Mom

Dear Mom,

I’ve been saving this letter for you! On Sunday my flatmate and I woke up to a beautiful, sunny day, so we went to the botanical gardens.

Our apartment is close to downtown, so there are lots of cool places we can walk to. To get to the gardens, we walked north, past Hyde Park, the Australian Museum, and the Parliament building, then followed the road as it curved into the gardens. The main road there is called Mrs. Macquarie’s Road. I’m not sure who these Macquaries were, but their name is all over this city (i.e. the name of my school). I like the idea of Mrs. Macquarie being a gardener, like you, and while Mr. Macquarie had institutions and buildings in his name, Mrs. Macquarie got the gardens in hers.

The gardens are sprawling and maze-like. We got lost a couple of times, and the confusing signs made me feels like Alice in Wonderland. There are sections for different kinds of plants—succulents, herbs, and a fernery, which was in a cool wooden structure.

The blazing sun we had woken up to quickly dimmed, but that left us with a strange light that was amazing in photos. The clouds look like smoke to me in some of these photos. The contrast with the buildings is unreal—it kind of looks like Sydney is burning down.

This is my flatmate, Chrissy.

She grew up in Dresden, went to university in Munich, and has traveled all over the world. She has amazing stories from her travels. She told me about a time when she and her friend had traveled to Madagascar and were staying on a remote island off the mainland with only locals around. Their tent was robbed, leaving them with no money, no food, no passports, and no means of transportation. Over the next two days, they had to find their way to the capital, then go to the embassy and call their parents for help. Can you imagine getting that call?

Then again, if that happened to you and you made it, I guess you’d feel like you could do just about anything.

From the gardens, we walked up to the harbor, then around that area, which is called Circular Quay. That’s where the opera house is. I was surprised when I saw it up close—it looks so sleek and modern in photos, but up close, it’s kind of dingy and retro-looking.

We came across the Aroma Festival on the opposite side of the bay, in an area called the Rocks. There were booths selling coffee, chocolate, tea, and food. This is the great thing about wandering: I had seen signs advertising this festival when I first got to Sydney and had wanted to go, but I didn’t know when or where it was. By exploring, we just stumbled across it.

I miss you and love you so much!!

Love,

Meagan