Welcome Australia!!

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Yes, here I am: no longer travelling in islands, now I am in a real continent. It feels a lot more stable... Hello Australia!
I arrived to the backpacker in Sydney around 7 last night. Even though I was warned that hostels here as not like in NZ, I still got the shock. It's a huge hostel, the common areas are not so inviting, and therefore you don't really meet people. The toilets were also not so inviting... but they have a dorm of 2 people so I don't share with too many strangers and in fact so far I had the room just for myself.
All in all, I was simply lost last night. The streets outside looked intimidating, I had no idea what to do and where to go. So I just buried myself for 2 hours in an Internet café (mostly reading about Sydney in “Lametayel” website) and went to sleep early.

As expected, I woke up today to a much better day! The sun shines, which is not something you take for granted in April here. I packed the book, the camera and water and set off to discover Sydney. I took the most touristy path: through Hyde park to the area of the Botanical gardens, from where there’s an amazing view over the opera house and the harbour bridge. I took maybe a 100 picture of them, before I crossed the gardens to the Opera building itself. In a close look it’s not as impressive though. So I went on to the other side, the area called “The rocks” so I could take some more pictures from another angel… in between I admired also other things here: the impressive trees at the botanical gardens - huge and beautiful, some nice buildings, and mainly the overall look of the city, beyond a specific sight.

Going back to the hostel I saw the theatre showing now the musical “Lion King”. In the shuttle from the airport yesterday I met a mother and her grown-up daughter that came from Nelson, NZ to see it so I figured it should be good. So I went in and found myself a ticket for Friday! Now I really feel I am in a big city. I didn’t go to a musical in NY for a long time, so at least in Sydney…

And then in the evening, while dining in a Thai restaurant, I got a call from my friend Susan. Did I tell you about Susan? Susan is an Australian living here in Sydney. I met her in this magical place - the Franz Josef town next to the glacier. In that little Montrose backpackers there I met both Erez and Susan, one friend for each day I stayed there. Susan was dining alone when Shiri and I had our dinner so I invited her to join us. We discovered that she booked the same trip to the glaciers like us for the next day. We spent the next day together and kept in touch by e-mail since then. Yesterday evening she called me and said “what do you think about staying with me instead of the Maze”? What a question! So tomorrow evening I am moving. I’m excited about it!

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