Another Amazing Weekend

view from our towels
so amazing
Bondi Beach.

Once again we had an amazing time in Sydney, thanks in large part to my mom and Greg!

We headed out to Sydney at around 8 am Friday morning and luckily didn't have to go through as much trouble switching trains as last time. After switching at Central Station we got off at Kings Cross and luckily the Holiday Inn was about 50 meters from the entrance to the station, so it wasn't a far walk for us. We check in to the hotel but didn't have as much luck as last time with the "getting married" bit that we tried out. We got "upgraded" to a bigger room, which happened to be a smoking room on a smoking floor. Oh well, a free room is a free room. We didn't plan on spending a ton of time in the room anyways, and it was in a GREAT location. Last time we were in Sydney we had to take a train very late at night to see this part of town, which is apparently a huge hot spot, so it was nice to be right in the thick of things this time.

We decided Friday was going to be our shopping day, so after cleaning up a little we got back on the train and headed back into the center of the city. I had to buy 2 new pairs of flip flops because as I mentioned before, I lost one of the only flip flops I brought with me when we went boating 2 weekends ago. Of course, about 2 hours after I bought the new flip flops, Mark texted Chrissy to let her know they had gome boating that day and they had found my lost flop. Just my luck. I don't regret it though. I got 2 new pairs of Haviannas for $20. Not a bad deal. We also wandered through the huge Myer Department store, returned my Mardi Gras outfit at Supre, and explored the Strand and Queen Victoria Buildings. The Strand was a really cool place. 4 floors filled with boutiques from Australian designers, little patisseries, candy shops, flower shops, wedding dress shops, mens designers, and other things. I'm not sure if I took any pictures in there, but I can steal some from Chrissy to add on here. Then we headed to the Queen Victoria building, which we had heard a lot about. It was kinda of the same thing, but on a much larger (and way more gorgeous) scale. Plus it had more International designers like Coach, Dolce and Gabanna, Versace, etc. Both bulidings were incredibly cool and unlike anything I have ever seen before. We are definetely glad we made it to see them.

After what felt like 20 miles of walking, we went back to the hotel to relax before going out that night. On the way back, I managed to score a cheap dinner because all of the shops in the train station were closing. I bought a curry chicken meal for $3, but later found a sushi place with rolls (that you have to eat like a hot dog, they dont cut them up for you) for just $2. It was a great,cheap meal.

When we got back to the hotel, we decided we all felt gross from our bad eating habits so we wanted to work out. Laura and Chrissy were going to go to the pool, and I was going to test out the gym. After calling the front desk to ask where each was, we discovered there was no pool. We found that odd because a pool is mentioned not only online but also in the brochure in the room. Oh well, I still went running for 30 minutes. It was a great workout after my little dinner.

After that, the fun finally began- we started drinking. Stupidly, we all bought our own bottle of Champagne (which we are all obsessed with) so we all drank an entire bottle before going out. Of course, after one bottle each, we decided we needed to talk to the manager at the front desk about some problems we had had (smoking room, incorrect reservation, 110 degree room, and having to call down 3 times for robes which we were told "were coming," then once the extra towels were brought up we were told they were "low on robes" and couldn't provide us with any- to name a few things). After speaking to the manager he offered to send us a bottle of Champagne and give us a free breakfast tomorrow. Obviously we took him up on that offer! It was when we were sitting outside enjoying our free bottle of bubbly that we all decided we could no longer stay in a hotel without having a free bottle of Champagne sent to us (so far, it has worked). I cannot even beign to explain how good that breakfast was either. Seriously, to die for. Best breakfast yet.

We finished up our bottle and headed out. We made it literally across the street before heading inside somewhere called "Goldfish." We had a few drinks there, including something called a "dark and stormy" that was not a dark and stormy I am used to. It was probably the reason I decided I wanted to go back to the hotel before the other girls so I could call my mom. I have no idea why I wanted to do this so badly, but thank God I did. Since we were right across the street from the hotel I decided to walk back alone. I got nice and comfy, snuggled into bed, and called my mom. Chrissy and Laura stayed out a little but later, but nothing too eventful happened to them, at least from what I gathered.

We woke up the next morning and rushed to check out and make it over to our other hotel, The Westin, in the city centre. Again, we played the marriage card and may or may not have been upgraded, we aren't really sure. This time however, we did not have a free bottle of Champagne sent to us, but Greg (Laura's friend who so sweetely got us the room that night) had one sent to us upon check-in.

