Sweet as in Sydney

Sorry this update is pretty delayed...I actually had a rough couple weeks of schoolwork?! But now that I'm done writing every about every possible stat on the Auckland Zoo, and teaching my group members how to use a devil software (SPSS), I can finally fill you all in on my trip to Australia!!!

The journey started on April 19th, and considering it took me minutes to check in to the domestic airport, I didn't think it would be that much more of a process going to Australia. I mean, it's only a 3 hr flight, but silly me wasn't really thinking about the travelling to a different country factor...which also meant I never thought about needing an Australian visa. Luckily, I was able to purchase one at the airport. I was a little frazzled, but extremely relieved when I reached my gate and saw that boarding had just begun.

I arrived in Sydney around 8:00pm and took a taxi to my friend's place that I was staying with for the week. His name is Evan, and like Kurtis, is also a friend from UW-L studying abroad through AustraLearn. I think this experience has already made me more outgoing, as I found myself sparking up conversations with the taxi drivers quite easily. I actually sat in the cab for awhile longer once we arrived at Evan's just talking to the driver, who I found out had lived in Rwanda and witnessed the genocide every day. Absolutely horrifying and if you haven't seen Hotel Rwanda yet, that's pretty much exactly how he described it. Wow, ok sorry for the major downer...but that was definitely a taxi experience that will always stick with me

Once I got up to Evan's, I was floored to see that he had his own room, with a sink, full bathroom, and a spiral staircase up to his bed!! (However, I soon learned spiral staircases are really more for looks than practicality) We pretty much just caught eachother up on the past few months before heading to bed.

The next morning I woke up pretty early for no reason, and headed out to find some place for breakfast. I found a great cafe, but was a little bummed when they gave me cinnamon-raisin toast instead of the french toast like I ordered. Luckily, it actually hit the spot and I ended up going back there a couple times later in the week just for the toast. I sat there for a little bit reading "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People" for my leadership class, when Greg (the guy I met in Rotorua) texted me and said he was about to start exploring the city. So we met up soon after and headed straight to the Opera House!! It was probably a 40 minute walk from Evan's, but so worth it. Any time I ever saw the Opera House on TV (especially during the 2000 Olympics), I thought to myself, I WILL see that in person one day. Since the building is so iconic, seeing it right in front of you and fullfilling a dream just made me realize how incredibly lucky and grateful I am. We took heaps of pictures, like any good tourist would before heading on to our next destination.




We didn't really have anything in particular that we wanted to see after the Opera House, but we knew we weren't done exploring. So we ended up at the Contemporary Art Museum. Art has always interested me, but this contemporary art was insanely fun and whimsical and I LOVED it! The featured artist was this crazy asian woman (Yayoi Kusama) who was often photographed wearing a bright pink wig, and her OCD was definitely evident in the plethora of pieces that included hundreds of thousands of little dots.


After that, we walked through a tunnel of trees in Hyde Park and watched some grown men in business atire play a very serious game of oversized chess. The weather had been toying with us all day, and it started getting pretty cool. So before we parted ways, we stopped at the Sky Tower to make reservations for dinner the next night.



I didn't get too far before taking a snack break at a cafe, and found a computer to try and get in touch with the Folkmans. I actually went to high school with Max and Nick Folkman, and they have been studying in Wellington for the past year and found out they were also in Sydney for their holiday. We managed to get in contact and I met them for pizza. They're both incredibly passionate about the film industry, and have taken full advantage of every opportunity they've had since they've been abroad.

We all went down to the harbor for gelato before saying goodbye, and I was feeling lazy and took a taxi back to Evan's. Luckily I didn't eat too much with the Folkman's because when I
came back to the apartment, I forgot they had plans to grill out on the roof. We made asparagus and Kangaroo burgers and I actually really liked it! I called Greg to come over and we all played some card games before heading out.

The next day I did some exploring on my own, and took a bus down to the Wildlife World, which is a mini enclosed zoo. I finally saw some koalas!!! :) Right next to that building was the the Aquarium, which was pretty neat because it had a couple tunnels of overhead aquariums so there were literally sharks swimming right over my head! So cool! After that, I headed back to Evan's to get ready to meet up with Greg and Keely at the Sydney Tower Restaurant. The restaurant was at the top of the tower, and rotated 360 degrees while you ate and took in the incredible scenery of Sydney at night. The dinner was buffet style, but definitely the best buffet I've ever had!!! Though my wallet didn't appreciate it, treating myself to a nice meal with fine company felt pretty awesome, and it was totally worth it.


My fondest memory of Australia is probably the trip that Evan and I took to the Blue Mountains in Katoomba, which was about a 2 hour train ride north of Sydney. On the way, we were talking about bungy jumping, and a guy sitting across from us joined in on the conversation and we went back and forth comparing stories of our adventures. His name was Rich and was from London, and just travelling around for awhile. We found out he was also going to see the Blue Mountains, so when we got off the train, we invited him to come with us. We bought a hop-on/hop-off bus ticket and our first stop was to take a cable car ride across a valley with an incredible view of the Three Sisters rock formation.



From there, we went on a little hike on a trail that was designed for tourists to see what's left of the coal mine that it used to be. We had heard there was a ruined castle fairly close by, but you had to go off the beaten track to find it. All three of us were up for a little exploring, figuring it would only take us about a half hour max to reach our destination. Wrong. We walked for about 10 minutes before coming to a couple who said they were doing the same thing until they reached a sign saying it was another 5 km to the castle, so they turned around. We decided it would only take us another hour to walk a 5k, so we kept going. (wrong again). It wasn't until we had hiked/climbed up and over rocks another hour and ran into another couple who told us it was actually another 4 hour walk to the castle, until we collectively decided we weren't going to make it to our original destination. However, they did advise us to climb the Golden Staircase because it was "magnificant". We reached the so called "Golden Staircase"....and couldn't figure out what was so "golden" or "magnificent" about it. It probably didn't help that we were already exhausted, hungry, and not looking forward to hiking all the way back. But we managed to work up the energy to climb the stairs that were legit metal stairs in some places, and rock climbing in others. The view was spectacular, and I was actually glad that I forgot to pack tennis shoes, which meant I only had flip-flops...which resulted in doing most of the hike barefoot. Feeling the cold water between my toes was the only thing keeping me cool. When we were getting close to the top, we ran into more people who were asking where we were coming from. That was our first clue that they were coming from a different path, so when we asked where they started, they said the road up top! We were SO relieved to hear this, because that meant we could walk on the road back to where we started, which turned out to only take a half hour, as opposed to the 2 hours it took to get there. What an adventure!!

We made it back to Sydney that evening, which was a great way to end my trip!! I wish I could have seen more of the country, but it was time to head back to Auckland, as I had volunteered for a weekend excursion of doing some environmental work on one of the nearby islands. That's all I'll write about that for now though, because I'm too excited to write about my newest trip from this weekend!!