Sydney

Remember when I said everyone went away for Easter Break? Well so did we!!! To Sydney!

Beautiful, yes?

We were some of the people that left on Easter Sunday to start our adventure.

Ya know how traveling is kind of hard? You basically have to pack up your life for however many days, rush to the airport, wait forever, and then live in a grimy place that is nothing like home.

Well, doing all of that sucks a lot more when you don't have a car.

We had to get to the airport like everyone else. Except for the fact that we couldn't just drive there.

First, we got on the tram outside our house. Then we went to the train station. We took a train to another train station, got off and took another train to another station. When we finally got to Southern Cross we were done with trains. From there we had to hop on a shuttle bus that took us to the airport.

[In between all of this was copious amounts of waiting.]

On the tram with our luggage.

While waiting at Southern Cross.

This is the water we drink.
It's made by Coke.

We saw this penny press at the airport.
Naturally, we were intrigued.A penny press??
We're in Australia. There are no pennies here.

Wrong.
That's a lot of pennies.

That's the plane we took.

This is the world saying, 'today is a great day.'

Jet plane.

We arrived in beautiful Sydney in the evening. Since it's turning into Winter the sun is setting earlier and earlier. We managed to check in to our hostel and run over to the Royal Botanical Gardens to get a glimpse of the Opera House just as the sun was setting. After sunset, we wandered around Circular Quay and got up close and personal with the Opera House. We spent a bit of time trying to find dinner and eventually went back to our hostel.

That's the suburb we stayed in.
Wooloomooloo.

At Circular Quay.

We had Baskin Robbins after dinner.
Two nights in a row.

Opera House.

Bridge.

The next day we got up bright and early to celebrate ANZAC [Australia New Zealand Army Corps] Day. Ok, we didn't get up as early as we should have so we missed the dawn service. However, we did make it downtown in time for the parade. After the ANZAC festivities we headed back to Circular Quay to catch a ferry to Darling Harbour. There we visited the Maritime Museum. [It was free, and pretty cool.] Not only is there a giant museum, but there are also three ships you can tour. [That costs money, but not that much.] After the museum we wandered around Darling Harbour and had some lunch. Next, we headed back to the city and went to the Sydney Tower. It was a bit less awesome that the Eureka Sky Tower here in Melbourne, but still had some great views. After all of this, it was night time again. We went back to the Opera House and hung around until we were too tired to move.

By far, my most favorite soldier from the ANZAC Day parade.

The parade went on from 9am to 3pm.
Because there are that many soldiers.

On the ferry to Darling Harbour.

A submarine bunk.

We went on that ship.

Battleship.

On a battleship.

Koala.

The bridge from the tower.

The next day we took a short cut to town. It led us to the channel 7 building were they were filming Sunrise. [Equivalent to The Today Show.] We were on national TV, no big deal. After our four seconds of fame we walked around town and then went to the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Chris went up one of the pylons next to the bridge and had some gorgeous views. [To climb the bridge it costs $298. To climb the pylon it costs $9.50.] After the bridge, we wound up in The Rocks. A pretty amazing part of town. We wandered the shops for a bit and then mosied back towards the Opera House. We had coffee and went back to our hostel a bit early [we both had homework.]

A picture of the TV.
That's me in the background.

And then we went to Ireland.

Touched it.

Reflection in the Opera House.

And then we went home.
Ok, that's not true. We spent an entire day at the airport because we flew on a crappy airline.
Eventually we made it home.

Catch Up

Well hey there, blog land.
It's been awhile, huh??

I've been so absent because school is a bit full blown right now. Assignments all over the place and not enough time to take care of them all. I guess that's how it goes though, right?

Even though things are a bit crazy, we did have to make some tough decisions.
Originally, we were scheduled to come home on July 31st. A few weeks ago we realized that we are dirt poor and no one wants to give us a job. So, we had to change our return date and are now coming home on June 28th. We're really sad and really excited all at the same time. Hopefully we'll be able to do a bit more traveling since we're saving a month's worth of rent.

Even though we have to go home early, we haven't been up to very much lately. [Ok, that makes a lot of sense. School.]

The week following Easter has been our Spring break. Alright, I mean Easter break. [because it's Autumn and not Spring.] Since just about everyone in our house went away for break, no one was home on Easter. Since it's a holiday and everything, we celebrated together on the Thursday before.

We dyed eggs and had an amazing dinner. [My mom would be so proud of my mad skills. That's right, I cooked.] We had ham, home-made mashed potatoes, stuffing, salad, and pumpkin pie for dessert. [Thanks to the West family for sending us canned pumpkin!]Boys. After they ate.

Girls.
The girls of the house.

Pie!
Finally, a good picture of our little family.

I promise I'll be on top of things now. At least I'm going to try.

Footy!

Last Friday we went to see our first Australian rules football game. More commonly known as AFL.

Australia did a really good job when they planned their cities so all we had to do was hop on a train and we were at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. [That's one of the stadiums that houses AFL. As the name says, it's also home to Cricket.] The MCG is amazing. It fits just under 100,000 people. That's a lot of people.

Outside the MCG.

This game was kind of a big deal [cross town rivalries and all] so we were a little nervous about actually getting tickets. We managed and got general admission. [I'm not really sure what the difference between the tickets is, but I guess there is one.]

Those are their excited faces.

That's mine.

To get to general admission you have to go up a ton of escalators. Once we arrived, the ticket takers basically said, 'you're crazy. there aren't any seats left.' We were unhappy and confused. After all, we had just bought tickets. That equals a seat, right?? Wrong.

We decided to outsmart the ticket takers. Instead of asking where our seat was, we just walked right past and made our own seats. They were pretty awesome seats and had a great view.

I wish you could really tell how huge that field is.

Our awesome seats only lasted until someone with a seat number on their ticket showed up. After we got pushed aside, we had to go to the standing only zone.

I managed to sneak past another ticket taker to an unclaimed seat after half time.

The game was really fun!! The team we barracked for lost, but that's ok.

Remember how I said the MCG holds just under 100,000 people??

This is what it looks like when all of those people are trying to catch the same train.