Last Day in Sydney

I can't believe I'm typing this but today was our last full day in Sydney. We spent the morning packing up and taking care of last details. Our whole family joined Sarah and me for the last of our Wednesday lunches. I realized I've been so focused on getting pictures of the kids with their friends that I don't have many pictures of me with my friends so I asked Brian to help out. Here I am giving Sarah one last squeeze.

And then in the afternoon Anna and her kids came by for a last afternoon tea.

Liz and Ruby came by for a last hug. Liz even brought the girls gummy bears and other treats. Tess stayed calm, even a little aloof for their goodbye but then made me hold her for the next twenty minutes. I said, "Goodbyes are hard." She said, "You know what makes them better? Gummy bears." Then she paused and said, "but even gummy bears can't fix goodbyes."

With the last of our goodbyes under our belt we decided to end our trip the way we started it - as a family of four downtown by the Opera House. We watched the sunset, admired the water and reminisced.

 We walked around the corner to the Rocks and saw these lovely Australian paper lanterns.

We treated the girls to dinner at Pancakes on the Rocks. Emily got the Funny Face and Tess ordered the Butterfly.

We thought it only fitting to end with a ferry ride. We read Possum Magic before bed and tucked the girls into bed. Tomorrow we fly home.

Sydney etched itself on our hearts. We will never forget our time here. We saw so much, felt so much, learned so much and experienced so much here. We'll miss our friends. We'll miss the lifestyle and the beauty. We'll never be fully ready to leave but it's time now and I know we'll be happy and excited to get home again. I'll post a few more times once we get home. Wish us luck on the flights tomorrow!

Bondi Beach

Looking at these pictures it's hard to remember that our day did not start well. For one thing I woke up at 5am (again) too stressed to sleep and the girls woke up shortly after saying they'd both had nightmares. I climbed into bed with them and talked about our plan for the day - Luna Park! I took a quick peak onto the Internet to see what time the park opened and realized that the park closes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays in the winter. The girls were heart broken. Tess sobbed and sobbed. I think a lot of her general sadness poured out into this one issue and I felt like a seriously inept Mom for making such a specific suggestion and then not following through on it. 

I threw on a saved episode of Bondi Rescue for the ten thousanth time and started looking for Plan B. I considered going up the Sydney Tower but the kids don't appreciate great views and they didn't seem particularly interested. And then, watching the show it struck me that we could go to Bondi and try to see some of the locations and maybe even glimpse a lifeguard in real life. The girls decided they wanted to get a photograph with their favorite Lifeguard - Maxi. I felt reluctant to be too specific but I confirmed that the tower would be manned and I suggested we make some cards for Maxi and then drop them off.

The girls got out their art supplies and set to work. Emily even labeled some "dangerous rips" making me think that maybe she has picked up a little about surf safety by watching the show. 

Outside of Tess's card

Inside of Tess's card

Outside of Emily's card

Inside of Emily's card

We packed our bags and headed off to Bondi. Two buses and a train ride later we arrived and saw the area with whole new eyes. We spotted the tower right away and stopped for a few pictures. We recognized littles spots from various scenes in the show.

We also remembered just how lovely the sand can be all soft, white and sugary. We listened to the surf, watched the surfers and played for a bit. 

At one point we saw the surf lifesavers drive by and I thought this might be as close as we'd get to them. But then they parked and walked up to the tower and I figured this was our chance.

Emily immediately felt nervous and begged me to steer clear of the area and just let her mail her card instead. Tess forged right ahead. I took note of the sign saying only knock in case of emergency or serious concerns and began to think we should give up. But then we saw someone come out. I quickly blurted out that we had a card for Maxi and could he pass it along. He couldn't have been nicer and said he'd definitely do it. And then I looked up and it took me a minute to realize that The Real Maxi had walked right over. 

 

So we posed for a few pictures, told him where we were from and thanked him and his colleagues for doing an important job. He ran inside and brought out some Bondi Rescue Australia bracelets for the girls. He seemed really down to earth and kind. It turns out we caught him on his day off but he'd just come in for a training.

