Planes, Trains, and Running Shoes

Good Morning, friends! Happy New Year! It's a cold, rainy, gloomy day in DC which is weirdly, just what I need. I rang in the New Year by falling asleep at 10pm (moving is hard!) and then hanging out with a good friend who happens to be my new neighbor.

I love the start of the New Year. I think it's such a fantastic way to look back on the past year and look ahead. Last year, my theme for the year was growth and I'm going to keep that theme. We never stop growing, do we? We learn lessons and we make changes, but we never stop growing.


Looking back to this time last year, I'm definitely a happier person. 2015 was a tough year and, while 2016 was much better, I came out of the year with a desperate need for self care. I'm linking up with Helene tomorrow to recap my year but the one lesson I learned from 2016 was the importance of taking care of yourself. For the first time in my life, I had a job that I felt like I couldn't put down at 5pm on week days and, while, that definitely isn't the case, I had virtually no work life balance. I would be on the treadmill answering work emails. By the time December, my industry's busiest month, rolled around, I felt burned out. This year, I need to learn to put a serious focus on work life balance.

Because of the lack of a work life balance, my blog seriously suffered. I never had time to post and when I did, I was too tired to sit in front of a computer and craft a post. I started last year with a 31-day blogging challenge and by March, I was posting maybe once per week. This year, I'm committing to spending at least 4 hours per week on my blog. I've planned out all of my posts for the month of January and actually have a plan to bring my blog back to it's former, for lack of a better word, glory. This will be the 7th year that I've had this blog and I don't want this hobby to fall to the way side. I need to be realistic about my plans for posting, connecting with other bloggers, and growing my blog, but at the end of the day, I just want to be blogging again.

Looking back on my goals from last year, I feel like all of my goals for this year are the same. I don't look at that as a failed 2016 but as an opportunity for a better 2017! So, in list form, here are my goals for 2017 (mostly repeated from 2016):

• Run a sub-4 marathon: Goodness, I'm sick of making this a goal. I've had a goal to run a sub-4 marathon since 2011. I know people who eke out 10, 15, 20, 40 minute PRs and over my seven year running career, I've knocked off a whopping 7 minutes from my marathon. I'll share my running goals in another post this month but I'm tackling 2 marathons this year to try to finally get that sub-4 finish.
• Do another 30-day yoga challenge: I did an at-home yoga challenge last year. This year, I'd like to up the ante and try a 30-day in-studio challenge, or at least mix it up with half the time in the studio and half the time at home.
• Finish my 30 before 30:  I'll be 30 next month and I'm only about one-third of the way through my 30 Before 30 list but I'd like to finish the list by the end of 2017.
• Hit 30 countries: I've traveled to 26 countries. I think it would be awesome to make it to 30 in my 30th year!
• Take a cooking class: The Pilot's parents bought us a gift certificate to a culinary school in DC for Christmas! I'm so excited!
• Cook at least one recipe from every single one of my cookbooks: I have a cookbook addiction. My obsession with Little Free Libraries and the propensity of people in my neighborhood to leave cookbooks in them doesn't help. Yet, I have a lot of cookbooks that I've never touched. I need to change that or make a plan to get rid of some of these books. 

I'm picking things up with our trip to Australia by starting off where we did - in Sydney! Sydney is the most obvious starting point for any trip to Australia from the U.S. I know that Quantas does a flight from LA to Melbourne but all other airlines only fly to Sydney.

When we arrived in Sydney, it was the first nice weekend of spring. It was a little cold for me coming from DC summer but everyone was enjoying the first weekend of warmer weather and it was a great atmosphere. I have never in my life seen so many runners out and about in one city!

Day 1, Friday: We arrived in Sydney after a glorious first class flight  and made our way to our AirBnB in Darlinghurst on the edge of Paddington. Darlinghurst was an adorable neighborhood with tons of shops and restaurants and fairly central to the city. I had been nervous about staying there because it was outside the Central Business District (CBD) but after a few days exploring, I realized that we made the best choice possible as the CBD feels more like NY'S financial district, mostly being office buildings and a few hotels and virtually shutting down on weekends.

We got to our place, freshened up, and decided to walk to the Sydney Harbor. Our hosts told us about a great bakery in the neighborhood which we stopped at for a quick bite. Kurtosh is named for traditional Hungarian pastries that are a cross between a pretzel and a croissant and are delicious! We opted for the cinnamon sugar and it didn't disappoint!


Properly fed, we made our way to the Botanical Gardens and wandered through the gardens toward Sydney Harbor, where we caught our first glimpse of the famed Opera House, and it was ten times more magical than I thought it would be.

We kept walking through Sydney Harbor and eventually made our way further into the CBD to pick up a free walking tour we had read about.  The tour lasted three hours and was a fantastic introduction to the city! We learned so much about Australia's history, which I really didn't know much about. We learned about Australia's convict past, their Victorian inspiration, and aboriginal history. The tour was incredible and totally free (they ask for tips at the end, which we were happy to give!).

