He just poked the fire!

 We had our bags all packed and ready to head out for the train station at 8:00 AM, but like always our morning got away from us. Instead of being on time and leisurely walking to the train station we were literally running to miss the train to Katoomba by only one minute. But we soon found out we weren’t the only ones that missed the train to the Blue Mountains! The only bad thing was that we were going to have to wait for another 45 minutes before the next train came. We were able to get ahead of our teacher to let him know we were going to be on the way and he informed us we’d have to take a taxi to the location once we arrived. This wasn’t news that we wanted to hear. In no time we were boarding the train and headed towards the Blue Mountains. Riley finds it so easy to relax on public transportation that he took a nice little snooze, although I did join him a little later. After I realized we were out of the city and into the country I kept my eyes on the scenery. We passed through a lot of small towns that look interesting and fun, so I started a list of places we could look up and explore later on hopefully. Once we were in Katoomba it was easy to hail a taxi and get to our destination. The rest of our group was waiting outside the shop called Scenic World which we had been inside the first weekend in Sydney, not too special except for the railcar that takes you across the valley. Our group had been there less than 10 minutes so everything worked out perfectly. We were able to finally meet up with the rest of our cabin groups for the weekend and get assigned into our first hiking group. Unfortunately we weren’t together, but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. We knew we’d be able to meet new people and still have a good time. So our groups were off. This was actually the same trail that we had taken the first weekend, just backwards which meant we’d be climbing up the giant stairway instead of down it. The beginning of the trek wasn’t too bad since we were so caught up in meeting people from our new groups. We were able to see a few good trees and vegetation along with the Three Sisters off in the distance.

Three Sisters to the left

We barely saw each other throughout the day since we were in two different groups with other groups in between us. The bushwalk didn’t last long though since it was only about 6 km, which is about 4 miles. The beginning part was more enjoyable than the latter part since we had to conquer the giant stairway.

Riley noted that you can't bring dogs, use the toilet, or start a fire, but you can fall off a cliff if you wanted.

One girl in my group took it upon herself to count the stairs but lost count after about 400. I think there’s a little over 900 constant stairs and let me tell you that’s not easy! Someone in Riley’s group decided they were going to hold water in their mouth for the whole trip up. That obviously meant no talking for them! But after the stairway ended that meant our trek for the day was over and we were beyond excited.

Lauren's group for the first day!

Riley's group for the first day! If you think that is Riley's backpack then you're wrong.
 Its just the guy behind him. Optical illusion I know!

 Quite a few of us were out of shape to say the least. That also meant we were that much closer to dinner, but first we had to go grocery shopping. Each cabin group of five people were supposed to plan a menu for lunch and dinner. Riley and I had thought ahead and brought PB&J sandwiches for lunch everyday as well as snacks, but other people hadn’t been as smart. I was able to convince my group that it’d be easier if everyone was on their own for breakfast and lunch and then we’d just buy the ingredients together for dinner. Riley wasn’t so lucky and ended up spending a total of $65 for five guys. Which if you think about it isn’t bad for a whole weekend of meals since it was about $13 per person. Just about everyone was making pasta for the night since it’s the cheapest and easiest thing to make! Riley and I are both used to cooking every night so we quickly took charge in our separate kitchens and dinner was ready in no time! After eating and cleaning up we quickly realized that it was only 6:30, dark outside and we had nothing to do until 8:00 PM campfire time. The girls in my cabin decided we should go join the guys since we could hear them laughing all the way in our cabin anyways. We had a few good laughs with them but mainly we were just waiting for time to pass. Obviously people aren’t used to having no technology or anything to do in general since they were all complaining how bored they were. Riley and I thought it was a great way to bond with each other since we literally had nothing else to do. And bond we did! After one long countdown it was finally campfire time and we all gathered outside. A guy from Riley’s cabin had attempted to start a fire in their furnace and had unfortunately failed. This was brought to the teacher’s attention and he made sure him out in front of everyone. This was quite hilarious since our teacher is awkward at best. We recapped about our day’s journey and then were informed we were going to have to introduce ourselves. However, this was no ordinary introduction, we were going to have to state where we were from, what we’d show people in our hometown if they came and a passion that we have in life. You would be surprised how many people said they have no passion, but I think they were just either too embarrassed to say or weren’t thinking hard enough. Riley said his passion was bowling and he’d take people to do the Krispy Kreme Challenge in Raleigh if anyone visited. I said my passion was kids and teaching as well as having my own classroom someday, along with Cookout being where I’d take people if they came to Goldsboro. I also said that Goldsboro was the 81^st most dangerous city in the US which people thought was funny. After the fire we were pretty chilly and gathered back in the guys’ cabin to see if Jason could redeem himself in his fire making skills. We soon realized we were all too tired to talk and made our way back to our own cabin. The girls cabin turned into quite the sleepover since there is one room with a queen bed and then a room with 2 bunkbeds. In the guy’s cabin they all drew sticks to see who would get the big room, with Riley as the winner. However, none of the girls wanted to sleep by themselves since we’re all scaredy cats. The girl from Cancun thought she would be brave enough to sleep in the room by herself but once the lights went out she busted through our bed begging for someone to sleep with her. Soon we had a fifth person sleeping on the couch cushions in the middle of the room!   

All of us!

