I made the flight to Sydney, and despite the wonderfully confusing nature of the airport, met Chrissie who I was staying with. She lives up in Hornsby Heights, which is pretty much the last stop on one of the train lines before the actual bush... something Chrissie gave me fair warning about. Don't fall asleep on the train alone. With that in mind, I can understand how easily distracted I could get on the trains, purely for the fact I was fascinated by the fact they were double decker. Simple things entertain simple minds.
The next day Chrissie had a speech to give, so I managed to go to (in the loosest way) my fifth university in a just over a year. First it was Colorado, then Keele and Kyoto, and I just managed to push my way into attending a class in both University of South Australia with Leni, and then Macquarie Uni with Chrissie. Needless to say, film and business lectures are definitely not my thing, but it was pretty cool to the differences and similarities the Australian uni's had to Keele.
Across from Macquarie there's a quirky little milkshake place that I'd seen many a time from Chrissie's instagram, so after going there we headed to Manley Beach for lunch. I will admit, on the ferry I saw a dark shadow and did think it was a great white briefly (obviously Bruce giving the whole "fish are friends, not food speech" to his gang), but it was a dolphin. Although part of me was a little disappointed in wasn't a humpback whale like had been in the harbour a few days earlier.
We reverted back to being little children when we got to Manley, deciding to get fish and chip for lunch and sit at the beach. Great idea until we realised how stealthy the seagulls were, stealing a fair few things off Chrissie's fork, much to her disappointment, Karma definitely played a part too, since after all my laughing at her incompetency, the same thing happened to me. We took a nice leisurely stroll along the beach, attempting to take photos of our names in the sand, but true to form that failed too
SATURDAY WAS ZOO DAY. I went with Chrissie, Katy and Chrissie's friend Emma, and it was safe to say that we were all a little bit more excited than we should have been, especially all over the age of 20. We actually parked in the Sydney Harbour national park so we could walk along the boardwalk on the way to Taronga, and we got some pretty good views of the city from there! It was a shame, because both ways the weather wasn't exactly cooperating in terms of us getting a good photo, but we tried at least, and it turned out super cute. We saw lots of different animals, but the highlight for me was definitely the elusive pygmy hippo.I was so happy that despite Chrissie having work on Sunday morning, we managed to visit so many places. We started in Darling Harbour, a place that somewhat reminded me of the Albert Dock back home. From there we stumbled upon the Chinese garden of friendship, hidden in the middle of all the hustle and bustle Sydney has to offer. I was honestly surprised I'd never even heard of these places before, but I guess when you have the bridge and Opera House to drag tourists in, you don't really need to mention much else. After a really brief walk around Paddy's market (with Chrissie pulling me away from all the cute backpacks, it was like Asia all over again), we headed to Chinatown. We actually ended up in some Korean restaurant since we both loved the fact the other wasn't fussy with food, and it was pretty good. Not a patch on Seoul, but it was pretty close. The fact we got a pitcher of pomegranate soju and stumbled home almost sealed the deal.
The rest of my days were spend doing the infamous Bondi to Bronte coastal walk, where we took some stereotypical American sorority girl pictures on the beach.Chrissie and I don't really get to embrace that side of us much since we've come home from Colorado, so we decided to go all out and start a global sorority gift exchange with each other, which I'm sure will be great until I have to get crafty. My second to last night was spent at the Opera bar, a small venue located right next to the Opera House and overlooking the harbour. Yet again, our luck with wildlife continued as seagulls were loitering everywhere, but it was super cool to be able to have a few cocktails with Katy and Chrissie, knowing I won't see them for a while, in such an surreal location!Hands down the best decision I made during my time in Sydney was telling Chrissie to take me to all the local places she goes. I would probably never have discovered half of them, but it gave me such a better perspective on what living in Sydney is like. Needless to say, I could happily see myself living there in the future. Although I may just have to spend Australian summers somewhere I'm less likely to spontaneously combust.
