Blue Mountains

On Joel's visit here, we ended it with a day trip out to The Blue Mountains. They are about an hour and half inland but are one of the most scenic places in Sydney and are considered a MUST SEE by any locals! It really is a breathtaking area. My little Aussie roommate is right from this area and lives less than 5 minutes from the 3 sisters (shown below). 

The train to get here took about 2 and a half hours from the city's central station, but when driving it took about half that. Jeneve my roommate gave us a ride home after the long trek out to the area! There are a few cool waterfalls that are good hiking attractions but we had gotten there a little late in the day and it was getting pretty cold out by this time. Believe it or not it does snow here once in a while and frost on the windshields is a common occurrence according to my roommate! 

Taronga Zoo

The Taronga Zoo of Sydney is a key tourist attraction of the city. Taronga is an aboriginal word meaning beautiful view. It is easiest to get to the zoo via ferry from the main Sydney Wharf. The zoo is located on a large hill and really does have the most beautiful views of the city. Once you get off the ferry, a bus takes you to the top and you start at the top and work your way down. The zoo is so large that 6 hours was just barely enough time to get through everything! I have never been to a big zoo before so this was new for me. 

Simply breathtaking.

This little monkey was the cutest thing in the world. They were so hilarious to watch. Maybe the reason why the zoo took us so long is because I couldn't stray away from their area! 

This was pretty fitting..

TIMON from lion king! These guys were hilarious. Looked exactly like him too.. I think he had a little more on him than Timon but thats okay.

Nights in the Harbour

For those of you that don't know, the Sydney harbour is one of the world biggest tourist attractions. It has so much to offer, especially with the harbour bridge and the opera house being one of the worlds most famous landmarks (equivalent to the Eiffel tower in Paris). Here is one of my pictures to just prove how much we take this place for granted.

This is the most amazing area and is almost too much to take in. We did take advantage of the many parts of the harbour. Since Sydney is almost twice the size of NYC, there is many parts to its harbour and one of the greatest is Darling Harbour. It is a little bit of a higher end part of Sydney, but also one of the most beautiful. Some of the greatest bars and lounges are down there, and during the week the happy hours and meal deals are great! We went to a place called Cargo Bar a few times, which has $10 steaks. This is a steal even in the US! We would love going in large groups because it was just too much fun being with everyone! Here is a picture of just us girls, the best people I could ever meet!

Darling Harbour is home to the biggest IMAX cinema in the world, and some of the greatest views. It is full of business men and women during happy hours that come down to enjoy a cocktail after a long day of work in the city - key Aussie move, no matter what day of the week! There is a boardwalk that circles the part of this harbour and it is lined with wharfs for commercial boats and smaller docks for private boats.  There are even water taxis that will taxi you to/from different parts of the harbour and are key for those who are late to their booze cruises! 

Catching Up on Family Time

Well it has been quite a while since I have last updated you all, so I will now take the time to do it. Since our April Holiday things have been crazy busy. The group of friends that we established from that trip became so close that we all were staying busy enjoying ourselves. With people in and out of each others units it seemed like a bigger version of Friends.


The Wednesday nights being the ultimate nights here became even more fun! Here is a picture of Julie and I with our sweetest roommate Ryu. He was such a great addition to our place with his love for upbeat music and his cheerful innocence.

Here is a picture of Julie and I with some great girls we became close with. Kristy (next to me) is from Texas and attends Texas Tech and has an amazing resume. She has owned some of her own businesses and is completing 2 majors in three years while doing 3 study abroads in a row! Her next move is Manchester, I don't know how she does it.  Jenna is next to Kristy and is from Wisconsin! She lived right next door and was such a bummer that we didn't become close until the second half our time here.

As the wednesdays carry on with the themes, of course one of them was Cinco de Mayo! After explaining to numerous aussies what Cinco de Mayo even is, they learned how to celebrate it the right way, with some mexican beer and tequila! We really realized how much we Americanize these holidays. Here is Julie and I with Grant, one of the boys from Indiana that I went on break with! He was very proud of his mustache, as were we.

