The Blue Mountains are not blue, but still beautiful!

Hey hey!
Today was a busy day and it was different because we actually traveled outside of downtown Sydney and took a tour to the Blue Mountains. This included sight seeing of waterfalls, rainforest and "The Three Sisters", one of Australia's most recognizable and famous rock formations. We got up at around 7:00, got some Mickey D's from across the street and got picked up by a coach bus that took us to the bus station where we switched to the actual tour bus. We headed out with about 30 other people on our bus, with an Aussie tour guide and all. On our way to a wildlife reserve, our guide told us facts about Australia like the fact that 85% of the 22 million people live within 50 km of the coastline and that it costs 800 dollars a month to drive to work in Sydney. Random but interesting stuff like that.
After about 35 minutes on the bus, we arrived at the wildlife reserve, where we were greeted by a person holding a baby wallaby. I'm not sure what that is exactly but it was cute and soft and loved to be scratched under its chin! We then proceeded to see all kinds of birds flying around and free jumping kangaroos! They were raised in captivity so they are friendly to people and you can pet them, which we did! There is actually a whole section where you can feed the kangaroos, along with emus, and take pictures and pet them galore. That was a really cool experience. We also got to pet and take a picture with a koala! They are so soft and quite cute. It was really neat. We proceeded to see a tasmanian devil, a wombat, dingos, tons of species of birds and tons and tons of species of kangaroos. It was a really awesome place that you really got to see all the native species of Australia.
We then continued up to the actual Blue Mountains and found because it was overcast, it was extremely foggy and we couldn't see The Three Sisters at first..,it was just a wall of fog. But then, miraculously the fog lifted for about 2 minutes, revealing the Three Sisters. Our prayers were answered! My mom was ready to ask for part of our money back since these rocks are the most famous part of the tour! We got lucky that we saw it for the small amount of time the fog lifted. The next part of our tour consisted of going on a cable car skyline thing that had a clear floor where you could see a waterfall, the Three Sisters and the rainforest below. It was really beautiful and the rainforest and rock goes on forever it seems. Okay, we then went down the steepest railway in the world. This scared me...a lot. I hate roller coasters and I swear this railroad went almost 90 degrees. We were going straight down. It went slow so thank goodness it was not like a roller coaster so it was fun! The track used to take coal up from the valley when there used to be an active coal mine down there. After we got off the railway, we hiked around the rainforest for a little bit, running into a Canadian who had plenty of good things to share about the South Island of New Zealand and Christchurch. He was a talker! Wow, he was spitting out information at us left and right, but hearing all the great things he had to say about NZ and the friendly people has only made me more excited! After taking a cable car back up to the top where there was food and a gift shop, we had a really good buffet. It was delicious. I realized that lemonade in the states is not the same lemonade here. Their lemonade is basically like our sprite, which I thought was interesting. So when I ordered lemonade...I got sprite! Learned a little bit of terminology there. We then headed back onto the tour bus and stopped by the Sydney 2000 Olympic village, seeing where the athletes stayed and some of the big arenas. A trip on a ferry into the harbour was next, and it was neat to see all the really expensive hours lined up along the harbour and entering under the bridge and seeing the skyline. It was really really windy and a little chilly, but the sun was out by this point so it was a pretty scene!
We took a "free" shuttle back to our hotel which we had just found out about and are kind of upset that no one told us about this sooner because we've been paying this whole time! It goes till 6 p.m. so maybe we'll take it tomorrow. Anyways, we went back got changed into some nicer clothes and headed back to "The Rocks" to get some dinner. It seems to be our new hot spot. It's just so nice and has some great eating places there. We went to an Italian restaurant ( I can't remember the name) and got pizza, salad and spaghetti. It was in a really small place, was really hot, but it had character and was quite popular it seemed. After we got dinner we went directly next door to check out this Belgian chocolate cafe. We ended up sitting down and ordering a dark chocolate raspberry cheesecake, coffee and a dark chocolate milkshake. Their milkshakes here are not what they are at home...it literally was chocolate milk. Whoops! I was not expecting that but oh well. The cheesecake was AMAZING. Very very good. We once again took pictures out by the harbour (it seems to have become a must do now) and headed home...or tried to. We were waiting for 40 minutes for a bus to take us back, got frustrated so we started walking to find another bus stop to look for the bust we wanted. Because it's a Saturday night, Sydney was hoppin'. Everyone is going to fancy places or going clubbing. I felt underdressed walking through the streets. All the girls here were wearing super super short dresses or skirts and really high heels, while the boys were in dark jeans and button up shirts. There were long lines outside numerous clubs/ restaurants. It was getting crazy already and this was at like 10:30. It was cool to see Sydney's night life though.
Alright, I'm heading to bed...G'night! Hope all is well back in the States!

