The Land Down Under: Day 3

We had another nice day in Sydney today...what a great city this is! We tried souffle pancakes for the first time (very different, but super good!), and we went to the Anzac Memorial, Hyde Park, and the Australia Museum. The museums are free to visit and very well done, and the park is lovely and not far from our hotel. As you can see from some of the pictures, it was an absolutely beautiful day and I loved spending time in the park people-watching! One observation about Sydney so far: not a lot of dogs out and about! As I shared back in March, we saw 110 dogs over three-and-a-half days in Milan; we've now been exploring Sydney for two days (we've been here for three days, but we didn't really do much on the first day due to exhaustion!) and we've only seen 10 dogs! Granted, we are in the central business district, but there are certainly lots of apartments and condos in the area as well, so I've been quite surprised (read: disappointed) by the lack of dogs!

Happy Tails to you!

The Land Down Under: Day 2

We spent the day wandering around Sydney, which included visiting two libraries, enjoying Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, and taking a guided tour of the Sydney Opera House. Unfortunately, photos weren't allowed inside the concert hall or theater we toured, as performers were rehearsing, but they were truly spectacular! The entire place is a marvel of engineering!

Queen Victoria Building

a cool art installation of bird cages

"Waiting" statue

Public Library of New South Wales

The Wishing Tree...
the sign directs you to make a wish by walking around the tree
three times forward and then three times backward

our traveling dog companion is with us

Harbour Bridge

inside the Sydney Opera house

an amazingly cool structure

view from the Opera House

the second public library we visited

part of the floor in the foyer is clear and you can
see a detailed model of Sydney

view of the model from the second floor

nighttime view from our hotel room

Happy Tails to you!

The Land Down Under: Day 1

We made it to our fifth continent! Australia!

We left Los Angeles at 10:45 pm on Friday, July 5 and landed in Sydney at 6:45 am on Sunday, July 7. While this makes it seem like it was a 32-hour journey, the time change is responsible for 17 of those hours and the flight itself is responsible for 15 of those hours!

We flew on Delta, with the plane's layout being 2-4-2, and having just the two seats seats together is the absolute ideal for us! I'm not lying when I say that the 15-hour flight felt more like a 5-hour flight and while it was definitely the longest flight we've been on, it was also one of the very best! When we arrived this morning, the customs/immigration process at the airport was super easy, and we were out of the airport with our luggage within 25 minutes of getting off the plane!

Australia has long been on my bucket list; C came here for work for two weeks back in 2001, but I've never been! We will be here until July 26 and have plans to visit four major cities over the course of our trip. I'll be writing a short post each day to share photos, which will definitely have more than just the one I have to share right now (in a move that is very unlike me, I took no pics on our flight and we didn't really do much other than sleep and eat today, so there wasn't anything particularly noteworthy to document)!

took this while waiting for our uber at the airport...
a little worn out from the journey,
but so happy to be in Sydney!

Happy Tails to you!