Here is one with Henry and I, another boy from our trip! You might be hearing lots about him in the days to come.. :)

Love must have been in the air here during this semester because my roommate, among many others, met a boy. He is an Aussie, and such a great guy. He is a great addition to our unit 11 family and I have gotten to know him very well, as she is my best friend and roommate. I am always third wheeling and impeding on their hangout time, but neither parties never seem to mind. So we always joke about how the three of us are a family. I cannot even imagine coming so close to someone throughout her time here and having to leave it. No wonder there are so many stories of Americans never returning from Australia.. Anyways, here we are :D 

So many of our friends constantly comment on how lucky we all are for how great our roommates turned out. There are 5 persons to a unit here, and we all hang out. Many people did not even know any of their roommates let alone go out with them all the time. We got spoiled with having Max, who loves to cook and was constantly taking care of his girls.. He was always surprising us with lots of desserts fresh from the oven and lots of candy. Safe to say his sweet tooth matches mine.

Great Barrier Reef!

On our first day in Cairns, the city closest to the Great Barrier, we did an all day snorkel trip. It was a 9am - 4pm trip that included two different sites and of course lunch in between! We had the option (of course for additional costs) to scuba dive as well. A few decided to do that, but we figured and were told that most of what you want to see is right on the surface anyways. On our first dive out we saw a sea turtle right away! SO COOL! Everything we saw really did just remind us of Finding Nemo. This picture looks exactly him in anemone. Even the sea turtles were great!

I am so thankful I had the underwater camera - the colors were amazing. And since the reef is only estimated to be around for another 10 years - well worth the investment. All of these pictures were taken by my camera - and as you can tell - the underwater portion is much more exciting and has much higher quality. We had to be super careful while snorkeling over the sites because coral only grows 1-2 cm a year. 

These two look like they are straight out of a postcard :)

The reef was a blast and we saw all we could. It was so beautiful and would go back in the drop of a hat if I could! Meanwhile, the bar crawls and nightlife was a great time as always. We felt like we were in Cancun, with every bar having dance contests, jelly wrestling and other crazy things. I decided to enter a challenge where girls had to get down and string a piece of wrapped bubble gum up a gentlemen's pant leg and down the other. The first one to do that and then blow a bubble with the piece of gum won a trip to a getaway island. The nice fellow running the pub crawl gave me two since I told him I wasn't traveling alone. The tickets are for some castaway island in which you are flown in a little private plane and basically left to camp on your own. You can collect oysters, enjoy the sun, snorkel, kayak, fish etc. They have a community kitchen areas and basically little porta potties. Another boy from our group one the same thing the night before so we might take a trip out there, but it is still a ways north and we would have to fly north just to get to the port to get us there. It would definitely be an experience though. 

This is a picture of our group plus the many mates we met in our hostel. The hostel was like one big dorm room with 3 sets of bunk beds, a balcony, and a bathroom/shower. It was a bit strange to be living with complete strangers but since the area is common for dive trips and things like sky diving and bungy jumping, nobody was there except to shower and sleep. We met a few germans, and actually met a boy (on the left) from Texas who works as a summer counselor in a camp in Michigan (right outside of Kalamazoo). He is backpacking Australia then off to Europe. What a small world. This is considered one of the crazier hostels so majority of everybody is 30 or younger and enjoys the nightlife. The bar area was right on the first level of the hotel and is free entry to those that are guests there. Below is a picture of the group that made it to Cairns! The one on the right is from Boston, and the one with the snorkel on is from Indiana. The small petite girl is from Chicago, and Steven next to her is from Michigan (as well as Julie my roommate). They all attend Marquette in Milwaukee so we have a little bit in common from being in the mid-west! Travis of course is from Colorado but he fits in too!

Of course the next and best part was the bungy jumping.. Still cannot believe I did it - but it happened. Here is the professional video for those of you that haven't seen it. I had a minor freak out and wouldn't let go of the poor blokes shorts. There were different dives you could choose from and I chose to do what is called the titanic. I knew I would not jump on my own once I stepped onto that platform. So (even though you cant tell because I was so ungraceful and scared) it would mean that I would stand out onto the platform and have the middle of my feet resting on the edge with my toes pointed down. The man would be holding my harness from the back and I would not know when he would let go. I was supposed to have my arms out, as Rose did in the movie.. but thats not how it went.. 

But you know what.. I did it. There are a few other versions and was going to post the video of Grant doing the actual titanic form but for some reason there's an error for the rest of the uploads. I will try to get them up soon. 

The Great Barrier was such a blast and the bungy jump was quite the experience. I am glad I did it though! Not sure if I could ever get myself to do it again, but that's another story! I will be slowly updating this trying to catch up on all the activities so check back soon :) 

<3 Kali