Our tour finished right on the Sydney Harbor, giving us the chance to see the Opera House at night. We walked a few blocks through The Rocks (an old, historic Sydney neighborhood) and had dinner at the Harbor View Hotel (which is not actually a hotel, as most "hotels" in Sydney are actually just bars). I had a pumpkin ravioli which was out of this world! Pumpkin was very much in season all over Australia, which was so weird to wrap my head around as it was their late winter/early spring!
By the time we finished dinner, we were exhausted. I actually fell asleep on the metro home! Thankfully, The Pilot was able to stay awake so I didn't get lost somewhere!

Day 2, Saturday: We were up pretty early since we had gone to bed early and started our morning with a quick "brekkie" at a great little coffee shop in the neighborhood. We had pineapple carrot cinnamon muffins, which I'm dying to recreate! This fueled us up for a perfect morning run in Centennial Park. It was amazing! We did a full loop of the park and I loved being in the park on a Saturday morning and seeing what all of the Sydneysiders were up to! There were so many runners out and about, people on horseback, or teaching their kids to ride bikes...it was the first spring-like weekend of winter, and everyone was out soaking up the sun!


We finished our run in Paddington and walked through the adorable Paddington Market before heading back to change and then making our way (via ferry!) to the Taronga Zoo. The Zoo was my absolute favorite part of Sydney!

One thing about the ferries - they're on the same system as the Sydney metro, so they're really inexpensive! I read a lot of recommendations about taking a Sydney Harbor cruise, but they were so expensive! You can definitely catch the same views on a Sydney Harbor ferry for a fraction of the price!

The Zoo was amazing! The price was pretty steep ($45 AUS/person) but I loved it! The giraffes have the best view in all of Sydney and the koalas melted my heart. I think Taronga deserves its own post, but here are a few highlights from our trip!

The peacocks aren't zoo animals, they just hang out all over the zoo!

Day 3, Sunday: We started our Sunday with coffee (flat whites) and donuts at Infinity Bakery. We had been eyeing Infinity's donuts for days and finally, couldn't resist the temptation!

Banana cream pie donuts with salted caramel. YUM!

Fueled up, we took the bus to Bondi. We stopped in at Gertrude and Alice, a famous bookstore (because I couldn't resist), and wandered around Bondi Beach. It was the Bondi Kite Festival and we saw so many beautiful kites!


Bondi was awesome and the Bondi to Coogee Walk definitely merits another post! These are a few shots that capture just how awesome Bondi is!



We took the bus from Coogee to Darling Harbor, which was kind of a disappointment. It's a newish area of Sydney and reminded me more of Downtown Disney than an actual neighborhood.


We wandered through there and then picked up a ferry to Sydney Harbor and caught the most immaculate sunset I've ever seen!


We found ourselves back in The Rocks where another free walking tour, specifically of that neighborhood, was taking off and we decided to join it. This tour wasn't as great as the first one we went on but was still fascinating. The Rocks is Sydney's oldest neighborhood and has a lot of really interesting history! We had dinner at a delicious restaurant called Pony and called it a night.

Day 4, Monday: Monday was our last day in Sydney and, while were planning to leave the city for the day to hike the Blue Mountains with my friend, Claire, we decided it against it after realizing that it was the type of day trip that really merited renting a car, rather than taking the train.

We started the morning with breakfast at Bill's, a local neighborhood restaurant that has been in Darlinghurst for over 25 years, and were not disappointed. We had one of their specialties, scrambled eggs and sourdough toast, which sounds simple, but was out of this world. I was disappointed that we didn't find Bill's until our last day there because it was unbelievable! I think it took us almost 20 minutes to order because everything looked so good! We left breakfast and walked back through the Botanical Gardens to Sydney Harbor before meeting up with my friend, Claire.

Claire and I met almost 10 years ago on a backpacking trip through Ireland and have stayed friends since. She's visited me in the states a few times, and I finally repaid the favor! We walked back to Sydney Harbor and met up at Custom House, an awesome spot that is also a library and then walked the Sydney Harbor Bridge (which was, honestly a disappointment, as the railings prevent you from really seeing anything) into Kirribilli.

This is the only picture I got from the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It's a nice shot, but it was the only picture I was really able to take, and this was after sticking my camera through the bars to get it!

We met up with a friend of Claire's in Luna Park who took us through some really cool parts of Kirribilli. We wandered down to Milson's Point and Lavender Bay and then made our way back.

Claire had to head out but her friend had given us tickets to Luna Park, so we wandered in and rode the Ferris Wheel and visited the Fun House! The Ferris Wheel offered a great view of the Sydney Harbor Bridge!


We took the ferry to back to Circular Quay and then wandered around the CBD, stopping in the Queen Victoria Market for some delicious macarons, and spending an absurd amount of time in a bookstore before heading back to Darlinghurst.

We had dinner at Malabar, an unbelievable South Indian restaurant that transported me back to Bangalore. I haven't been able to stomach Indian food since I came back from India five years ago, but most Indian food in America is North Indian and I about died over the masala dosas that reminded me of South India! We made our way back to our apartment and spent the night on the roof with our AirBnB hosts and some friends of theirs.

