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Apologies for not writing for a while - its been an extremely busy past week. Cant even remember what I wrote last time - Im pretty sure I was in Byron Bay though. So, I guess I will start from there. We arrived in Byron on Sunday (i think!) and settled in. Monday was pretty much spent on the beach - Bryon is a pretty small place and doesnt take too long to explore. So after the day tanning, I left Al at the hostel and decided to walk up to the lighthouse for the sunset over the bay (about a 45minute walk there). so I got about 3?4 of the way, could NOT find the walking path and there was storm clouds looming over the horizon so decided to tap out and go back to the hostel via the beach. which turned out to be a pretty good idea actually as the sunset was awesome. and it didnt rain.
tuesday was spent trying to kill the hours. as i said, there isnt really that much to check out in byron. was tempted to attempt that lighthouse again but gave up and sprawled myself on the beach again for the majority of the day. our bus out of byron was at 5pm and was an overnight job so stacked up on the snacks. note to self - the salt and vinegar oriental snack biscuit things are NOT nice. especially not on long coach journeys when if you feel sick - it isnt fun to deal with! anyway, got NO sleep on that coach and arrived into sydney about 6am. we managed to find our way to footprints hostel (as suggested by steve!) and slept for the morning (well al slept through til 1pm - i unfortunately had to be up at 9am to go chat to ccusa). so I got to ccusa and their first comment was - 'what do you need'. i was told to come in to sydney the day before my interview to go through all my documentation with them and then I get there and they say I dont need to sort anything. so everything was ok and i left CCUSA, and met steve at the town hall - was awesome to see steve again. was strange not to have the rest of the uni crowd around though! so we went and woke al up and shifted ourselves to bondhi beach for some tanning before heading back to the hostel. as i had my interview with the US consulate the next morning at 9am and i had to be at CCUSA at 8am - going out was NOT an option. so we went down the the disney quiz our hostel was throwing. was pretty good. and i was highly im[pressed at my knowledge of the little mermaid for knowing sebastians FULL name (and he has 5). im so sad. so our team came second and we had to rock paper scissors for the prize. i won the rock paper scissors and coincidentally won a free trip to the blu mountains which im gonna do on wednesday (after a weekend of persuading - ive finally got al involved on this one!) after the quiz i went to bedfordshire and al went out with the rest of the quiz people to a pole dance night at scubar. apparantly it was a very entertaining night. my sleep was awesome (this hostel has duvets - SO comfy! now alli need is a bath instead of a shower!)so thursday was quite possibly one of the most frustrating days. i got to ccusa at 8am and was waiting around to get my documents until about 20 past. so i went up to the desk and 20 past, they gave me my forms then asked me where my supporting documents were. they were greeted my a quizzical hannah who asked what they meant. to which they responded that the US embassy requires proof that the applicant is gonna go back to their country of residence - ie forms proving ownership of a car, house, enrollment on a course - that sort of thing. the lady was rewarded for this statement with a hannah who BURST into tears in the middle of CCUSA, and decided to get emotionally angry. what did this woman expect me to do - produce papers out of thin air - papers they should have informed me to bring with me before i left the UK (especially as a week before I left the UK i emailed them asking what they needed me to bring), or at the very least - have told me about these the day beforehand when I purposely went into CCUSA to sort out all these issues. so i printed off a bank statement and hoped that would do. then told the lady that hopefully i would be ok as I have been to work in the US before so hopefully the fact that i returned to the UK after that would act in my favour. the lady then insulted me by telling me i actually looked quite flighty and like i didnt have a clue what i was doing. thanks. oh and THEN she pulls out a australian police check form and informs me that i need to get an aussie police check. this enraged me even more as i was told in november i didnt need to do this. then two days before i flew to thailand i was told i did, then a day later i was told it was a mistake and i didnt. so i DID NOT need to be told 20 minutes before my US visa interview that they had now decided that i needed at australian police check. so i was not happy. however all was fine - got to my interview and they didnt even ask for any supporting documents. that afternoon al and i went up the sky tower (not a good choice as it was cloudy so we couldnt see much) but then went to the opera house and harbour bridge - cant even explain howe awesome these places were! that evening we went to the scubar for a beach party with an aussie guy and english girl from our hostel. al and i were all kitted out with hawaiian lays and everything then we got there to find we were the only ones in beach gear. arg.
friday we met up with steve again and went over to manly - prefer this beach to bondhi - not sure why - less of a tourist trap maybe? who knows! that night, al and i met up with steve, kim (a korean guy in our hostel) and scooby doo (this guy scott we met on fraser island the night al decided to streak through their camp. when we left we said we would all catch up in sydney and he put his name in my phone as scou as he couldnt work it....this just worked its way to becoming scooby doo). was a pretty good night. side bar then this place called the purple sneaker until about 3am. saturday we met this english guy at our hostel and went to darling harbour then over the rocks with him. there were LOADS of wedding parties under sydney harbour bridge that day - must be a popular spot or something! yesterday we didnt do ANYTHING. pretty much wandered the streets of sydney trying to decide what to do. decided i might get the ferry to manly...only to get there and come back as i was bored there. so went to the store, got me some ginger ale and a donut and got the pjs on!
today has rained. boo. however its been pretty awesome. got myself on the bus to palm beach (aka summer bay in home and away). the bus dropped me right at the other end of the bay so i was walking up the beach and walked past the lifeguards place and ended up sitting with them for a few hours. as it turned out, one was from newquay originally, and the other has spent the past 4 summers (or aussie winters) working over on constantine bay (for those of you who dont get the relevance of this - we go on holiday every summer to trevone bay in cornwall which is just around the headland from constantine). turned out he knew all the lifeguards on trevone and knew loads of the people i know. was pretty crazy! apparantly we are heading to the cinema tonight and tomorrow its back to palm beach as home and away are filming up there tomorrow! WOOHOO! watch out for me in the background of some shots - im the crazy one in a GB bulldogs hoody, drenched from the rain, no makeup, waving crazily to the camera....perhaps throwing a scorpion! yey!
h xoxo
p.s., photos ARE coming. i have SO many of my camera - fraser island, noosa, australia zoo, brisbane, surfers paradise, byron and sydney!. be prepared. just cant seem to find anywhere to upload them!
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