You will pay for this

The alarm clock went off at 3:45, but I did not want to get out of bed. Today was Anzac Day and we had agreed to wake up early and experience the Dawn Service at city town centre at 4:30 in the morning! To start with Anzac Day is similar to our Memorial Day where they honored those that have served in the Armed Forces especially during the first fight between New Zealand and Australia in World War I. We had read about the Dawn Service being a popular event in the city with thousands of people attending, but we had no idea what this would look like the middle of the city. We soon found out though whenever we couldn’t even cross the street or get anywhere close to the front of the crowd. We were stuck way in the back and with the wind blowing in between all the skyscrapers we had to focus intently to just decipher a few words. We were that it was more important to just be there and experience it rather than exactly understand everything that was going on. We were able to hear a few speeches from various Australian figures and then a bugler doing the Last Post as well as Reveille. The moment of silence was probably my favorite part since even the city street lights turned off for the somber occasion. The wind and cold were getting to us so we were more than happy to get back to our beds to catch the rest of our sleep! We still had a full day ahead of ourselves and mine started with finally skyping my family again. I was very excited to see my mom, dad and Leah especially since I hadn’t really talked to them in just about a month. Our main correspondence has been email which is great, but definitely not the same as seeing them face to face (or as much as skype allows). It feels nice being caught up on all the family news since I am so far away. I had more Australian stories to tell than I thought I did, but they all seemed to like them. Even got a few laughs out of my dad! For the second time in a row my brother, Alex, tried to call me on skype while I was skyping someone else and I was definitely starting to feel bad about this. Plus I didn’t have any time to talk to him afterwards since Riley and I were meeting up with Niell to try Lebanese for lunch. This was somewhat of a holiday tradition for Niell since it’s a holiday off of work for him and one his friend’s favorite restaurants had a great lunch special. We took a bus to Leichardt and sat down at this Lebanese restaurant to wait for one of his friends, while the other one had joined us at the bus stop. We had a lot to choose from on the menu though and with the lunch special we were able to choose 2 kebabs (chicken or lamb), a salad, a dip and a side. Since lamb isn’t on our everyday menu we decided that now would be a good time to try that so Riley got two while I did one of each. We both got the hummus dip, and he also tried the falafel. The chicken kebab was probably the juiciest, most tender chicken I have ever tasted, but the lamb was a little fatty. We were both proud of ourselves for trying new things, considering we were actually starting to like the taste of hummus. Usually I am not a fan of it! The conversations were great for everyone since we got on the topic of traveling and Niell’s friend was able to tell us a lot about his adventures through Europe. He gave me a lot of tips about where to go while I’m in Germany next semester, but I think he forgot that I am only going to be there for 6 weeks. It was great to meet some new people and try something new at the same time. Then it was time for more Anzac day traditions; another rugby league game. We were a little late to the game which was unfortunate since they were doing more Memorial Day type of things flashing the Australian flag on the field and having army vehicles circle the stadium. The stadium was absolutely packed with over 40,000 people that came out to this one game.

 Not to mention, it was the most intense game we’ve seen since we’ve been in Australia! The crowd truly made the game, especially since there weren’t any annoying fans behind us. However, there were a few people next to us that thought the seats were first come, first serve and had waited 2 hours at those seats for the game to start. However, our class buys group tickets so that we can all sit together and they were right in the middle of our group. The older couple got extremely mad and told our classmates off. Even after the police came to check the couple’s tickets a few uneasy things were said. We had obviously ruined his day, but what else were we supposed to do? The stadium was packed! It was great being part of an Australian tradition and seeing all their support for the team and country. In the end, the team we were going for (Roosters) smashed the other team (Dragons) by something like 30 points.





















Little bit of an embarrassment, but it was about time that our team won something. We were hoping to catch a pub on the way back playing a game of 2-up but we weren’t so lucky. This is a gambling game that was playing in World War I where the Australian soldiers got all the Americans money. It is apparently illegal in Australia except for Anzac day. The game is a simple game of heads or tails with three coins. One person flips the coins (referee for the game) and then the two players had to call out heads or tails and how much they were betting such as “Five on Heads.” Some players bet up to hundreds of dollars and with the game being purely about luck there really is no winning for long. We were both super hungry so we knew we wouldn’t enjoy the pub much anyways. We also knew that we had to get back and start packing for the weekend of bushwalking in the Blue Mountains that we had ahead of us. It was also the time that Alex was getting up for school in Vermont so I was able to multi-task and talk with him while packing. He is insanely interested in hiking/bushwalking so I know he was super jealous. Nonetheless, it was great to see and talk to him since it has been a while. I always enjoy telling my Australian stories and he had plenty of Norwich news to relay back to me. It was just a day full of catching up with family; something that I truly missed and needed!  

My Witherspoon 335 girls

My creative arts class flew by since I knew that I had something exciting waiting for me at noon; finally being able to skype with Jessica and Noelle my old roommates! I got so wrapped up in my visual arts project of making a collage out of my drawing from the previous week that I had to practically run across campus to set up my laptop outside and log into skype. Being that I was fifteen minutes late I knew that the girls had figured I had forgotten them, but we were all excited to finally be able to see each other. Talking to them and hearing all about UNCC really made me miss home and getting to talk and laugh with them, but it also made me appreciate my time here even more. They asked me lots of questions about Australia since they were of course curious, but it also made me realize that I still have a lot to experience. Also weird to think that they are about to get out of school for the semester and I am only halfway done with mine. Definitely makes me jealous, but then again two of my classes, and Riley’s, will be ending soon so that makes everything a little better. It was getting past Noelle’s grandma bedtime (that’s a joke) so we had to end our skype session but we all agreed to do it more often! This left me to finish my lunch with Riley and catch up with him. I was done with classes for the day, but that also meant I had a lot of free time to catch up on some schoolwork. The internet got the better part of me again and sucked away about an hour of my time before I finally cracked down and started on one of my reflection papers. Riley soon joined on one of his breaks and we were able to knock the majority of our papers out of the way. We only have one more paper to write for our Australian Sport Culture class and we are beyond excited. Although the class takes us on a lot of field trips that we would not have otherwise experienced, our interest in the class has severely dropped. We haven’t really connected with many people in the class since they had prior clichés it seems, and the professor isn’t exactly professional. I stayed behind at the library to finish some work while Riley headed off to his last class. Afterwards we knew we had to get some quick dinner before heading off to the Great Southern Hotel in Ultimo to meet with Niell for trivia night. We had agreed to try out another pub for their trivia night at the previous event and were excited. We had passed by their ‘hotel’ several times on our way to Darling Harbour, Town Hall or the markets but had never been inside. We instantly knew why whenever we stepped in and were confronted with a wall of loud noise and chatter along with a cloud of smoke. I don’t think Australia has the same ‘no smoking inside’ rule that the US does and man, do I miss that. I’m afraid that I’m actually getting used to the smell of secondhand smoke because literally everyone smokes here. I can’t even walk to the grocery store without getting stuck behind at least five people that light one up right in front of me. Niell was sitting right inside the pub so it wasn’t hard to find him. We had thought that we were running late, but turns out we were actually early since the event didn’t start until 7:30. It was only going to be the three of us for the night since his other friends had fallen habit to creature and have permanently settled at the other pub. Niell is adventurous like us and likes to try new things, so for that we are thankful. This pub was a little different with the categories and scoring. The first category was potluck where any question under the sun could be asked, followed by sports, food and drink and music. Your team was able to pick one category and put a star next to it meaning you would get double the credit for every right answer. We chose to go with the potluck category and definitely worked out in our benefit since we got 8/10 in that category. After two rounds we were in a solid second place and extremely excited about our efforts. We were a good mix of people since we had all contributed to the answers! However, things quickly turned for us. We weren’t so hot on the sports or food and drink categories and unfortunately our title slipped from us. But, that is not entirely our fault because we had some cheaters on the premises. There was a possible 50 points your team could have gotten, 60 if you did the double points with the stars and guess what? One team got a perfect 50/50 questions right! Tell me how that is even possible without using google as a search engine for every single answer. We were beyond annoyed and mad that people had ruined the fun of the night. The team that followed got 49/50 questions right so obviously there was something not so honest behavior going on. We were completely happy about our 32/50 answer set especially with only having 3 people on our team! Niell informed us that we would come across more backpackers in the city that tend to break the rules and cheat with their phones since they’re just after the money and prizes. That being said we will not return to the Great Southern Hotel for trivia night. We probably wouldn’t have anyways because of the atmosphere and smoke that exhausted us out.

