Adventures with Josh and Emma :]

Jock drove me and Josh and Emma to the Broadmeadow Train Station to catch the train to Sydney. We however, arrived about three minutes late for the train, so we got to wait a whole nother hour for the train to take us to the Central train station. We however managed to catch the train and we were off on our grand adventure to Sydney!

Josh and Emma and I just napped and talked on our way down to the station. Once at Central, we switched trains to get to the Kings Cross station. Our hotel was just down the street from there. We got to the hotel, checked in, and dropped off our stuff and then walked back to Kings Cross to catch a train to Circular Quay (pronounced “key”) via Central.
The first thing we did once we got to Circular Quay was to see the Sydney Opera House. That thing is AMAZING! I got a fair amount of pictures but it was just heaps of fun to actually be able to SEE the thing up close. I always see it in pictures or in Finding Nemo, but to actually be next to it, to actually TOUCH it myself.. That was an experience :]
We then left the Opera House and walked (about 15 seconds) to the Royal Botanic Gardens. It wasn’t what I was expecting, I thought it was going to be like the Gardens in DC, but this was more like a HUGE park, with trees and flowers and stuff everywhere. I got to see some pretty cool trees though. There was a Bird of Paradise tree, a Dragons Blood Tree, and a tree that looked like it belonged in Jurassic Park/The Lion King/etc. It was an epic tree. We didn’t walk all the way through the gardens, but we did walk through a fair bit of them. Josh found a big rock with a hole in it so he climbed in it. Yes. He climbed in the hole. Haha.. but that’s Joshua for you :]
After the Gardens, we took a ferry from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour. Oh my god. Darling Harbour is SUCH a pretty place! Especially at night, you can see the reflection of the lights and everything in the water. Oh, it’s absolutely gorgeous :] ..
At the moment, they’re hosting an “Internation FIFA Fan Fest” there for the World Cup. (By the way.. Spain played Portugal and I REALLY want to know how that game turned out. It should have ended about 30 min ago..) But the Fan Fest area was pretty cool. They had put soccer ball covers over all the lights and there was a HUGE floating TV out in the harbour. They were just doing stupid stuff on it when we were there.

In Darling Harbour, there is an IMAX theater, and guess what we did? We went to see Shrek 4 in 3D IMAX. Yes. That actually happened :] A bunch of 20 yr olds paid $25 to see Shrek 4. But it was okay, it was a decent movie.. maybe not worth $25, but hey, I was with two of my best friends in Sydney. It was amazing just to be there :] Next to the IMAX theater is a three floor shopping center where we went to just look around and grab dinner. Me and Josh ended up getting Chinese food for dinner and Emma got herself a hamburger. After that we walked around the shopping center and me and Emma bought some DELIIOUS fudge… I got mint flavored and she got Jaffer flavored. After that we took the ferry back to Circular Quay. It was quite amazing to take the ferry at night. We sat outside this time and at the back of the ferry so we got to see basically everything. I was quite excited when I saw the two pirate ships that are at the National Maritime Museum. Let me say this again, there were PIRATE ships there!! I was extremely excited about that.
Once we got back to Circular Quay, we took the train back to Central and then to Kings Cross to get to our hotel. Our room was probably the smallest room of my life. Actually that’s a lie.. It was roughly the same size as my room at uni.. maybe a bit smaller.. and while there was no desk or wardrobe to take up room, there was a double bed with a bunk on top to take up basically all of the room. There was room for the double, a small walkway and a TV and that was the room widthwise. Lengthwise, it was a VERY small walkway, the double, the width of a single and then the wall. Like I said, tiny. Anyway, once we got back we all showered and I’m pretty sure I went to sleep first. I’m sorry.. walking around on a broken knee really tires me out apparently. I’m not going to apologize for that. Except for what I already said..

I was the first to wake up though. Woke myself up at quarter to 8:00.. I guess old habits die hard? I just laid in bed for a while, people stalked from my window, read for a bit, and then finally woke Josh and Emma up around 9:00. We got ready for the day and then went to the “buffet” brekky offered by the hotel. There wasn’t much to it :/ They were out of cups so we couldn’t make tea or coffee, there was no butter or jam to put on the toast, and there was no milk or spoons for the cereal. Thank god, none of us like to eat a big brekky or we would all have been screwed..

After we ate “breakfast” we took the train back to Circular Quay and then took the ferry over to Taronga Zoo.. And because we decided to spend the morning outside, it of course had to rain all morning. Not just a light spattering of rain either, no. it POURED on us. I cannot describe how wet we all were by the time we got out of the zoo. It literally looked like I had just stepped out of the shower. That’s how wet my hair was.
At the zoo we basically saw all of the animals. No joke, we saw freaking EVERYTHING.. It was heaps of walking for someone with a bum knee. I kept falling behind and Josh kept calling me ‘Limpaloticus’. It’s okay though, he was Snuffelumpagus because he had a bit of a cold and kept snuffling. We saw kangaroos, emus, koalas, komodo dragons, peacocks, basilisks, snakes, lizards, turtles, lions, tigers, elephants, otters, the list goes on and on and on. It really was quite an amazing experience, and I’m so glad that we decided to go.

After we were done with the zoo, we took the ferry back to Circular Quay and then the train to Central. We were a bit early for our next train (30 min early) so we decided to go to Paddy’s market while we waited. This was basically like all of the street vendors from New York crammed together under one roof selling stuff at you. It would have been heaps of fun, but we literally got there and then had to turn around so we could catch what we thought was the 3:15 train back to Broadmeadow. As it turned out, we didn’t need to rush that much because it was the 3:45 train that we needed, not 3:15. But it was okay. We had a nice and exiting run in the rain. You know. Got our exercise in for the day :]

Emma slept most of the way back, Josh and I just talked about random shit. He tells some of the best stories of my life. I know I’m really going to miss that over the next semester. But it’s okay.. We had heaps of fun in Sydney, and I’m really glad that we decided to go. It was kind of funny. We were still in the early planning stages when I called Josh to see if he wanted to go with us. (He said yes.) And then Emma called the hotel to ask them a question and she ended up booking the hotel. It was almost a spur of the moment thing haha.. But I’m so glad they took me down to Sydney. It was so cool to just explore the city with them. I’m really going to miss them next semester.. *tear tear*… (we had a knee party on the way back... see below)
But Sydney was amazing. A once in a lifetime experience :]