Back from Down Under

After a number of hours in airports and on planes, Zac and I have made it back to Hawaii. I'm sure you've missed me. :)

Australia was fantastic. Amazing. Fascinating. Delightful. Exciting. I could rave about it for days. At the very least I'll probably rave about it for at least a few blog entries. I suppose I could group my entries by topic, like scenery, wildlife, activities, observations, or I could go the route of chronologically retelling the story of our trip.

One thing I'd like to mention before I start, just because it might be important later to my recollection skills: Once upon a time my parents took my sister and I on a trip to Europe. Before we left my parents bought each of us a blank journal and required us to write in it each day while we were traveling. It was a great idea and it's something that I continued for every major trip I've been on since then. This time around I again bought myself a nice, new journal, excited about recording my adventures in Australia.

Except this time I was terrible at writing in it. I'm so disappointed in myself. I only have entries maybe every third day, and then when I do have entries I'm trying desperately to go back and cover things I wanted to address but didn't. It's a right mess. This trip was just different. I think it's because I have different right-before-bed habits. On all my other trips, I'd get ready for bed, write for 20-30 minutes and then turn out the light. On this trip I was with Zac and as is usual for us at home, after getting into bed we'd sit and talk for a good long while before drifting off to sleep. I just never got into the routine.

I only say this because I was thinking of using my journal as a cheat-sheet of sorts for blogging when I got back. And now my notes are poor so my blogs might seem a little out of order. Forgive me if I seem to skip around chaotically or if I get my days wrong.

Let's get this show going:

We got to Sydney in the evening and the next morning we had booked a bus tour of the city. We figured it made sense to get a feel for the lay of the land as soon as possible so even though we were pretty tired from travelling the day before (10 + hour flight from Honolulu) we were up bright and early to be driven around the Sydney area. It was a good decision, as we were able to make well-informed decisions about distance and time of visiting locations based on what we learned on the trip.

After the city tour wrapped up we went on a tour of the Sydney Opera House. It was really interesting. Yes, the building was grossly overdue and over budget, but I heard something in one of the videos that we were shown that rung true: There are few other buildings in the world that are as widely recognized as the Sydney Opera House. And really, it is stunning. Yes, it photographs well from afar, but up close it is astonishingly beautiful.
I'm not a architecture scholar, but the lines, the arcs, the materials, they all work so well together that it's mesmerizing. One thing I didn't know until I got up close to the Opera House is that the those big white "sails" that you see are actually intricately laid tiles of two different colors and textures.
Inside is just as pretty as the outside.


While we were at the Opera House we picked up our ticket to Madame Butterfly. We had ordered them online before we left. Yes, Zac was willing to go to the opera. To be totally honest, it was his idea for us to go. He figured it would be something that I would enjoy. Awww. How sweet is that? We picked up our tickets and about five days later we were back at the Opera House decked out to enjoy our first opera together.

The opera was great. It was visually stunning and it just flew by. Yes, I had a hard time empathizing with Butterfly, but that was mainly because I kept forgetting she was supposed to be 15 years old at the beginning of the story. Over all it seemed really well done, and it was the last night of the show so everyone in the audience gave the cast a very long, very enthusiastic send off to a standing ovation. It was a very good night.