Sydney, Australia: Part 1

It has been so awesome being back in Sydney after 19 years and to show Marshall and Tyson my old stomping grounds. After an hour and a half flight we arrived in Sydney and my friend Rebecca was there waiting for us at the gate. It’s so great that we get to spend nine days with Rebecca, her husband Dave, and their doggie (or as Tyson puts it DOOOOOGGG) Abbie. I haven’t seen Rebecca since I was in 6th grade when I lived in Australia, but we’ve been in contact via Facebook and Skype over the past several years. We have planned to see each other multiple times in the past few years, but for some reason or another it always fell through. This time we finally made it happen!

We all hopped in a taxi at the airport and drove about 20 minutes to Rebecca’s apartment. By the time we got to her apartment it was lunch time so we walked down the street to find some grub. Marshall and Rebecca were craving Mexican so they picked up some burritos from a Mexican restaurant and I went a few doors down to get some French toast for Tyson and I to share. Rebecca suggested we bring our food to a nearby park for a picnic lunch since it was such a nice day. By park, I guess she meant a creepy old cemetery that they turned into a park with a playground. Just kidding Rebecca, it wasn’t creepy…but it was definitely interesting to eat lunch at a picnic table about 10 feet from a grave. It was lovely to catch up with Rebecca while Tyson and Marshall played on the playground for a bit.

After lunch, Rebecca and I went grocery shopping to pick up food for the next few days. When we got back we cooked up dinner for Tyson and then put him to bed so that we could enjoy a nice dinner with adult conversation. Rebecca cooked up the best tacos we’ve ever had! Everything, literally everything, was made from scratch and we’re now ruined for any taco’s we’ll ever have in the future. We ended up staying up way later than we have the last few months enjoying catching up on what we’ve been up to for the last 19 years.

The next morning Tyson woke up repeating “dog, ball”. He couldn’t wait to get out of bed and play with Abbie. Rebecca cooked a nice pancake breakfast for us and then Marshall went to go pick up our rental car for the week. When we got back we all hopped in the car and went on a little drive over to Bondi Beach. Bondi is a famous beach in Sydney and many of Australia’s TV shows have been filmed there. We spent about an hour on the beach and then jumped back in the car and decided to continue our tour of Sydney’s best beaches so we headed over to Coogie Beach. On the way we drove past a bakery and Rebecca said we had to stop because they had the most amazing deserts. We picked up some chocolate cake and an assortment of Macaroons to enjoy after dinner. We got to the beach and walked down the path for a bit then sat under a tree for Tyson to eat a snack and enjoy the view. When he was done eating we went back to the apartment for Tyson’s nap.

We walked down the street to pick up sandwiches and brought them back for lunch. Rebecca’s husband had just come home from work so we were finally able to meet him. He is a captain for Qantas Airlines and has a few overnight shifts each week which happened to be our first night there. It was great to finally meet him after hearing so much about him. Dave is learning to fly a new aircraft, so he stayed in to study while the rest of us headed to Manly Beach, our third beach of the day. Tyson had fun dipping his feet into the water and running away from the little waves coming in. The birds at this beach were particularly fond of flying over your head and squawking just as they past you, which freaked us out. All in all, the beaches were great and we enjoyed every minute of it. Once we were sufficiently beached out, we were all craving something cold so we walked over to a little ice cream stand to pick up some popsicles. Tyson was really enjoying eating my mango flavored popsicle while we drove back to the apartment for the evening.

That night we decided to do a Portuguese style dinner. Rebecca picked up some Portuguese chicken and fries and made a nice green salad. I made some yummy Portuguese style sangria (we memorized the ingredients when we were in Portugal). We ended up eating super late because for whatever reason it took over two hours to get Tyson to sleep. He’s getting to a point where he knows just what buttons to push, so we’re trying to figure out different tactics to win at night night time…so far we’re still losing. Great dinner though once we were finally able to eat! After dinner we all moved to the living room and had fun chatting about differences between Australia and America. We reminisced about our favorite TV shows current and past then showed them an episode of one of our favorite comedy shows we watch at home “Impractical Jokers” and they showed us a similar Australian show called “Hamish and Andy”. We had lots laughs together.

The next day we wanted to explore the city so we got an Opal pass to be able to take any trains and ferries throughout the day. We jumped on a short train ride into the city and stopped at a park that is across the river form the Sydney Opera House. It made for a great photo spot and brought back lots of memories when I lived here. Right next to the park is a theme park called Luna Park. I remember going there as a kid so we walked over to there to take Tyson on a few rides. Unfortunately, when we got there it was closed. Dang it! Since we happened to be right next to a ferry terminal, we went on a 20 minute walk as we waited for the next one then went just five minutes across to the other side of the river. I immediately spotted a girl carrying a Starbucks cup so I knew there had to be one nearby. I started to scope out the area and saw it out of the corner of my eye. Yes, my radar is THAT good. Naturally I started speed walking as fast as I could over to it. You know, Starbucks should really start paying me a royalty for all the times I mention their name here. Haha!

Dave gave Marshall and I free tickets to climb up one of the towers of the Sydney Bridge the day before. Thanks Mate! We didn’t think it would be a good idea to carry Tyson up all the stairs to get to the top so Rebecca offered to watch Tyson at the bottom. Luckily he slept in his stroller the whole time so he didn’t even notice we left him. It ended up being a pretty long walk over to the tower and then several hundred stairs to get to the top. But once we reached the top dripping in sweat the view was well worth it. It was a beautiful sunny day so we were able to see great views of the Opera House and the city skyline. When we climbed back down Tyson had just woken up from his nap so it was perfect timing. By that point it was lunch time so we walked over to a place Rebecca recommended called Hart’s Pub. Apparently kids are allowed in pubs in Australia. Sweet! It was a really cool little place. There were funny quotes written all over the wall so we were enjoying reading them out loud and laughing. The food was also wonderful. We ended up getting a bunch of delicious tapas (jalapeno poppers, onion rings, spicy chicken strips) and some Bangers and Mash that we all just shared. Great recommendation Rebecca!

After lunch we took the train back to the apartment. I was pretty tired from walking around all day so Rebecca offered to take Tyson to the park while Marshall and I stayed at home to relax. I took a nice little nap while Marshall played some shoot ‘em up game on the PlayStation. A great break for sure. Once Rebecca and Tyson came back I went back out with them to pick up some pizzas for dinner and had a nice relaxing pizza and movie night.

We still have six more days in Sydney so we’re looking forward to more adventures to come!