Finally an update of "reading week"

Friday April 10th
Last day of classes until next week! so basically Dana and I planned a trip to the east coast and we are starting in Sydney and taking a greyhound bus up the east coast to Brisbane. On friday my flight took off in Perth and I landed 4 hours later in Sydney...at 1030 pm, on good Friday. Aka everything is closed and nothing is open, it is pitch black outside and I am alone trying to find my hostel. I took a train from the airport to central station in the city because the hostel we were staying at, Wake Up, was right there. It was the scariest thing of my life because the streets were soooo deserted and I was really lost. I decided to call my mom because I wanted to be on the phone in case one of the 5 homeless people i walked by decided to attack. haha not that she would be able to help me so far away. whatever. I found my hostel after like 20 min. and that was the end of my adventurous night. Never Ever go to central Sydney alone on a holiday when nothing is open. ok?

Saturday April 11th
Dana arrives early in the morning. woohoo. we put our stuff in the hostel and we are off to explore the city...by foot. So we start off by looking for a cafe to eat some breakfast. After a few blocks we find a nice spot where we got some yummy fruit and pancakes. then its off to the Fish Market. We don't know where to go but we see a road sign and follow it and the cars. After about an hour of walking we arrive. The place is so cool and there are many many venues each selling many many fish. its funny. I have never seen so many fish/types of fishes in my life and they were all just chilling on some ice for anyone to pick up an purchase. No glass windows or anything. Who needs sanitation right?
Ok the fish market was pretty neat so we decided to make our way to the bridge. Again, following signs and walking seemed appropriate at the time. Well, eventually we made it there. We only got lost like 2 times and saw the entire city in the meantime. I took about 2 hours to get there. A map would of been helpful but we resorted to the Lonely Planet book with a mini map and had trouble reading it...obvisouly. The bridge was neat but nothing spectacular. Just a bunch of wire in the air. Took some pics and decided to go to the opera house. Could we be anymore touristy? haha. well we walked around again (following car signs) and make it to the opera house! on the way we passed some really sweet stores and street performers. Saw some old ships and really nice apartments. The opera house was neat but not what I was expecting either. It looked much cooler on TV during the 1996 olympics. Dana and I were tired after walking around the city for over 5 hours so we took a stroll through the botanical gardens and by stroll i mean lay on the grass for an hour. haha sooo tired. We decided to head back because our Hostel was doing some dinner deal.
On the way back we ended up in some really cool shopping area. I found a ROXY store. Literally, 100% roxy. it was amazing. I didnt buy anything though (low budget). There were some really nice stores there as well like gucci and LV. anyways we spend some time shopping and ended up taking another 2 hour stroll to get back fromt the time we left the gardens. As you can see it was a long freakin day and we walked like 15 miles we estimated. haha. might be true.
We got back to our Hostel and headed down for dinner at SIDE BAR. The dinner looked lousy so some denmark/sweden (i forget) girl we met took us to a sports bar where I had to eat fish and chips becuase nothing else was vegetarian friendly. keepin it healthy... At the table we ended up sitting next to some guy and girl who live in Figi. i was reppin PENN STATE the whole day and he noticed my shirt. Turns out he used to live in Downingtown which is 1 hour from my house. How wierd. what a small world.
Ok after dinner we headed to SIDE BAR to party/ not party because we were tired. We were only going to stay a little but D and I started dancing rediculously becuase we thought it was funny and somehow managed having a super fun time. There were points when we were just surounded by guys who made us the center fo their circles. It was hilarious. It was a great night but time for bed at about 1 am. another busy day tomorrow.

