Sydney

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Our hostel
We arrived on christmas Eve and met with K+R (again!) at our hostel. We stayed at the YHA Harbour bridge hostel. It was brand sparkling new, opening only a month earlier. Situated in the Rocks with a perfect view of the harbour bridge and the opera house from the rooftop. It also held a flatscreen movie room and a bbq on the roof. We stayed in a 4 bed dorm: Ryan, Guy, Heather and me.

Christmas eve
Wearing santa hats we headed down to darling harbour, where we had prime seats for the xmas fireworks celebration, it made us all jump at the beginning but we were soon umm-ing and ahh-ing.

Christmas
Christmas began with Ryan and myself exchanging gifts. Firstly I gave him the xmas cards from the boys back home and from his family that had been travelling with me for over a month. I bought him a Rubix cube keyring and a superball (stupidly crazy bouncy ball that was taken all over Sydney with us). I became a bit worried when Ryan asked me to blindfold myself as he placed a small furry object in my hand.I removed the hat to see a kangeroo arm with a built in bottle opener attached. 'Thanks a lot' I thought to myself sarcastically. It turned out to my a pretty useful prop for scaring the people and opening bottles, obviously. Myself and Ryan took a stroll across the harbour bridge and had a catch up. When we got back, Heather's plane was landing so we met her at the airport. However it wasn't that simple, her bag had been left in Germany, she was not happy! I was secretly pretty glad that xmas would be stretched out until she received her luggage and our presents. We met with K+R at our hostel and cooked our christmas roast dinner. Rich and I tried kangeroo for the first time, the others had chicken with mash, carrots, cauliflower cheese and brocolli with gravy to top it all of. We had to adapt our preparations as the hostel lacked an oven and we were restricted to the use of a microwave and a hob. We all wore party hats and pulled christmas crackers to get into the christmas spirit. That eve we chilled out in the movie room and watched twilight: the new moon. Ryan hated it and Rich and Guy liked it a bit too much, especially Jacob's rain scene! I chatted to the family over Skype and played charades. Grandma guessed right! That topped off my christmas.

Boxing day and crab racing
The next day Hev got her bag back and gave us our xmas pressies. Guy got the third book in the twilight series and I got 2 bandanas. We also got a joint present... a woboba ball (ball that jumps up in water, perfect for keeping us entertained in the sea). That night we had a beer pong tournament with Rich's ping pong ball from a certain show earlier in our trip... he told us where it was from the next day. Yuck! We visited the Sydney aquarium the next day whch had sharks, manta ras, neon lighted jellyfish, crocs, penguin and turtles among other animals. That night we went crab racing in Scubar in central Sydney. I came second and won a hat, Guy came third and won a dove shaped bottle opener. The top prizes were worth hundreds of dollars, ours however weren't!

Jogging round Sydney
The next morning Rich, Guy and myself woke up early for a 30 min jog. We ran across the harbour bridge and around a few blocks on the other side before coming back over the bridge and to the hostel. A couple mornings later we tried a new route that involved running around circular quay, the opera house, through the botanic gardens and round darling harbour before heading back via the city centre. That took us 50 mins and was knackering in the scorching Australian sun.

Bondi beach
Our next trip was to Bondi beach. Where we sun bathed, played with our new xmas pressie from Hev and met Ryan's friend from his time in New Zealand. We finished that day with a red glow to our skin (especially mine and Hev's) and a flip cup team competition. Any excuse for a drinking game! The next day we met with Ray and Banksy and went to Star bar for a catch up. This place was the place to go for a cheap steak, little treat away from the backpacker noodles and pasta that we were getting accustomed to.

New Year's Eve
The next day was the one we had been waiting for: New Years Eve. We had planned to go to the only public place in Sydney where you could take your own booze. Crates of Tooheys, VB and a few bottles of champers in hand, we grabbed a taxi to Darling point. The atmosphere was festival-esque... Electric! We had a picnic, the first (childrens) fireworks show was at 8pm, a few drinking games later it was approaching the new year. We secured a great view of the harbour bridge with champers in hand and five lots of fireworks exploded simultaneously along the river, most eyes were fixated on the harbour bridge but fireworks were everywhere! Skyscrapers to our left had fireworks shoot off them too. It was better than we had all anticipated, even after all the hype.

2010
Happy new year everybody!!! Our new year began with Guy giving up fast food and a trip to Manley beach. We hired some boards and hit the waves for some surfing. The waves were large and I had no previous experience of surfing. I managed to stand up on the board but that didn't last for too long. Our last full day involved a morning walk around the sights, grabbing some final photos, shopping and the cinema to watch Sherlock Holmes. Great film! One last trip to star bar for that steak and that was Sydney done. Next stop Blue Mountains.

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Comments

[wozzaaa]

"I became a bit worried when Ryan asked me to blindfold myself as he placed a small furry object in my hand." lol.