Takin' shortcuts through the bush!

This whole week is our Australia “spring break”, but we don’t call it that since it’s winter here, so this week is our holiday break. We decided to go to Sydney for 3 reasons. 1.) we wanted to go to Hillsong for the Easter service, 2.) Lindsey, Devin, Cameron, and Caitlin were leaving for New Zealand and we wanted to see them off, and 3.) because we’re awesome.

Instead of driving, which was an apparent nightmare last time trying to get into the city, all seven of us took the 3-hour train ride to get there.

After arriving to the city, we headed to our hostel, X-Base to drop our bags before exploring what Sydney had to offer during the Easter season. First of all, just know that Easter here is like Christmas or Thanksgiving in the states. It’s a four-day bunny-rific celebration that at the same time shuts down and hypes up the whole city. Most shops close or are open for limited hours over the weekend, but bars and clubs are open and packed at night.

Our first destination was Darling Harbor, one of my favorite places in Sydney. Devin had yet to see Darling, so we ventured off by ourselves for a while to see what there was to see. To our surprise, there was a huge street fair in the harbor area that boasted four arenas hosting street performers, a mini “big top”, and lots of people to enjoy the festivities.

The first performer we stumbled upon was Bendy M, an Australian female contortionist who could fit herself inside an 18-inch cube. It was weird.

Then we saw this crazy old French dude whose name I cannot remember. It got kind of weird towards the end as most of his clothes came off, leaving him in a red, white, and blue leotard with a can-can skirt on.

 We also found some giant Amelia Earhearts (I think that’s who they were?) on stilts that we had to get a picture with. We just wanted to get a picture with one of them but by the time the picture was over, three of them somehow jumped into the picture without our knowing. I didn’t know stilt people could be so darn sneaky!

SATURDAY

Today the girls were scheduled to leave for the Airport around 3:00 so we decided to spend our last afternoon together going to the Opera House for the first time. We took the underground train to get there and rose above ground at the end to see the one and only harbour bridge! People can actually pay to climb across the top of the bridge in harnesses and windsuits…so fun!

So after getting off the train at Circular Quay, we walked around the harbour and saw the big O.H. peeking out from behind a building. After rounding the corner there she was… big, white, and beautiful. It was interesting how different the building looks from the pictures that seem to be mostly taken from the direction of the ocean. I also did not realize that the structure is made up of separate buildings and is not all connected. One more thing I did not expect was that the surface was made of tile and was quite shiny.

I can now officially say that I have not only touched, but also HUGGED the Sydney Opera House. I know that if it could, it would have hugged me back. We would have done a tour, but I pretty much would have had to sell one of my kidneys to get inside, so we stuck with the free, exterior, self-guided tour.

After a decent amount of time spent at the Opera House, we headed back to the station through a park that overlooked the harbour. We found the immense trees and climbed them for a good while before time told us we were going to be late and forced us to move on. 

After seeing the girls off to the great New Zealand which I will myself be visiting in June, we crashed at the hostel for a few hours before meeting up with Robbie, our friend who goes to the Hillsong Music College. He took us to the Shark Bar, an upscale bar/buffet type of establishment that had pool tables, big TVs, and really good food. Afterwards, he took us to this Asian board game and dessert joint. It was a small door with little indication of what lied beyond, so heading up 3 flights of dodgy stairs to get there I felt we were heading into a crack den. But we finally reached the café, got a seat, and ordered a dessert and a game of Jenga for the four of us to play. It was one of the coolest restaurants I’ve ever been in and I encourage all those entrepreneurs in C-bus to strongly consider opening an establishment of a similar nature.

SUNDAY

It is just the three of us (Laura, Brandi, and I) for the next 9 days. This is the first time all three of us have been away from our families during Easter. I still don’t understand why the Easter bunny didn’t poop a trail of jelly beans to my non-existent basket this morning, but hopefully he will make up for it next year. We went to the Sunday morning service that Hillsong put on at the Sydney Entertainment Centre, and they did a good job of easing my holiday chocolate withdrawals by offering constantly replenished chocolate eggs in the “welcome area”. It was so nice of Chocolate to make us feel so welcomed. We spent about 20 minutes before, during, and after the service getting to know Chocolate.

After the service we headed over to Paddy’s market, which is basically a giant indoor flea market. I have a theory about Paddy’s. It’s basically approximately 100 or so booths, all selling the same thing. The whole place is also run by Asians. Well, all of Sydney is pretty much run by Asians so this was no surprise.  So I think that they are all in collaboration because here are the basic genres of booths: Australia Shirts/Sweatshirts, Jewelry, Zooyork booths, Aussie kangaroo leathermade products and keychains, weird grammatically incorrect Asian underwear, swords and flasks, and fake hair. Then there are like 10 of each of these scattered about. This is also where most of you people’s presents are coming from. Yes, Daniel, don’t worry you are getting fake hair. Calm down.

Hillsong was putting on the film and arts festival before the evening service at the SEC so we decided to go pop the scene before heading back to da ‘Castle. It was all Christianity/spirituality/Jesus themed art and films which was very cool. We stuck around and watched a few films before it got so incredibly packed we couldn’t breathe and ducked out as the evening service rush arrived. We headed back to the train station and caught the 6:15PM train back home.

TUESDAY

After a lazy Monday filled with sporadic naps and Whose Line is it Anyways?, we decided to head out to Blackbutt reserve to check out the animals rumoured to be there. So we get off the train at Kotara, about 20 minutes away, and find no signs in sight guiding us to the park. As we are walking, this old man standing at his mailbox spots us and says “Hello!!” and waves like he’s been waiting for us his whole life. So I walk over and enquire as to how to get to Blackbutt. Over the period of about a 2-minute conversation I understood two words… down, and right. 

So we head down this little path to the right between the houses and come to a dead end. So we ask another person and they tell us that we need to “take a short cut through the bush”. So we find this short cut and as we are cutting it short I see this huge lizard on the ground next to the path. Naturally, I try to pick it up and it locks its jaws on to my hand. I start screaming and flailing my hand around it’s not letting go. Just kidding. It really did look harmless though. But you never know with Australia.

We get to the reserve and see a pen filled with kangaroos and emus. The ‘roos kept their distance, but the emus strutted right over to say hello. I found a cracker on the ground and tried to feed it to them, but every time I saw the big beak moving towards my hand I chickened out and dropped the cracker.

We also saw some wallabies, koalas, all sorts of birds, and a pikachu. My favorite was the bird sanctuary (surprise surprise) where there were all sorts of tropical birds flying over our heads. This is also where the koalas were. Next to the animal exhibits there was a big pond that was teeming with ducks, turkeys, and a giant black swan. There were also peacocks walking all over the place. It was quite a scene.

Since today it is raining we decided our time would be best spent making some rainy day Ozland videos so stay tuned!

Cheers!