2 Crazy Sheilas

It’s been a while since I wrote last but this past weekend makes up for it. Friday morning (and we’re talking before the sun has come up which isn’t usual for me) Claire, I, and our friends Nichole, Matt, and Brenna got up early and caught our 6:00 a.m. flight to Sydney. I was lucky enough to get a window seat and watch as the sun came up slowly over the clouds turning them from dark, blue and gray to that pearly white.

Once we landed, grabbed our bags, and caught a train into the city we headed off to find our hostel. It was my first time staying in a hostel and if I were to be honest I was a little nervous that we’d end up with bed bugs or some other horror story. We didn’t take much time to look around as our new roomates, a couple cute guys from England, were still asleep. So instead we headed off to find the Sydney Opera House.

To get there we went through The Royal Botanic Gardens which might sound dull but was the complete opposite. Once past the iron gates there were numerous statues, fountains, streams, spiders (for those of you who know me I’m sure you know these were not my favorite) and plants of all sorts. But the most surprising feature was the Flying Foxes (also known as Fruit Bats) that were flying around in daylight and hanging in huge gangs in the trees. We made our way out of the gardens and as we turned the corner caught our first glimpse of the Sydney Opera House. After taking many pictures, which we referred to as the “Mom Pictures” since that’s who would appreciate them most, we decided to take a tour of the huge famous building.

Inside we learned about the unique construction of the Opera House which was supposed to take three years and seven million dollars but instead took over a decade and cost 102 million dollars! We were able to see where many performers have come from all over the world to get the unique acoustic sounds and even saw ballet performers rehearsing.

After the Sydney Opera House we took a ferry ride as the sun set behind the Harbour Bridge and sail boats passed by lazily. After this we went up the Sydney Tower and looked out at the entire city lit up in the dark. The lights looked liked a blanket of stars going on forever.

Our second day started out early on a tour to the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney. We stopped, first at the ANZ Stadium where the 2000 Olympics were held and then at the Scenic World where you could explore the Blue Mountains. Much of it reminded me of the Dells in Wisconsin with ferns and rocks everywhere but it was still interesting as Claire and I took the steepest train down to the bottom.

The big attraction of the area is three rocks called The Three Sisters. In an aboriginal story the rocks are believed to be three sisters turned to stone by their father with his kangaroo bone wand to protect them from a monster called the Bunyip. After the father turned them to stone he turned himself into a lyrebird but lost his wand and spent the rest of his time digging in the ground for it.

Next we went on a little hike on a path that Charles Darwin took in 1836. We had an AMAZING view of bluffs and Wentworth Waterfall. The Blue Mountains we learned appear blue because of the vapor given off by the eucalyptus leaves. On the way back us girls took a wrong turn but luckily our tour guide got us back on track and were able to go on to see some kangaroos in a campsite that were literally only a couple feet away from us. After taking some long naps on the bus on the ride back to Sydney we all went out for some drinks and fun in the city. When we asked the person behind the desk at our hostel where a bottle shop was she told us to go down a nearby street which ended up to be filled with homeless people settling into their makeshift beds. We quickly got out of there and went on with our night.

Our last day in Sydney started off slow but by afternoon it picked up when we climbed up one of the Pylon’s from the Harbour Bridge to get an amazing view of the Sydney Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, and the many ships passing by. Later on we took one of those ferries to the Aquarium which was one of my favorite activities. It had all sorts of aquatic animals from a lazy crocodile to sharks to seals. There were sea horses, octopus, lionfish, HUGE CRABS and colorful coral. There were sea snakes and frogs. But the best were the underground grass tunnels where sharks, rays, and sea turtles swam over our heads. We sat at the last tank and just stared for what seemed like forever as the brightest little fish swam past among the sharks. All of this watching fish made us hungry so we walked around the harbor to find a great seafood place to enjoy our last night in Sydney. It was a great weekend that went way too fast but Claire and I are planning on returning this winter (your summer).

-Miranda

Guess what??? I spent the weekend in Sydney!!!!

So if any of you had read my previous post I’m sure you know by now that I spent my weekend in Sydney.  I can’t even to begin to explain the fun that I had and my love for the city.  Apart from it being my first time in New South Wales, and Sydney at that, it was also my first time staying in a hostel.  When I thought of staying in a hostel I thought of the horror movie, Hostel, when a few students go to stay in one and dont come out.  I’m glad to say that I did come out alive, with good regards to the place I stayed and even better of the people I met while staying there.  There were people staying there from all over the world, but mostly Europe. I can’t wait to meet other cool travelers on my other stays in future travels!

Okay so I guess you all want to know what I did on my weekend, well you asked for it….brace yourselves this might get long!

