Obviously not ready to go home yet!

4th - 7th August

After a 10 hour flight we landed in Sydney. I didn't get to sleep at all on the plane which was strange considering it was the middle of the night for us. We were both wrecked when we landed in Sydney at 8am local time. We then had 2 hours of passport, security and customs checks in Sydney airport before finally being allowed to leave the airport. God they are so strict and dare I say slightly paranoid, Ronan kept asking me did I not know this from watching the tv programme Border Control, eh no never watched that but probably will when I get home!

So you can imagine how we felt when we arrived to our hotel after being awake for 30hours and just wanting to get to bed, to be told we couldn't check in for 4 hours!! Nightmare. We toddled off to have breakfast and asked to use the toilet only to be told to use the pub up the road, wtf?? As it transpired over the next few days it's actually rare for cafes/restaurants to have their own toilets! Aside from the toilet issue we nearly passed out when we saw the prices of things - people say Ireland is expensive but Sydney is definitely more expensive than home. Killing time was excruciating but eventually 2pm rolled around so we got to check in. I must say it was the most comfortable bed we have had in weeks, mattress and pillows that weren't like a plank of wood and an actually duvet rather than a sheet; was absolute bliss!

We made ourselves get up after 3 hours to try to adjust to local time so didn't do much that evening except grocery shopping and cooking dinner! I had been dreaming about what we were going to have so first on the menu was pure comfort food - mashed potatoes, spaghetti and sausages yum! Incidentally this was the first meal Ronan has cooked for me since we got married! That evening was amazing - hot chocolate, strawberries and Cadburys chocolate - while watching episodes of Homeland and How I Met your Mother on the tablet and sitting in a couch rather than a bed. Do not underestimate how enjoyable these simple pleasures are after being away from home comforts for so long.

This was a bit of a double-edged sword though - because it's so westernised and very similar to home the first bit of homesickness started to sneak in. Personally we weren't mad on Sydney, maybe it's us but we found it quite boring, dare I say! I suppose after coming from Asia where every time you look out the window there is something crazy happening and going to Sydney where people are just going to work, out exercising, doing normal stuff it was a bit of a let-down! Yes despite me looking forward to the normality I realised its not what I'm looking for out of this trip. Glad we were only the few days there as I found it enough.

Another thing I found weird was how hard we found it to get wifi all over Sydney - this was the first hotel we stayed in without Internet access! Found it strange as this was the most developed country we have been in but the least amount of wifi!

After doing the main couple of sights like Harbour Bridge and the Opera house we found there wasn't much else to do except the Aquarium and some shopping.

I went from shorts and tshirts to this in one day!! Loads of shopping had to be done as the temperatures decreased dramatically!

All in all neither of us would be bothered about going back to Sydney and we pretty happy to head to the airport on the morning of Tuesday 7th August. We had an 16 hour flight ahead of us. I'm writing this now as we are about 10 hours in and it's being good so far apart from me not being able to sleep. Actually got the best dinner I have ever gotten on a plane before and watched a couple of trashy movies! Seriously though give me a train or bus over a plane any day! Really excited about South America after doing a tiny bit of research over the last few days. Thinking now we don't have enough time there now though - only 7 weeks left!!