30th birthday in Byron-- my favorite place in the world. Life doesn't get much better than that.

Fall Morning Music on a Summer Day

Today is one of those mornings where the sky is gray and it's deceivingly warm out. I woke up with the thought that it was a 60 degree fall day. Funny I might think that only to have the sun poke out from the clouds as I watch the thermometer outside climb closer to 90. I had even put on a fantastic fall album to enjoy with the my coffee this morning. Maybe it was the air conditioning inside that really tricked me-- I don't know.

I felt a need for fall music, which is funny because I usually don't want summer to end. I decided to put on Sarah Blasko, and Australian artist that just happens to share my fall birthday. I found her music while I was living in Australia for school. She is perfect morning music and fall music at that. Minor keys and slightly atonal melodies. A bit haunting and some even say depressing, but perfect for me when I'm trying to get those morning cobwebs out of my brain.