Friday morning (approximately 4 a.m.) the five of us got into the taxi to make it to the airport in time for our 6 a.m. flight to Sydney.  With tired eyes and messy hair we arrived at 7:30 a.m. and headed straight to the Harbour City Backpackers Hostel to drop off our backpacks and head out to the city and see some sights.  We all decided right away that we wanted to go straight to the city center (a.k.a. The Rocks district) and see the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.  To get to the harbour we walked through the Botanical Gardens in the middle of the city.  I couldn’t believe the beauty of the gardens, all the exotic plants and animals, especially the fruit bats, which are also called flying foxes. There were literally thousands of them in the trees hanging upside down, flying around and making noises.  Let me tell you I have never seen a bat any bigger in my life, they were like small airplanes (okay I may be exaggerating a little bit), but I did feel like I was on the set of Jurassic Park! It was amazing to see bats that size and in that number.  I read a little later that day how they were actually more of a pest animal because there are so many living in the gardens, and that they are ruining the plant life in the garden, but garden officials can’t seem to get rid of them.  I guess they keep coming back because of the safe habitat and abundance of food.  Well I’ll tell you it was an amazing site!  I also got to see a lot of cool plants and some of the biggest spiders in my life in the garden (some things I saw I liked more than others, eh hem, the spiders were not my favorite)!  Other than that it was an amazing garden and I was very impressed with it.

After the garden we headed to the Opera House.  I was ecstatic when I first saw the Opera House.  I was such a wierd feeling to be seeing something that I have seen to many times in pictures and on TV shows, but to be looking at it in person was awesome! After about a thousand pictures from every angle we decided to take a tour of the building, which I was skepitcal about at first, but so glad I did it in the end.  I learned to much about the building that I didn’t know before, like that the building was designed by a Danish man named Jorn Utzon in 1960, in which his winning design was part of a contest.  I also learned that his design of the Opera House broke many of the contests rules and that it was a late entry, so it was thrown out.  But because of a guest celebrity judge who insisted on looking at the thrown out designs (due to his lateness to the judging of the some 200 designs) he picked Utzons design as the winning one.  Utzons design was really cool because it mirrored a lot of the shipping industry that surrounded it in the harbour, such as the peaks of the Opera House, if you look at it from the inside it looks like the hull of a ship, and the front windows which are representative of a captains room in a ship.  Wow I sound like a boring history freak huh, sorry, I just thought it was cool!  All in all it was an awesome tour and I can’t wait to go back to Sydney before my departure back to the States and go to a show there. 

After the Opera House tour we decided to go on a cruise around the harbour, which was perfect timing because we got to see all of the Sydney skyline, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge at sunset!  It was a nice day, but it wasn’t over! We then went and had a few drinks before going to the Sydney Sky Tower to see the whole city from 80-90 some stories at night.  We got some really cool views and pictures of the city we had just looked at from the harbour.  After that it was getting pretty late and being that we had been awake since 4 a.m. and had to be awake and ready to go to the Blue Mountains the next day at 8 a.m. we decided to head back to the hostel and call it a night!

8 a.m. came pretty quick and before I knew it I was jumping on a bus and heading east to the Blue Mountains.  The name is due to the blue color of them, which is due to the vapor given off by all of the Eucalyptus trees.  I was impressed to see that they were actualy quite blue! On our way to the mountains we stopped at the Sydney Olympic Park, where the Olympics were help in 2000 (I think).  It was cool to see a place where such big games took place at and see the grandeur of it all.  After our quick stop it was straight to the Blue Mountains.  No offense to Aussies but their mountains are a little more like our foothills or bluffs if you ask me, but hey this is coming from a girl who goes to the rockies every year!  The touristy part of the Blue Mountains are a rock formation called The Three Sisters.  It was pretty cool because the name was given after an old Aboriginal Legend.  It was said that there was a man who was an Aboriginal wizard with three daughters who lived in the mountains, and there was a beast called a bunyip that lived at the bottom.  So every time the father left his daughters he hid them behind a rock wall and told them not to leave.  One day his daughters were messing around and a rock slipped and fell to the bottom of the mountain which woke up the bunyip and came after the girls.  The father heard the rock slip and ran to find the bunyip cornering his three daughters so he used his magic stick to turn his daughters into rocks, for the meantime, to save them.  At this point the bunyip went after the father where he turned himself into a bird, flew away into a cave and waited there until the bunyip went back to sleep.  When he came out he realized that he had lost his magic stick and couldn’t turn himself or his daughters back.  It is said that there is a lyrebird (the fathers bird of choice) still at the bottom looking and pecking at the ground looking for his magic stick to this day!  It was pretty cool because we did see a lyrebird at the bottom of the mountain!!

After seeing the Three Sisters we went on a hike to see a really cool waterfall and took the trail of a few famous explorers, including Charles Darwin!  The waterfall was probably the biggest I have ever seen and I was very impressed with it and the trail! After getting back to the bus we headed back to Sydney, with a kangaroo site stop.  When we got back we decided to go out on the town! We went out at Darlight Harbour to a few bars with some of our hostel roomates and had a really good (and late) night!

