That 4:30 alarm came early and with some bad news. In the few months we have been traveling, we have not had a big hiccup in our travel plans…until now. Grant woke up to an email saying our flight with Jetstar was canceled, and most options would be getting into Sydney late at night. I had a slight panic attack knowing that we were meeting Brittany in Sydney and she would already have to wait 3 hours until we arrived. And this was also her first international flight ever. Thankfully, Grant found a flight on Virgin that would get us in at 1 pm, so it was just a couple more hours for Brittany to wait in the airport. Though it did give me the time to check in on her and make sure she made it through customs okay.

When we arrived at Cairns airport, we were surprised the only time our ID was checked was when we checked our bags in. They never checked while we went through security (and water bottles were allowed) along with at the gate. Since we had time to kill at the airport, I explored the stores to see what candy was available. It’s been interesting to see the various candies popular in stores and airports worldwide. I’ve also been on a mission to try different sour candies in the countries we’ve been visiting. So far, Cambodia has my favorite sour gummy bears, while South Korea has the best sour gummy worms (in case any of you want to know).

I breathed a sigh of relief once we boarded, knowing we were headed to meet my sister in Sydney. It wasn’t until we got to see Cairns from the air that we realized how truly large the Great Barrier Reef is. You can tell from the timelapse above that the reefs go for miles – we learned on our snorkeling excursion earlier in the week that the Great Barrier Reef is the size of Italy or Japan along the coast of Australia. This was by far the coolest stretch of ocean we flew over in all of our travels.

As we landed in the domestic terminal, we had to shuttle to the international terminal to pick Brittany up before heading to our Airbnb. Brittany got to experience her first metro ride into the city, and the perfect part was all we had to do to enter was tap our credit card! It was like this for all forms of public transport: metro, train, bus, and ferry – we have not yet encountered a city where your credit card works for all public transit without a separate city-specific transit card.

We met the sweetest couple who let us into the apartment and gave us some pointers on activities we should do during our week in Sydney. Once they left, we settled in and unpacked while deciding what to do with our evening. They had given us a complimentary bottle of wine, so we popped the cork and poured some to celebrate my sister’s first international trip across the world from Boyd, Texas.

Our first stop was heading towards the Sydney Harbour Bridge and exploring the nearby area called The Rocks. We walked on the bridge to get a glimpse of the Sydney Opera House and to see if we wanted to attempt the bridge walk. We realized it was 1) too expensive and 2) too high for our liking (especially since most of the week was supposed to be windy). Afterward, we stopped at Lord Nelson Brewery for dinner and drinks, as it was supposedly one of the four oldest pubs in Sydney. We got to start our quest of trying particular Australian foods beginning with the meat pie.

Our friends from Austria had told us there were Saturday night fireworks in the harbor, so we headed towards Darling Harbour to find the best spot. The show started 30 minutes earlier than advertised online, and we made it just in time!

We walked along the water and saw a street entertainer standing on top of a bike on a pole. We’re not sure what was happening, as he talked a bunch before he finally started juggling a ball of fire and two knives. He was quirky, but we would at least get to see some better street entertainment later in the week!

Grant and I were surprised at how well Brittany did with the time change. She was probably doing better than us, as we were ready to crash when we returned to the room. Grant headed to the grocery store to grab some breakfast things since we weren’t sure what would be open on Easter Sunday, while Brittany and I headed back to the apartment.