Day 303: Fly to Sydney!
Tassie, it was real. Two weeks driving all over this place gave us a good sense of its diverse/beautiful geography, haunting history and friendly people.
We’re glad our travel agents pushed us to explore it. As we told them, we put it in the same category as Mongolia — a “random” spot on the globe we might not have thought to visit ourselves (read: never in a hundred years). It was beautiful, off the beaten path, very cool and in some parts, super remote.
But now it’s time to move on. It was Monday morning and we were headed to a new, exciting place in the world.
We should note that Monday mornings on this trip have never gotten old. Almost every single Monday this year — especially in the second half — we’ve looked up from our newspaper/breakfast/warm weather perch/bare feet and said, “Monday morning.” Meaning, back home, everyone’s scrambling to get kids off to school and has a full inbox to tackle — and we don’t. We say it to remind each other/ask: “Are we really appreciating just how awesome this is?”
We have eight Monday mornings left on this trip and vowed today to savor each one.
On the drive to the airport, “Around the World” by Daft Punk came on our Spotify — a fitting song — and James asked us to turn it up, announcing: “I always want cool music to be up as loud as possible.”
James earned back 12 minutes for good behavior on the ride to the airport and all the lines. Got down to 19 minutes.
We got them some Legos at the airport to do in Sydney, and enjoyed an uneventful flight back to the mainland.
I finished “The Politician” — which someone described as Gossip Girl meets Wes Anderson. It was entertaining enough. I love Ben Platt (Dear Evan Hansen fan right here) and Gwyneth’s performance reminded me of her good Wes Anderson-ish humor. And there’s a character named James Sullivan!
Sydney is our first big city since Singapore back in the first week of September. Even the view from the airplane felt different — big, modern, sunny, clean, gleaming city. And we could see the opera house!
Check out this sign — there was one in each women’s room stall at the airport. Add it to the list of airport signage we’ve seen this year that made us shudder/grateful for our lives.
The apartment we’ve rented is in Rose Bay, one of the “eastern suburbs” of Sydney. It’s a posh area, and this apartment is pretty insane — 3 bedrooms, four bathrooms, big terrace with bay view…breezy, beachy vibe, aaaaah. Never leaving.
The last time we stayed in a sweet apartment like this was honestly probably Bogata last January — that was such a cool place. It feels amazing.
I got us unpacked and went to the grocery store to spend our life savings on three days’ worth of food.
We spent the evening at “home” relaxing, doing Legos, cooking and putting the kids to bed. We finished reading “Beezus and Ramona,” which was a hit.
Teddy and I did something we haven’t done one single time all year: Sat on the couch and watched TV after the kids went to bed. Isn’t that weird? First time!
We caught up on some SNL skits and went down a Fred Armisen impressions rat hole on YouTube before shutting it down and calling it a night. At 11! So late for us.
