A Little Sister Time

One night Elizabeth went to see the Nutcracker at the Sydney Opera House.  I only had one ticket and, since I have already seen some similar shows and operas, Elizabeth went in my place!  She liked it but said the actual ballet was kind of boring.

The next morning we woke up and headed out for Manly Beach.  There is a famous walk in Sydney called 'Spit to Manly' that goes from the Spit Bridge to Manly Beach, so we decided to do it .. but backwards, so we started in Manly.  

This is at the beginning of our walk, the walk that we did is the Manly Scenic Walkway (the sign says that).  It was 10 km and took us right under 4 hours.   

This is on the trail.  Some parts were easier than others.  Needless to say, though, at the end we were exhausted!

The walk took us along the Harbour so we passed by a bunch of warfs and bays where people docked their boats.  

We stopped here and and rested while we ate our lunch.    

It was also pretty neat because across the harbor you could see the city of Sydney.

At one point we saw a sign for a 800 meter detour down to a lighthouse so we headed off the path to check it out.  We were picturing some beautiful structure on the water and wanted to get a picture of it for Nan because she loves lighthouses.

Well, it turned out that it was quite a hike downhill and the lighthouse ended up being pretty small.  We still took a picture for you though Nan!

Anyway, but we did end up staying down there, close to the water, to take pictures and to just relax.  

We just kind of sat there for forever until we realized that it was getting dark and there were no lights on the trail.  Also we had quite a little ways to go!

Finally, after leaving the pretty view, we got back on the trail and eventually finished our walk!  We were tired when we got home and so we cooked and went to bed.  (This seems to be the reoccurring theme of the trip)

That night it was poppy-seed chicken, broccoli, and pumpkin.  I have been eating pumpkin all the time here and wanted to try cooking one... and it turned out great!

The next day we were still tired from out walk and I had classes and labs, so we stayed around the house.  Later that night, though, we decided to try out Hillsong Church's Wednesday night service.  It is the famous, more contemporary church in Sydney that is on tv.  

We took a bus from the city to the church and back.  It was an extremely good service and we liked it a lot!  The music was especially good!

Somehow it got kind of late and we were still making our way back home.  We ended up having to wait 45 minutes for a bus back to school, so we ran into a store and got some groceries... then ate them on the bus on the way home!

Since Elizabeth has been here we have gone through 4 boxes of Weet-Bix.. which is a type of cereal here, 4 things of milk, and 4 jars of crunchy peanut butter!

Finally, after our feast on the bus, we made it home and put up what was left of our groceries.

The next day we went to the Sydney Olympic Park and walked around.  It was kind of like a deserted ghost-town, we thought it was kind of weird.  Apparently they still do have athletic events in the huge arenas and fields though, and it was easy to picture how the area used to be packed with athletes and spectators!

There was a giant fountain and Eliz and I found some benches and sat there for a while just enjoying the weather.. we also fell asleep for a few minutes =)

That night we came home and made a mexican creation consisting of rice, beans, chicken and tortillas.. yum!

The next day we woke up and went to Paddy's Markets to get some souvenirs for Eliz to take back home.  The markets are indoors in this massive warehouse type building and it is stall after stall of stuff.  
.

We did some shopping and walking around, but most importantly Elizabeth got to try her first meat pie and ginger beer (just an Australian soft-drink).  These are both famous to Australia and she liked them a lot!