Sunny Sydney!

Hi there!

Sorry for the delay… I had a cold after arriving in Auckland. In Sydney I shared a room (in a hostel) with 5 other people. The Asian guy seemed to have a cold and a few days later, I had one too. Hmm, thanks dude ;-)

Than I arrived in New Zealand and I tried to buy a car. Buying a car in New Zealand is usually a pretty easy task, but because of some circumstances, it did take a lot of my time (next blog post).

I was very happy to arrive in Sydney after my trip to Indonesia. Sydney feels a bit more like at home. After traveling trough so many countries in one month, I sometimes forgot in which country I was. I would wake up in the morning, check out the room and think… where am I? Oh, right, Sydney. My legs got a little tired as well. Do you remember that feeling after a city-trip? Can you imagine doing 5 city-trips in one month? That’s how my legs felt, haha. I think I lost a bit of weight because of all the walking! Jeej :-)

Arriving in Sydney is a story itself. Do you know “border security”? That thing on television where Australian security guards in the airport check everybody’s luggage…

So I was waiting at belt 5 for my luggage to arrive when one of those guards came up to me.

SECURITY GUY: Hi miss; can I see your passport please? ME: Sure (handing it over).

SECURITY GUY: Where will you stay in Australia? ME: Ahm, Sydney.

SECURITY GUY: How long will you stay there? ME: 5 days :-)

SECURITY GUY: What country did you come from? ME: Indonesia

SECURITY GUY (checking all the stamps in my passport): Have you been traveling to any other countries recently? ME: Ahm, yes; Hong Kong, Singapore, Indonesia.

SECURITY GUY: What is your intension or purpose of this trip? ME: it’s a holiday :-)

SECURITY GUY: Why do you have so much luggage? ME: Well, I’ll be traveling for a year.

SECURITY GUY: So how long will you be staying in Australia? ME (thinking, hey, I told you already): 5 days, in Sydney. Then I’ll go to New Zealand.

SECURITY GUY: Where will you be staying? ME: In a hostel in the centre of Sydney.

SECURITY GUY: Do you know the address? ME: Yes, I got it in my phone. SECURITY GUY: Ok, have a nice holiday. ME (thinking: that’s it? No more questions?): Well, thank you.

Dear brother: You always said I should become a journalist, because I’m really good at asking questions. Perhaps a job at border security would work out too? Haha. It’s also a little bit of CSI ;-)

So, Sydney :-)

Sydney is a big city and a nice place to hang out. It’s probably not my favourite city but it’s a nice one. It’s clean, people are friendly and everybody speaks English.

YOU: Really? Everybody speaks English? YOU: Mel, stupido, you’re in Australia… ME: Yeah, I was only trying to point out that people in the previous countries I visited did not have English as their mother tongue…

Another noticeable thing is that it was tremendously less warm. The first days I was wearing two sweaters because I was really cold. My body had adapted to 32°C and humid :-). I was a little bit afraid because Sydney wasn’t really that cold… 18°C is OK, right? And I knew Auckland was going to be colder.

In Bali I met two Swiss girls, one of them (Gigi) had been in Sydney as an au pair and she gave me a lot of information about Sydney. She told me about all the nice places and I tried to visit them all.

I went to Bondi beach. If it doesn’t ring a bell… than you probably didn’t see the “Bondi beach rescue”-television series?

If not, check out this video:

I think these videos are helpful to get to know a bit more about first aid and perhaps to see the handsome lifeguards.

So I went to the beach but I didn’t see any of the famous guys from the show. It wasn’t peak season yet, perhaps that’s why. Or maybe I didn’t see them because I didn’t have a camera?

It’s a nice beach. There was a lot of wind though. I tried to relax on the beach, but after eating two scoops of sand I gave up and went to the grass field.

There is a walk path from Bondi Beach to Coogee. If you ever go to Sydney, I suggest you do that walk! You get to see some stunning views. It’s very nice, really.

Darling harbour is also a nice area to walk around, relax, and perhaps do some geocaching ;-).

Another nice place is Manly beach! I went there on the 2nd of October. You know what happens on the 2nd of October? My birthday!! Jeej! The 2nd of October happened to be a Sunday this year. I wanted to do something special on my birthday but because public transport in Sydney is much cheaper on a Sunday, I decided to do the special trip on the 3th of October. So on my birthday I went to Manly beach. This was the furthest “attraction” from my hostel and it would have been the most expensive by public transport.

I didn’t feel like waking up early on my birthday so I arrived pretty late at the harbour only to find out… I wasn’t the only one having the idea of going to Manly beach that day.

