G'day! After a 15½ hour flight, we landed in Sydney at 7:30 AM local time and hit the ground running. Below are images of our very busy, and quite unforgettable, first day in the land Down Under.

Our first Australian sunrise and cup of coffee happened on our Qantas flight. Even without sleep, we were giddy.

This trip will be in segments. Our first stay is at the excellently chosen Meriton Suites in the Commercial Business District. What an ideal location for wanting to really walk and explore.

Everywhere we looked, the architecture delighted us.

Even the streetsweepers were adorable.

Our main destination was the Australian Museum. "Nature, science and culture meet at Australia’s first museum (1857). Complete with immersive exhibitions and interactive experiences, a visit to the Australian Museum is the perfect day out for families, kids of all ages and the young at heart – plus General Admission is now free!" It was also a great place to get out of the rain and its Watering Hole proved to be the perfect lunch spot, too!

This exhibit was a must. With more than 850 endemic and migratory species, Australia has one of the most diverse and abundant bird populations in the world. The continent is home to more species of sea birds and a higher diversity of parrots than anywhere in the world. It also has two of the largest – and quirkiest – flightless birds.

Tn this exhibition we came face to face with familiar and unfamiliar birds alike, from the iconic cockatoos and “budgies” to the stunning Regent Bowerbird and adorable Little Penguin.

We weren't expecting dinosaurs.

The T-Rex autopsy exhibit was really cool.

Our stroll through Hyde Park really brought home the fact that we were in Sydney.

Australia’s oldest park is also one of its most well-known. Hyde Park offers over 39 acres of wide open space in the heart of central Sydney.

A visit to the post office and a mailbox is always a must!

When I saw this I seriously thought about doing it. The FRIENDS™ Experience: The One in Sydney gives people the opportunity to step inside the world of FRIENDS™ and experience our favorite show like never before.

It commemorates the songs of 50 birds once heard in Central Sydney, before they were gradually forced out by European settlement. The calls change as day shifts to night. The daytime birds’ songs disappearing with the sun, and those of the nocturnal birds, which inhabited the area, sounding into the evening.

So many statues, so much history to be learned!

This year's travels begin with a trip Down Under. This is our first time to Australia and beyond. We are extremely excited and ready to discover all south of the Equator has to offer.

This news just made me so sad. By the end of this year, PostNord will stop delivering letters to the Nordic nation of Denmark.

This was the most shocking part of the article, "PostNord said the number of letters in Denmark has decreased by 90% since 2000, and by more than 30% in 2024 compared with the year before."

"We have been the Danes’ postal service for 400 years and therefore it is a difficult decision to put a bow on that part of our story,” PostNord Denmark chief executive Kim Pedersen said in a news release. “The Danes have become more and more digital which means that there are very few letters left for us to handle today, and the downturn continues so clearly that the market for letters is no longer profitable."