Last week, Alan and I embarked on our farthest journey yet to Sydney, Australia. We left on Monday at 3:00 pm and had a layover in LA for 7 hours (!). Rather than staying in the airport for that long we met up with Alan’s longtime friend, Armel for dinner in Manhattan Beach.

Despite both of us going to LA multiple times we still have yet to get a fridge magnet. I guess that just means we have to go back (again).

After getting dinner we left LA at 11 pm to begin our 15 hour (!) flight to Sydney. Thankfully, we were both able to get some sleep but every flight after this will be a piece of cake. When we landed in Sydney it was 8 am… on Monday. Time is weird, y’all.

MONDAY & TUESDAY

For the first two days in Sydney, we used the hop on/hop off bus to get a good overview of the city and use as transportation around the city.

Some highlights include:

• seeing the Sydney Bridge and Opera House
• drinking a beer at the oldest pub in Sydney
• visiting Hyde Park
• walking through the Royal Botanic Gardens
• wondering through the Chinese Friendship Gardens

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WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY

On Wednesday, we flew to Brisbane (pronounced Bris-BEEN, not Bris-BANE) mainly to go to a Shawn Mendes concert. Did we fly halway across the world to see a concert we could have seen in the U.S.? Yes. Weird flex, I know.

Australia isn’t really known for their food but my favorite place that we ate at was in Brisbane. The Two Donkeys is a cute bistro that was located really close to our hotel. We ate there not once, but twice in the day and a half that we were in Brisbane.

FRIDAY

We flew back to Sydney on Thursday to Bondi Beach (more on this later) but we spent Friday taking a guided tour of the Blue Mountains located just outside of Sydney.

While at the Blue Mountains we got to go to different lookouts, learn about the coal mines, ride on the steepest passenger railway in the world, and glide across mountains in a cable car almost 900 feet in the air!

The rock formation you see below is one of the Three Sisters. An aboriginal legend about how three sisters fell in love with three men from a neighboring tribe but could not marry them. A battle was fought and an elder turned the sisters into rock to protect them but the elder died in battle and no one could turn them back.

Other things that were part of the tour included going to the wildlife park where we got to pet a koala, feed kangeroos, see Australia’s blue penguins and the most venomous snake in the world! At the end of the day, we took a ferry back into the city.

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SATURDAY & SUNDAY

For the rest of our trip, we spent our time at Bondi Beach (pronounced Bon-DIE, not Bond-E). Bondi is an aboriginal word for “water breaking across the rocks”. While I was hoping Bondi would be a small, quiet beach time I was proven very wrong. There were tons of people partying it up. But we enjoyed walking around the beach and not doing much of anything.

We got to watch the surfers catch some gnarly waves, dude! The Aussie sun is nothing to be played with. It was just the beginning of their summer and it got HOT. The water was cold, but not as cold as you think it would be. Think Galveston during spring break. Alan actually swam in it but it wasn’t quite warm enough for me.

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MONDAY

Our flight left Monday at 11 am. We arrived back in Texas at 3 pm… on Monday. After traveling for about 19 hours (including our layover in LA) it was still the same day as when we left Australia. Flying is time travel and you can’t change my mind.

Overall we had a great time and are adjusting fairly well to the time change. However, having to leave the warmth of Australia for a cold, windy, dark (ya know because of daylight savings time) Texas made it appealing to want to stay. Oh well… until next time Australia!

If you’re wanting more Australia content, you can find more photos and videos here!