Wouldn’t expect this here!

Lauren had to wake up early to go print out and turn in her reflection of her presentation, but I on the other hand decided today would be my sleep in day. She also had to retrieve my Nalgene water bottle that she left in her classroom the day before, which thankfully was still there. I just started putting stickers on the bottle so it is quickly becoming sentimental. Soon after she arrived back, we headed off for another adventure day since our outdoor education class for the day had been canceled. While Lauren was gone, I had scoped out a couple of places we could go in Tempe, but soon realized there was nothing in Tempe except for IKEA. That left me to look for places in Newtown which is along the way. Although we have been to Newtown a couple of times, we haven’t really explored it and saw what it had to offer. I found a couple of vintage clothing stores that I wanted to check out along with Sydney Park, so we wrote the addresses down and headed out the door. Although there was nothing in Tempe, we decided to go to IKEA to see if they had any deals on apple crackers. We have taken this journey a couple of times so we weren’t as tired doing the three mile journey. We arrived and decided to look around a little bit and test out the couches, which were comfy if I may add. As we made it to the check out, we saw our cookies and they were on sale just like we wanted. Only .50¢! Needless to say we were in heaven since we have come to love these cookies. After we picked up eight packs, we headed off to get ice-cream which was also delicious. We wanted real lunch so we headed off to Sydney Park to enjoy a packed lunch in the park. We have passed this park many times before, but have never gone in and actually seen the place. I think we were both shocked with how big it was since it was in the middle of the city! The place seemed to have stretched for miles!

We found a bench next to a kiosk that was selling goodies and decided that this was the place for lunch. There were a bunch of kids riding around on scooters which made me reminisce on the times when I had a razor scooter. We soon finished our lunch and decided to see what else was in the park! We found a duck pond right around the corner with little pieces of popcorn on the walkway, so we picked some up and started feeding ducks! We even saw a couple poodles!

Lauren thinks this is a prize winning photo!

Felt like a kid again!

Lauren thought this bird was running on water...

I had a good time feeding the ducks because when you’re in Sydney, you don’t have the opportunity to see many ducks. Soon after we also saw the logo in which we swear Microsoft used on Windows XP.

Since the clouds were rolling in we knew we had to see the rest of the park, but in a short amount of time. We raced off on the bike and skateboard and zoomed around the park. Somehow we made it to the top of the Microsoft hill and had a beautiful view of Sydney.

Again, with clouds beginning to roll in we thought it would be best if we headed back and cross off the shops that were on our list. Along the way, we saw a sign. We’ll let you think about it.

These things run wild in my backyard. 

We made it to our first shop which was Shrag’s Fashion. If the name doesn’t sound funky enough you should have seen the clothes that they had! Before long, we were out of the store and off to the next one. Sadly, most of the stores turned out to be just like Shrag’s Fashion so we decided to head back and get Dominos since it was Tuesday. We decided to change it up today though and instead of getting pepperoni and Hawaiian, we decided to get pepperoni with BBQ sauce and Hawaiian. Yea, you may not think it’s much of a change, but it is! Good thing we decided to change it up, because our new pizza was awesome! After we both ate a whole pizza each, I think it was in our best interest to just have a laid back night while our food digested. 

Say hey to Hershey!

Lauren woke up on the early side today to finish her project since she had to present today. I wasn’t thinking I was going to get up early, but I realized it would be a better idea since I was planning on skyping with my Mom.  Also, with Lauren going to school early, I figured I could go early and get my one Anthropology class out of the way. I decided that I would meet Lauren at the uni later since I had a little under 5 minutes to make it to class and I was still about 10 minutes out. There was no time to wait for a girl to get ready! I made it to class just in time to see my teacher wearing a wolf mask. Why you ask? Well, she never really said why she was wearing it, but I guess she just felt like it! My class was over quick and I was soon skyping with my mom. It was nice to talk to her again since it was the first time skyping her since I have been in Australia. We’ve tried before, but due to technical issues, it didn’t happen. I think she is still a little amazed that technology gives us the capabilities to talk over the internet. But I’m not going to lie, I’m still a little amazed by it. We talked about a lot of things and I was even able to see Hershey(my favorite poodle; don’t judge). Lauren soon joined in, but I was informed that they were talking before while she was in the library ‘looking over’ her project. Since it was getting late back in the states, my mom had to get off and go to bed.  We headed back to the library so Lauren could really look over her project. She blames me for not being there to keep her off of Facebook… oh women ;).  I stayed in the library with her and worked on my French book while she was working hard on her project. Our stomachs soon started to rumble so we both knew that it meant lunch time. We decided to eat our lunch at our little work station since we didn’t want to give it up considering they are scarce all the time. People like to just set down their stuff and then disappear, or fall asleep in front of a computer, or sit at a computer and use their laptop. So. Annoying! It was fast approaching 1 o’ clock which meant Lauren had to go to class. She had a presenter from America coming to talk to her international education class about American education. Lauren was a little worried that she was going to cover all the points that she was going to discuss in her project, but luckily the presenter went too in depth with early American history that she didn’t get to the topics of Lauren’s project. We met up one last time at the library to do the American things that we do: Facebook and emails. That lasted a couple hours and then it was off for Lauren to finally present her project that she had been working on for less than one full day. I’ll let her explain how it went!

