Quarantined to Bats

We have officially arrived safe and sound to Australia! And already, we've had quite the adventure.

The 14-hour flight turned out to be less painful than expected. We got settled into our seats (48 j/k ... no seriously, J & K!) and soon after were served a surprisingly delicious meal (kinda like my favorite tv dinner as a child...salisbury steak...with a brownie!) I think we both slept the majority of the flight, because before we knew it, there were less than two hours before we were due to land in Sydney. AJ and I are both huge fans of maps, so the fact that they would regularly have the map of our progress on the tv screens was a plus. I took lots of pictures (which sadly I can't share from this computer, but I promise to post as soon as possible). AJ, of course, made fun of me, but I know he secretly loves the map pictures!

Once we landed, we jumped off of the plane and headed toward baggage claim, ready to officially begin our vacation. And, we definitely start with a bang! While waiting for our bags to come down the carousal, we met one of Australia's favorite animals...the security beagle who sniffs out your bags to make sure you aren't bringing any illegal items into the country. Confidently, I placed my carry-ons on the ground so that the adorable little beagle could sniff them out and clear me to enter the country. As the beagle came by, he sniffed and sniffed...and sniffed and sniffed and sniffed. I started to worry slightly, not knowing what he could be smelling, but then he finally moved on. As I turned my attention back to the carousal, the beagle came back for more sniffs, closely followed by a woman asking me if I had any food in my bag. I said, "Yes! I have an unopened bag of pretzels. And I claimed it!" quickly showing her my arrival/customs card. I opened my bag to show her my pretzels, thinking it was weird the beagle was so concerned about them, when she quickly produced two chicken sandwiches. Suddenly, a foggy memory of the middle of the plane ride came flooding back. AJ and I woke up to find the flight attendants passing out sandwiches as a mid-flight snack. Though neither of us were hungry, we took them for later. And when we were getting ready to land, I was about to throw them out, when AJ said we should take them just in case. This is what was going through my head as the woman began making notes on our arrival cards, which she stamped "QUARANTINED." So, after grabbing our bags, we shamefully made our way to the "Quanrantined" line and began laughing at ourselves. Fortunately, we made it through the line without further mishap, and we're free to roam about the country!

Once in arrivals, we followed my mother's directive and went straight to Vodafone to get ourselves a phone to use. Our new friend, Rischi, was extremely helpful in picking out our Australian plan, so we decided to honor him by naming our new phone after him. We called said mother to let her know we were okay and then called our hostel so that the shuttle could come get us. We made our way over to the "Meeting Point," which is actually a large blue wall with orange lettering that says "The Meeting Point." Clever for tourists, but unfortunate that the lettering is in Comic Sans (We took a picture in honor of JMac and Marci!) And when the shuttle arrived, we officially set foot on Australian soil for the first time.

We arrived to the Original Backpackers in King's Cross by 9:30 a.m., and already it felt like the day was half over. When I sat down on my bed, I was instantly convinced that I needed a nap, but fortunately AJ is enough of a nag to not let that happen. So we got dressed and headed to the front desk so that Mandy could direct us on a walking adventure of the city. And walking we did...

First stop, 'Roy's Famous.' Despite AJ being annoyed at the name ("Roy's famous what???"), we thoroughly enjoyed the food. And AJ had his first ever real coffee (you know, the kind you don't see in America. Very, very dark in color with film on top) so we were positive he'd now be awake for days. And once our bellies were fed, we began an eight hour walk of Sydney.

Down the stairs, across a quay and up a second set of stairs to the Royal Botanical Gardens. These gardens are beautiful! And the weather was amazing! 70 degrees farenheit without a drip of humidity in the air. We were thoroughly enjoying our trek until we started hearing a bizarre sound. I looked up into the trees, and at first I thought I was seeing thousands of cocoons. But quickly we realized we were looking at bats. And real bats. Furry heads, dracula-like wings. Moving and talking like they were just waiting until nightfall to attack. We were mesmerized, so we began taking tons of pictures, and reminded ourselves to take a different path home at the end of the day.

As we made our way toward the end of the gardens to Mrs. Macquarie's Point, we began to see the top of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. And the first corner that we turned, when we spotted the House in it's full glory for the first time, I slapped AJ across the arm and said, "Holy shit, we're in Australia!" And that was when the endless pictures and endless steps ensued. We took pictures of the Opera House and the Bridge from every angle (Mrs. Macquarie's Point, the Royal Gardens, on the steps of the Opera House, from the Circular Quay and from the Bridge itself.) Through we decided not to do the climb to the top of the bridge, we definitely took full advantage of walking to the other side of the Bridge and back. The views of Sydney were amazing!

In addition to our hundreds of pictures of the Australian icons, we also had a great time wandering through a market in The Rocks. We sampled Australian salsa, watched a local do glass blowing (and took a picture for you, Yas!), coveted some artwork that we wanted to buy but didn't want to carry around Australian with us. It was a fantastic day, and by 5 pm, our feet were throbbing, and we knew it was time to find food and begin to head back to the hostel. We decided to start walking toward King's Cross and keep our eyes peeled for places to eat on the way. And before we knew it, we were back at the Gardens and remembering our own advice to ourselves from earlier.

But into the Gardens we went. And sure enough, with the sky almost to black and the foreboding sounds approaching, we knew we were about to come face to face with our new friends, the bats! The sky was covered in swarming bats! They were flying about and squeaking loudly. Though I logically knew we were safe, I couldn't help but grab AJ's arm as we quickly walked through the area. Our hearts were racing, and we couldn't help but laugh that we were exactly where we told ourselves we shouldn't be earlier in the night. And once we made it to Wooloomooloo Gate and thought we were safe, we realized that the bats continued to swarm (though in much smaller numbers). It was an incredible sight!

Back to King's Cross, we got to experience first-hand why they call it the red light district. Shady people and shady businesses were everywhere. We finally decided to grab a burger and beer at the King's Cross Balcony Cafe, where we sat face-to-face with the giant Coca-Cola sign. And when our meal was done, we hobbled down the street back to the hostel, and tried desperately to stay awake as long as possible (it was only 7 pm!)

We both took showers, extending our awake time...