Hello from Sydney!

Cheers from Sydney! It's a lot of fun up here, and the weather's been great to us. 25-28 degrees, no more room for the fleece!

If ever you do end up in Sydney, I really recommend the Sydney Central YHA as it is REALLY well located, extremely safe, renovated, comfortable and all. Even if you take a dorm room, you'll be in quad share with a locker in the room itself. It's very popular. Internet access is only 3$/hour, so I'm spending way too much time down here!

I met up with J one of my best friends from home, who's here staying with his girlfriend until tomorrow. On the night of my arrival, my travel buddy absolutely wanted to do laundry so I ended up out with J and his friends sharing a bottle of wine on the quay at the Opera House. Very magical scenery, especially at night, and it was nice to see people from home. In the days that followed, I went out with my friends and dined out on Asian cuisine (I was going into withdrawal :), tons of stuff like Sushi, good Phad Thai and spicy Malay. As well, you would love the seafood here; there seems to be way much more than fish and chips (which I can't look at anymore), unlike NZ. Just down from the hostel there's a little cafe and I had an excellent seafood laksa soup, it's like curry based stuff with calamari, mussels, crab, fish and scallops, yum yum. A whole meal, and fresh seafood at that:)

We went to Manly Beach 2 days ago and had a blast. It was Anzac day though, so it was really crowded. But the weather was very nice and we got to walk on fine, warm sand and suntan for real, with adequate temperatures (unlike Bay of Islands which was a tad chilly ;) ). Our friend from the NZ trip stayed with the tour hotel and is in a 3 share where one of the beds is actually a pull-out sofa! Sounds familiar eh :) we find that we're better off at this hostel, for less money.

Yesterday K my travel buddy had bought this package to go into the Blue Mountains. We thought that it was a hike - as usual, she looked too fast when she bought it originally and didn't pay attention - but it wasn't at all, it was just driving around for some photos and stuff. It was still a very good day though: we were driven up there, went to a few scenic spots, including the Three Sisters, and had a nice lunch of steak and sausage; finished the day attempting to throw returning boomerangs (these things are dangerous!) and went to a park at the base of the Blue Mountains where Eastern Grey Kangaroos roam around freely. Weird animals, but cute, and definitely very tame. After we got smashed in town in a few pubs that they knew well, so that was cool too. Didn't get home till 1:30 last night, so I had a late morning today :). If ever you are in Sydney, keep a day for the Blue Mountains ie. book a package with the agency at the YHA, just make sure that you get the one with the hike (it's cheaper, has the hike, but doesn't include lunch). The Blue Mountains are really worth seeing.

So that's the news. I'm doing well, although I'm still a little homesick at times and I've thought of booking a ticket home to see my sweetheart. But anyways, I'll be a tough girl and continue this trip as I planned. I'm curious to see what kind of people will be on this tour. I pray that there aren't too many American girls like the last bunch we had.