The First Trip to Sydney

I spent this weekend in Sydney, catching a ride with an Australian girl early Friday morning. We we’re on the road by 9:00am, with the bright idea that we’d see Bondi Beach, the most famous beach in Australia, by around noon. Unfortunately transportation around the city of Sydney is harder than we expected, almost impossible. We we’re staying with our friend Samantha from High School, and her University is located in a weird spot which allows no easy entry into the city. Nevertheless, Bondi Beach was awesome, and they even film “Bondi Rescue”, an Australian Reality show about the life of lifeguards there. We continued on to Chinatown, which trust me, even the Asian population has an Asian Population, they’re everywhere. The city is beautiful, the best I’ve ever seen. It has a little over a million more people than Chicago, but is so stretched out. It makes it very difficult to get anywhere. Luckily, at the end of our journey, we we’re rewarded with a $7 delicious steak and beer.

We headed back to Maquarie University equipped with the usual, a bottle of Chardonnay, and got ready for the night. After we we’re ready, I was warned that I had to have a collared shirt to get into most of the bars. One of Sam’s roommates let me in the apartment, I changed quickly, and when I got outside the bus had pulled up and I needed to run to get it. I made it luckily and turned around to see that none of my friends had made the bus. So now, I was alone and lost, in Sydney. Fortunately, like almost every element of my trip thus far, everyone is extremely friendly and I ended up going out with the kids on the bus. We went to Darling Harbour which is a hot spot in Sydney, right on harbour which during the day is beautiful and at night is full of clubs. I ran into my friends from school, which worked out well, but since I was staying with Phil and Sam I needed to find them. I knew they we're in an area called King's Cross, so I made my journey to that destination.

What I found at King's Cross, was something I had never really seen in the flesh. A full out Red Light District filled brothels and prostitutes. When I was looking for my friends, I asked a woman for directions on the street. Luckily right then my friends spotted me, and pointed out that I had just asked a hooker for directions. I didn't even think that was legal in Australia, but now I know it is. The notorious symbol for the start of King's Cross is a giant Coca-Cola sign.

The next day, Saturday, we made our way to "Manly Beach," another famous Sydney beach. It is in a small section of Sydney called Manly, and it is a small town on the water filled with bakeries, cute shops, restaurants and bars. The kind of place I know my Mom would love. Unfortunately, once again our transportation took us two hours to get to the beach! Not exactly where I wanted to spend my weekend, on the bus. As usual we did it with good attitudes because there was no way to change it. At night we wanted to go to a Brazilian festival called Carnaval, but we knew it was not feasible since it would have taken forever to get there and back.

We woke up Sunday morning beat. Phil, Brad and I, had not stopped moving besides the occasional nap on public transportation, but we had already purchased tickets to the Australian National Championship of Soccer that night. Brad bailed on us and headed back to Newcastle, but Phil and I decided that since we had already spent the money, and it would probably be the only soccer game we attend in our lives, we mine as well go. This was a great decision. The game ended up being an awesome time, definitely the highlight of our weekend. We cheered on our "hometown" Newcastle Jets who won the national championship! The group we we're with also consisted with some friends from Iowa, and we snagged great seats. I even was able to get a few free beers and some mud pies from a friendly employee. The Chicago accent works wonders out here. On the way home we witnessed that crazy fight, which I have well documented below. Only in Australia. The weekend was great, and Sydney is an awesome and diverse city. If I had money and a job, I could definitely see myself living there for a few years. But as a student, it is wayyyyyy too expensive. The funny part of these trips is being a full out tourist. It's one thing to go to New York or Los Angeles and not know your way around. However, being in a different continent is a whole new ball game.