we left the gold coast at 8:00pm on thursday night and hopped on a coach bus for what we were told would be a 10 hour drive. as if 10 hours isn't bad enough, it was a lie. more like 12 1/2. the bus had to stop every 2 1/2 - 3 hours for the bus drivers to switch off, and bathroom breaks for the 200+ students i was traveling with. i took some dramamine and slept most of the way, but of course sleeping on a bus is not a great sleep and i was exhausted when we arrived in sydney on friday morning around 9 am. we got to grab some brekky, move our stuff into one of two rooms, and change our clothes, wash our faces, etc. very quickly before our tour guides took us on a walk around the city.
we were exhausted, but the walk was still pretty sweet. we got to walk through hyde park, the royal botanical gardens, up the steps of the opera house, and on top of the harbour bridge which was terrifying, not only because i am afraid of heights but also because it was a windy windy day way up there and i was pretty convinced i was going to fall off into the ocean and wash up somewhere in melbourne. it did not happen, don't be alarmed.
we stopped at a food court at a mall to get some lunch. i ate at healthy choices, which they have at pretty much every mall around here. they make fresh sandwiches and salads and stuff and are way more delicious and healthy than... say... macca's or something. hehe, macca's is what they call mcdonald's here, fyi. =]
after the walk was complete we got to move into our rooms in the hostel, which, turns out, my room was one of the rooms where people were keeping their stuff for the morning, so i was trying to take a quick blink and there were people walking in and out all over the place trying to get their stuff situated. finally we got showered and dressed up and ready for the activities for the night aka booze cruise in the harbour. the entire time we just floated back and forth under the harbour bridge and past the opera house and all the beautiful city lights and had to keep telling myself, girl you are in sydney, australia because it was just so unbelievable.
the next day was an optional "hike" in the blue mountains, about an 1 1/2 bus ride away from our hostel in downtown chinatown. my friends and i opted out of the hike and decided to take a walk around darling harbour. on the way there we stopped at paddy's market to find some supplies (aka bright green afro wig) for mardi gras. then we accidentally wandered through festival indonesia which was interesting. we stopped for a bit to listen to some legit indonesian music and check out some of the snacks they had set up, although did not actually try any of them. we went further down the boardwalk and had a drink for lunch, ran into some friends who were also in sydney for the weekend, and basically just had a very chill, relaxing afternoon in preparation for the night ahead.
well, if you haven't seen the pics on facebook i suggest you look at them because there is really no way that i can do the things that i saw justice in writing. and those pictures aren't even the half of it - i can only capture so much, i am only one person. we had dinner at the gaf, a bar right off of oxford street where the parade was held. so we got to eat dinner and have drinks while the parade raged on only feet away from us. it was absolute insanity. it was difficult to see a lot of the parade because there were so many people lined up on the street and there weren't as many floats as just men in butt-less chaps dancing down the street. did i mention mardi gras in sydney is also the gay and lesbian pride parade? right. that may or may not change things.
after some dinner and drinks we walked around a bit to try to get a better view, and then stopped at another bar to rest. we met some nice australian boys from sydney who said they would be happy to take us to a club, wallaby, in darling harbour. they promised it was just a short walk. they are liars. i still do not believe that they are even from sydney because they had no idea how to get to darling harbour, and the walk felt like it took hours. and to make things even more ridiculous, one of them thought he needed to take a bathroom break behind a bush, and almost got us all arrested by the rangers. ughhh. well, needless to say we made it to the club and ended up having a very fun and exciting time. dancing the night away and such. you get the idea.
the next morning we got up bright and early to pack up the buses, grab some brekky, and head off for a cliff walk along the beaches. we saw tamarama, bronte, bondi... i apologize i can't remember them all but they were beautiful. it was kind of an overcast day so the air was nice and cool, and i got some pretty fabulous pictures overlooking the ocean. well, by the time we got to our final destination, bondi beach, famous for, among other things, the reality tv show bondi rescue, which one of our tour guides is actually on. so, turns out i met a famous australian reality tv star. too bad i've never seen the show, or any show for that matter as i do not have a tv.
sadly, it began to rain shortly after we arrived to the beach so we took a short walk around the boardwalk, went to a market which was cool and i could have spent hours at if not for the rain, so we ended up going to hotel bondi, where we had a few drinks and sat for six hours watching and trying to figure out the cricket game that was happening on the tv in the bar. cricket is a very confusing sport, which is why i think it has never became popular in the states. not to mention it is the most boring to ever to watch. it's kind of like baseball, but even baseball seems exciting compared to cricket. anyway, that was quite the long afternoon, but we had some dinner and around 7:30 hopped on the bus for the 12 hour bus ride home.
we arrived home around 6:30 on monday morning and i lugged my suitcases up into my room, into my bed, and crashed, still wearing my bathing suit full of sand and cover up. i woke several hours later spooning my suitcase in a puddle of sand. there is no other way the weekend could have ended. it was fabulous. i love sydney and want to move there forever. the end.
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