Sunday April 12th
Blue Mountains- so we decided to take a train to the blue mountains which are located in Katoomba. Dana thought the train was 1 hour long to get there so about 1 hour into the train ride we decided to start listening for our stop. we couldnt hear the conductor very well over the loud speaker so when it hit an 1 hour and 15 minutes we began to get worried. We thought we missed the stop but turns out the train ride is actually 2 hours long. Nice one dana. We get to the blue mountains and it is amazing !! They are gorgeous and green and hilly. i"ts like the grand canyon...but green" (Dana Smariga 2009). We decided to walk down the steps to the bottom and then hike to the other side. Well, turns out their were a few hundred/thousands of steps and they were narrow and all different shapes and sized. It hurt my knee a lot going down so we took our time. thank goodness we didnt take them back up. I don't think I could have done it. Then we walked for like 2-3 miles across the mountains to the other side. To get back up to the top of the mountain we took the railroad that was there. The Katoomba railroad is the steepest in the WORLD and was basically a backword straight shot up. It was sooo neat, and kinda scary. Such a good time there but we still had more to do so we took the train back to sydney after a subway lunch.
AFter we got back we had to check out BONDI beach because we wouldnt be tourist unless we did. We got there pretty late and it was quite dark, but it was still really cool. A beachy atmosphere which of course I really liked. We got dinner there and headed back home. We had another night at SIDE BAR but not a long one because we had to catch the greyhound at 7 am the next day.

P.S there are Starbucks in Sydney and after we discovered that, we went there 2 times in less than 2 days. tried to go a third, but it was closed. lame.

Monday April 13th
Greyhound at 7am off to Port Maquarie. its been dreary all week and decided to pour today. So we get off the bus at 1pm and are dropped off in town in the rain. There is not much to do in port maquarie so we were planning on hopping on the 815pm bus to coffs harbour that day, which meant we were not staying in a Hostel and therefore were forced to lug around our bags in the pouring rain for the next 7 hours. wonderful. Well there was a koala hospital there which i wanted to check out. We decided to walk there and just get wet. I had an umbrella but it failed at covering both me and my bag. Anyways we walked the wrong way again and then started walking the correct way after like 20min. We were walking but the koala hospital was further than we thought. WE were cold, wet, and tired so we did the unthinkable...and called a cab. they took us there and we got to see some sick Koalas who were being treated by the volunteers there. So cute. It was neat to see. After that, we headed back into town in another cab and chilled at 2 places to occupy our time. Subway for dinner (of course) and then drinks at a hotel for awhile. In the process i lost my umbrella. good thing the rain was just a light mist now. We headed back to the bus station and boaded the Greyhound. Destination- coffs harbour.

Still monday- land in coffs harbour at like 12 am. we get a shuttle to the hostel and pass out in our beds. whatta long day.

Tuesday April 14th
Coffs Harbour. Not too much here either but they have a pet porpoise pool which is the highlight of the place. The pet porpoise pool was a dolphin and seal show. If we got there early we could have gotten dolphin and seal kisses but we missed out. Instead, we watched the show. Dana got chosen (over me) to feed the dolphins from the stage. it was sweet, they jumped in the air and ate food right off the stick she was holding. At the end of the show the dolphins swam backward along the side of the pool and we could pet their stomach. it was awesome! I wanted more though, so I said to dana that I wish I could hug the dolphins as I noticed a dolphin worker about to walk by (so he would hear me). It worked and he was like oh have you pet their mouth? and he motioned to the dolphin to open its mouth and we were allowed to scratch its tongue. I started to tear up because It was the best moment ever. ahhhh i love dolphins!!!
We decide to then go horseback riding. A guy came and picked us up and we were driven to these trails in the rainforest. As soon as we got there is started to rain. bugger. they provided rain jackets which was nice and we were soon mounting the horses. My last horse experience was not that great so I was nervous. Dana told me that someone she knew died horseback riding so that helped to calm my nerves...thanks d. Despite hurting my knee really bad getting on the horse, the ride was great. It took 2.5 hours and we literally rode throught the rainforest and it was raining. It was sooo nice and before it ended, the weather cleared up. The trails were quiet soggy but it was cool riding through the huge puddles. I don't think the horses liked it too much but too bad. wow.
We headed back to our Hostel and we needed to catch the greyhound at 1130pm to byron bay.

Wednesday April 15th
2:30 am- arrive in Byron Bay. We take a taxi to our hostel, The Arts Factory, and end up crashing as soon as we get their, it is late.

