Friends and family please prepare yourselves for a lively
blog (and excuse the overload of photos! There were just too many great ones to
choose from!). My flight from Queenstown brought me directly to Sydney,
Australia where I was collected by this guy! Matthew and I met about a year and
a half ago in Vilnius, Lithuania. I had just arrived for school and he was
traveling though when we met on a city tour which quickly turned into a
friendship. We kept in good touch and when he moved back to his hometown down
under, I decided stopping by was simply a must! 
We didn’t waste any time as Matthew had quite a list of
exciting things to do. After ditching my belongings at the house, we headed
straight into the city center for noodles in Chinatown. It also happened to be
the queen’s birthday weekend AND the VIVID light festival in Sydney. The whole
center was bustling with people, bumping with music and lit up with color.
Honestly, it was a spectacular light show the likes of which I have never seen.
Although the photos of the Opera House that night didn’t come out well believe
me, it was super! We spent the evening strolling around and eating ice cream
before heading home far too late to pass out.
The next morning we were up before dawn to catch the sunrise
over the city. I just want to take a moment to say that, not only is Matthew a
FABULOUS tour guide, but he also is a photographer in the making. His photos
are wonderful and I mostly left it up to him to document our adventures. Thanks
you! I couldn’t have captured it without you! After the sun was fully up we
shot over to Bondi Beach and then to breakfast at a half local market half
restaurant called The Grounds of Alexandria, where we were joined by this
lovely lady!
Don’t recognize her?! I don’t blame you haha Anna was my
partner in crime back in 2010 when we studied together in Chengdu, China. I
hadn’t seen her since, but found out she happened to be working/living a few
hours outside the city. 
The three of us played tourist all day around the Opera
House and the Harbor Bridge and even took the ferry back and forth to Manly
Beach on the other side of the Circular Quay. When we were totally exhausted,
we had hot Pho soup with basil and said our good byes.
It was so great to chat and relive our misguided Chinese
adventures (and MISadventures). You still got it girl! Thanks so much for
diving up to visit and I hope I don’t have to wait another 6 years until our
next rendezvous! Good luck with helicopter mechanic training! :D
The following day was no different than the last as Matt and
I were up early and on the road to Featherdale Wildlife Park where we saw all
these adorable creatures
and I nearly fainted with joy as I got to pet a koala
bear.
When sufficiently overloaded with cuteness, we continued on
to the Blue Mountains where we had a great view of well, everything it seemed. We ended the day slightly father up the road
at Wentworth Falls where, although the temperature was much cooler, the sights
were no less breathtaking. That night we swapped photos of the day over our
favorite Friends episodes and again slept like rocks without a spare ounce of
energy. 
Following our usual pattern, on Monday we drove south to
Hyams Beach and worked our way back to the city stopping at the Kiama Blowhole 
and Stanwell Tops for photos and snacks. That evening, in one of my personal
favorite moments of the trip, I got a lesson in how to make my favorite Chinese
dumplings. They may not have been the prettiest ones I’ve ever seen, but after
being deprived for a few years, my goodness were they yummy! Life skills right
there. Life skills.
On my last full day in Sydney, we ditched the car and took a
train then a ferry to a place called Bundeena, where Royal National Park slinks
down to the coastline and offers some of the most beautiful scenery around. We
took a long hike soaking in the perfect weather, and it was here, again, along
this trail, that I spread some more of Neil’s ashes. It was peaceful, beautiful,
open and inviting with enormous rock faces stretching down to the waterline. As
I listened to the waves smash into them below I thought, “Yeah, this is a
crispy beat. “ So I left a little bit of a very dear someone who would have
loved it too.
That evening after showers, laundry and packing Matt and I
spent our last evening eating dim sum (Seriously, the Asian cuisine in Sydney insanely
good!) at a nearby vegetarian restaurant and swapping stories about places we
had been and where we plan to travel in the future. Somewhere between the turnip
cakes and the hot & sour soup I thought, “How perfectly lovely to find
kindred spirits half a world away. What a special kind of luck.” Thank you so
very much Matt for having me and to Julie & Jason for welcoming a stranger
into your homes. It really was fabulously unforgettable trip! Good luck in Russia
next month and I’m sure to see you soon! :)
Whew!!! Did we really fit all that into four and a half
days?! Fact! Now that is my kind of
fun… cheers mate ;)
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