Top 10's

I just got back from one last night out with my wonderful new girl friends in Sydney. After a lovely last day at work and a nice farewell tea, I took the ferry over (one last time, sad) to Circular Quay to meet up with Lisa, Sarah and Erin for drinks at The Argyle, an amazing bar and club that we had been wanting to try out for a while. It was beautiful and the drinks were awesome and I know they will go back and have many more fun times there. Next, we headed to the Italian Village...a wonderful Italian restaurant right on the water in Circular Quay and directly across from the Opera House. Can't think of a better location for my last dinner in Sydney! After an amazing meal, 3 bottles of wine and 'heaps' of laughs later...we all said a teary good-bye. I really can't believe that I have only known these 3 for such a short time...but I know that I will know them and be great friends with them forever! The night was absolutley perfect and I can't imagine a better way to have spent my last night here...

And now, I have 3 Top 10 lists to share...I will try to use lots of pictures and not as many words because words don't do a lot of these things justice...

Top 10 Events/Activities While in AUS (in no particular order):
1. Snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef

2. New Year's Eve

3. Bridge Climb

4. Australia Day

5. Tap Dogs

6. Opera House Tour

7. Hunter Valley Wine Tour

8. Bondi Coastal Cliff Walk (my favorite beach along the walk!)

9. Taronga Zoo

10. Trips to the beach...Manly or Bondi, still can't decide which is my favorite!

Top 10 Things I Will Miss (again, in no particular order):
1. The water...the beach (see above) and just the gorgeous harbour, in general. As my dad said when he was here...when the sun is out in the afternoon and sparkling on the harbour, it looks like diamonds have been sprinkled on the water! (Pictures don't do the sparkle part justice...)

2. The views...from my balcony, the office...pretty much, from anywhere!

3. Ferries...if I could use any mode of transport, I would choose a ferry...always! (Pic of ferries in the distance...)

4. Food...the food here is so wonderful and fresh. I will miss all of the amazing seafood, fresh produce, sushi, great Italian and pizza, Thai, fresh juices, great coffee, the WINE, and, of course, even Vegemite!

5. The sunsets...most amazing sunsets I have ever seen!

 

6. Friends...don't know what I would have done here without my new friends!

7. The Markets...I loved visiting and exploring all of the outdoor markets...Kirribilli Markets, Balmain, Paddy's, but especially, The Rocks Markets!

8. Walking everywhere...to work, across the bridge, around Lavendar Bay, to get groceries...pretty much anywhere and everywhere! (Not the best pic, but my first view of the Opera House from my first walk across the bridge!)

9. The accent and language! Obviously, I can't describe the accent on the blog (but love the way they say so many things...Australia, Darling Harbour, Circular Quay, sharks, shiraz, etc), but here are some of my favorite Aussie words and phrases...nibblies, brekky, Happy Chrissy, massive, heaps, How Ya Going?, ta, cheers, pressie. Ugh, so many more, but I am blanking on them right now...

10. The freedom and independence I have had here...I have always been an independent person, but certainly never thought I would move half-way around the world from my friends, family, everything that was comfortable to me. I have so much freedom from responsibility here...the only thing I have to do is go to work. No house, cleaning, dog, yard, etc responsibilities...just work and then whatever else I want to do! I am so proud of myself for the courage and independence I had to make this journey. I am incredibly thankful for the opportunity and it has changed my life forever. I am coming back a different person in many ways!

And now, the things that I am SOOO excited to come home to!!
1. Luke and Grace and all of the love, fun activities and hugs that go along with them...
2. The rest of my family and the trips to my parents' new home in Wichita, long talks and fun activities with my sister, many great dinners and other times with the whole Taylor clan, my cousin, Emily's, college graduation in May and my cousin, Katie's, wedding in August...
3. Being back with my sweet baby, Evie again and taking her on as many walks as she wants...
4. Seeing my beautiful friends again and celebrating babies, weddings, each other with them, as well as being able to talk to them and text them whenever I want to...
5. Being back in my little house and having all of my stuff around me...
6. MEXICAN food...
7. KU basketball and March Madness...
8. Cheaper prices and free things...cheaper groceries, restaurant bills, shopping, etc...free refills, free ketchup with fries (tomato sauce with chips here!), ICE, etc...
9. Getting back to 'normal' activities...going for walks with dogs and friends, running errands, going to movies, getting pedicures with friends, etc
10. New adventures in KC...I have many things that I want to change, do differently, try, etc in KC. In fact, I may just keep my blog going, so that I can share some of my new adventures...stay tuned!

I have pretty much said it all with my Top 10 lists...I have had the most amazing and surreal experience here, have done things I never imagined doing, have broadened my horizon and changed in so many ways. I will no doubt come back to Australia to visit some day and am leaving a piece of my heart here in this beautiful, 'sunburned' country...this Land of Oz...