Walking into the classroom to set up I was a little nervous, but no more than when I usually present. I was just hoping that they would all find it interesting to learn about the United States from a girl that was actually from there. I started the presentation with showing my home state and where I live and go to school. I made sure to point out that I live 3.5 hours from my college because that is pretty uncommon in Australia – most just commute from their home. For my presentation I was supposed to talk about the United States educational reforms and how they have affected the US, along with how our system compares to Australia’s. I really wanted them to understand the importance that segregation played in our nation and made them do a little scenario. Everyone was given a note card with a scenario on it (whether they white or African-American, male or female) and then they had to board a bus in the front of the classroom and sit according to their color. One of the girls was Rosa Parks and I played the white male that asked her to move. They all could not believe that she got arrested for such a small little thing. After that exercise, I knew I had their attention and I flew through the rest of the history. One thing I was excited to talk about was my high school, WEMCHS. I consider it to be a form of public school reform and they all asked lots of questions about it since they had never heard of anything like it before. I also had the students do a mix-match activity with stats from the US and Australia. A lot of them didn’t even place the correct index card under Australia, let alone the US. However, they were still really interested and mind blown by the statistics so I considered that an accomplishment. The tutorial session is supposed to be for 2 hours, but I presented for a solid hour which I was very pleased with. The professor even said at the beginning of class that if I didn’t go for the whole hour then it wouldn’t hurt his feelings. Not much more went on throughout the day. Later that night Lauren decided to write her reflection for  her presentation, but it was done in no time so it must have been a piece of cake! 

Good Karma

Lauren recently found out that not only does Australia have football (Australian Rules Football) but also really soccer, or football. Today was actually the Grand Finale of soccer and the Western Sydney Wanderers were playing in Sydney! We had hoped to get tickets for the game since the fan base for this sport is supposedly crazy but by the time we found out about the game the tickets were already sold out. We didn’t want to miss out on a good game though so we decided to walk down George St. to see what pubs were showing the game and what good fans we could find. It didn’t take us long and we were surrounded by fans from both teams at a pub called Cheers. We took interest in the amount of people that placed bets on the game and the guy in front of us constantly checked the betting machine to see how his money was settling. We thought we might give betting a shot, but we had no idea how to work the machine and weren’t going to waste five dollars trying to figure it out. The game flew by though with a goal in the first half for the other team, go figure. The fans really got into it whenever someone got close to scoring, but even with a mixed crowd there wasn’t a lot of smack talk on. Instead, it seemed like it was just sports fans watching a nice match together, definitely not a Grand Finale. In the end, the Western Sydney Wanderers, the team we were pulling for didn’t come out victoriously. It was official – we have to root for the opposite team that we want to win! Nonetheless it was still a good game, watched with some great people and a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon. Especially since completing a project due the next day was on Lauren’s to-do list. She has known about this project all semester, but yet waited to the last weekend in order to get it done. We spent the later part of the night working on school work together, with Lauren working on her project and I working my a French book that I bought at the local book store. I soon had to put the book down because I just wasn’t feeling it, but I know Lauren wasn’t feeling it either yet it’s not like she had a choice since it was due tomorrow. She finally finished her project with the night at no means young! Since it was so late, we both decided to call it a night and head our separate ways.

I thought it was fog!

This Saturday was a bit of a lazy one since we had a little bit of schoolwork and cleaning to catch up on. We somehow both slept the morning away and woke up close to noon. So there goes our Saturday basically. The only things we had on our agenda for the day was church and the Sydney Harbour Fireworks so we knew we weren’t on a time crunch. However, whenever we sat down to have breakfast together we realized that our plans might be changing once the sky literally fell open. This was the first time we have truly seen it rain in Sydney, or should I say downpour! This got Riley really excited since he has been waiting for it to rain the whole time we’ve been here. It only goes the annoying Charlotte spitting rain, never a down pour. It was so bad that we could barely see the buildings on the other side of the road! We realized that maybe we wouldn’t be going to see fireworks after all that night. So right then and there it was decided that it was going to be a Rainy Saturday and one that we could spend indoors. I would like to say we did something totally fun at my apartment to pass the time, but schoolwork probably got the best of us. It was church time before we knew it, including the 15 minute walk. We wanted to check out the church that we had previously liked because the priest was so funny and personable, but unfortunately it was a different one. I’m pretty convinced that he gave the abbreviated version of the mass, but we were out of there in record time. Like I said, our plan was to eat dinner and head to the Harbour, but we both agreed that it was just cold and rainy of a night to try and rush down there to possibly not even see the fireworks. We promised ourselves that we would make it there on another Saturday night and relaxed for the evening which is what Riley secretly wanted anyways. But luckily he made me some real chicken parmesan which was delicious as always.

Hey, someone’s gotta have a little spirit!

Our first Australian Rules Football game and we felt like we had the best seats in the house. We were literally about 10 rows away from the players and by looking around the stadium I could tell that we were lucky. This stadium, or the Sydney Cricket Ground, was huge and pretty full. We were supposed to be in for a good game between the Sydney Swans and Geelong Cats. We would be cheering for the Sydney Swans, no surprise there and their colors were red and white. We didn’t find that too hard to support considering those are my college colors at NC State so we were excited to be cheering on another Red and White team. However, with the weather getting colder a lot quicker than we expected we had to get somewhat bundled up for this game. That meant breaking out the sweaters and jackets and unfortunately covering up the team spirit. We got smart this time and walked to the Cricket Ground which was only about a 20 minute walk. We were supposed to meet our teacher at the pub on the ground to collect our tickets, so I ran in to get them while Lauren waited outside. When I finally found our teacher among everyone else in the pub I was somewhat shocked to see that students were casually having a drink with him. That would never happen in the United States, so I think that’s a little outside of my comfort zone. I also think its very unprofessional, but that’s just me. With about 20 minutes to kill before kickoff we wandered around outside the stadium to look at all the booths that were set up. A lot of companies had venues that were providing either free pictures with lifestyle ARL players or competitions to try and catch a football in the air. We had a lot of fun watching the crowd, seeing all the red and white as well as getting a free few pictures! Soon we were in the stadium and at our seats, after getting a little mixed up by the bays (that’s what they call sections here). We were soon surrounded by some of our classmates that were already halfway drunk at this point. Of course, three of the guys sat right next to us and we knew immediately it was going to be an interesting game. While I was away at the toilets (they also think its hilarious how we call them restrooms) Lauren thought to tell the guys behind us that we were an American crowd and this was our first game as a warning, but she thought better of it. In hindsight – she definitely should have. The game started off with the players from each team running through a banner, similar to high school homecoming games. Within minutes the game was on way, started by the head referee slamming the football into the ground, making it soar into the air. I think this is somewhat similar to the start of a basketball game.

Note: The ball is at the top of the picture.. and still going higher!

In fact, we have come to the realization that ARL (Australian Rules Football) is just a mix of all American sports. Australians like to claim it as their own sport since they supposedly made up the rules, but really is just a combination of all the American sports rules. The Cats got the ball and started the handball it to their team mates. Rule No. 1 – you cannot throw the ball, you must handball it out of your hand similar to middle school volleyball serves. This was actually a lot more beneficial to the players since the Cats advanced up the oval pretty quickly. As you can see from the pictures it really is played in an oval field. There is seating all around and we were pretty up close and personal.

