Articles with Australia

Serendipity: The Unexpected, Unplanned Moments of Traveling

I love the word serendipity. First I think it’s a fun word to say. More importantly is its meaning. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary it means: the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for. In other words finding unexpected good things. When that happens while traveling, it just makes the travel experience that much better. It can also offer moments of greater understanding or clarity about another culture or country. In this post I’d like…

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Encountering Starbucks Throughout the World

I did not grow up in a coffee drinking family. My parents seldom drank any. They were much more likely to drink tea. In fact, as my father grew older, he would always have a pitcher of iced tea in the refrigerator. Coffee was just not part of our life. Shortly after college I moved to the Dominican Republic for four years. There I began to have some exposure to coffee. The Dominicans would serve coffee in small demitasse cups…

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The Blessing: Around the World

It has been eleven months since I started this blog. Initially I had a number of adventures to share with you, but then it stopped. COVID-19 came along and the whole world shut down. How do you write a travel blog when you can’t travel? Where do you get inspiration for that next post? The good news is my blog is not like most travel blogs. If you look at most such blogs they will have titles such as “The…

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Discovering Australia’s Animals at Taronga Zoo

It was our final full day in Sydney, and we decided to go to Taronga Zoo. We had originally planned to take a train up into the Blue Mountains and do some hiking in this well-known region. However, age had caught up with me. After all the walking we had done, especially the Bondi to Coogee walk, my wife convinced me that hiking was probably more than we could handle at this point. She didn’t get much argument from me.…

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Discovering Australia: Bondi to Coogee Walk

When we researched our trip to Australia, one of the experiences that popped up was the Bondi to Coogee walk. We are big walkers, and a lot of our vacations are spent walking around various cities we visit. We had heard of the famous Bondi Beach, and this walk was a top priority for us to do. Yesterday we had walked in the city. Today we would walk the coast. Fortunately we had a beautiful day for our walk. The…

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Discovering Australia: Melbourne’s Art Vibe

Sunday dawned on our final day in Melbourne. After Saturday’s trip to the beach, our plan was to check out the street art in the city. But first we needed breakfast. We walked over to the Italian district on Lygon Street. Walking down the street we noted quite a number of Italian restaurants before we reached our destination, Stuzzichino Restaurant. It had been recommended online as a breakfast place, but we didn’t find it to be that much better than…

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Melbourne’s Victoria Market and famous St. Kilda Penguins

Our second full day in Melbourne was the day of the Grand Final, but we had other plans. We started with a visit to the well know Victoria Market. For us it was a stop on our tram ride to the city so an easy stop. We planned to eat breakfast there. Later we would continue our tram ride out to the beach community of St. Kilda and see the St. Kilda penguins. To begin our day, however, we needed…

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Discovering Australia: Melbourne and the Footy Festival

Australia is one of those distant places people talk about, but often never expect to visit. Earlier this year an unexpectedly low fare for Australia popped up. I talked it over with my wife, and we decided to pursue it. Since I would be retiring in June, we decided that fall would be a great time to go. It would be my first opportunity in many years to travel in September rather than teach. With the trip booked, we began…

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