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G'day mates! And welcome to Australia!! Cannot believe we are here - we are over a third of the way through our trip already! Scary stuff! Just to disappoint you all I will let you know now that the tattoos were NOT real!! lolage! Had you all going for a while though didn't we?!! Anywho, I hear you have been having rubbish weather - not too different from Oz at the moment! Although it hasn't exactly been cold, it has been cloudy since we arrived with showers most days! Never mind, not stopping us from doing anything!! Also, sorry guys but there will be no photos for our first week in Oz on the blog as my (Bekki's) camera broke just before we left South Africa - BUT do not fear as we made a group of friends (we will talk about them later) who have been taking photos for us!! lol. So you can all see them when we get home. And now for the breakdown of our first week in Sydney...
The flight over here on Monday/Tuesday was pretty damn good actually (I never thought I (Bekki) would be saying this - hehehe). Qantas is better than BA & Virgin. We had some games as well as thousands of movies, TV shows & music tracks, had the most delish dinner with ice-cream for dessert, were given snack bags at the start with plenty to keep us going, & had hot choc & peppermint tea during the flight!! Great fun - and relaxing! Arrived at about 2.30pm in Sydney time and caught the train into the city centre where we walked to our hostel. Unfortunately we were in seperate rooms as we couldn't book mixed gender rooms online. Got settled then met up for dinner in the cafe next door. We met a German girl called Joanna who we chatted to and went swimming in the rooftop pool with!! Nice!! The YHA (Youth Hostel Association) is a GORGEOUS hostel incidentally! Too expensive to stay there permanently unfortunately! Never mind!
Wednesday morning we went food shopping (woop!!) at a cheap supermarket and bought there most disgustingly cheap food (and were brought back to reality at the price of cheese!! We are going to miss it so much!!). On our way back to the hostel I (Bekki) turned to Dan & said 'that women next to me looks just like KT Tunstall' so dan looks and says 'It IS KT Tunstall'! We spent the next five minutes staring at her as we walked along being really unsure! We googled her & it turns out she is in Sydney at the moment! So we have seen KT Tunstall! How cool?!! Spent most of the day sitting in the lounge surrounded by tourist info leaflets! In the evening we went to the YHA's pizza evening (Pizza & a drink for $5 - about 2.50pounds (incidently i have just noticed the lack of a pound sign on the keyboard lol)) & met 3 guys. Mohe who is a 33 yr-old Brazilian who has lived in New Zealand since he was 16, Tim who is 24 & comes from Buckinghamshire (he is very peculiar guy - but lovely really!) & Lloyd who is 19 and from Oxford (NOT a uni student there!!). Didn't like Lloyd though after a while - he is sort of rude by not speaking at all when spoken to. We then went to a free Salsa lesson & sangria in the cinema room with these peeps & had great fun attempting to dance!! We met another guy called Graham who is 21 I think from Jersey & a 21 yr-old South Korean girl whose English name is Rosemary (she pronounces it Losemary - so funny!!). We were given free drinks cards for the Scubar (right next to the hostel) so we all went there and chatted and boogied. Went back to the hostel at about 12.30am & sat in the lounge chatting some mroe. Then we got kicked out so sat in the stairway until 2.30am!! Very classy!
Met up with the group in the morning and we all headed off to Manli beach on the ferry for the day. On the ferry journey we could see Sydney Opera house & sydney harbour bridge! But were quite disappointed! The bridge was a bit ugly really and the opera house was nowhere near as big as we could have imagined it! At least we can say we've seen it now though. Had great fun sunbathing & swimming (well, more like being chased by the guys and thrown into the water for Bekki hehehe). When we got back we had dinner at the YHA before going to check in at our next hostel - tis called 'Legend Has It Westend'. Seemed not too bad but not as good as YHA (considerably cheaper though! OZ, well Sydney at least, is more expensive even than the UK! Great for our pocket books!). We stayed in a room with 4 other guys! So very messy & the toilet seat is always up! Never mind, can think of worse things... In the eve we went to Scubar again to boogie & met yet another guy called Jamie - he is Scottish & 19 methinks. (plus quite good-looking! Dan thinks so too - hehehe!!).