Again, we rushed around to get ready quickly and this time headed out to Bondi Beach for the day. It was kind of a hassle to get there, but completely worth it. Just looking at the pictures it is obvious how amazing it was. We spent about 2 hours at the beach (where I, of course, got burnt) before heading back to the Junction to do more shopping. There is a HUGE Wesfield mall there and Laura and Chrissy wanted to buy new stuff to wear out that night. This mall is the second largest in New South Wales (the state I live in) and the sixth largest in all os Australia. It has something lik 450 stores, 6 levels, a movie theatre, a grocery store, and a liquor mart. It was amazing. We spent almost 4 hours there looking for dresses and shoes. Once I had my shoes for the night and Laura had her outfit, we were left with Chrissy who had nothing but a new purse. She spent a while looking in a department store and still hadn't found anything she really liked, so Laura and I decided to go get dinner while she finished looking. We told her to meet us in the food court. Little did we know, there were 4 food courts and a few restaurants in this mall. Of course Chrissy was the only one who had taken her phone with her that day, and we lost her. We spent almost 2 hours looking for her in that massive mall before we decided to just go back to the hotel and pray to God she did the same. Luckily, she was in the room waiting for us and everything was good again. We popped open the Champagne, put on our bathrobes, and started to get ready for our second night out in Sydney.

We headed out to our first stop, The Ivy. We had heard mixed reviews about this club so we were really unsure about if we would even get in or not. We actually made it past both of the initial bouncers with their stupid velvet ropes before discovering that the cover charge was $20 and Chrissy and I both didn't have cash with us. We turned around and headed out to find an ATM. At that point we all agreed that we didn't really want to pay that much to get in, so we decided to just try somewhere else first. That way if we drank enough we could pay the cover to get in, but not pay for drinks, making it all worth it. Oh the logic of 3 semi-drunk 21 year olds.

We ended up running into the guys I may or may not have mentioned from the last time we were in Sydney. They are all around 30 (I don't know WHY we only meet people this age, but I'm ok with it) and they work for Verizon as IT people. They have all been here for about a year working on some deal for Verizon. One of them, Colby, has stayed in a Mariott so much he has a few million Mariott Points and is one of their top 10 overnight guests of all time. Last year he spend something like 340 days in a Mariott. It's unbelievable to think that a company actually shells out the money for something like that. We played poker and drank with them and a newlywed couple they had met earlier that night, then decided we wanted something more fun to do. We started to wander the city when we stumbled upon a water taxi who was looking to take some people out. Colby offered to pay $100 for a 20 minute boat ride so we could see the opera house and the whole city at night. We got a couple of 6 packs of Jack and Coke and Vodka and Orange soda (they sell pre mixed, canned drinks like that here) and some Coronas for me and headed out for our tour. I have to admit, it was unbelieveable. Once again, not one picture did the views we had any justice.

The taxi got a call to pick up a group of people coming from a wedding in Wolloomooloo, which is just a few harbors over from Circular Quay where we took off, so we agreed to just be dropped off there. Once off the boat, we stumbled upon a little bar overlooking the harbor. We sat down at a table with 3 random men who Colby decided he wanted to befriend. One of them ended up being the number 4 boxer in Australia and was in town for the weekend for a fight. He won, but he took a few hard hits from what I could tell. After talking to them for a while Eric (one of the 3 we took the boat over with) won something like $150 at the "pokie" machines, and decided all drinks were on him for the rest of the night (not that we had paid for anything thus far). We got yet ANOTHER bottle of champage, and then he showed up with a tray full of Whiskey and Tequila shots. No thank you. I bowed out of that one and stuck to my one glass of Champagne.

When the bar started closing down we hopped in a cab and headed back to the Westin. We stupidly decided to get McDonalds before heading up to our room. Chrissy ate and promptly passed out. Laura and I decided to take turns taking baths in our amazing bathtub. I'm so glad I did that. I loved baths, and I haven't had time to take one in any of our hotels yet.

We woke up yesterday (Sunday) morning, regretfully checked out of one of the nicest hotels we have ever stayed in, and went to explore Darling Harbor. I actually liked Darling more than Circular Quay because of the quaintness of it. We had an amazing lunch and headed over to Chinatown to check that part ofthe city out. Of course we ended up finding all of the souviners we had bought thus far for half price. I was pretty pissed about that. I bought my mom a gift on one of the main streets in the business district and in Chinatown it cost half of what I paid for it. I scored a sweet t-shirt there, as well as a cheap $20 small luggage bag. The only ones I have here are my massive ones I used to bring my entire life to Australia, so I needed a smaller one for weekend trips. All in all, it was a good shopping experience.

After that we just headed back to pick up our bags and headed to the train station back to Newcastle. It was another amazing weekend that no one wanted to end. Thanks SO much to my mom and Greg for making it all possible!!

I know I only added 1 picture, but I'll try to add more as soon as my internet starts working again.