First out of three

Sydney was the first of three major metropolises I'm going to visit during my trip. I arrived here on Sunday afternoon and spend Monday and Tuesday checking out the city centre and all the sights. Definite highlights were naturally the opera house and the Harbour Bridge, but the whole harbour area was really beautiful. So I ended up taking way too many photos there... And yes, the opera house is beautiful; it actually kept on amazing me every time I saw it from a different angle. One of the best views were from up the Harbour Bridge.

Other cool spots in Sydney were Royal Botanic Gardens and the Queen Victoria building or QVB. The QVB is a ridiculously posh shopping centre in a renovated building built in 1820. I also visited the Art Gallery of New South Wales, which included a really neat collection of Australian, Asian, European and Aboriginal art.

On Wednesday I celebrated my last day Down Under by heading for Australia's best-known beach, the Bondi beach. I can easily understand why it is so popular, as the area is just beautiful, the waves seemed to be good for surfing and the boulevard next to the beach had some cool cafés and shops. Embarrassingly, I managed to burn myself worse than ever on the final day. You'd think one learns how to deal with sun in five months, but apparently I got sloppy. Shame on me! On Wednesday night I went out for a few drinks with Stu, and we ended up walking to the harbour again, this time by night. And again, I had to take more photos as it just looked so beautiful and even romantic there. Kind of a loss that I was there with Stu... :)

I'm writing this at Sydney airport waiting for my flight to Los Angeles. Feels utterly weird, I feel sad leaving Australia, as it has kind of become my second home. But I can't wait to get to see Anna and eventually also all the people back home. The 20 weeks me and Anna have spent separately has come down to 20 hours, unbelievable how fast it has gone after all.

I'm really happy that I took the step of leaving Finland. I can't think how my time here could have been much better. But now it's time to change continent, hemisphere and season. Thankfully at least the language stays somewhat the same! Goodbye Australia, good on you mate!