Sydney, Hunter Valley, Townsville

Alright, I know that you all are a little impatient with my blogging skills. I apologize, but things have been a little crazy lately.

I will go ahead and jump into telling you all about Sydney and my first week and a half here in Townsville. I arrived in Sydney on the 17th of Feb. Anthony and his brother Stuart picked me up from the airport. For those of you who don't know, Anthony is a friend of mine I met at Purdue who did exchange from Melbourne this past fall semester. After classes ended, Anthony and a friend traveled around Europe on their way home. He met up with me in Sydney before heading home and we stayed at his brother's apartment. Stuart just moved to Sydney about a month and a half ago with his girlfriend Gabby. Big sweetie. Anyway, I arrived and they were very welcoming. It was later on in the evening so we all just chatted before heading for bed.

The next morning, we took it easy and got ready at a snail's pace. Gabby started work that week at UNSW (University of New South Wales) in the HR department. Stuart is working for Shell (the reason for the move from Melbourne), but he doesn't start until Monday (3rd of March). So while Gabby went off to working flipping us the bird in her head (hah!), we spent the day walking around Sydney. I have posted the photos for you all to look at.

We hopped the bus and went downtown to have a look at the Harbor and downtown Sydney. I got some great photos as you can all tell. We then walked to a little cafe/restaurant/bar, which happens to be the oldest pub in Sydney. I had the most amazing lunch meal of my life there...a lamb burger. Great bun, great meat, great sauce....I can't tell you how good it was! Anyway, you can check out the photos of it on my photo link. We sat outside...it was such a nice day. Apparently this was lucky for me because Sydney and a lot of Australia had been seeing some bad weather (rainy and such) over the past few weeks. After wandering around downtown for a bit, we caught the bus back to the apartment.

Funny story here. Earlier in the day while waiting for the bus, we had seen these two crazy people (not trying to be mean...it's not funny, but in a way it is...). This lady was walking with a cane, shouting at this man in front of her for not giving her a swig of his drink (which was wine in a coke bottle). She was walking with a cane in the middle of the road holding up traffic. Apparently up the street from where we were waiting for the bus is a rehab center. Anyway, this lady ends up sitting down in the middle of the street blocking traffic. Cars are honking, she's flipping them off telling them to go around. I know it is sad, but it was entertaining to watch to a degree.

Now...on to more crazy people/bus stories. While waiting for the bus on the return to the apartment, the bus line next to the harbor is huge. There's room for about 6 or 8 buses to pull up. There was a massive traffic jam of buses all along the way. The bus we needed pulled up at the very beginning of the bus lane (not even all the way up to it). We were about 3/4 of the way up the line. The bus pulls away and tells us we can't get on. This lady steps in front of the bus and screams at the driver to open the door and let her on. The bus driver is refusing to let her on. We decided to step aside and wait for the next bus to come. This lady begins screaming all sorts of profanities at the bus driver. "F-you" "F-this" "let me on the F-ing bus" rah rah rah (i.e. Australian version of blah blah blah). She was crazy. The bus driver was arguing with her, but finally pulled over and about 15-20 of us got on. The lady did have a point, but she was a little out of control. There was a big number of us, and hardly anyone on the bus...no reason for him not to stop and wait for us to get on. I was impressed with the driver though, he did not swear at her once, but he did raise his voice. Anyway, so we got a kick out of my ability to attract the crazy people while waiting for the bus.

Moving on, we got back to the apartment, grabbed our togs (aka swimsuits), and got in the car where Stuart proceeded to drive us to Bondhi Beach. Again, photos are posted. The beach was really nice. There were quite a few people there, but everyone was spaced out. It was nice. We hung out here for a little while and then we picked up Gabby from work on our way home.

Dinner was out that night at a Thai restaurant. Very good. We went back, and headed for bed fairly early for Tuesday was our trip to Hunter Valley. For those of you who don't know, Hunter Valley is one of the oldest piece of wine country in Australia. There are almost 150 different wineries in the region. We managed to make it to three of them. It was about a two hour drive to get there. Very pretty. Mountains all around.

The first winery we went to was very nice. I cannot remember the name, but the photos are in order of each winery. The gal serving us was very lovely. She told us a lot about wine and just other small talk conversation. If you look at the photos and see a stage being set up in the grass, this was Rod Stewart's stage. He was playing two nights after we left. So something like the 23rd of Feb. Apparently they have some pretty big names come through there. Matchbox Twenty is another one coming. The lady at this winery pointed us in the direction of a great place for lunch. As you can see by the looks of my burger (check out the photos)...it was massive!! All three of us got the burger...$15 dollars each! But very good...

We then went to two other wineries and just enjoyed ourselves. Don't worry...Stuart was responsible and didn't have much at all. We made sure he blew a 0.00 before we left. Enjoy the photos from wine country. It was a good day. We then headed back to Sydney where Gabby cooked us a great meal and we enjoyed ourselves around the apartment for the night. The next morning I woke up, showered, packed up my last few things and headed for Townsville.

Townsville...I have so much to write about this place, and it is almost 4 in the morning here. I am getting awfully tired. I think my alertness up to this point was the energy drinks I had tonight. I promise to write more in the next couple of days and tell you all about Townsville. I just have so much to write about the city, JCU, the people, O week...it's just too much for tonight.

I hope all is well with everyone back home. I'm sorry about all of the nasty weather. Even at 4 am it's still 80 degrees!

Until next time,

Krissy

xoxo