Sydney! Mothers Day! Wheeeee!

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This past weekend I flew to Sydney to meet up with Mom and Barry! I had to take a taxi at 530am the night after Suitcase Ball, that was rough. But, I got to the airport fine and with plenty of time to sleep a little near my gate. I had a nasty headache and tried to sleep it off on the plane as well. I landed on time and waited to hear from Mom, as they were supposed to arrive before me and call me from a pay phone. Well I waited and waited and waited and heard nothing, so I decided to make my way to the international terminal and look for them there. I had to call Brenna to have her check and see when their plane landed. After that I got thirsty for cranberry juice and saw a stand in the distance, so I made a detour for that. On the way, guess who I saw? I saw my mom on a pay phone being frustrated because her calling card wasn't working. So I snuck up behind her and she wasn't frustrated anymore 😊

We got a taxi to the hotel, which was a beautiful hotel. The Marriott at Circular Quay (pronounced KEY). We had a great view of the Opera House from our room, so that was really nice to have. Mom and Barry got freshened up after wearing the same clothes for two days during their flights and I took a little nap while they did that. Once I woke up after about 30 minutes my headache was gone! It was great. We took our cameras out and went to the Opera House. What a cool place! There was a great view of the Harbour Bridge as well. We watched street performers and got gelato. The street performer we watched put a latex glove over half his face and ran around blowing it up, then it popped on his face. That had to hurt, haha. Then he swallowed a balloon and got up on a ladder and swallowed a sword while juggling fire sticks. He was pretty impressive. We ate at a place called Opera Bar, which was outdoors and right by the Opera House. The weather was beautiful and much warmer than the weather here in Victoria. After dinner....MOM CRASHED. She simply had to go to bed haha. IT WAS 6:15 PM and mom was out. Barry wasn't too far behind. I went to bed before 9. I had such an early day! The next day I woke up on my own at about 7:15 (extremely impressive for me, right Dad?) I'm usually Ms. Get Up at 11 and Take an Hour to Start Moving About, so I was pretty proud of myself. It was Mothers Day! So, I got up and ready. Mom decided that my shirt looked like a slept in it so she couldn't let me go outside of the room without ironing it. We went and had breakfast in the hotels restaurant and that might be the best breakfast I have had in the past year, if not more. A whole row of fresh fruit (that I took full advantage of) breakfast potatoes (TO DIE FOR), pastries, delicious strawberry yogurt, and pineapple juice. AMAZING! We left there stuffed to the gills and headed towards the aquarium. Moms got in free! What a cool place. I finally got to take pictures of the little penguins that I saw in Phillip Island. They jumped into the water and I got to see what they do under the water. They swim sooooo quickly, they're adorable. We saw this crazy sea horse looking thing as well. I'll put a picture up of that because I can't really explain it too well. I think my favorite part of the aquarium was the seals. They were so cute and they swam around posing for pictures. I think they do that out of habit because all the seals the aquarium has have been taken in because they are retired performers. Either way, they were so cool to watch. After you watch them from above, you were able to go downstairs where there's this walkway and suddenly you're under the seals watching them swim above you. Same with with a tank that had all sorts of rays, sharks, turtles and other fish. I really enjoyed the aquarium.

