Sydney again!

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Oi oi from Sydney(Coogee Beach),

Made it back to Australia!!! But now I miss New Zealand and especially New Zealand prices! I don’t know if it was my Dad who instilled it in me but I’m a sucker for a good deal and to know that our dollar in worth $1.30 to every kiwi dollar just makes me feel good and be able to do a lot more things. So now that I’m back in the expensive Sydney suburbs and it’s so hard to do anything because it’s so expensive. Just getting a subway sandwich and chips costs me $11.50 Aus. Needless to say I’ve been eating in a lot and doing a lot of walking and swimming. This is my second day on Coogee Beach which is right down the street from the famous Bondi Beach. I was trying to stay away from all the madness and crowds over there so I rolled the dice and just showed up in Coogee hoping they had hostels. I ended up finding one hostel but it was one of the worst hostels I’ve ever seen in my life so I decided after booking it to try and find something else which I did and am now happier and can relax. The place I found seems like there are a lot of students staying here attending the local universities but they all seem pretty cool. It’s just the rooms are full of shit everywhere so there’s not a lot of room to put your stuff down. But the room I landed in does have Xbox 360 so I guess that’s a plus…

After spending 8 days at the same hostel (which is a record for me staying in one place) I figured out about 75% of the people at the hostel are long term people on 1 year or more work visas from Ireland and the UK. It seems like a pretty popular thing to do as the whole city is overwhelmed with young Irish and English immigrants working abroad.

Most of the days I spent there I lazily lied along the beautiful coastline with some of the people from the hostel. I think for about 5 days in a row I went to the beach every morning and just relaxed and hung out. In the midst of that beach laying I did attend Sound Wave Music Festival which my friend Ray hooked me up 3 tickets and was able to bring 2 friends. Also Ray made me come on a band cruise through Darling Harbor where we got great views of the opera house and bridge! It was a really good time!!! One big accomplishment was getting to go snorkeling at Clovelley Beach! Jon I and also tried to do this in the blocked off ocean pool they have but the swells were too big. For four days I hiked 15 minutes to this beach to check if the water was clear enough to snorkel. All four days the wind swells were pumping and the visibility and rough seas kept me from going in. On the glorious 5th day I finally got to snorkel in this massive ocean pool and saw all kinds of fish and even spotted the resident blue grouper that I read about in the travel books!

I’m happy to say that last night was the last night I have to spend in a hostel!!!! I’m now crashing at Rhett’s house for the last 6 nights of my stay where I will get free internet and hopefully a nice piece of carpet or couch to rest my head…See you in Melbourne!

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Photos

sound wave
andy me and jane at festival

sound wave
ray,jane, andy, me and some random aussie

boat cruise
harbor

boat
cruise