Journal Entry for June 3rd, 4th

June 3rd, 2007

We arrived at Sydney during the sunrise around 6:30AM. We took a shuttle it to the Sydney Central YHA Hostel. The first thing that was different was they drive on the left side of the road here and the driver sits in the right side where we are used to the passenger sitting. It was definitely a strange feeling riding in the shuttle bus this way. It’s also interesting how you have to change the way you look both ways when you want to cross the road. We’ve definitely come close to getting hit because of this! Ha!

We arrived at our Hostel which is actually really nice. In America, we don’t really have many hostels and what we do have have bad reputations. Interestingly, here, they are all over the place and are actually really nice. They remind me of typical up scale college dorms. Some have private baths, others have shared baths. They have events that take place every night such as “beer and roo (kangaroo)” on the top of the building.

After arriving, even though we were exhausted, our adrenaline kicked in and we went out to explore the city. We walked about 2 miles down to what is called “The Rocks” and Circular Quay, and this is where one of the popular areas is the hang out. This is the place where all the ferries take off from the Sydney Harbour and you can see the Sydney Opera House and the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge. There are many cute restaurants and bars that line the water where you can sit outside and eat. There were people everywhere for a Sunday afternoon and even till 10:00 at night, the place was still hopping. After walking down here, Pedro and I had breakfast at a cute restaurant near a Market where they had live music playing and all these little artsy shops. We then walked back to the hostel and went to a place called the Padi Market. Here, this was a place where tons of people flock to buy cheap goods, food, and stuff. It reminded me of the Flea Market.

We then went back and got ready for the Sydney Orchestra show at the Opera House. This was absolutely incredible. The place was full with people, and it was beautiful! The Orchestra played amazing. Interestingly, we met this nice couple who have been living in Sydney for 10 years now and they told us about some good things to do around here. And, even more interestingly, they offered us a ride home!! We didn’t take it because we still needed to have dinner, but it was so nice of them to offer us this.

After the Orchestra show, we sat at one of the cute restaurants on the water overlooking the Sydney Harbour bridge. One thing I will note that we all in America should appreciate is the service we get when we eat dinner. Here and from what Pedro described in Europe it’s the same. Basically, they come up to you and say “are you ready to order?”. They don’t introduce themselves, they don’t offer to get you a drink first. The size of the drinks are sooo small, and they don’t refill them! Last, if you want your check, you have to ask for it..they don’t bring it to you. It’s definitely a different experience, but in the end, you are not required to tip here which is maybe why they serve the way they do!




June 4th, 2007


Today, we woke up pretty late around 9:00. Yes, everyone…I slept in until Pedro’s time. J. We had breakfast at a cute French cuisine place where they had every pastry under the sun. Pedro had some sort of tuna croissant. To me, this sounded disgusting for a morning breakfast, but he liked it! After breakfast, we started our journey to explore more of Sydney. We took a ferry ride from Circular Quay along the Harbour to the famous zoo called the Taronga Zoo. Here, we saw sooo many Australian animals. We paid a small fee to have a volunteer take us around and explain all the different Australian animals and it was well worth it. He was the nicest old guy and knew his stuff. We saw the koalas which were very cute just hanging out up in the trees basking in the sun. Interestingly, we got to walk through the place where they keep the kangaroos. They came within half a foot of us. Did you know that there are multiple types of kangaroos? And, the way they breed is very interesting, but I can share more of those details with you later. We moved on to see the platypus. This was Pedro’s favorite. At first, we couldn’t find them, but then they came out. They were a lot smaller than I expected. Did you know that if a platypus claws you they have poisonous venom in their claws that works very similar to snake venom. We even saw white pelicans and black swans!

We then took the ferry back to the Circular Quay and walked around the Sydney Botanical Gardens which is a huge park right on the water with all kinds of plants, flowers, etc. They even had tons of live Cockatoos just walking around! Pedro got chased by one that wanted to peck his feet! I’ve never seen these outside of the pet store.

After the gardens, we walked to the Bridge and walked across it. This bridge was unique in that it had these guard rails that were protected like what they use in jails. Plus, they have security that walks up and down it. You could also participate in the Bridge climb where you climb to the top of the bridge but to me. They have to put on these special suits and have harnesses that lock you to the bridge as your climbing. It looked a little to scary for me, plus, it costs 150.00, so we decided not to do it. The view from where we were on the bridge was still spectacular! But, the view was spectacular.

The city is absolutely amazing! I hope these pictures will show you this!

It is Monday night here and all of you should be just waking up so I hope you have a wonderful week! We are thinking about you!