G'bye, Mate

So... I leave tomorrow :o(

... BUT my trip was awesome!! & the beach walk was a great way to spend my last day here!

I'll miss Australia & Julian & the friends I made but hopefully they will come visit :o)


Thanks Julian <3

Oh, btw, the custard apple was really weird (not a fan).

Beach walk

So Julian and I went on a nice beach walk from Bondi beach (near his apartment) to Coogee beach (2 hour walk away via the beach walk trail). It’s basically a really nice (and long) walk along the coast with really pretty views and passing through a few beaches and there are benches everywhere to just sit and look at the pretty scenery. I took lots of pictures but basically you could just snap a photo every second and it would be a pretty good picture.




Isn't it beautiful?

Shark Dive XTREME

So Julian’s birthday was fun! We’ll call it a successful 21st. :-p


This morning I took the ferry to Oceanworld Manly to redeem my Shark Dive Xtreme! It was me and 2 upper middle aged men who were scuba certified with our 2 instructors. After signing papers, watching a video, changing into our scuba gear and all that, we spent about half an hour in the large glass aquarium with fun animals like grey nurse sharks, gigantic rays, gigantic turtles, lots of fishies, and other types of sharkies. It was really cold but also awesome… Unfortunately, you’re not allowed to pet the sharks but I did get to pet a giant sea turtle and a huge ray that is apparently the size of a queen size bed. Basically, giant rays are the softest things in the world. Seriously. SO SOFT. I would like to sleep on one.

I don't have any pictures but here's one from the aquarium...

Now imagine me swimmin' in there with'em!! :o)

Julian and I are going on a beach walk later!

Happy Birthday Julian!!! ♥

!!! So cool!!!

Last night I took Julian to Sushi Choo for his birthday (All-you-can-eat sushi train!).

His birthday is today:

Happy 21st Julian!!!!!!!!!!
:-*

After sushi, we met up with everybody else at Scubar for their “famous” hermit crab races! In honor of Julian’s birthday Hannah and I decided to enter in the races. I entered in the last one and my crab (named Julian) won first place and my AWESOME PRIZE was a FREE SHARK DIVE!!! & a t-shirt! :o)

We rang in Julian’s birthday at midnight but then went home because he had class in the morning, etc. But don’t worry, we are going out tonight!

Darling Aquarium

Today we had some plans but we got on the bus going the wrong way so we changed them and went to Darling Harbour instead! We were pleasantly surprised by these four street performer guys putting on a show consisting of a breakdancer from the Bronx, 2 from Australia, and a tap dancer. They were pretty good and entertaining and all that.


After wandering around and checking out the Maritime Museum we decided to go to the Aquarium… Best decision ever!!! I love the aquarium!!! There was only one platypus but he was really cute and kept digging a hole that would go to nowhere because he is in a tank (silly platypus!). I also like the pot-bellied seahorse:

the weedy sea dragon:

the mighty cuttlefish:

the wobbegong:

and the dugong:

(Like looking in a mirror...)


We were there for like 3 hours.

Aussie Animals & the AFL

Yesterday Julian, Hannah, Gwen, and I went to Featherdale National Park… basically a cool petting zoo with a bunch of Australian animals… I pet/fed a lot of kangaroos!! I also pet a wombat, a koala, an emu, and some random other guys… all of them were cute and I took lots of photos.


After Featherdale, Julian and I went to the Blue Mountains in Katoomba. After getting off the train we walked for half an hour to get to the national park where we walked around on a trail for awhile to see the Katoomba Falls, the 3 Sisters (3 rocks next to each other), and some pretty views… then we walked back and took the train for 3 hours back to Bondi.


I'm tired so I'm not going into much depth but the message to take away is that it was a really really good day! :o)

Today we went nearby to Paddy’s Market where they sell pretty much everything… Fruits, veggies, pasta, meat, fish, seafood of all kinds… also, clothes, souvenirs, sunglasses, and other random things. There some weird fruits here like bitter melons and custard apples. We tried a bitter melon last time, it was pretty bitter but alright in stirfry and we got a custard apple this time but haven’t tried it yet.

We just got back from the Sydney Swans v. Western Bulldogs pro AFL game!!! AFL = Aussie Rules Football!! We got to go for free because of a history of Aussie sport class that Julian is taking! It was fun, the sport is really weird but cool, and the Swans won! 114-70… If you don’t know much about Aussie rules, it’s a combination of rugby, soccer, volleyball, and basketball and the refs do weird official things like toss the ball in backwards over their head or throw it on the floor so that it bounces really high. There’s also like 10 referees.

AUSTRALIA!!!

So I got off my super long flight half way across the world & Julian was there to welcome me even though I was 3 hours delayed! :o)

I met his roommates Kyle, Pat, and Mike who are nice and I’ve met a bunch of other people since then, who I will name just incase they see this: Hannah, Halana, Vessie, Emily, Haly, Julianne, Rhiannon, Anna (Rhiannon), Megan, Katie, Jason…
They all live in a nice apartment complex in Bondi RIGHT next to the Bondi Junction railway stop which is really convenient since the train is a common means of transportation, along with buses and ferries.


Anyway, FAST FORWARD one week:

So far I’ve seen the Sydney bridge, the opera house, Bondi Beach, Hyde Park, Centennial Park, Sydney University and a lot of downtown Sydney.

Part of Sydney Uni's campus... it's really nice.

I’ve also done a few other cool things like…

Julian took me to a delicious/cheap Thai place for lunch near Sydney Uni. It was sooo good and the lady that owns it is this sweet older lady who is so friendly that she would make me wanna go back again even if the food WASN’T super yummy (but it was!).

We walked around the Botanical Gardens where those crazy birds will stand on your head.

We went to Sushi Choo (All-You-Can-Eat Sushi train!)

I went to a Sydney Uni Women’s rugby practice! Which is the first rugby related thing I’ve done all summer so I was kinda nervous about practicing with them after being out of it for a while and after injuring my ankle, but of course, it was fun! Although club sports are different here, it was more like a women’s team not a college team… only one of the girls was actually going to school at Sydney Uni.

We took the ferry to Manly beach! Manly is pretty nice, I liked it better than over here in Sydney since it’s more of a littler town, beach feel… Sydney is very big-city-like which is nice but I don’t know if I would ever wanna live there.


Today (Friday) we went up the sky tower! It’s the highest point/view of Sydney and it’s normally like $20-25 to go up OR you can just go up to the bar and as long as you buy at least one drink, then that’s all you have to pay. You can get something cheaper but I decided to go for one of those fancy cocktails since I was expecting to pay $25 anyway so I got some fancy pear vodka, apple schnopps, cinnamon drink. All the seats face outwards in a circle and the whole thing rotates 360 degrees while you sit so you get a great view of the whole city and beyond.


So far, so good.

Back in the USA!

Now it's Tuesday and I'm back!!!

I spent all Sunday packing and getting my last dinner with Allison and Sofia… Yesterday morning my parents picked me up and after my last café con leche at the Café Alicia we drove the 3-ish hours to Rota where the airforce base is.

Surprisingly we got a flight that night at like 2 am… the air force guy flight attendants were pretty funny and we actually got snacks and stuff.

“Better than Southwest!”

After 8 hours, we were in Delaware!!! Yayyy, so we went to iHop (I tried cheesecake pancakes) then drove home andddd now I’m exhausted!

All in all, good trip. I leave for Australia next Tuesday!!