Straight on Through to SYDNEY!

Wow. So April 8 was probably one of the longest days of my life. After getting roughly 2 hours of sleep, I woke up at 3:30 to go to the airport and catch my flight to Sydney. Of course, James came to the airport to see us off and say goodbye. It was really hard saying goodbye to him again. He holds a special place in my heart and I’m really going to miss him.

The flight wasn’t too bad—only about 3 hours. When we got to Sydney though, it was a joke carrying around all our bags. We looked pretty ridiculous. Nicole and I went to talk to a concierge to get some info about how we would get to our hotel. We booked a shuttle and he gave us a ton of info about transportation and things to see around the city. Then, we were off to our hotel.

Once we got settled in, we threw our stuff down and set off exploring the city. We mostly just shopped around all afternoon, but there were some really cute stores! My personal favourite was called Peter Alexander. It is a store full of these really cute designer pajamas. Ridiculous, I know, but I came pretty dang close to buying a pair…

Notice how it is an upside-down bedroom

That evening, we took the train to the circular quay (pronounced “key”—don’t say quay. You’ll get corrected, and you’ll sound like a dumb American.) It was so cool to see the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House in person! It was pretty unreal. We ate dinner at a very expensive and delicious Chocolate Café. I had a surprisingly delectable ciabatta sandwich with sundried tomatoes, eggplant, mushrooms, and pesto (look at me—growing up and eating adult food). For dessert, Hannah and I split the richest and most incredible Dark Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake. Holy cow, it was amazing.

Harbour Bridge

Our first look at the OPERA HOUSE! It was unreal being there.

St. Mary's Cathedral

BEETHOVEN!

Me with my ballet ticket and program standing outside the
Opera House

mmm...cheesecake...

Nancy and me in front of the Opera House!

Dinner was so delicious

Sydney at Night

After dinner, we were off to the ballet (how sophisticated of us, right?) It was cool to be able to go inside the Opera House for the show. However, apparently, when they sell you a seat that says “partial view” it isn’t a joke. I’d say I saw about 35% of the dancing that went on tonight. It was a bit ridiculous, but the music was beautiful and I have a sense of humor so I had a good time anyway.

I can’t even believe how long the day felt, and by the time we got back to our hotel, I was so grateful to be sleeping in a bed.

Saturday was pretty amazing. In the morning, the 5 of us couldn’t really agree on what to do, so we ended up splitting into 2 groups. Nicole and I took the ferry to Manly Beach and it was maybe one of the funnest places ever. I loved it there! When we got off the ferry, there were a million cute shops and there was a market set up in the center of the streets. We went and laid out on the beach and watched the super attractive Aussie boys do some surfing. It was glorious. Afterward, we went through the shops (of course) and I bought a few things. We also saw the next Justin Bieber. I’m confident this kid is going places. He was so dang cute.

After Manly, we walked around The Rocks and saw some fun things (including a boomerang ruler which I purchased for my class), then we took the free bus back to our hotel to change into something warmer. After changing, we went back to the city to have dinner and do the walk across the Harbour Bridge. It was so awesome! We walked all the way across and got a bunch of sweet as pictures of the opera house and the city. AND the sunset on the west side of the bridge was GORGEOUS. It was exactly what you’d picture an Australian sunset to look like (but somehow in all the awe, we failed to get a picture of it… my bad). We ran into the rest of the girls at the end of our walk which was pretty exciting. We didn’t think we’d see them the whole weekend. Then, we get some delicious gelato and headed back to the hotel.

I'm not pregnant. it was just windy. haha

Isn't he cute? I had to give him a dollar

The View of the Opera House from the ferry

On Sunday, we weren’t able to go to church because it was General Conference here in Australia (because of the time difference). But we had a great day anyway. We went to Darling Harbour and it was darling (see what I did there?). We were thinking about going back the next night for dinner and movie at the world’s largest IMAX theatre, but it was $30 for a movie so we changed our minds.

Coolest rubbish bin of my life.

In the afternoon, we went to the Sydney Observatory which was pretty cool, but not quite as fun as I’d expected. It was something to do though. On the way home, it started raining, so we looked pretty cool running home in the rain. We really are a spectacle…haha.

Not just an ice cream truck... a GELATO truck too!

Nicole trying to stay dry

Sunday evening we all hung out in Nancy and Neeley’s room to swap pictures and eat dinner. Then we watched “When In Rome” on my computer and had a great evening full of fun and laughter. It is always so fun with those girls, and it was a little depressing thinking about how soon it would be before I wouldn’t be seeing them anymore. I’ve gotten so close with these girls over the last 3 ½ months, it will be weird to be without them.

Nancy, me, Nicole, and Hannah with our salads

On Monday, Nicole and I went to Featherdale Wildlife Park out in Blacktown (about 45 minutes by car outside the city). We put our mad traveling and bargain hunting skills to work, and were able to get discounts on both the train and our tickets into the park. It was great!

On the train!

Once we got inside, we were pretty much amazed by everything. We got to pet and play with wallabies, kangaroos, koalas, and wombats. We also got to see a bunch of other animals and we even got a little passport that we could stamp at each of the major animals (yes, we got all 8 stamps).

Kookaburra! 

KOALAS ARE SO CUTE!

GOAT

HUGE croc...

The dingo ate my baby!

a wallaby :)

Kangaroo!

another kangaroo!

He was kind of attacking my leg. haha

I look great with koala ears, huh?

bilbies are so ugly. it's ridiculous.

After Featherdale, we headed back to the city and walked through the Queen Victoria Building. It was gorgeous inside and even though we couldn’t actually afford 99% of the stores, it was really fun to walk around and look at everything. We had fun walking into stores like Dolce and Gabbana and just pretending we could afford the $1400 dresses.

After that, we went to the Botanic Gardens where we got some great views of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge together.

We went shopping at Pitt St. and I got some really cute peacock earrings. On the way home, we stopped at a music store where I played a $3000 Martin and it felt really nice. I should have bought it. Haha.

That evening, we all went to dinner at a bar on Darling Harbour. It was a great day!

On our last day in Sydney, we were planning to go to the temple. Hannah had gotten directions for us, so we hopped on the train and headed off. Apparently, when Hannah said she had directions though, she meant she had the address and a guess as to which train station to get off at. So, we took the train 3 stops too far and then ended up having to get another ticket to go back 3 stops. From there, I found some miracle wi-fi on my iPod and I found out that it was a 45 minute walk to get to the temple. So, we started off on our trek and after a solid 45 minutes, we saw Moroni sticking out through the trees. It was so exciting!

It was so wonderful once we actually got there and we took a bunch of pictures. Unfortunately, when we went to ask if we could do baptisms, we found out they didn’t have enough priesthood to take us. But we were able to go inside and see the baptistry which was really awesome. It was beautiful and I feel so blessed to have been able to go there.

On our way back, we stopped off at TARGET! Yes, they have Target in Australia. And yes, Nicole and I both screamed when we saw it.

After Target, we went back to the city and caught a bus to Bondi Beach. New favourite beach. Oh wow. I have never felt sand that soft of water that warm in my life. The waves were GORGEOUS and there were tons of surfers out. I really wanted to be in the water, but because we’d gone in the evening, I had figured it would be too cold. It was amazing though and we walked around to the shops for a bit. It was way fun! It was definitely a great way to spend our last evening in Sydney.