Sunburnt and loving it!

Hello again!
This blog won't be as long as yesterday's simply because we didn't do as much and I got to go to bed!!! Sorry in advance for the lack of details that yesterday's post seemed to consist of. Today was still awesome none the less. We woke up at like 9 a.m. and headed out into the beautiful, sunny 75 degree weather. PERFECT for the beach...which is where we went. On our way to Bondi Beach, pronounced "Bon- dye" not "Bon- dee" like we had thought, we stopped at a french cafe. Random kind of, but it was delicious. I got hot chocolate and a chocolate croissant while my aunt and mom got quiche. It was very cute and a perfect way to start to our day.
We continued to walk and bought our bus tickets in a 7-Eleven and went to stand by a bus stop. The bus system here is kind of confusing, we never know which bus to take and where it is going and how far down a certain road it goes. We got on the right bus and headed towards the beach. Because our bags got lost, our sunscreen was limited to face and little bottles that we could not lather up with. Therefore, we were expecting to get burned but that was okay with us. We were going to THE BEACH IN JANUARY. I was fine with the trade off even though I would hate it later (like now).
Bondi Beach is a very popular beach in Sydney but I didn't expect it to be GORGEOUS. It is quite large with rocks surrounding it and it kind of goes into a little cove. Once again cute shops surrounded the beach and the whole atmosphere was great like everywhere in Sydney. The weather was perfect and I was ready to hit the beach. We laid down and relaxed for awhile, walked down the beach and bought some clothes. I bought this really cute Bondi tank top and I'm pretty psyched about my first Australian apparel purchase. After that, we went and soaked in some more rays (this is probably what pushed the sun tan over to sun burn) and left at around 3 p.m. We stopped at a little convenience store that made sandwiches (kind of random) and they gave us a discount because we didn't have a ton of money. They are definitely hospitable here. Every Aussie I've talked to has been more than willing to give us Americans advice or directions. They are SO TAN too. I know it's their summer, but all of them are as tan as Halie it seems. You'd have some competition here, Hal.
So, we left the beach and came back to what seemed like a market in Chinatown with a bunch of food and clothes which we looked around for a little bit. We aren't sure what the occasion was, it could've just been because it was Friday. We then decided to walk into "Paddys" which is indoor market filled with anything you could imagine. It's a tourist's dream. Clothes, toys, sunglasses, hats, everything. I ended up buying 2 pairs of sunglasses for 15 AUD (Aussie Dollars) which is pretty good because I needed sunglasses! We didn't look around too much because I was exhausted, burnt, and let's face it...kind of crabby at this particular part of the day.
We came back to our hotel, got showered and headed back out to "The Rocks" near the Opera House and The Harbour Bridge which I talked about yesterday. They had their own thing going on "Markets by Moonlight". They had music and food and jewelry and stuff. It was cool to be there at night. There were a lot of people there but it didn't seem overly crowded or uncomfortable which was nice. We got a cajun wrap and a Turkish dish which consisted of a pita type thing filled with cheese and spinach and we sat and listened to this band. They were called "The Fiddlers" or something like that. They were really good. Fireworks also went off by the Opera House which apparently only happens once a month but we couldn't really see them which was a disappointment :(
We then went and walked down by the water to document the harbour at night and a Lohrentz photo op, trying to get just the right picture. We walked back and I got some Dutch miniature pancakes drizzled in powder sugar and chocolate. Pretty good way to finish off the day. We rode the bus back to our hotel ( I still can't seem to get used to them driving on the other side of the road....I see people sitting in the left seat and freak out because they aren't driving haha). The bus drivers are crazy drivers here, they have no mercy for anyone! They go fast and bull doze past everything. It kind of scares my mother.
Okay, I'm done. I'm really burnt, tired and have to wake up at 7:00 a.m. tomorrow. Ouch. I'm not sure I want to go on this Blue Mountain tour after all. You'll read all about that tomorrow. Cheers!

Sydney Now, New Zealand Later.

G'Day, Mates!

Okay cheesy I know, but I can't help it...I'm in freaking Sydney, Australia!! I know you may not want to know every single thing that has happened in the past 24 hours +, so feel free to skip over some stuff :) I'm apologizing in advance. I just have so much to talk about!

