Homebush Bay, Not Tempe.

Thursday is going to be an exciting day for the whole semester. Why you ask? Well, simply put, both of us don’t have class on Thursdays! So of course today is going to be full of crazy adventures! We have both found out that we cannot sleep in past 9am (I know, I know, most of you who are reading this are probably at your jobs by then) but we have enjoyed meeting up and having morning breakfast while listening to the busy Sydney life. After breakfast and before our big journey, we have to properly prepare our bags to ensure that we will make it to our destination and back in a safely manner (big thanks to the advice Alex gave us). Once the bags were packed it was off to our first stop; university to pick up our ID cards. We had been warned about a strike that was going to take place on campus today but we were unprepared for what we were about to walk into. Professors were lined up at the top of the stairs from Victoria Park asking us to not cross the picket line. A little confused, but with a mission in mind we headed into the university anyways only to find that the ID shop was closed due to the strike. Frustrated and annoyed we headed towards the train station. We arrived at the train station knowing that we wanted to go to the IKEA in Tempe, which was a 10 minute ride from Sydney. Unfortunately, we forgot to write down our directions and train stops. So, when it was time to pick a train, we just decided to wing it and pick a train to Strathfield which we ‘remembered’ from the research.  As the train left towards Strathfield it passed many different stations that we never saw on Google maps.  Before you know it, the 10 minute ride became a 20 minute ride which gave us the indication that we were headed in the wrong direction. The train finally reached Strathfield and we had no idea where to go! Obviously we weren’t at the mapped out station like we wanted. Completely lost, we decided to try and find a map of Strathfield, hoping it would give us a sign of which way to go. Sadly, we did not see a big sign saying “IKEA this way!” At this point we were both a little discouraged and with our heads hanging low, it was time to head outside to see if we could find someone to help us. The first stop was Oporto, which apparently is the ‘healthy’ version of fast food. As we walked into the store, there was a man behind the counter that looked Australian. We were super excited because we actually thought we were going to talk to an Australian for once. Again, another wave of discouragement hit us when he spoke and an Italian/German/Not sure what accent it was came out of his mouth. Although, he did inform us of a bus that came around and picked up people going to IKEA which was nice. So we headed out the door and was on the hunt for this bus. The search ended quickly because we both wanted to sit down on what looked like a comfy bench. While sitting, we did notice a bunch of people getting onto this white van which was a little sketchy. We thought about investigating more about this van but we decided to go back into the station to ask for help. Surprisingly, the workers in the station were more helpful than we thought, giving us directions and letting us back in the station to exit the other way for free. Usually when you enter or leave the station you have to put your ticket through this machine and since we had already exited once that would have been a problem. So then we were finally on our way, with a little help from an international friend who had texted us directions on where to go. She said it was a straight shot down the main road, Leichen Road, which was really Concord Road. Even some construction guys helped us out by looking up the shopping centre on their 3G iPads. Both of our sources told us it was a three mile walk down the road, and thankfully they were right! Exactly an hour later we were sitting in IKEA Homebush Bay lobby taking a rest.

 

We then explored the upstairs and found out the prices were a lot more expensive. A dresser that Riley had bought in Charlotte for $149 was $329 here! With our stomachs growling we had a beeline for the restaurant only to find this…

 

Squid Ink Pasta was not on our menu so we made a quick decision

to head downstairs to the bistro to get classic pizza and hot dog!  

Lauren was a little disappointed with the pizza since it tasted oddly like grass, only because it was a vegetarian pizza. Of course we had to end the lunch with ice cream, which was ten times better than the IKEA ice cream in Charlotte, plus it came out of this machine that we put in a gold coin for.

 

With a few items in our shopping cart we headed towards the checkout lanes and then into the rest of the mall. We stumbled upon a few stores that looked interested and seemed to have good deals but we were sadly mistaken. It seems that everything in Sydney is expensive. We wanted to leave the mall early to make it back in time for the Wine and Cheese event that the Catholic Society was hosting on campus. We met a lot of cool people there, one guy in particularly that we really hit it off with. Neill was a native Philippine who has travelled around the world and has lived in Sydney for about four years. We shared our experiences of the US with him since he hopes to go there this year. Later in the night he invited us to come to one the trivia nights that he weekly attends at local pubs. We hope to check it out one time, along with maybe one or two board night games that he hosts at his apartment! The Catholic group was heading to dinner afterwards and we thought about joining them but since we had planned to go out on Friday night for seafood we decided to pass. With it being past seven we made a quick stop at the library which was closed due to the strike, irritating us once again! After all the madness of the day we decided to head back to make dinner (barbeque sandwiches which were once again delicious) and call it a night.