It was one of the first sunny Sundays in spring and there was also a free jazz festival going on. So there was a really long line to take the ferry to Manly beach, but it was worth it. The jazz festival was nice (and free!) and the weather was perfect. I think I never had that good weather on my birthday :-).

Sunshine means ice cream. Ice cream on a birthday means no diet. I also found a coupon giving me one free scoop in the ice cream saloon so I ended up with the biggest ice cream ever. I was delicious! A bit too big, I have to admit :-)

I was perhaps a bit lonely that day. I got a lot of birthday wishes trough Facebook, e-mail and on my blog. Thanks for that! That was really lovely of you guys. Still, it’s not the same as being at home you know. But I knew that could happen. At least there was sunshine and ice cream :D

So I told my dad that my birthday didn't feel like my birthday because usually we go to some cozy restaurant with our family. This was his response (sorry, in Dutch):

Thank you daddy, I appreciate the effort :-). Haha.

So on the 3th of October I went on a daytrip with a guide to the “Blue mountains”. Honestly I had never heard of it but it seemed worth visiting.

The guy at the hostel, where I booked the trip, told me to be ready at 7:30 in front of another hostel (15 minutes walk from my hostel). He said: it’s good to be there on time, the bus might not wait for you. You better come 10 minutes early.

So, my jaw dropped to the floor. 7:30! I’m not really a morning person, you know :D

One of my colleagues at work (Lieve) always comes to work very early. We always joke how she arrives at work in the middle of my night, haha. (I usually arrive between 8:30 and 9:00, that’s reasonable, right?)

So, that day, I woke up really early to be on time for the bus. I left the hostel at 7:00 so I would be perfectly on time (and a little early) for the bus. I was swag-walking down the road, thinking: Well done, Mel! When all of the sudden (half way) I realised I forgot my money in the locker in the hostel. Damn! What if I want to buy some food or a drink? So I started running like Forest Gump! Out of breath I arrived in the room, I took my money (probably woke up some people in the room, I’m very sorry for that!) and I ran back to the meeting place. I arrived at the bus stop at 7:28!

The bus wasn’t there…

It was unclear weather that big group of people were going to the same place. I was getting nervous. Did I just miss the bus? This trip coast a lot of money… It was a present to myself for my birthday… I would be extremely disappointed if I missed the bus.

When I start to swear in Finnish, that’s when things are getting seriously. So I waited and waited. It was 7:42 when I noticed a girl with the same papers as me. It was a German girl. She decided to call the travel company. *relieved* The travel company told us to wait there a little longer. They asked if we waited at the right spot and if we arrived on time. I did some swearing there, not out loud (in my head). I was getting more nervous, because I arrived at 7:28. The guy at the hostel told me to be there on time!

All of the sudden, a huge bus arrived! The bus driver started calling some names and the third name was mine. I was so relieved! Haha.

The big group waiting there was going to be on the same bus. There ware 46 people on that tour that day. There was one girl from Brazil, one girl from the Netherlands, and Irish guy, me and … 42 German students.

I had an immediate flash back to all my YFU-camps in Finland. When I was on exchange in Finland, the same thing happened. 95% Germans and a few people from other countries. I always wonder why there are so many German tourist and se few others?

The guide started to introduce himself and talked a bit about the country and what we would see today. He also warned us for possible dangerous animals out there.

ME: Nice (sarcasm).

He started naming all these snakes (black mamba, Eastern brown, Intalamba, Tigersnake, death adder…) and how quick and deathly they were. He said some of them aren’t that quick but they have more temper and like to fight. Try to avoid snakes.

Than he named some spiders (forewebspider, red back spider, …). The same thing applied as with the snakes. They’re quick and poisonous.

There was change of seeing these snakes and spiders in the woods where we were going that day.

ME: I should have missed the bus… He thought us some first aid and what to do, and what not to do in these situations. First aid is always interesting.

He also mentioned some sharks and crocodiles living in Australia. That’s the moment where I was very happy to go to New Zealand afterwards.

So before going to the Blue Mountains we visited an animal sanctuary. It’s a place where animals that are hurt are taken care of until they’re better.

One of my goals in Australia was to see a kangaroo, a koala and if possible aboriginal people. So the aboriginal people didn’t show up in Sydney but I did get to see many kangaroos and koalas in the sanctuary! I absolutely loved it! They were kind and fluffy.

I also got to see penguins and wombats!

After visiting the sanctuary we went to the Blue Mountains. It was an amazing place! It’s a good place for hiking (and bumping into some spiders…). It’s definitely worth going too! Check out these pictures :-)