Our trip to Sydney was phenomenal! Of course, when we left Sydney on Tuesday morning, we really didn't know we would be back, but I loved it! Sydney has an unbelievable culture and everyone was so nice. Everywhere we went, the food was amazing, and we really just couldn't get enough of Sydney Harbor or it's fantastic sunsets! I loved being in Sydney for the first weekend of spring, but it was time to wrap up our stay and venture up north to Cairns!

I can't wait to share the rest of our trip with you: more about Sydney including the Taronga Zoo and the Bondi to Coogee Walk, our whirlwind trip to Cairns to visit the Great Barrier Reef, and our trip to Melbourne!

1. Travel to Cuba - This hasn't happened, and I'm not sure if it will. I've posted about my mixed feelings about traveling to Cuba before. I'm dying to go, but I want to go the right way. Whether that happens in the next 6 months or not, I don't know. Right now, I don't have immediate plans to travel to the island. 
2. Run a sub-4 marathon - Richmond, I'm coming for you. November 12, 2016.
3. Visit every Major League Baseball stadium (24/30) - I have 6 stadiums left to visit: Miami, Minneapolis, Detroit, Arizona, Anaheim, and St. Louis. With roughly 6 weeks left in baseball season, this might be a tough one to cross off the list. 
4. Cook my way through a cookbook - I haven't forgotten about this one, but I haven't even started. While in Paris, I finally found a cookbook that I want to cook through (after months of searching). I'll be cooking my way through "The French Market Cookbook" by Clotilde Dusoulier. Unfortunately, the movers lost my cookbook (the only item that went missing in my move), so I need to pick up another copy before I can start cooking, but I'm so upset that they lost the copy I bought in Paris at Shakespeare and Company, stamped with their logo! 
5. Do a 30-day yoga challenge 
6. Go horseback riding
7. Blog every day for a month 
8. Buy a designer outfit - This might have to be a 30th birthday present!
9. Go to the ballet 
10. Run another race abroad - This weekend's half-marathon in Vancouver crossed this off the list!
11. Go on another layover with The Pilot - Des Moines, IA - June 2016
12. Take a cooking class with The Pilot
13. Attend a black tie charity gala 
14. Order a wedding album - Our 2 year anniversary is coming up, I definitely need to make this happen!
15. Put all of my photos from my past travels into an album or scrapbook
16. Start writing the novel I have brewing in my mind - I'd like to have an outline done, or at least a full chapter before 
17. Go back to one of my favorite cities with The Pilot
18. See Kenny Chesney in concert
19. Visit another continent. 
20. Pay off my credit card debt
21. PR a race distance other than the marathon
22. Read a book in Spanish
23. Perfect French macarons
24. Go back to Paris with my mama
25. Make a lattice top pie.
26. Master these 30 recipes (i.e. know how to make them without looking at a recipe)
27. Go to one spot in DC and photograph it during all 4 seasons I have two pictures that I've taken in spring. I need to get back and take those shots again this summer to keep this going!
28. Tour the White House - Do you know how difficult it is to arrange a White House tour when you live in DC? Almost impossible. I've applied for a tour through Eleanor Holmes Norton's office every month for 3 months. I'm ready to just call her office! 
29. Take a painting class
30. Visit Carolann in Hawaii
So, I have some work to do! I'm hoping to set a PR in the half-marathon this fall during Richmond training, but I haven't planned any races yet. Just like with my 25 Before 25 list (which started this blog), I won't be devastated if I don't accomplish all of these things, but it's going to be a pretty fun 6 months while I try to get through as many of them as possible!

Sometime between the 7th and 8th grades, I fell in love with country music. It was the year 2001 to be exact and I was addicted to the CMT Top 20 Countdown.

Kenny Chesney's "Don't Happen Twice" was the song that made me fall in love with country music, and subsequently with him. I was obsessed with every single song he wrote. Naturally, I really wanted to see him perform but it just never really happened. I always had some sort of conflict...college graduation, someone's wedding, summer vacation plans, etc.

It's been killing me! I've seen the Goo Goo Dolls (my all-time favorite band) three times, even met them once, but Kenny? Nope. It just hasn't been in the cards. For 16 years, it hasn't been in the cards. Until Thursday night.


Earlier this year, as I've done every year, I looked up his tour dates to see what my chances were and saw that he was playing in Columbia, MD, about an hour outside DC, in May. I kept it on my calendar, knowing that The Pilot wouldn't know his schedule until a few weeks before. When The Pilot finally got his schedule, I knew I had to buy tickets. They were more than I wanted to spend and I went back and forth on it for a few days, and then decided that a 16-year dream is worth spending some money on.

Can I just tell you that when I heard the opening chords to "Beer in Mexico" and he walked out on stage, I actually started crying? The last time I cried at a concert was when I was 13 and saw BBMak. I think I was channelling that same 13-year-old girl energy on Thursday night.

His show was awesome. It was one of the best concerts I've ever gone to and The Pilot and I had the most amazing night!