And finally.

I'm home now, so posting on this trip seems a little lame. But I need to wrap it up somehow and as I sit here at home in Seattle freelancing (already), it already feels so strange that I was even across the world just days ago.

After Brisbane, we boarded the third flight of the six flights we would eventually take to get home to Seattle. We landed in Sydney early around 8am and the day was our oyster. But not only was the DAY our oyster, it sort of felt like the last three days were going to be pretty uneventful in general. Ahhhh.... We'd seen a lot of Sydney the first time through and at this point we were merely looking for some days to sit, sip coffee and stroll through the various neighborhoods.

First of which, Surry Hill, proved to be designed after my own list of favorites considering one street alone housed at least ten different vintage shops, and the first coffee shop we planted ourselves served homemade oatmeal cream pies AND it was located on an adorable sunny street with fallen leaves everywhere. Yes, it was Autumn there which is weird because its Spring here now, in Seattle. The perfect lazy day just sipping and playing cribbage. I think the most stress I felt was when the game actually came down to the last display of cards - and yes, I won. Thank you very much.




No more rushing to catch a flight, or get to a rental car, or navigate a map, or make sure you saw everything everyone told you to see. We were on vacation and we were going to sit and then go and sit some more. And then relax after that. This was our goal. Relax.

I realize I'm making it seem like traveling isn't great. Of course it is. Its just not relaxing in the way that a vacation can be, and usually we were doing our best to stay up late to see things and get up really early to start seeing things and then walking all day in between seeing all of those things. So in Sydney we slept in! Glorious.

I really enjoyed Sydney too. The architecture was really unique and the neighborhoods were so cool. Of course any time you can board a ferry boat and leave a giant, international city behind and then land on a beautiful beach where everyone's in bathing suits and life is just a little slower, all is good. That was Manly Beach. Such a quaint area with surf shops and heaps of cruiser bikes. And of course, a beach! Very cool.


So here I sit. Earning a paycheck again and thinking about what I want to make for dinner. Life is back to where it was before, and yet not. It feels really good to be home and I'm thrilled to see how the next chapter will unfold.

I guess, keep you posted. Pun intended.

Um, look at this homemade oatmeal cream pie, BTW. It was definitely as good as it looks.