11th March, my 19th birthday!!! Had set an alarm for half 8 then met Will and got on Skype!! Had it on my lap in the room with everyone in but felt teary so moved into Petes empty room. Was just so nice to see Mum and Dad and Mike was there too, I didn't realize he would be! And Charlie bear to top it all off! Might be 19 now but still miss my teddy bear! Managed to say my hellos and hear my happy birthdays before loosing connection when I was switching rooms! Tried desperatly to make it work again, thoguht it was something I had done when I was moving but it was actually Daves laptop which they were on. Mum loaded up the computer in the office though and I got back through to them!! Had such a nice chat with them was so good seeing to them and having a chat but also quite hard, knew it would be! Spoke to mum and dad, then had a chat with Mike. Miss them all so much!! Told them about my mistake moving to Wake Up, saying i'd rather stay with friends on my birthday and they said to just crash and my old hostel if I could, which was right - I made a rubbish mistake but wasn't to know and should just do whats best from now on, it's paid for and done. After saying my bye byes on Skype and seeing the lovely photo they'd put for me on Facebook I logged off and said goodbye to the guys as I was going to meet Valerie. Walked back to my old hostel (was a longer walk back than it had seemed on the way as I'd been bbusy talking to Will, so thought I'd gone the wrong way at one point!). Got back to the hostel and met Valerie and we decided we'd get a taxi to Wake Up - cost $12! Bit steeper than we'd expected but we split it so it wasn't as bad. I got changed and got my bag ready then we walked down to Darling Habrour! It's an area of Sydney I hadn't been before and it was really nice. Unfortunatly the weather wasn't great, raining on and off, but I could imagine it would look gorgeous on a sunny day. Was a really nice place to go though and we went into a cafe where I had a really nice chicken wrap for my lunch! The reason we had gone to Darling Harbour was because Valerie had been the other day and found a Lindt Chocolate cafe and we decided we had to go! I love Lindt chocolate so it was such a treat!! They sold all the Lindt chocolate you could think of, but I opted for a Lindt chocolate hot chocolate which was absolutely delicious, sooo yummy! They did cakes and waffles etc which were unbelievably tempting but $16 each which is a tenner! After choclate heaven we went to the Sydney Aquarium! Had planned to do it on my birthday after my gran had recommended it, and so glad we went, I really enjoyed it! Loads of different things to see... got to see a a platupus which Valerie was really happy about, they were really sweet! I loved seeing the little penguins, they were tiny and sooo cute! Want one as a pet! Saw lots of trpical fish, jellyfish and sea horses etc then we got to see some animals called dugongs which we had never heard of before but they were so cool! We saw 2 out of only 5 in the world in aquariums. They used to be mistaken by pirates for mermaids apparently and we loved them because they looked so goofy and really happy! They were in a massive pool with an underwater walkway to go through, along with some absolutely huge stingrays and a massive turtle!! We then went through ANOTHER big underwater walkway where we saw lots of sharks which were really cool! There was loads about the history of sharks and shark hunting... I was shocked to find out because of hunting there is now only 10% of the sharks there were in the 60s. :( We then got to go to a little bit where you could touch some coral then we saw a tank full of coral and fish from the great barrier reef, can't wait to get there, the colours were amazing! We had a little look in the gift shop once we left then sat by the harbour and looked through the photos as the sun had popped out! Annoyingly, my camera was short on battery but I knew I would want it for the evening... so we had to go back to Wake Up to pick up my charger, before going straight back to Wooduck (my old hostel) as we'd planned. Pretty much doubled our journey, but we did go to a market on the way back where Valerie brought a top. Somehow managed to walk striaght passed Wake Up as we got a bit confused so that made our journey longer.... I am walking SO much in Sydney, at least 2 hours everyday I reckon, probably more. Got my charger when I got back and picked up some PJs then headed to Wooduck. Popped online to upload the photos of the aquarium, then got ready to go out! Got changed and me and Valerie made our way to the Down Under bar (where we'd been for a meal on our started week) - Valerie got a text from her mum to tell her about the earthquake in Japan. Really shocking, but especially shook Valerie up as she lived in Tokyo last year, so was very upsetting for her. Have heard more about it since and it is awful, especially after the earthquake in Christchurch has just happened! We got to the Downunder Bar and met James, Danielle and Ross for a birthday meal. Obviously the mood was sad because Valerie was very upset but it was nice being with them all. Had only planned to have a quick meal but that didn't happen... first i went to order and they said they didn't take card so me and Ross had to walk to a cashpoint to get money out before walking back. We then ordered our food - we knew it took about half an hour last time so knew it wouldn't be that quick, but after half an hour only 3 of our meals came out... we assumed there was just a bit of a wait because we had ordered seperatly but once me, Danielle and James had finished waiting we had to go and ask..... when they printed off the order I made for me and Valeries bolognaise they acidently put it on the "completed orders" pile and not sent it to the kitchen.... so annoying! So meant I had actually ate Ross's bolognaise :-s So we then had to wait another half an hour till their food arrived! It was annoying because we had planned to get to the restaraunt at 7.30 to be back at the hostle for 8/8.30ish. We hadn't got to the restaraunt till 8 anyway then we didn't leave till 9.40! I had really wanted to chill out on the rooftop drinking before we went out, so was feeling annoyed that the order had been messed up. So typical! But we got back to the hostle and had about 15 mins on the rooftop before going outside to catch the party bus to Scary Canaray, the club I'd been to the week before with Andy and Tayo. When we were waiting fo rhte bus I saw Bart from the Kiwi Ex who I had seen the other night - he was coming out for my birthday as I had told him I'd be going to Scary. Was really nice to see him! Got the bus and it got round that it was my birthday so people sang Happy Birthday! Woo! Hadn't really felt like it was my birthday at all but that was cool. Got to Scary and got the free champagne which was delicious, then chatted and danced etc and watched the nights entertainment which was strip Twister! Quite funny to watch things like that, the Andy got the DJ to give me a birthday shout out which was cool! Night got better when I bumped into Nicolai and Partick, our good old friends from the Kiwi Ex!!! Was awesome to see them, I knew they were in Sydney and had told them I would be going to Scary but didn't know if they'd come out. So glad they did! Also saw Dom who was also on the Kiwi Ex so I was a hppy girl. Mike needed to be there too though!!! Wish he had been. I think it was about 2 when a fire alarm went off so we all had to leave but was probably ready to go home anyway.... I''d been chatting to a random girl for about half an hour in the toilets when it had gone off! Went back to Wooduck as I thought I might - didn't really want to get a taxi back to Wake Up on my own. Watched a bit of the news in the TV room about Japan than stayed over in Valeries room. It never did really feel like my birthday but I think thats because birthdays are a lot about family and cake haha and I had neither. Was lovely talking to my family and Mike in the morning though and I am really glad I went to the aquarium, got my Lindt hot chocolate (!) and then got to see so many people from New Zealand. A successful day :-)