 Rule No. 2 – If a ball is kicked forward and a player from that team catches the ball then the play is frozen, no one can touch them and they can start the next play from there. If they are within the 50 meter line then they can have a try, which would mean kicking it in the goal.

However, the goal is actually four rods sticking out of the ground. If they get in in-between the middle two rods then it is 6 points, if they get it between the outer 2 rods on either side, or they kick a rod then it is 1 point. I think this is the only sport ever that rewards players for missing the goal. Because of this scoring and the fast nature of the game, the scoring can actually get really high and oftentimes go over  100. Rule No. 3 – If a player gets a goal (6 points) then the game is restarted in the middle circle, similar to soccer.

 If a player misses a try and gets a point then the other team gets the ball and tries to advance it all the way down the field. Rule No. 4 – You cannot slide tackle anyone but tackling someone is free game as long as it not over the shoulder. Rule No. 5 – You can advance the ball by running forward but you must bounce it on the ground every 15 steps you take. Rule No. 6 – You can only score a goal by kicking the ball with your foot between the two middle rods. If you catch a catch in the 50 meter mark then you get a free shot at the goal from the spot that you caught the ball. Rule No. 7 – There are no other rules.

 The Australians take pride in not having a lot of rules for this game but I beg to differ. There seemed to be another rule every single whistle blow, and oftentimes we had no idea what was going on. I can tell you one thing though- Australians get into their sports!

Worlds largest pom-poms

 The stadium was a mixed crowd, some were going for the Cats and some for the Swans so tension was obvious. The Australians behind us were particularly rude Cats fans and did not like our cheering for the Swans. We were given these banner clappers when we came into the stadium that surprisingly makes a really loud noise. One guy dared to try and grab it out of my hand! We were definitely not too fond of them and unfortunately didn’t have the best game because of them. However, we didn’t let the good seats go to waste! One of the Australian guys that helps out with our class fieldtrips sat next to Lauren so we were able to ask a lot of clarifying questions throughout the game. The Swans were in the lead by about 20 points when halftime rolled around but that didn’t last for long. The Cats continued to score over and over again.  Unfortunately the game ended up being a blow out with the Cats winning by nearly 30 points.

Although they lost, they still came together as a team in the end!

Lauren and I have decided that the Sydney teams have not won at any game that we’ve attended. We think our professor is a bad luck charm, but maybe we need to start cheering for the other team!

Glad everyone's as interested as we are!

We knew that we wanted to sleep in today and that’s exactly what we did, until 9:30 anyways. Our bodies are obviously used to getting up early now so sleeping in doesn’t really last that long. But we were both excited to have a good hearty breakfast of homemade egg and cheese sandwiches. This was a new creation that just unfolded in our hands as we made it and turned out to be something great! Riley never ate breakfast before and admitted to looking forward to it every morning now! I think he’s a changed man. Have to admit, I look forward to it too especially if it’s going to consist of more egg and cheese sandwiches. With absolutely nothing on our agenda for the day except more schoolwork on my part we definitely took our time and relaxed for the morning. Finally we made it to the library around 1:00 and I got a head start of some of the work that I had ahead of me but my mind constantly wandered to everything else I could be doing. That’s when I knew it was time to take a run. I have been so used to running at least once a week while at college but I haven’t had time to run once since I’ve been in Sydney. Riley and I talk about this often since he has turned into my running buddy but we agree it’s because we are constantly walking everywhere anyways. However, I knew it would definitely help clear my head so I could finish my papers or at least make some type of progress. Riley didn’t seem too convinced that running was a good idea since he was getting hungry already but he wouldn’t let me go alone anyways. Plus he wanted to get this French exercise book that he couldn’t get off his mind for the past couple of days. That meant we had about thirty minutes to go for a leisurely run before he had to get back to the book store before it closed. We ended up going down the street right outside our apartment and turning down a bridge that we have always wanted to go down. The footpath actually didn’t follow alongside the whole bridge but rather led to stairs which went under the bridge. Once we got down it was like we were stepping into a whole new world! We were a part of the wharfs that we had never seen before and saw all new things like a water playground, huge slide, biggest IMAX theatre in the world, the aquarium and other boats. We went inside the IMAX theatre and aquarium to get an idea about the prices and saw that there is a bundle special for $80 which might get us unlimited access to 12 different attractions. These are attractions that we planned to see anyways and are rather expensive on their own, like the Sydney Tower Eye which is around $16 just to enter, so we are definitely going to look further into this deal. We had actually enjoyed our run so much and weren’t tired at all that we lost track of time and had to quickly turn around to make it back to the book store. Riley was finally able to get his book just in the nic of time since the book store closed five minutes after we got there. Finally, it was dinner time but not before we made it. Our plans for dinner were to attempt to make fried rice which is actually a timely process. Everything went as planned though and we were soon eating dinner. I don’t think the fried rice was exactly what we expected but it was delicious nonetheless. The night wasn’t over though; we had plans to make it back to the library since I had found out earlier in the day that I had to register for Teaching Fellows junior conference tonight. I also had more work to do on my projects so it all worked out fine. We grabbed our penny boards once again and we were out the doors. We almost made it to the library when I noticed a bunch of people standing in Victoria Park gazing at the sky and then a spark of lightening ran horizontally across the whole sky lighting it up beautifully. We have been having a lot of heat lightening in the past few days but nothing like this since it literally lit up the whole sky. It was truly a sight to see and we took a seat on our penny boards to watch the light show. It reminded us both of fireworks but it also reminded me of my childhood in Alabama sitting on the Montgomery house porch swing watching the heat lightening with my dad. I have always been fond of heat lightening from these memories and this was by far the best lightening show I have ever seen. We really wish we had our camera with us but we agreed to be storm hunters and scope out the next lightening show whenever we see flashes in the sky again!

I think it's an elephant!

