Yesterday was a BRILLIANT day! I registered with a childcare agency in the morning, and then spent the day at Taronga Zoo with Dan, someone I met in my hostel. The zoo was really good, and I loved seeing the penguins and the bird show. However, I went especially to see a platypus, and both platypus exhibitions were closed. Gutted! It was a nice fun day though, and the ferry trip over from circular quay was beautiful - there are lovely views of Sydney with the opera house and the harbour bridge. The giraffes have possibly the best view of any animal in any zoo anywhere in the world because when they look south they can see over the river to the opera house and beyond, lucky ducks!

After the zoo, I dragged Dan to the cinema on George Street, where we stood for a couple of hours talking to the sercurity men who were stewarding the red carpet premiere of Australia. They wouldn't let us in to stand where the public can take photos because there were too many people there (it was raining there anyway and they all got soaked, haha!), but the non-celebs walked past us to get in and it was lovely to see all the pretty dresses (and all the plebs who tried to walk in casually behind them, only to get caught by the security men!). It was quite fun, and Leah from Home and Away walked right past me! She is beautiful! (Apparently, some guy from Flying Doctors walked past us too...)

It was chucking it down with rain on the public who were around the barriers, but luckily where we were standing was under a shelter. Once the stars of the show had arrived and gone inside, there was a mass exodus and the security men then let us around. Some celebs were still arriving (including Angelo from Home and Away mmmmm!) and then Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman (the stars of Australia) and Baz Lurman (the director) came back outside for photos. Hugh Jackman was gorgeous and Nicole Kidman looked very pretty! So it was well worth it, and THEN when everyone was inside they let us walk down the red carpet, TEE HEE!!!!! I'll put photos up soon.

And THEN I bumped into two of my friends from my diving course, and one of my diving instructors (who actually managed to have his picture taken with Nicole and Hugh!) There are also some really friendly people in my dorm room at the moment and it turned out that half of us had been down on the red carpet so we were swapping stories of our celebrity encounters :)

It was nice to get away from all the house hunting and job hunting for a while, but am back on the trail today. The weather is really miserable so I don't mind being stuck indoors emailing application forms etc. Fingers crossed!