Learning to walk upside down...

It's more difficult then it sounds.
Saturday, June 25.
The 14 hour plane ride went straight from Thursday night to Saturday morning. As if the plane ride wasn't bad enough.. then we had to stand in a horrific line at Customs. Everyone had to declare their nutri-grain bars or pay a $500 penalty. As much as the Aussies are famous for being laid back.. let's just say .. the Customs workers were not interested in being anyone's mate.

Sarah's suitcase was lost. We got to the hotel and she went up to the desk and the male clerk said the hotel was due to call in the morning and bring the suitcase by. When he recieve'd it he'd just go up to her room and knock her up. Apparently, in Australia, that means to call someone on the phone. Interesting.

The excitment of the city kept us most of us awake until about 9PM.. then we all passed out.


Our hotel is right by Circular Quay, which is the main tourist harbor area in the city. There are so many different kinds of languages spoken it kind of makes your head spin.

Of course, the most idiotic street preformer on the pier was American. Jessica and I stopped to watch.. because he was playing with some fire tourches and we were hoping he'd burn himself. But alas, he stayed unharmed. Unfortunately I made the mistake of making eyecontact with the bloake and he grabbed me out of the crowd and I became his safety girl/cheerleader. It was not too much fun.. but I got the fame I've always dreamed of. At the end of the show he took a long nail and hammer and drove a nail into his nose.. I had a close view and thought I was going to have to resign my position as safety girl and throw up. But I survived.



Sunday, June 26.
We had a tour of the city and then of the Opera House.

The city tour was wonderful. I hope to explore many of the places further. We saw Nicole Kidman and Russel Crowe's house. The neighborhood was so swanky it hurt my head.

Bondi Beach was great too! There were only surfers out there.. the water wasn't too cold though.





By the way, the psuedo mo-hawk is really in style down here.

The Opera tour was interesting. The place is really interesting on the inside.. not as glamorous as you may think. They also have a wild bird that lives in there and flies around. The wood inside is all Euclyptus... pretty crazy.



The inside of the auditoriums were so beautiful. We walked in during a Sydney Symphony rehersal and the sound was absolutely perfect. It was overwhelming.

At night we had a real fancy dinner on a boat. The food was pretty good.. the crab was really good. The fillet was just okay. But the chocolate dessert was SOOO good. I was still kind of hungry and basically enhaled the thing before I noticed that no one else liked theirs. Oh well.. losers.






That night I was so tired but most of the rest of the group was going out.. so I was like.. eh.. why not? Three of the girls were so adament about going to this one bar (St. Patty's).. it was all I heard that evening. So we get there and there are two tables of all males, and no one else.. but the group decides to get a new table! I was like.. what are they thinking!!

So after a few minutes of politely sitting with my group, I rallied Jessica and Jacienda and though they thought I was crazy, they said they would come with me to talk to the other tables.

Well as it turns out we happened to approach five rugby players from New Whales (the one in Britain!). They were so friendly. We all started to have a really goodtime, and my roommate Anne, joined us quickly. Then after about 30 minutes half of the other group left (including the three girls that dragged us there in the first place). But the three other students migrated over to the other table of guys, who were from Ireland.

We got there around 10:30 and ended up staying there until after 1 AM! The bar singer played singalong classics such as Free Fallin', Coldplay, U2, every Oasis song that ever existed, The Gambler, Country Roads, and Stand by Me (3 times!).. and every single person in the bar knew all the words to every song.. that blew my mind!



I have to say that I was quite impressed with the rugby guy next to me, David. He works at an animal rescue place in Whales and seemed really cool. His accent was crazy.. half british half keltic! He taught me some Welsh words too.. that is the craziest language. He knew a whole lot about American music.. apparently the stuff is everywhere. The guys knew about Nashville too.. though they didn't know where it was on a map. But we taught them how to say Yee-haw and everyone was happy.