Riley had his full day of classes ahead of him while I just had my creative arts class.  Today was actually the start of a new unit as we would be exploring visual arts for the next four weeks. I didn’t really know what this would consist of but first I was worried about finding the room. I was caught in the same run around as the night before looking for this room, but at least I knew the room number this time. Since I was a little late I had to take a seat in the back next to a group of students that are usually the rowdy ones. Today was the usual and sometimes I could barely hear the teacher. She often looked right at them but never said a word to stop them and this continued to bother me immensely. At one point this one girl started to throw bits of eraser at people which blew my mind. I didn’t know I had stepped into an elementary classroom, although I know we are all learning to be teachers of one. I soon found that visual arts was going to consist of a lot of paintings, artists, and unfortunately drawing. We did a couple of games that could be used in the classroom to get students to really look at paintings and connect with them but then we moved on to actual drawing. We were first supposed to imagine a wheel in our minds and draw it, and then we were given pictures of wheels and got to choose one to draw. I tried my best to draw a good car tire and think it turned out well considering I haven’t really drawn anything like that since middle school! The rest of the day flew by with Riley coming and going from class while I tried to get more of my projects done. However, food was on my mind and I knew that I would have to start making dinner soon since Riley had a later class tonight and wouldn’t be done til later. I had realized that we hadn’t heard from our one friend, Niell, in a long time so I decided to text him and figure out if he had any plans for the week. Turns out there was a trivia night going on tonight and we were welcome to join. It was at a pub right underneath the shopping center that we populate often so we figured why not? Upon arrival we got to meet two of his friends, James and Noah. We were given a quick run through of the rules and games that were going to happen throughout the night. Really we were just planning to watch and get the hang of things before we put our foot out there. We struck up casual conversations with everyone in the down time between rounds which was definitely interesting to say the least. All the guys at the table were very knowledgeable on a lot of things that we had never even heard of. Obviously that meant we weren’t really valuable team members for their trivia team but I happened to know the answer to a specific North Carolina question. “It is illegal to use which animal to plow a field in North Carolina?” I immediately said elephant even before he listed the possible answers and elephant was one of them so I was pretty confident in my answer. Sure enough I got it right along with Riley knowing the capitol of North Korea thanks to his Asian culture class this semester. Even if we weren’t good team players we had a lot of fun meeting Niell’s friends and experiencing a trivia night at a pub in Australia. The players were all very nice and knew a lot of general knowledge. The host for the night was also very hilarious and kept the jokes coming. I think we’re going to try a different pub next week with Niell and possibly have another game night with him soon!

I just want some pizza!

We had the morning all to ourselves since we didn’t have class until 5:00 so we designated Tuesdays as another adventure day. While on her interview the day before Lauren had noticed how wonderful and inviting North Sydney was so we decided to venture back up that direction to see what we could find. She already knew what bus to take and where to catch it so it didn’t take us long. There are two buses in Sydney - metro buses and then normal buses. The metro buses are supposedly more luxurious and expensive so you’re supposed to punch your bus card twice but we have observed people and have not noticed them doing so. The times that we have been on these buses haven’t been as luxurious since one time the heat was blasting right over us not to mention it was already hot outside and then this time the air was blasting and it was already cold outside. These metro buses are huge though, at least two buses combined, and they are barely ever full; at least not when we’re on them anyways. We got to cross the Sydney Harbour Bridge once again which always makes for a good day! Seeing the Opera House from a bird’s eye point of view is definitely different than looking at it from ground level. Once again we can’t wait to experience this view even higher on the bridge climb someday, especially since we hope to do it during the night when the skyline is lit up. North Sydney is still a business district but not as busy and high class. The atmosphere was a lot calmer and personal seeing as when lunch time rolled around there were several business men and women sporting tennis shoes with their suits. Everyone must have gotten the memo that exercise during the lunch break helps them perform better at their jobs. We spent most our morning in this small park where Lauren showed me the community advertisements that she had seen the day before. I also spent part of my morning being a hero to a small group of school kids whose ball went over the fence and was about to roll into the street. I wasn’t paying attention at first when they were yelling “ball” but when I turned around and saw the ball rolling I made the connection and went to pick it up. I got a chorus of “YAY” from them which truly made my morning! With clouds rolling in and it not being a particularly warm morning we ducked into a couple of shops that we saw along the way. Lauren likes to go into various grocery stores that we pass, especially if it’s one that we haven’t seen before. She claims that she just likes to look at the different foods and price compare but I know she has ulterior motives of getting me to buy chocolate and candy. She always takes a longer look in that particular aisle making sure to point out the different kinds of candy bars that we haven’t seen before. I was more excited about the 4 kg sack of potatoes that were on sale than candy bars and for once got my way! That’s going to be a lot of mashed potatoes for me. We had realized throughout the day that we actually had a lot of schoolwork to get done so we knew it would be a smart idea to head back to the uni early before our night class. However, it’s the usual story with us not getting much work done due to being distracted by facebook, email and iFunny for me. This is the only time that we get to check our stuff so we know it’s bound to happen anyways. We were more than ready to get to class though since it meant that dinner time was that much sooner. This was actually the first time that we’d be heading to this night class since usually we go to the 11 AM lecture but when too many people registered for the class they had to move some people around. We assumed that the class would be in the same lecture hall but we quickly found out we were wrong when no one was there. We searched the entire education building and even texted our friend that was in the class but she wasn’t much help; she barely knew what floor she was on let alone the room number. At this point we knew we were on our own and already fifteen minutes late. We ended up searching the building again in desperation and heard our teacher’s voice in the far off distance. Finally we had made it, but being twenty minutes late we felt bad for just walking in since we didn’t know the setup of the room. Eventually we just had to suck it up and do it, so we walked in and sure enough the door was in the front of the classroom right behind the screen where our professor was lecturing from. He cracked a joke about us spending too much time at the skate park and not making it to class on time since we were carrying our penny boards with us. Slightly embarrassed we took a seat in the back and suffered through two hours of grueling powerpoint presentations. These presentations are only supposed to be fifteen minutes each, but somehow every single one of them was almost thirty minutes each. This meant that class went into overtime and our dinner time was pushed back. We were already starving so this didn’t make things better, but it was Dominoes Tuesdays which we hadn’t had in over a month! Dominoes was long overdue to say the least and we even tried a new pizza called bangers and beef which was sausage and bits of ground beef. It was pretty good but definitely not comparable to the Hawaiian pizza. I think we’ll have to stick with double Hawaiian pizza then next go round.