We walked on all flushed with excitement over our brush with celebrity and then someone asked if we'd seen the whale. We looked out and saw some splashing in the distance. 

Here's the zoomed in version where you can clearly see a white fin.

We stopped at a cafe for lunch and the kids showed off their new bracelets and talked about how nice Maxi was - and how cute. Little do they know he's Cleo's Bachelor of the Year for 2013.

When we came out we saw the whale splash around a few more times and headed back towards Balmain. I'm not sure Tess has totally forgiven me for my Luna Park blunder but I think we had a pretty amazing and memorable day.

Last Day of School

Today Brian and I stayed home to finish up our packing and wait for the removalists (read: movers) to pack up our air shipment. Meanwhile the girls went off for their last day of school. At drop off we realized that both of their teachers were out. Emily's teacher has been sick for weeks now but I was really hoping she'd be in. Still, the kids separated easily and headed in smiling.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the girls at pickup. When we left the US Tess was so sad she couldn't even look at her friends at the end of the day. We actually left school early with her crying into my shoulder. Given her frequent tears last week I suspected today could be similar. Instead both girls greeted me with big grins and bags of cards and little gifts from friends. 

We stayed for some extra time at the swings as we do most days. Emily's friend Marli brought a friend book and asked Emily and Tess to fill out some profile pages.

Emily took this assignment to heart and carefully wrote up all her information and Tess's. 

Tess goofed around with her friends and told people how she couldn't wait to see her cousins and her dog and her grandparents.

To be completely candid, Tess had also eaten quite a few brownies. We brought them as a treat for the class and she snuck a few right at pick up time. She was wired! She laughed and talked a mile a minute but she was happy and to my surprise she did not crash later.

Her friends turned out to be similarly goofy.

We still have two more full days in town before we go. We have a few last goodbyes to do including two good friends (Ruby and Frances) who were out sick today. But first we do a girls day at Luna Park. I promised this one a while back. The kids ask every weekend if we can go so I thought it'd be a fun send off treat. Brian will do his last day of work. 

Sydney weekend

For our last weekend in Sydney we did some packing and paperwork (did I mention we are busy buying a new car, setting up cable, groceries and other details of life back home) and a little bit of revisiting favorite spots. On Saturday we walked up to the Balmain Market. Brian and I purchased a painting by a local artist named Phillip Suping Xu. After eyeing his work for months we decided this portrait of Balmain from Mort Bay would make a great addition to our dining room back home. We stopped next door for lunch at Our Place on Darling so all four of us went home happy at the end of the day.

On Saturday night Brian and I left the girls with a babysitter and headed out for a long, chatty dinner with our friends Anna and Glenn. We went just down the road to a little restaurant called Quattro Paste. I'll really miss having so many excellent pubs, restaurants, shops and cafes so close to us. 

On Sunday we woke to hazy smoke filled skies over otherwise sunny Sydney. Brian and I scoured the Internet looking for mentions of bush fires but found nothing of note. Finally at the zoo an employee explained that the smoke came from controlled burns that aimed to prevent larger fires from breaking out later. 

We strolled through the zoo taking in all the Aussie animals we could find. Here are the girls with a koala.

We found ourselves surprisingly taken by this industrious little echidna. 

We saw the lion up close.

We got a little goofy with the monkey statues.

We watched the Seal Show again. It never fails to amuse.

We got a last glimpse at Australia/New Zealand's own Little Penguins. I'm told these can even be found in Sydney Harbour. We got a quick glimpse of these in Doubtful Sound in New Zealand. I also love knowing they exist in Sydney Harbour - along with the sharks, of course. I heard on a recent Australian Geographic TV special that there are more different species of fish in Sydney Harbour than in all of the Mediterranean. 

On the ride back home I couldn't take my eyes off the water. It was hard to watch the sun set on our last weekend in the country. Four sleeps until we head home.