Wake up early and head to the beach. It is gorgeous. The prettiest beach I have ever seen!!!!! (I have not seen hawaii yet though). but the sides were covered by rainforest/ green hills and the surf would of been amazing. too bad I can't surf with my knee : ( . The town was also pretty neat, lots of surfers (holler) and surf shops (double holler). It was quite hippy though so dana liked it but hippy style is not really for me. Our hostel is very hippy too. the smell of a certain illegal drug was not uncommon along with dread locks and tie-dye clothing. whatever, dana picked it out and I picked out the other Hostels. it was only fair.
At night it was time to go out. The only two places to go were "cheeky monkeys" and some other bar. we headed to the monkey place first. inside the place had a bunch of table for dancing on and not much dancing floor. kinda strange. we stayed a little bit and then headed to the other bar. I didnt like the other one that much either because it was a small dance floor filled with a small stage for dancing as well. we didnt stay out too long and headed back to hippe-town.

Thursday April 16th
We get the greyhound at 930 am and are off to Sufers Paradise.
At 11ish we arrive and check into our hostel, Surfers Beach Side Backpackers Resort. Its the coolest hostel yet because it isnt too big and each room has a TV. we share it with 4 other guys who were the coolest people we met so far. We chill at the beach all day and walk around the town for a little bit at night. food= subway and cold-rock ice cream. I am guessing that it is copying off of "cold-stone" the popular american store. it was soo good though. anyways at this point i decide that I love surfers and want to live there/vacation there for several months at a time. The beach isnt as nice as byron but the whole atmosphere was amazing. They had gorgeous condos and hotels that were over 60 stories tall. crazy. At night we watched a movie or 2 then went to sleep.

Friday April 17th
day 2- chill on the beach again. w dana. Walked around the town again. good times. ahh I love it. We got dinner at some resteraunt called central. The host guy let us get a free drink of champagne/wine and then we split a really good salad. We indulged in some super fancy cocktails because it was time to start Dana's birthday celebration. We went back to the Hostel and started talking to the americans that we met who are doing post-grad in Sydney. They were from Cali and colorado. We then joined in a game of pyramid with a bunch of the hostel backpackers. Everynight the hostel goes out to some place together so we decided to join in. We went to "the Bedroom" and all hostel people got a free drink voucher. it was sweet. We placed some weird cup coaster flip game at the table with the hostel guys and it was kinda fun. Then I managed to lose my purse but luckily found it at the reception. The only thing missing out of it was my $5o. thieves.... anyways that meant that I could not buy Dana any birthday shots becasue I had absolutely no money. (Sorry D) the american girls bought a shot though called chocolate cake and it was delicious. very nice of her. It was a fun night but we headed back not too late. Dana seemed to have a good birthday. haha. time for bed

Saturday April 18th
We chill on the beach again. So nice. Then eventually pack up our stuff and hop on the greyhound bus to our final destination...Brisbane.
We arrive at around 4 pm and its starting to get late. we try to find our hostel (Yellow Submarine )but get lost again. It was my fault this time. I read the map wrong. but we eventually found our hostel and checked in. Since we were living out of small bags all week we had to do laundry. It was necessary. So we finally had clean clothes and then decided to meet the other Hostel people. It was "german night" so for 10 bucks you got some shnitzel and potatoe salad along with alcoholic punch. I wanted none of that so didnt buy in but dana did. I got to eat some food for free at the end though. For some reason, everyone in this hostel smoked. like, everyone! except me and dana and this cool american from cali. It was gross, I tried to sit out their but my eyes started burning and i reaked! I don't understand why so many backpackers smoke? whatever. After a long time it was time to go out. I fell asleep early on my bed but dana woke me up and we went to a foam party. It was quiet gross because I didnt want to get foamy and wet cause I just showered. It prob. would of been a good idea not to go to a foam party then, but I am dumb sometimes. We also had to get a train at 6am the next morning and it was 2 am. We decided to go back and then we showered and fell asleep.

Sunday April 19th
Take a train to the airport in Brisbane and hope on a flight to Perth. did I mention that we didn't show our ID's once during the whole process of checking in and security. so different than the USA. It was a boring 5 hour flight but it was nice to be back in Perth. Really different than the East Coast. back to reality time because school starts back on monday. Dana came to spend the week here so hopefully she had fun.

I will update with more about our week in Perth but this post was too long and I my hands are tired from typing for the last hour straight. g-day