WOW!!

Holy half marathons and long legged flights! The plane was great as was the flight. Long and tiring but non-eventful. We landed safely, got through customs fairly quickly, dumped our leftover food items into bins provided in the airport (fruit fly quarantine), found our way to the exit and took a train into Sydney's Central Station, no worries mate!

Surreal - dictionary says: marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream; also: UNBELIEVABLE, FANTASTIC.... yep, that is what is going on in my head as we are in the taxi on our way from the train station to our hotel. Totally surreal... Totally unbelievable and fantastic... I am almost in shock...

We cabbed it to our hotel and got quickly settled in and then had a quick stiff drink and headed out on the streets to do some exploring.

Manor House Boutique Hotel

small field full of Bird of Paradise flowers

We found our HSBC bank but they told us they couldn't help us with our deposit of Australian funds we brought with us, but recommended NAB. We brought money in the hopes of opening a bank account here so we could have the use of Debit cards for purchasing and cash withdrawals instead of just using a credit card. So we went there and they are fixing us up with Visa/Debit cards which we will pick up in Melbourne next week. We walked around and it is SO beautiful. Hyde Park is really nice and we saw Ibises and multi coloured parrots and Cockatoos. So fantastic!!! Sydney is lovely but as all cities, it's just a city.