Just a Typical First Day Abroad

As we have matured, my husband and I have found that we don’t have the stamina to rush around seeing three or four sights in a day when we are on vacation. We never really were that efficient, but we did pretty well with two, or sometimes three, like Notre Dame in the morning, Tuileries in the afternoon, and a boat ride on the Seine in the evening. It was easy in a compact city like Florence to go to the Uffizi and the Pitti Palace in one day and squeeze in a wine-tasting tour in the evening. Now, we find that one major “thing” a day is enough.

Before our sight-seeing day begins, we follow a routine that starts our day at a relaxed pace. We try to get into the routine the very first day so that the little housekeeping things we need to do become habits. 

Today, however, did not start like a typical first day. At 1:50am Bill’s phone screeched with a notice from our alarm company that one of the sensors had gone off. He woke me up and we panicked together. We’re over 7000 miles from home. We figured out what time it was in the states, decided it was not too early to call our alarm contact and a neighbor. They soon decided that there had been no break in. So Bill called our police department (luckily there had been no dispatch yet) to tell them it was a false alarm. Then he spent half an hour on the phone with tech support for our alarm company working through the various scenarios. By 3:00am we were back in bed and asleep within minutes.

I arose too early, but fell easily into my travel habits. While my husband slumbered on, I set up on my iPad the spreadsheet we’ll use to track our daily expenses to help us stay within our daily budget. Then I wrote in our journal the stories of our first two travel days. I pulled together the maps and vouchers we’ll need today. After Bill stumbled out of bed, we made a pile of our Aussie currency and divided it up equally, a third for each of us and a third for the safe in our closet. 

We breakfasted on crumpets with peanut butter and cups of black tea. One of the things we have found that really works for us is renting an apartment or staying in an apartment hotel such as this one, the Meriton. It is lovely to fix breakfast and enjoy a quiet time together before the activities of our day.

Then showered, dressed and fed we’re ready for the day…and our one planned activity…a cruise of Sydney Harbor.