As part of my ongoing campaign to get more people to Australia, I thought I’d give you a quick glimpse of the fabulous visit of Jen, our 3rd distinguished guest from the United States of America.
Jen picked a fantastic time to visit Sydney, Cairns and Melbourne. Jon and I were able to use a combination of Qantas points and the dregs of my Virgin Australia points to fly cheaply to Sydney to meet Jen upon her arrival down under. AND we had a 4 day weekend since Easter Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays here (thanks Australia!). Unfortunately, things didn’t start out very smoothly. Jon and I flew in a day before Jen was set to arrive and took the train from the airport to the hotel. Jon, me, two bags, a backpack and two phones got on the train. Jon, me, two bags, a backpack and one phone got off. Somehow I managed to leave my phone on the seat while Jon commented on someone leaving a sweater on the row behind. Fortunately, the train cleaners found my phone and turned it into the station manager, reinvigorating my faith in humanity. Maybe it was just because I have a phone no one would want to steal (according to one train employee), but I choose to believe people are mainly good (a notion that gets challenged each time I take a peek at the news and after our car received its second anonymous smash while parked on our street).
I lost my phone around 10 am and got it back around 3 pm. In the meantime, we headed to Watsons Bay on a ferry to take advantage of cracking weather and take my mind off the phone loss. Watsons Bay is a lovely little suburb known for fish and chips. There is also trail along the hills/cliffs above it with gorgeous views of the city and ocean. We filled up on fish and chips and then hit the trail to take in the views.
The next day, we woke up bright and early to make sure we’d be at the airport, waiting right outside of customs when Jen got through. Once again, things didn’t start off very smoothly. We made it to the airport just fine and got some coffee and waited and waited and waited. Luckily, Jen is an intrepid traveler and a smart cookie to boot so when she didn’t see us upon exiting customs, she didn’t panic. She took her time, got on the free wifi and sent an email asking where we were. She was at Arrivals C/D. Well… that explains why we didn’t see her. We only knew of one exit and it wasn’t Arrivals C/D. Oops. After rushing over to the correct exit we met up with Jen to begin her Aussie adventures.
The highlights from Sydney included ferry trips, Manly Beach, Bondi Beach, Circular Quay, the Rocks, Newtown, Darling Harbour, the botanical gardens, a night at the opera (Carmen al fresco), and lots of good coffee, food, beer and wine.
After a fabulous long weekend getaway, Jon and I returned to the chilly gloom of Melbourne while Jen jetted off to the lovely warmth of Cairns. Jon turned the house into chaos packing for his golf trip while I scrambled to maintain some sense of order for Jen’s arrival. Jon was set to leave on a Saturday morning and Jen was arriving that Saturday afternoon. I got up early to drive Jon to the airport, returned home, got the house in order, went for a jog and picked up some groceries and then drove back to the airport to pick up Jen. I took advantage of the ability to meet people at the gate here in 1990’s America and made it just in time to see Jen walk into the terminal. It is a weird terminal at the Melbourne airport where you walk more than 10 minutes to get from any gate back to civilization. It is the newest terminal so someone thought this was a good design idea. It was not me.
The highlights from Melbourne included tons of neighborhood exploring and market going – Prahran, South Yarra, Melbourne, Fitzroy, St. Kilda – with stops for coffee, food, wine and beer. On ANZAC day we hit the Shrine of Remembrance, the National Gallery Victoria, Degraves Street, Young and Jacksons, the Prahran RSL, and still had enough energy to make up an ad-hoc bar crawl home. It was such a blast.
I was sad to see Jen go. The only upside was being able to catch up on sleep with no early riser husband around.