Great last weekend!

It is so hard to believe that 6 months has gone by so quickly...but I did have one last great weekend in Australia!

Last week, I had several fun nights out with friends and have started having farewell lunches with people in the office also. On Wednesday night of last week, I walked across the bridge with my friend, Michelle and we went to a great historic hotel and pub that specializes in kinda fancy pizzas. You would never believe it after my last post and the cute little guy I was petting...but I finally tried kangaroo meat! It tasted very similar to deer...not bad! We also tried a great tandoori chicken pizza...yum! On Thursday night of last week, we had a farewell for the head executive of the office here...he is also heading back to the States after being here for 4 years. I had tentative plans to go to dinner with Lisa...but we never made it out of the bar where the farewell was being held! Was a late night, but lots of fun! Then, on Friday night, we finally made it to that dinner we had planned...Lisa, Erin, Marc and I went to Spice I Am...a very popular Thai restaurant in the city. The food was amazing and we had a great time, but called it an early night, since the night before had been so late!

On Saturday, I just hung out by myself and did some of my favorite things in Sydney, as well as one thing I had been wanting to do. I started out with a nice breakfast outside at a neighbourhood cafe and then walked across the bridge. I wanted to go to the Rocks Markets one more time (had a few more purchases I needed to make there!), but decided to go walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens first. I should have gone in the Spring, but it was still beautiful there, even though it is towards the end of the hot Summer!

I love the big eucalyptus trees here in Australia!

Pretty pond area...

These huge Japanese lotus flowers were gorgeous!

Yuck...this is where all of the massive, creepy bats live during the day...

Pretty rose garden, but no more pretty than the gardens in Loose Park when they are in full bloom!

Next, I headed back over to The Rocks Markets for the last time. This was definitely one of my favorite weekend activities to do here, so it was only fitting to go one last time! Even though it was another super hot day, I just took my time walking around and enjoying myself. I headed back across the bridge after about 5 hours of walking around in the Gardens and the Rocks and had a quiet night in.

On Sunday, I had probably one of the most fun meals I have had here! Sarah had stumbled across this place called The Winery...a really cute restaurant in Surrey Hills, the hip and trendy area in the city. You can go there for a normal meal anytime, but on the weekends, you can make a booking for a thing called the Girls Lunch Picnic! It is a set price for a menu of wonderful and girly starters, tea sandwiches, little quiche, desserts, etc. And the best part...bubbles on arrival (aka, a glass of champagne)! So, Sarah, Lisa and I headed there for our noon booking and left 3 hours, lots of yummy food and lots of good girl talk later...oh yeah, and 3 jugs of sangria later! It was, again, a hot summer day, we so tried 3 different types of their sangria...each one better than the previous one! We had such a good time and shared stories of our recent trips and adventures. It was the perfect thing to do with good friends on my last Sunday in Sydney!

Here we are with our bubbles and then Lisa with our first jug of sangria!

This week has been crazy with trying to wrap things up in the office, as well as pack my apartment. I know one thing is for sure...I have way too much stuff here and I have no idea how I am going to manage it all through the airport on my way back. Ugh. I have had farewell lunches with people in the office every day this week and those have been very nice. And on Tuesday night, we had the first of what I hope will be many more for my Aussie friends...Taco Tuesday! Erin is all settled in to her new apartment and her brother, who has been here with her for 6 weeks, is leaving this week also. So, she had a group of us over for a house-warming for her/good-bye for me and Marc, Taco Tuesday party! There were 9 or 10 of us and we had guac and chips, 7 layer dip, tacos and enchiladas...and lots of home-made margaritas and Coronas! It was a wonderfully cool night and we all enjoyed Erin's gorgeous harbour view from her apartment. We had fun music and we just sat around and talked and laughed for hours. Very hard to believe that I have only known these people for anywhere from 4 months to as short as 6 weeks. What I do believe though is that I have made friends for a lifetime and I am so thankful to have met each of them!

Stay tuned to the blog tomorrow for some Top 10 lists...

Port Douglas trip, continued...

We were quite worn out and definitely ready for a shower after our amazing snorkeling adventure, so we headed back to our hotel to clean up. We headed out to have a cold beer by the awesome resort pool before dinner...

We went to dinner at a really cool place called The Beach Shack...the floor was sand! The food tasted excellent and we had a great time reliving our snorkeling trip!

Side note...I knew we really were in the tropical rainforest because of all of the little creatures around. There were bugs all over the place, big spiders, these little gecko/lizard-looking things all over and random frogs...like this one right by our table at dinner...ewww.

After dinner, we headed back down to the main street in Port Douglas for another drink and we found a cool band to listen to at an outdoor bar!

