Sydney Adventures

For the first few blogs, I will be talking about my time with my family. Our route in Australia will start in Sydney then we will travel to Melbourne, Cairns and Brisbane where they will drop me off about an hour away from the city.

After a 7 hour delay at JFK, my mom, dad, brother and I made it to the beautiful city of Sydney! We stayed in a hotel right near the Sydney Harbor looking at the famous opera house. It was always a beautiful sight when we woke up in the morning. Because we lost a few hours from the delay, our first day consisted of finding a place to eat for dinner so there was no exploring.

For our first FULL day in Sydney, we did a bridge climb which took about 2 hours to the top and back. Though this seems like a typical tourist activity, it really is something I would recommend doing if you ever visit Sydney. You get an amazing view of the harbor and layout of the city. The weather that day however was a mix between sprinkles of rain and clear sky. This though worked to our advantage because a huge rainbow appeared in the sky as we hiked up the bridge. After that large amount of exercise, we took a ferry over to Manly Beach for lunch. Even with the weather being in the mid 50s, there were people surfing and swimming in the beautiful blue water. We sat down at the restaurant and got an amazing view of the beach as we ate our lunch. After, we all headed back to the hotel where the jet lag finally hit us. Getting to dinner at 7:00 pm was a huge challenge but eventually we were able to eat dinner then walk back to the hotel to pass out. 

During our final day in Sydney, I started the morning with dad taking an early jog around the opera house and throughout the Botanical Gardens. Though my legs were giving into the long run, it was a beautiful sight to see the sun come up as we jogged around the park. It was interesting seeing different kinds of birds wandering around freely. After breakfast, we got ready for our sea plane tour which flew us around Sydney and landed at Palm Beach where we had lunch overlooking the ocean. It was so beautiful that we ended up eating dessert outside in the sun. For winter, it was beautiful weather! After lunch, we jumped back on the seaplane and got to see a birds-eye-view of a bunch of humpback whales which were not far from the coast. We even got a beautiful birds-eye-view of the Sydney Harbor. All I can say is that I have plenty of amazing pictures from that adventure. Before dinner, we met with one of our friends Gianna Paganelli who was at her orientation in Sydney before heading down to Melbourne for her study abroad. She told us all about what she had been up to with her group from Emory the past few days and I wish her and her friends the best of luck with her time abroad!

birds-eye-view of the Sydney Harbor

If I can say overall about this city, I could see myself living here! Not only is this city a good size and clean, but it is surrounded by green and water. The main area of the city is actually not residential, which means many people commute to the south side of the city. When you walk around at night, you feel safe no matter how late you are out. I am a bit quick to jump in saying I want to live here but I really enjoyed this city. We did not stay here that long but I would love to come back here and explore more. Next stop, Melbourne!