I can't believe that I have been in Sydney for this long and haven't written anything about it yet! It is amazing! I have done and seen so many different things in such a short amount of time, I am just glad that I have a few more months here to do more. During the first week that we arrived, we mainly did tours of the city and got settled in. School hadn't started yet and it was extremely nice to relax and take in the sights. This is the famous Opera House located on the Sydney Harbor and also the Harbor Bridge. These are two of the main sights to see on the harbor, at night they are especially pretty. You can pay 200$ to walk across the top of the bridge, we saw some people crossing it while we were on a night cruise on the harbor.. however I am on a budget, so I'm not planning on doing that.
Also, during that first week or so in Sydney, a bunch of us went to the Independent Film Festival called Tropfest. It is one of the 2 biggest Independent Film Festivals held in the world. People bring blankets and food and spread out across this massive lawn. There are big movie screens set up and they play short films and they are judged. We got there around 11AM and stayed until 11PM that night. It wasn't crowded when we got there at all, but around 3PM or so it was packed, we had really good seats though!
Now to one of my favorite parts of Sydney... the beaches!! The beaches are amazing here. They are normally pretty crowded, but if you go at the right times, they are really nice. There are tons of different beaches to visit and some are they are all different! Bondai is one of the main beaches. It is a large beach and sometimes it gets so crowded that you almost cannot put a towel down. It's actually not that bad though because there are tons of people to see and meet. I also love watching the surfers and hope to try it out one of these days.
This beach also has an amazing salt-water swimming pool open to the public. It is built right beside the ocean, so waves come up over the sides of the pool and onto the swimmers! Also in this area there is a small hike that leads up to a place with a view of the beach and over the area of Bondai. The climb is over a bunch of rocks and cliffs where the waves come crashing into. It is all extremely beautiful.
These next pictures are of Manly Beach. It is one of the other more popular beaches and generally less-crowded than Bondai. I especially liked Manly because there are a bunch of beach volleyball courts on the water. Some people were playing more intensely, while others (like us) were just hitting around for fun. We also got some absolutely amazing gelato, italian icecream, at this beach... so that makes it probably my favorite! These are some of the people I went with..
Also, during the day we spent at Manly, I was lying on my towel eating my peanut butter sandwich (which I eat at least 5 to 8 a week) and I look up and this seagull is just standing there around 1 foot away watching me.... it was actually kind of creepy. He really wanted some, but it would have been a bad idea to feed one, because millions more would have flocked!
I know this is kind of a long post... I'll try to keep up with it better and make them shorter in the future. Right now I just have some time to sit down and do it because I am at a friend's house watching the movie Cars.. which I have seen before.
Anyway, but another noteworthy thing I did was attend the Mardi Gras parade (or the Gay and Lesbian Day Parade) in downtown Sydney. Apparently it is a pretty big deal and it and the one in New Orleans are world renown. I didn't really know what to expect with this parade... but it was absolutely crazy. I just mainly spent my time trying to figure out the gender of the people I was looking at! They lined the street with gates and you had to get there really early to get a spot on the railing, then people would come and crowd behind you. We got a pretty decent spot considering we didn't go that early. I found a crosswalk, where they had the gate propped open for people to get to the other side, and the security guys said they would close it eventually. So we claimed our spot on that gate, and when they finally closed it, we had a great spot!
I will load some more pictures from Mardi Gras on here when I get a better connection. This will do for now though! I just got back from a 5-day trip to the Great Barrier Reef, and once I get the pictures from my underwater camera developed, I will make a new post!
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