Friday was fantastic - we all went to the Sydney Easter Festival that is being held at the 2000 Olympic Stadium for 2 weeks! We saw a freak show, the wood-cutting championships (big woop), part of the biggest work of fiction (a hypnotist show - or not) then went into the food dome where they had loads of free samples of everything from relishes to smoothies to honey to bread! This was classed as our lunch we had so much! In the evening we sat in the massive NVB arena and watched a very american show! Firstly a load of puffed up guys showed off their ridiculously expensive cars - Tim seemed to like this bit! Then we saw some bull-riding!! Hehehe - so much fun! one of the guys doing it was only 15!!! Craziness! After this was some Motorcross which was awesome!!! Loved watching them doing crazy flips etc in the air!! Then there was a massive fireworks & laser display! During this whole evening, they played the macarena a few times and told everyone they would pick the best dancer and they would win $200!! So of course we did it. People were flashed up on the screen and we all went crazy when they put Dan up there! After a few more of these random macarena sessions, they focussed in on the winner... DAN!!! OH MY GOD!!! We could not BELIEVE it!! There he was wiggling his ass in front of thousands of people having just won $200! Was totally Lakka!! More dancing in the evening at the Scubar.
By Sat it was down to just us, Tim, Losie & Mohe as Lloyd had left us all & Jamie was hanging out with Graham who was leaving this day. We went off (after a very sloooow start) on a foot tour of Sydney. Walked through Hyde Park where we looked at a little church, walked through the Botanical gardens, around the harbour, and stopped at Sydney Opera house. Me & Dan went inside to look at the info desk and ended up booking tickets to see an opera next sat!!!! Not too expensive as we have restricted view seats & it is called 'the raging ball' or something like that. Jamie joined us then we walked over the harbour bridge (stupidly long!!) to a fair park thing called Luna Park (but didn't go on any of the rides). in the eve we watched a movie in the cinema at YHA. Back at the hostel, we were in our room (on the 12th floor) talking to jamie & 2 new people in our room at about 1am when the fire alarm went off & we heard fire engines coming our way!!! So we grabbed our important stuff & ran down 12 flights of stairs - to wait outside in the cold for 30 mins and then be told it was a false alarm! Was quite a funny situation though!
Sunday we went on an organised tour of the Blue Mountains with Tim, Losie & Mohe. NEVER AGAIN! The coach driver had THE most monotonous voice ever and did not shut up for the ENTIRE time in the coach!! AND kept repeating himself & telling us things as if we were children!! Anywho, we stopped of at a Wildlife park where we got to stroke a baby wallaby, koalas, kangaroos & wombats & hold a MA-HU-SSIVE python! Sooooo adorable all of them. But we didn't have enough time there really. Then we went on for a buffet lunch followed by stopping at a view point to see the '3 sisters' - 3 large rocks in the blue mountains. We went on a sort of lift thing (you can see it in the blog picture!) over the valley and then into it. Walked for a bit then went on the steepest train in the world back up it! Was well scary! Practically vertical & we were going backwards!! thought we were going to fall out -all you can hear in the video footage is screaming!! hehehe. dropped off for a boat cruise back into the harbour. in the evening, Losie cooked Korean food for us & Tim! & we had korean alcohol with it!!! Was delish! I (Bekki) ate the whole thing with chopsticks!! Incidentally, Sydney is FULL of oriental people! Especially chinese! After dinner Mohe bought a bottle of bacardi so we got a bit tiddly in the dining area and almost fell asleep there! Said goodbye to Mohe as he was leaving early the next day - and he has invited us to stay with him in new zealand!! How cool?!!
Monday morning we had a well-deserved lie-in as we have been getting up at 8.30am & going to bed at about 2am every day!! We went to Darling Harbour festival with Losie & Tim and watched the wierdest of things! Firstly was a classical/rock orchestra playing a mix of songs while flying through the air attached to cables!! Craziness! Never seen anything like it. Then we saw some incredibly slooooow acrobatics. Then some faster acrobatics & slapstick comedy. Very strange. Spent the evening at the YHA cinema watching shrek & having a pop-corn fight! Said a sad farewell to Losie & Tim as she was leaving for Newcastle in Oz & Tim was moving away as well! But we are going to meet up with Losie again as she is in Cairns when we are!!!
Today we went to investigate Pott's Point (which turned out to be a bit rubbish really - nothing over there!). Then in the afternoon we went to the Australian museum which was quite interesting!
So there you have it, first week in Oz over already!! Will have piccis next time as have a new camera - yay!! Please keep sending emails & leaving messages as it is great to hear from you all back home & to find out what you have all been up to!!! Missing you all loads!
love Shiela & Bruce (hehehe)
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