On Sunday, we were supposed to go on a half-day tour of the Daintree Rainforest, but it ended up being canceled because one of the rivers was not passable due to heavy rains the previous week. We were a little sad we didn't get to do the tour...but in the end, maybe it was a good thing for me...see side note above about all of the little creatures...ha ha!

So, we ended up enjoying our drive back to Cairns and stopped at several of the beaches along the drive. They were just breathtaking! We also went to a fun place called Hartley's Crocodile Adventures for a few hours and had a great time there! It was basically a big crocodile farm/zoo that also had some other fun Aussie animals. It was very very very hot and humid, but we had a great day among the beautiful beaches of northern Queensland and seeing/playing with the local animals!

What a stunningly beautiful part of the world...and very different from anywhere I have been before! I am so happy that I got the chance to visit northern Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef before my time here is over!

'They don't call it the Great Barrier Reef for nothing!'

Last weekend, I headed north to Queensland with my friend from work, Erin, and her brother, Marc, who is here visiting for 6 weeks. Our destination was a little town called Port Douglas, about an hour north of Cairns and our main mission...to snorkle the Great Barrier Reef!!

With all of the devastation that Queensland has had in the last few months...massive flooding and a cyclone...we were a little worried about the weather and the conditions of the area. We did see some trees branches down and a bit of debris and we had quite a bit of rain both nights that we were there, but no rain during the day! The drive from Cairns to Port Douglas was absolutely beautiful...gorgeous and lush tropical rainforest and mountains on one side and ocean and beach on the other! I was glad I wasn't driving, so that I could enjoy the pretty scenery...and because I don't know how to drive on the wrong side of the road, ha! We could even see lots of waterfalls and trickles of water coming down from the mountains on the rainforest side...my family knows how much I love those!

We checked into our cool Port Douglas Plantation Resort and got ready to head out to dinner. Port Douglas is a fairly small town, mostly filled with resorts. There is one main street with lots of restaurants, pubs, shops, etc and it was a really cute, sleepy little town. Just very laid-back and easy going, very relaxing! We had a nice dinner out and some drinks and then headed back to get a good night of sleep before our snorkeling adventure!

We were picked up at 7:30 in the morning and headed to the marina to get checked in. Our snorkeling tour was with a company called Wavelength and I can't say enough good things about them! We headed out to our boat and right away, they tell us to ditch our shoes in these buckets and we won't see them again until the end and they hand us each a wetsuit looking thing. Oh boy, a lycra bodysuit, exactly what I wanted to wear! They were lighter weight than wetsuits...they actually called them sunsuits. They say that sunscreen is very damaging to the Reef, so they have everyone wear these instead...to protect ourselves and the Reef. I was a little disappointed that I wouldn't be getting any sun at first, but I am sure I wouldn't have worn enough sunscreen and gotten fried, so it was a good thing to have the suits!

After we all got settled, we headed out! It was about a 1 hour and 45 minute boat ride to get out to the outer edges of the Reef. The boat was not huge and the water was pretty choppy...I was glad I had taken some sea-sickness medicine! The views were just beautiful though...Erin and I decided that the rainforest-y mountains that we were heading away from looked like the scenery from the tv show, Lost...so pretty! It was a bit cloudy at first, but cleared up throughout the day.

I was starting to get pretty nervous as we were getting closer to our first spot...but I didn't end up needing to be nervous at all! We snorkeled in 3 different spots throughout the day...an hour at each spot. That first time I put my face in the water, I just knew I was experiencing one of the coolest things I will ever do in my life! I was a part of this whole other world under the water and I loved every minute of it. Now, time for some pictures...

Looking good!! ;-)

At our very first site, we saw a beautiful sea turtle! She was laying on the sea floor for a while and then she got up and swam away! (We did buy the CD of the pictures that one of our guides was taking underwater, so that is how we have these next pics!)



Oh my...can't believe I am posting this of me!





Here is Marc, Erin and me at our last spot! Shortly after this photo, the guide told us that we were about as far out as they like for people to go and to head back to the boat. I think that freaked us out a bit and we swam for our lifes back to the boat! At this particular spot, the Reef came very close to the top of the water, so the boat was anchored kind of far away. As I was swimming back, all of the sudden, the Reef stopped and I was just in the deep, dark ocean...kinda freaky!

Goodbye beautiful Great Barrier Reef!

When we got back to the marina and were paying for our CD, we were talking to some of the guides and people that work for this tour company. I was telling them how much I loved my first snorkeling experience and that I can't imagine any snorkeling ever being better than this. That is when this cute older worker said to me...'Well, doll, they don't call it the Great Barrier Reef for nothin'!' Amen to that!

(This blog took too long and too much room, so stay tuned tomorrow for our second day of adventures in Port Douglas!)