The Adventures of Flat Stanley in Sydney, Australia

From October 26 to November 15, Kevin was on the new Royal Caribbean ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean. He cruised from Turku, Finland to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He ended up coming home 5 days later than planned and had about 18 hours at home before leaving again for Sydney. We flew to Sydney on November 16 and 14 hours later and crossing of the international date line, we got there on November 18 around 8:30am. We were able to check-in to the hotel early, so we freshened up and then went into the city. We had Indian food for lunch, went shopping at the hay market, found an incredible bookstore, and much more wandering. We ended up back at the hotel around 7pm.

On Friday, we went on an adventure with Flat Stanley! Flat Stanley is a fictional character who has become an international phenomenon. Flat Stanley has become the new version of a pen pal, but so much cooler! Kids create a Flat Stanley and then mail him off to friends and family. The friends and family then send Flat Stanley off to someone they know and eventually, Flat Stanley gets to see many different parts of the country and even the world! Photos of Flat Stanley are taken at each location and then mailed or e-mailed back to the students. It is an awesome project that lasts a full year or even longer. So long story longer...My friend Ashley has a cousin participating in the Flat Stanley Project right now, and she asked me if I would take Flat Stanley to Sydney....So here we go!

Flat Stanley on the Train to Circular Quay - the stop for the Sydney Opera House

This was taken right after getting off the train, before even exiting the station. Pretty incredible view!

Getting closer. 

Right in front of the famous sails! Flat Stanley was so excited to see this world famous building!

We went for a walk around the harbour and this was the view we saw! 

Another view a little further down the path. 

We went into the Royal Botanic Gardens and found these Flying Foxes - AKA huge bats!! They were everywhere!

A close-up of one of the many bats! Pretty neat!

The rest of the day was spent shopping and visiting a few different pubs. We inspected the ship on Saturday, quickly visited the Rocks Market, and then went back to the hotel to pack our things. Our flight left around 3pm on Saturday and we flew 10 hours from Sydney to Hong Kong, had a layover of about 1 hour, then flew 12 more hours from Hong Kong to Los Angeles. It was an incredibly long day! Overall a quick, but great trip!