The other side of the bridge

Today was actually a big day for me since I had another interview to go to in North Sydney. While planning our study abroad trip we had told ourselves that we weren’t going to get a job while in Sydney, and instead enjoy our trip abroad but we have quickly realized that you need money in order to do so. We both came with enough money we thought, but rent and food quickly sucks all that away. I think we’re both just looking for something casual like one or two days a week that could give us a little extra ‘fun’ money. I had to get ready and be out the door by 9:30 in order to catch a bus which would take me 30 minutes into North Sydney. That would entitle me crossing the Sydney Harbor Bridge once again! Riley had initially said that he was planning to sleep the morning away for the first time in a while, but I think he quickly realized how much extra time he had and what he could fill it with. Eventually he decided that he would head to the library and work on catching up with his French skills. He hopes that he’ll be on more of an intermediate level whenever he gets back to State so he can just wiz through the rest of his French classes. He has finally been able to get onto this website called Mango again so he’ll be fluent in no time I’m sure! I was successful in catching the right bus and getting to my destination in exactly 40 minutes which is quite the accomplishment in my book. North Sydney is a lot different than the university area that we are used to, but we had been warned that all parts of Sydney are drastically different. North Sydney is still a business district with a lot of popular corporations but it lacks the hustle and bustle which is a nice change. It seemed to have more of a smaller city feel with the doctor and dentist offices as well as no car horns honking every five seconds. I was rather early just like I had wanted so I had about twenty minutes to kill before my interview. I decided to walk down the street a little further to see what laid beyond the offices and found a nice little community centre with many advertisements board set up to display what was going on in the local community. Time flew by as I read what North Sydney offered and copied down a few of the events that looked promising. Every second Sunday of the month they have a market with music and food so I think that’s something we’ll eventually check out. Knowing that I should be a little early for my interview I started back in that direction and found the medical office very easily. It was on the 11^th floor of this small skyscraper which housed a lot of other businesses like lawyers offices and other medical practices. The reception ladies were very welcoming and I was in the interview room in no time. My appointment was scheduled for 11 AM but I was already done by 11! Talk about a short interview, but I have come to notice that is how Australians like it – short and to the point. She just simply asked about my experience, my availability and then shared what she was looking for in an employee and what the job would entitle. She wasn’t turned off by the fact that I would be employed for less than 3 months since she figured it would be a turnaround job anyways since nobody wants to scan documents their whole life. I felt good about the interview, but I’m definitely not getting my hopes up for anything. Riley had packed our lunch for the day so I made my way back to the university which definitely took longer than I had expected. Riley looked quite comfortable at his library station submerged in learning French. We have this thing about trying to sneak up behind each other and scare the other person while they’re working on the computer. He does it to me all the time, but this time I was able to get him back pretty good! Riley was lucky enough to not have class until 4 o’clock so he resumed his French lessons after lunch while I headed off to class. Eating lunch beforehand wasn’t a good idea since I almost fell asleep within the first 10 minutes of my lecture. That isn’t the most interesting class anyways, but keeping my fingers crossed for next week since we’ll be studying the United States education system. That is also when I’ll present my tutorial presentation which I haven’t started, so I won’t be rushing that any time soon. The rest of the afternoon consisted of classes and writing our responses for our Australian culture class about our field trip to the Lawn Bowls centre last Friday. We are often confused about what our professor is really looking for in a response so it takes longer than usual to write them. With Riley’s only class done for the day he was going to start making dinner for us and sure enough by the time I was done with class it was ready; delicious spaghetti, and with leftovers for the next day! Exhausted from all the schoolwork we decided to relax with a little bit of television which doesn’t happen very often.  

Why would they advertise for another garden?

 We woke up early today so we could make sure we could get to church on time. We were more than excited to head to church today since it has been over two weeks since we’ve been! Once we arrived at church, we noticed a couple of our friends in the pews around us, but unfortunately mass had already started so we couldn’t move around. After church we immediately met up our friend Molly to head to the Botanical Gardens for a so called festival. The festival was supposed to include food and music so we were more than excited! We headed to Central Station so we could catch the 555 bus, which is the free shuttle bus, but like all other days the bus pulled off right when we rounded the corner. However, we noticed a small little festival setting up right behind our bus stop so we thought we would check it out since we had to wait for the next bus anyways. As we made our way through the family day festival, we noticed that most of the writing was in another language. Maybe it was family day for the Orientals or something, but they did have one cool thing! We think it’s a watermelon!

 

Since we couldn’t read any of the signs we decided to head back to the bus station to again wait for the 555 bus. We’re beginning to realize that we cannot trust the public transportation here sometimes. It was another 45 minute wait for the free bus to arrive and drop us off at the gardens. After the long wait, Molly, Lauren and I were ready to get to the Botanical Gardens to experience the festival that they had planned. We arrived to see a sign that said the event was being held from 10am to 4pm today, but we didn’t hear any music or see anyone with food, so we were kind of confused. We walked through the Botanical Gardens for about 15 minutes until we decided to go to the gift shop to ask about the festival. Unfortunately we received some bad news. Apparently they were advertising events for other gardens that were over 50 kilometers away. Frustrated and disappointed, we decided to just go and eat lunch out by the water. With more on our agenda for the day we didn’t stay long, but rather ate quickly and then left the gardens to go catch the 555 bus again. We wanted to go back in the direction we came so we thought we were smart in crossing the street and waiting at a bus station across from where we got off. We sat and waited for another 15 minutes before we decided that it was pointless to wait for the free bus. We all decided to walk to George Street since it would be faster than any other bus anyways. Soon we made it to Paddy’s Markets which we had been waiting to take Molly to for a long time. It was almost like a kid in a candy store for Molly. She wanted to stop at every shop and examine all of the souvenirs! She was just as amazed about the awesome prices as we were the first time that we came! But, we all knew that we had homework to get done before the day was over so we had to press on to get our fruits and vegetables. We had been told by several people that the best day to buy their produce was on Sundays which that’s the last business day for the markets, but I don’t really see the point. Most of the good fruit had been taken at this point and the prices weren’t really marked down that much. Maybe we would have to wait to get it within the last hour or something, but then there would be no good fruit left. We were all satisfied with the good prices anyways and got heaps of produce for the prices that we paid. That unfortunately ended our adventures for the day since we were all promising ourselves to get school work done.

Manly Beach isn't so manly

Saturdays were made for sleeping in and that’s exactly what we did! Even had a relaxing, slow paced morning which inspired me to make omelets for Lauren and I. Since we had to buy eggs for the first time in Sydney to make our anniversary cake there were a few left over just begging to be made into omelets. With the added onion and green peppers they were simply delicious and a nice break from our usual cornflakes and toast! We even enjoyed them out on the balcony which was something we hadn’t done in a while. Our plans for the day were to go to Manly beach with our American friend, Molly. She had been told that there was a surf competition going on in addition to it apparently being the only beach where you can see the sunset. Our plan was to be out the door and on our way to the beach no later than 1 PM and we were pretty close to that time frame. We actually had to catch two buses just to make it all the way there, but it was worth it since we actually crossed the Sydney Harbour Bridge for the first time since we’ve arrived in Sydney. It truly was a beautiful view and a very surreal feeling. That made Lauren and I want to do the Bridge climb even more, but we were glad today wasn’t the day since it was another scorcher. After a combined hour bus ride we arrived at Manly beach and were immediately confronted with lots of shops. We didn’t even make it to the beach first but rather got sucked into all the little shops that had lots of souvenirs. That didn’t last long because we definitely wanted to see what the famous Manly beach was all about and hopefully see some surfers. I think we were a little late for the competition though since there weren’t many professional surfers around, just a lot of little children learning how to surf. We tried to find a sunny spot on the beach front but with all the palm trees blocking the sun it was actually a hard task. 