On Tuesday night at 7 p.m. our journey began. My mom and my aunt tagged along to wish me off. They're great. We first flew from Chi-town to L.A. which was a piece of cake. After a close call of not getting on the flight due to us flying standby and the airplane being at maximum weight (uh oh) we ended up leaving the Los Angeles Airport at 10:00 p.m., enduring a 14 hour flight to Sydney. Now, I don't want to complain too much because we DID make it on the flight, but everyone (a.k.a little children and babies) that would cause me not to sleep on this flight happened to sit right behind me and beside me. Kicking my seat, putting the tray up and down and crying all through the night occured almost the entire time. I couldn't believe it either... it was right out of a movie. Eventually we made it and touched down in Sydney. I was already freaking out because we had a met a family on the plane who were from Melbourne and were coming home. I'm obsessed with Australian accents so I was hooked on this place before I even stepped off the plane.

We then went through customs (drag) and then went to go pick up our luggage that apparently DIDN'T make it on our flight. Woo hoo! Another great travel moment that everyone wishes they could have. So, our bags are coming tomorrow. Luckily we packed a pair of clothes or else that would've not been fun.

We got on a shuttle and went to our hotel, which is near Chinatown which is pretty sweet. We hit the ground runnin' and began to see Sydney. We walked through Hyde Park, which is a really pretty park with so many trees and grassy areas and tons and tons of runners. It's like noon and soo humid and there are people jogging EVERYWHERE. I guess these Aussies want to stay in shape. It's cool because it's easy to blend in here if you don't have a map and camera in tow. They dress very similar to Americans, very casual. It's summer here so there a lot of really cute floral dresses or cute tank tops and sandals. Anyways, there are so many birds everywhere and it was cool to see Aussie's go about their day in this park area. We then went to the Botanic Gardens, which once again were beautiful. So many flowers, trees and bats. Yes, BATS. Hundreds of them were randomly in this part of the garden flying around, screeching and hanging upside down in trees. I heard a tour guide say that they are some of the largest bats in the world. It was kind of creepy because they were really close to my head. We then kept walking until we reached the Sydney Opera House where we saw the Harbour Bridge in the background. The Opera House is gorgeous and although we didn't go inside (too much money for a tour) it was so neat to see such an iconic symbol of Sydney. The Harbour is beautiful and with the sun out it made the scene perfect :) There are so many cute shops and outdoor cafes around the Opera House. It's beautiful and quaint. We then went to a section of the city called "The Rocks". I'm not really sure why it's called that but it is. It's very sweet and there is a market where they sell food and artwork and stuff, so we will probably go back tomorrow. There are shops and restaurants, including a Belgian Chocolate cafe. We didn't stop there but I wanted to so badly! Right up my alley! We did end up stopping at a place called "Wombat in the rocks" which is where they sell "Uggs", which I learned is not a brand in Australia. Every boot made with sheep wool is called an Ugg, no matter who makes it. Now, I did buy a pair. I just had too! I'm in Australia where they are actually made (apparently the ones in the U.S. are actually made in China, so it's different than the ones in Australia) and I needed new boots. They're really cute and I've never seen them anywhere in the U.S. and they're actually cheaper here. So don't judge...please? Okay, some of you are still judging, but I love them!

Okay, almost done I promise! We were exhausted because we barely slept and we had been walking around all day long so we headed back to our hotel after grabbing some snacks at the 7-Eleven and relaxed in our room (watched some Oprah haha) before we headed out for dinner. Because we are right next to Chinatown, we decided to eat some Chinese food. Imagine that? We went to a place called "The Super Bowl". We sat outside and the menu was HUGE. They had everything. I'm not a big Chinese food fan, but I wanted to try it and not be my picky self. I got braised chicken with "chinese broccoli" and fried rice. Nothing too out there. The chicken was prepared differently than I've ever had so I had to get over the way it looks and actually like it for what it tasted like. It ended up being pretty good. My aunt Whitney and my mom got this stuff called Goo Gow, or something like that. Then we went into a souvenir shop (always fun) and got Tim Tam's at a convenient store! They are really yummy and popular biscuits (cookies) here and in New Zealand so I've been told :) They're very good.

Okay, I'm done. For tonight I should say. It's like 10 p.m. here and I gotsta go to bed. So, if you've made it this far, yay! Even if you just skipped to the end it's okay. I'm not sure if anyone is even going to read this but hey, it's cool to think about what you did for the day. Okay, shutting up now. Tomorrow is another day...and another blog.