Sydneysiding
I woke up to the Tasman Sea below me. As soon as I landed I was asked for my yellow fever vaccine. I broke into a sweat knowing I hadn’t brought it with me, hadn’t even thought about it. They sent me into another line and looking through my phone I was lucky to find the picture of it from going to Tiputini. The officer told me they were very serious about the vaccines; they didn’t want yellow fever back in the continent. I only understood once I was finally out in the Australian sun taking the ferry to Manly and Q station, the quarantine island where hundreds lived and died to prevent epidemics from spreading in Australia til the 80s. View of Sydney coming back from Manly Manly’s beach was beautiful yet I was mostly fascinated with the first cockatoo I saw by a street light. I stared at it for as long as I could in disbelief, taking endless terrible pictures; I had only seen cockatoos with wings cut and in cages. I also couldn’t believe more people weren’t as amazed