Not to mention the ocean winds were making it even colder than what it should be while at the beach so we couldn’t stay long by the water. We were able to share a few stories about our adventures during Spring Break and that was the whole point of getting together since we hadn’t seen each other since we’d been back! She had gone to the Gold Coast and Great Barrier Reef so we were both excited to hear about that. The shops were calling our names again and we just wandered around for the rest of the afternoon. We even found some markets set up in the middle of the walkways that were selling really nice bracelets. Lauren and I were finally able to find a good replacement for our bowling alley bracelets. We had wanted something from Australia and never gets better than kangaroo leather I must say! Mama you'll never guess what we found - people selling your scarf creations for $30 a piece. Who knew they could be worth so much!

We ended up walking all the way to the bay on the other side where a lot of sailboats were banked in the water which made for a great picture.

We think this would be a good location to watch the sunset but we weren’t going to stay that late this time. In fact we were considering going to the Harbour to watch the Saturday night fireworks. That was the belated plan for our anniversary since I know that Lauren loves fireworks. However, with the hour long bus ride back time got away from us and we decided to postpone it since we didn’t want to rush down to the Harbour and risk missing the show. This meant that we could really take our time making dinner and that proved to be a better option since cheeseburgers were on the menu and they were truly the best I’ve ever made. Not to brag, but I am definitely perfecting my cheeseburgers! After a lot of walking through the day at the beach we were more than happy to enjoy some relax time for the night.

I hate the short ones!

To start things off right, I was very happy to skype my sister Tiffany today! Technology really has evolved, but I’m thankful to be able to stay in touch with my family while I’m half way around the world. Definitely makes me feel less far away! Also not a bad way to start off the morning, although it was Friday and there was only one class on our schedule for the day. Our teacher for this class is notorious for running lectures from the seat of his pants. He claims that he always sits and prepares a lecture for over two hours, but that must go to the wayside whenever he steps in the classroom, today inparticular. We were supposed to have a three hour lecture in the afternoon and then go to a two hour field trip to play some lawn bowls. However, whenever we got in class he told us that we had two options due to him forgetting his laptop. We could either go have a lecture outside for two hours and then go to the field trip or we could go on the field trip and then have the lecture in between our games. Riley and I knew for a fact that this was the better option because we would either get out of the lecture all together, or at least get a shorter lecture out of it. So after he made everyone state their name and which option they preferred we were heading to the field trip first. We had to get to the lawn bowls court first though and that required walking fifteen minutes to the bus stop, which our teacher claimed was only just down the street, and then about a twenty minute bus ride to the park. We paid a levy of $65 for this class which we thought covered all the expenses of the field trips but apparently we were on our own for transportation. This is a bummer considering the teacher pets got to ride with the teacher, but what can we do? We had just missed the bus so we were stuck waiting for fifteen minutes until the bus came so our teacher was stuck waiting for us anyways. That didn’t matter though since him and the select students that rode with him were already playing lawn bowls by the time we got there. We obviously got the abbreviated version of the rules and mannerisms of the game and then got thrown into games with each other. The game of lawn bowls is played with partners and I think it is closely related to Bocce. There are lanes similar to bowling lanes in a square of golf grass. There is one small white ball which is the target and then each team has a set of wooden colored balls that are slightly shaved on one side to give it more weight and curve. The point of the game is to get your colored ball closest to the white ball by rolling it on the ground. It is actually a lot harder than you think because of the curve that the one side gives it and the lanes really aren’t that long so it’s easy for the ball to go off the edge. The strategy of the game is fairly easy since you want your ball to be closest but you can actually bump the white ball to get it further from the other team’s colored balls. We were told to play a minimum of three games with our classmates and if we won more games than we lost than we were supposed to get a bonus point towards our grade. We unfortunately lost our first game against two girls but we soon figured out we weren’t good at the short distances and would rather have the white ball further down the lane. We were fueled and ready for our second but these girls were the queens of short runs. They purposely laid the white ball right at the beginning of the lane so that it wasn’t hard at all to get their colored balls close to it. At one point we were losing 6-0 but somehow we were able to get it tied up to 6-6. Our strategy consisted of hitting the white ball right off the bat to get it further away from the beginning, therefore making it harder for them. Luckily it worked and we ended up winning the game by merely inches! We were unto our third game in no time and actually excited that we might earn a bonus point after all, but our teacher interrupted us and told everyone to come in for a debriefing. It was no surprise that he was ending our field trip then with no lecture but we weren’t complaining since it was rather hot outside. This class had been so promising and fun in the beginning but week by week we are beginning to realize how immature the exchange students are, and of course they are all from the United States. No wonder we have such a bad reputation for ourselves. We were more than happy to enjoy our packed lunch in the park by ourselves and walk through Balmain to window shop. We had never been this far away from the city and it was a completely different vibe. The atmosphere was a lot more laid back and small town so it definitely reminded me of North Carolina. We had seen a Red Cross shop while on the bus so that was our final destination. Whenever we stepped in though we quickly recognized that it wasn’t a Goodwill like we were imagining it to be. All the clothes were individually marked and let’s just say they weren’t in our price range. It was okay though since I had to get back into the city. While on the islands in Fiji I had shared one particular cup of tea with a girl from Norway named Guro. Her next stop in her travel plans was actually Sydney so I had given her my information so she could get up with me once she was here. It was unfortunately her last night in Sydney but we were still planning to meet up and do a little souvenir shopping at the markets that I was going to take her to. I was surprised that she knew her way around the city so well, but I was thankful since she was able to meet me right at the markets. She was staying in Kings Cross, making me remember our first couple weeks in Sydney. Guro and I didn’t stay out too long since it gets dark so early now due to the daylight savings time and I knew that Riley was going to have dinner waiting for me upon my arrival. We unfortunately had to say our goodbyes which are never fun but we were both thankful that we could meet up! Once again, small world. With my stomach growling I was thankful for Riley having dinner ready just like I had hoped! He really is becoming quite the chef, and a good one at that!