Sydney Flu

Thursday morning is the usual skype day for Lauren and her family so I let her get caught up with them while I got ready for the day and planned out what to do. We had talked about going easy on our adventure day since Lauren had a big weekend ahead of her if she decided to go visit her friend from UNCC who was also on exchange in the capitol city of Canberra. I had originally thought about joining her but my school work and final papers sneaked up on me and I just didn’t feel comfortable leaving since I knew I wouldn’t get any work done throughout the weekend. First things first, she had to buy her bus ticket which she did solemnly since they turned out to be more expensive than she had originally thought. But she finally came to terms with it after she realized we had gotten away with spending almost nothing throughout the past few weekend trips – thanks to couchsurfing! Then we were off to Bondi Junction which is the bus/train station near Bondi beach that we had been to during our first week in Australia. We had noticed a huge outside mall which we didn’t have time to explore the first go round so we figured that would be a nice easy adventure for the day. Plus we knew where it was already and just had to hop on a bus to get there. The mall was exactly what we expected and had a few nice stores in them. We were even able to find another bookstore with $5 books – never thought that would happen in Sydney! Of course we were drawn to the cookbook section but nothing really popped out at us. Unfortunately, my stomach started to bother me so I wasn’t in much of a shopping mood but thankfully neither was Lauren. Plus we had to get back to the city a little bit early since we were meeting up with a lady. While browsing on the internet the night before Lauren was able to find a deal for some IMAX tickets on the gumtree site, which is the equivalent of our craigslist. Don't worry, we met up with her in the middle of the city on a busy street, so it wasn't any shady deal. We don't exactly know what movie we're going to watch with the tickets but we knew we had to at least watch one movie at this IMAX theater since it’s the biggest in the world! Then it was a quick dinner before we headed off to the usual spot in Newtown for trivia night. We actually beat Neill there for the first time ever. While walking into the pub Neill had struck up conversation with an older gentleman who claimed he would be playing trivia on his own and wanted to know if Neill had a group of people. Of course we said he could join our team since the more diversity a team has the better they do. There was a crossword puzzle for 10 extra points that had the theme of song names with colors in them and he had almost filled up the whole sheet already. We figured with his help we would do really good this time around. Things were really starting to look in our favor since we answered all but two questions confidently in the first round. I even made it past the first round of heads or tails which rarely happens! We were in the middle of the pack after the first round and determined to make it out on top. However, a few questions in the second round were near impossible for us to answer and we ended up not placing. I couldn’t believe it since we only missed a a total of about five questions and only left two song names blank on the crossword puzzle. We still don’t know if other teams cheat but that was the best we had ever done and we still didn’t place. Halfway through trivia I started to feel nauseous and had to run off to the bathrooms a few times. I barely made it back to have another shot at the airplane throwing contest. I am convinced that I suffered from the Sydney Flu that night, or some branch of it. We had to take it easy on the walk back in fear that my stomach might act up again. Lauren still had to pack for her weekend in Canberra, but she made sure to take care of me and even picked up ginger ale and crackers. I basically slept the night away and began to slowly feel better.