Sydney, Footy, Tim Tams, & Lauren's Bday

Sydney
With April being a pretty crazy month school-wise (I have 6 papers due before Easter break), I wanted to make sure we used our weekends in March to get some traveling done. After some discussion and planning, we ended up going to Sydney last weekend (March 24-28). 

Having only been out of the city for our Ocean Road-Grampians Road trip, it was nice to get out of Melbourne and see some other parts of Australia. I didn't know what really to expect for Sydney, but upon arriving, I realized it's very different than Melbourne. While Melbourne is a very cozy city with a large student (and hipster) feel, Sydney is the complete opposite. The city was very hustle and bustle with many more skyscrapers and a much larger business district. This really felt like a city, whereas Melbourne feels rather residential.

Day 1: Thursday
So we planned on leaving Friday morning, but thanks to my failure at using a computer I booked our tickets for Thursday morning. When we realized this, we were a bit bummed at first because the MUSEX booze cruise was that Thursday night, and Mike had won a free ticket for it. However, once we got to Sydney and saw the beautiful weather, we were glad we skipped our Thursday classes and had the extra day in Sydney.

As soon as we got to Sydney, we dropped our stuff in the hostel and headed down to Circular Quay. We knew the weekend weather wasn't supposed to be the greatest so we figured we would take the ferry to Manly Beach, a beach on the northeastern part of the bay/ocean.

 Circular Quay from the Train

 Me at Circular Quay

 Sydney Harbor

 On the ferry to Manly

After grabbing lunch at an awesome Thai place, we headed out to the beach and spent the day walking along the beach. There were paths that went into the hills/forests so we decided to continue. However, we soon turned around after encountering "too much nature". I was scared shitless when a water lizard jumped out and then everyone else was freaked out by the massive spiders webs. So we turned around and headed back to Sydney.

 Manly Beach - our first successful beach day

 Chris, Mike, Christian, and I at Manly Beach

 Lizard #1

 Hiking at the south end of the beach

 Lizard #2

 5inch long spiders

The lizards and spiders scared us so this became the running joke of the weekend

 On the ferry ride back to Sydney

Back in Sydney, we explored Circular Quay - the Opera House, the Harbor Bridge, and the Botanical Gardens.

 In front of the Sydney Opera House

 I thought it would be cool to touch the Opera House and it was because it's made out of tiles

They have these trains in every park in the city

At night, we decided to go to a place that we heard had good deals - Scubar. $5 drinks all night so it was fun.

 At Scubar

Day 2: Friday
We wanted to continued to explore the city so we spent our day in Darling Harbor. First we went to the Chinese Friendship Garden, which may seem boring, but for $3 it was a really cool garden to check out. Unfortunately, nature got in the way again.

 Darling Harbor

 Inside the Chinese Friendship Garden

 Killed our fun again...

We then walked down to Darling Harbor. Because it ended up getting cloudy and looked like rain was approaching, we went to the Aquarium. I don't care if I'm almost 21 years old...aquariums are awesome...and they had manatees.

 Darling Harbor

 Manatee at the Aquarium

Nemo

At night, we went to King's Cross, which is the bar/red light district of Sydney. We went to a few places with the highlight being a bar that had $3.50 shots and $3.50 beers and with every round, you got a free pizza.

 Great night at King's Cross

Day 3: Saturday
Despite the weather being cloudy and a bit chilly, we wanted to check out Bondi Beach with the hope of making our way down to Coogee Beach to visit my friend Thomas from SC. The weather was pretty miserable so we ended up not having any beach time, but it was good to see Thomas and just chill for a little bit.

 I was not amused at another failed beach day - Bondi Beach

 Along the path from Bondi to Coogee

That night, Thomas and his roommate met us in the city and we had a blast. The night was pretty ridiculous with too many stories to go into in this blog post, but here's an idea.

 Pregaming

Scary Canary Dance

Day 4: Sunday
After having partied late into the night, we decided to sleep in on Sunday. It was a good decided since it was rainy anyway. Once we got up, we decided to check out The Rocks, the historic part of Sydney. It reminded me of every other early British settlement but it was still fun to check out. We also visited the Observatory and the 2000 Olympic Stadium.

The Rocks

Footy
On April 1, MUSEX was hosting a footy night, and since no one of us had been yet, we decided to check it out. It was St. Kilda vs. Richmond, and I decided to cheer for St. Kilda. St. Kilda ended up dominated the first half of the game, but Richmond quickly came and tied it up. 

St. Kilda Saints entering the field

A few of us ended up leaving after the third quarter because we were exhausted from Thursday night and it got really chilly outside. 

 This explains why I saw so tired on Friday....

 This one too...

However, I wish I ended up staying because the game ended in a tie - making it a really exciting last quarter!

 Shots from the game

Tim Tams
They are delicious cookies that, yes I dare say it, are better than Oreo's. MMMHMMM soo good. I'm going to bring a bunch of boxes back to the States with me in June.

Lauren's Bday
April 3 was Lauren's bday so on Saturday, we all went out to celebrate. Mike, Christian, Chris, Becca, Kelli, and Lisa all went out to dinner with Lauren at Campari House. It was delicious. I got a pizza that had goat cheese, spinach, chicken, and other deliciousness on it.

 We didn't plan to all match: Guys in blue and girls in black

 At Campari House

After that, we went back to the Village to pregame and eat cake. We then went to The Loft, a club Lauren had found on Lonsdale/Russell. This place was the best club we have been too because they played tons of Top40s (or at least good remixes of Top40s). Overall, it was an amazing celebration and a great night out in Melbourne that ended at Mackers as usual.