After the aquarium, we went back to the hotel and changed clothes because...WE WERE CLIMBING THE SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE! I forgot to pack the appropriate shoes and I had to wear Barry's spare pair and tie the laces really tightly haha. We got there and signed in, grabbed a quick bit of banana bread, browsed the photos of all the celebrities that had climbed the bridge (Will Smith, Bette Midler, Prince Harry, Nicole Kidman, etc etc), and waited for our instructions. We all had to be breathalized before climbing. They fitted us with all types of gear (a fleece, a light, headset, rain shell, etc etc etc etc) and after that, we headed out to the bridge. At first, I was really nervous because I'm not very good with heights and at the beginning of the climb you are under the bridge and it's very narrow and you are only walking of grating so you can see everything under you. We had to crawl into some pretty small spaces, and go up ladders where cars were driving past you (on the way down that night it was a train haha). Once we got onto the arch of the bridge it was much easier because the space was wider to walk. We got a view of the Opera House and the rest of the city. It was spectacular. We reached the top and the sun was setting. Our guides took pictures of the group and of me and mom and barry. The group that went up before us was there too and someone proposed! It was so cool! On the way down it got dark so we had to turn our headlights on (Yes we had lights on our heads) and make our way down. When we finally finished our guide told us that we had just climbed twice the amount of the steps as the Eiffel Tower. Believe me, we could feel it, our legs were shaking by the end. We got our pictures and t-shirts and headed on our way. We had dinner at an Italian restaurant and then back to the hotel. Mom and Barry crashed early (OF COURSE) and I stayed up and read. I read this book called Eat, Pray, Love and I HIGHLY HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend it to all the ladies reading this blog. It's a book you can read 80 times and not get bored. Go out and get a copy or go get it from the library because it's amazing. Okay, shameless plug aside, I had another good night's sleep IN A DOUBLE BED (poor me, I've been sleeping on a single here in Australia the whole time haha) and we woke up, got ready, found a Hungry Jacks for a cheap breakfast (same EXACT thing as Burger King...I had pancakes haha) and headed back to the Harbour. We found a company called Captain Cook tours. They're ferry boats that drop you off at various places and you buy a day pass so you can get on and off whenever you want. They picked up at each spot every 45 minutes. We went to the Toranga Zoo and that was probably my favorite thing we did. The zoo had lots of information on endangered species and ways you can help, little boxes for donations to various programs for the animals. I dropped money in for the turtles and elephants. This is the best zoo I've ever been to. As you'll see from the multitude of pictures I'll put up for this entry, it's an amazing place. At the giraffes, you can see the whole skyline behind them. It was interesting to see these exotic animals with the Sydney skyline as their backdrop. I usually don't like zoos, but I really enjoyed this one. After spending a few amazing hours there, we went to Watson's Bay. It's this sleepy little area with a couple seafood restaurants. I dug my feet into the sand and collected a few shells for a little while. Then, mom and barry wanted to have a glass of wine and I wanted nothing to do with alcohol still, so I went into this huge park they had right there on the water and laid down, watched the clouds, and took pictures. I think I may have even dozed off for a little while. We got back to Circular Quay, walked around some more and went back to the hotel to change (it was getting cold!) and went out to search for a vegetarian restaurant. We found a placed called Mother Chu's. For all you RVA people, it's the closest thing I've found to Panda Veg. I had sweet and sour gluten, which was interesting. It was tasty, I liked it.

That was our last night in town and the next day we had to get up very early so mom and Barry could catch their plane to Uluru at 9:50. My flight wasn't until 4:30 so I would definitely have some time to kill. The taxi driver dropped off mom and barry at their terminal, then dropped me off at mine. THEN THE WORST THING HAPPENED. I closed to taxi door and immediately knew something was missing. It was my purse and I tried to flag him down again, but he was gone. He drove off with my purse that contained all of my ID, my flight confirmation info, my iPod, everything. I was absolutely panicked. I immediately went back over to Mom and Barrys terminal and had them paged. In the meantime I called all the cab companies I could and put in a call to all the cabs. We weren't exactly sure which cab company it was since we just hailed it outside the hotel and jumped in really quickly. Mom and Barry had to go get on the plane so I had $10, some change and my pack. No ID, no nothing. I talked to the airline and they said I could still get on the plane, I just had to answer some questions so they could make sure it was me. I called Dad in a panic and ended up using all of my coins because an international call on a pay phone is SUPER EXPENSIVE. I talked to the people at baggage and they gave me vouchers so I could get food and actually eat that day. I ended up having to fly back to Melbourne without my purse because every time I called to check if someone had found my bag, they said nothing turned up. My friend Woody was picking me up at the airport, but without my phone I had no way to contact him to let him know I was back in Melbourne and ready to go back to La Trobe. So, I found the information desk and talked to the really sweet lady that worked there. We found the emergency number for Chisholm and I called it and talked to teh RA on duty. She called Woody for me, called back the info desk, and told me that Woody was now waiting outside for me. WHEW! I got in the car, exhausted. Woody then told me that he had tried calling me a few times and then some guy picked up my phone. The guy, Tim, said I needed to call my mom because she was worried and that he found my bag in the cab, didn't trust cab drivers, and decided to take care of it himself. He went through my purse while I was on the phone with him and everything in my bag was accounted for. He said he would ship it to me the next day and just use the $15 in my wallet to do so. What an amazing guy, right? He was wonderful. I got my bag in the mail yesterday so I will be sending him a nice thank you card for sure. I was very very lucky. I'm glad that's behind me, I'm sure mom and dad are too, right guys?

Mom and Barry are now in Melbourne. They're at the Great Ocean Road doing a day tour for the day and we are going on a wine tasting tour (same one I did over Easter Break) on Monday. Can't wait! I'll write an update on all the things we've done once they've left Australia and gone to New Zealand. Love you all!

xoxo,
Amanda

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Photos

view from our room
you didn't hear us complaining about it!

me!
with the opera house!

street statue!
creepy/awesome

mom & barry
by the opera house

me and mom
with the opera house

me and mom
harbour bridge in the back

the bridge
thats where we climbed!

street performer!
with the latex glove on his head hahaha

street performer!
with the swallowed sword and juggling fire...ahhhh

OPERA HOUSE!
pretty pretty

croc!
@ the aquarium

penguins!
socializing/napping

awwww
aren't they cute?

curious seal
he went to check out that kid

one eye open
one eye closed