Sydney - The Harbour City

And it begins...Crocodile Dundeena's adventures in New South Wales!

Initially our trip to Sydney was supposed to be a road trip...a 12 hour drive from Melbourne to Sydney on Friday morning, and a 12 hour drive from Sydney to Melbs on Sunday. This was all so that we could study for our Heat and Mass transfer test this Wednesday! But Jen and I changed our minds on Friday night when we realized how much there was to see in Sydney. We decided to be troopers and instead booked a flight to fly out of Sydney on Monday night. Essentially this gave us 2 extra days to explore! It was very spontaneous and very un-meenaesque, but definitely something that I am trying to do more often (go with the flow)!! Of course this also means that I only have tomorrow night (Tuesday) to study for Heat and Mass...but my motto this term is "Get your priorities straight! Do not let school get in the way of experiences!" Fair dinkum mates!

Anywho so the drive on Friday morning was heaps of fun...we stopped off in this small town called Albury, where the average age of citizens was probably about 64.3 years. It was cute! Then we stopped in a random little town based on a submarine in the middle of it...seriously this town is known for a random submarine, but its not even real its a replica from WWII. "We all live in a yellow submarine..." is what we were singing. We also stopped in front of a huge marino (baa baa black sheep have you any wool...) ya it was quite random! Thats the best thing about road trips!

Well it seemed like we were driving through the prairies in Canada but the landscape had random trees scattered through it...pretty boring roads! Considering that Melbourne is rainy every single day, I do not know how the country is in drought. But you could finally tell the influence of the drought when we were driving...the grass was NOT green! it was a yellow-green-brown and looked like how my backyard at home looks from about Sept to June. Apparantly, there was a lot of roadkill, kangaroos in particular, but Blake was driving and was kind enough not to say something like..."oh look a kangaroo"...and have us turn around excited only to see cute-used-to-be-hopping-roadkill *tear*.

We got to Sydney and it was CRAZY...so much traffic, lots of nice cars, lots of people everywhere! Just a beautiful place. We got to our hostel called WakeUp! and it was just pure class, the nicest place i've stayed in so far in my travels! We were on the African floor, and there were different themes on different floors.

We had dinner in this HUGE china town, i seriously felt like i was in Hong Kong again! So much bigger than the Melbourne China town! Then we met up with the girls (Jen, Sarah, Ioana) in the city and we went to this lounge called 5 below. So the concept is the same as upper floor of Mynt in Calgary, with the Ice Bar. You pay a certain amount to stay up there for 30 mins, they give you parkas and ugg boots and gloves and you go in this cold lounge and take pictures and hang out and "chill" ahha. sorry i couldnt help it. it was really "cool"! excuse the pun, these jokes suck! Anyways it was sooo refreshing to feel the cold again and see my breath in the air! Even though it was only minus 5 and i could probably have done it without the gloves, its like a health hazard for these australians to be in there longer than 30 lmao but it was fun. There were lots of ice sculptures, including one of the opera house. That night i danced to reggae for the first time in SO long it was amazzin!

On Saturday we walked around to the harbour, what a beautiful sky line it is! I REALLY wanted tickets to the ballet at the Sydney Opera House for that night, they were showing Giselle and i have never watched a ballet in my life! Those of you that know me knew what my obsession with ballet was when i was young! I always wanted to watch Nutcracker but i though Giselle would suffice...sadly tickets were sold out save for standing room...and no one would come with me in a standing spot for 2.5 hours :( So we ended up taking a tour of the opera house which really wasnt as impressive from the inside as it was from the outside. This is primarily because Utzon, the one who won the competition for the design of the structure, was not able to finish off the inside of the house b/c of budget restrictions and change in governments in the 60's...so the outside was developed by him but the whole inside of it was different from the original plan...you can see the 70's style in it which isnt too classy...wood panelling, concrete...just a bit dissapointing! Apparantly they need to do remodelling and renovations but it will cost them way too much to shut the venue down...in any case it was neat to get the whole story! One thing i found interesting is seeing the outer shells of the Opera House up close...I never realized it was all tiled like a mosque! Utzen was inspired by a lot of middle eastern design, and you cant tell from the ground. Definitely a sight to see!

Sunday would have been the day i was supposed to leave, but instead we went to Manly. "7 miles from Sydney and a thousand miles from care"...it was a beautiful little suburb that we got to through a ferry ride from the harbour.

Cards on the beach and shopping, what could be better? The weather has not been amazing here, it was probably only about 18oC, but it was still ok. After that we had the most interesting experience at a particular hostel we were supposed to stay at...Nomads Beached at Bondi...i do not recommend it!

We got there and we had requested a 6 person room for us girls, so we could have a slumber party like back in the day. And the guy was seriously a stoner or something and he didnt understand there was a difference between a 4-6 person room and a 10 person room...his exact words were...."well...uh...sometimes things dont work out u know...it happens..." and "well princesses you can fit 4-6 people in a 10 person room..." and of course the classic "well this 8 person room has 5 spots in it so you can all fit so I dont know what your complaining about" (there were 6 of us). Anyways then after some "conversation" he told us he would just give us 4 rooms and we could decided whatever we wanted to do with them "just to get us out of his hair"! By this point i was ready to punch something. We asked him for keys and he said "Why would you need to lock your doors?". Thats when we turned around and left lol it was the most amusing hostelling experience i've ever had.

Anyways we spent the night at Bondi Beach having quality girl talk time and today we just walked around the shops! it was a bit too cold to stay on the beach, but the houses along the water looked so very mediterranean against the torquoise agains the sea! It was beautiful.

Now i have a day to study, then Heat and Mass test on Wednesday, then I leave for Byron Bay on Thursday morning! Byron is apparantly amazing and it's also in New South Wales. We are flying back on Sunday then I have to cram for another test on Wed in Reactions Eng! Its going to be a busy week :)


Pictures soon! Miss you all :)