After recovering from our night on the town, by sleeping in, we headed to the Harbour Brigde Pylon lookout.  The Pylon lookout is at the top of one of the brick columns of the bridge.  From the top we got an aerial view of the whole harbour, including the Opera House, famous Luna amusement park, and the city center.  It was pretty cool because we learned a little of the history of the bridge and got some really great views as well.  After that it was off to lunch at a rooftop bar and then some mingling and meandering through the city to the ferry.  We took the ferry over to Darling Harbour to go to the Sydney Aquarium.  The aquarium was a pretty cool place, with lots of Great Barrier Reef fish (wish has me exicted to go in a month or two) and from Antarctica and other places in the southern hemisphere.  We went to the aquarium later in the day on a Sunday night so we were almost the only ones there which was really nice! I think we hung out in the shark pool tunnels for about 45 minutes!  Seeing so many fish got us all thinking of fish for dinner so we headed to a resturant along Darling Harbour and had a good last meal in Sydney.  We then headed back to out hostel to pack up and get a good four hours of sleep before the taxi arrived at 4:30 a.m. to get us on our 6 a.m. flight back to Melbourne!  We got back to Melbourne reluctantly (classes were not the first thing I wanted to do when I got back from a weekend of little sleep and lots os activities) and back to the real world. 

Although at the end of my weeked I was as grumpy as can be due to little sleep and the weighing thought of classes all day I can still say that it was a great, amazing, awesome weekend and I wouldn’t change a thing! One thing that I am happy about is that I will be going back to Sydney in a matter of months to do the things I didn’t have time to on my short weekend! It is said that people of Sydney and Melbourne have a rivalry as to which city is better and I can honestly say that I love both cities and if I could be in two places at once…well you get it

Anyway its the big birthday week for Chisholm residents, I think theres about 7 birthdays this week, so we’re heading into the city for taco’s and half price cocktails to celebrate! I’m going to take advantage of tonight because after that I have to get into my school work, as I only have three more weeks of class left then its on to New Zealand and all around Aussie!

If your eyes hurt because you’ve been staring at the computer screen for a lengthy time now you can’t say I didn’t warn you! I will write again when I do more fun things! Until then hope all is well!!

~Claire

P.S. Will put up pictures of all of my adventures when I figure out how!

Hi all!

So you all probably think I’ve fallen off the face of the earth since I haven’t written in so long but I am alive! I’ve been pretty busy actually, which may be why I haven’t found time to write! Anyway, life in OZ has still been great, and full of fun times with new friends and old (eh hem Miranda). Between papers and biology labs I’ve been having a good time.

The other week it was Nathional Netherland Day, or as the Dutch call it, Queensday….OR as I like to call it, Orange Day (because orange is Hollands national color) and a few of us decided to join Shoes and K in their celebrations. Shoes, K, Anne, Jane (an Aussie friend) and I rounded up all the orange clothes we could find and headed into the city to start the celebrations. We had a lot of fun drinking dutch beer, eating dutch food, and watching dutch clog dancing (which by chance Shoes and K said they have never seen oddly enough). Let me tell you I thought that being from Wisconsin I knew how to party but boy was I wrong, the group at the venue were party animals! I could have sworn it was Octoberfest in LaCrosse! All in all I had a really good time!

Last weekend, starting with Thursday, Miranda and Jane and I headed into the city and had our favorite $10 Pot (which is a half pint of beer) and Parmas at Father Flanagans for dinner and headed back to college for a little get together with some friends.  We wanted to keep our night a little quiet as the next night was the Chisholm Suitcase Ball!

The Chisholm Suitcase Ball is an annual semester party where a suprise weekend get-away is drawn for.  Basically they draw your name out of a hat and if you win you have 20 minutes to pack your bag and you get swept away for a weekend vacation! Needless to say I didn’t win, nor did I expect to as I am usually unlucky when it comes to drawings and raffles and such. Another fun thing about the Chisholm Ball is that its a theme party. This year the theme was “A day at the races” (and by races they mean horse races, not nascar ). Unlike the States with horse racing, the women wear facinettes (feathery clips) in their hair, not hats, and I am proud to say that I made my own! The girls wore dresses and heels and the guys wore suits, and let me tell you the guys looked good, you know, after they washed years worth of dirt off of themselves and got a clean shave :)!  The venue was a really nice hotel and the open bar was a plus, for some anyway, as I am proud to say I may have been one of the few girls that could hold themselves together and not lose my dinner…. Anyway the night ended up being really nice and I had a really fun time!

Saturday night it was a friends birthday so a few of us headed to the party street in Melbourne, Brunswick street. We went to a pub that was playing 90’s music (think Ace of Base, Salt n Pepa kind of music) all night! I’ll tell you I now know what it feels like to say “Oh the good old days!” Anyway Miranda and I had a blast reliving the past with our new OZZY friends!

The rest of my weekend was pretty much spent recouperating and getting ready for the week ahead! So far this week I have gone to a few classes and had a few lattes, nothing special, and have been looking forward to my weekend trip to Sydney! Miranda, I and a few other Wisconsinites are heading out tomorrow (Friday) and coming back on Monday so I will tell you all about my trip upon my return. But I should really be going as I have to be awake in three hours to go to the airport for my exciting weekend!

Hope all has been well in the US!

~Claire