"What do ya got in there? Travel Twister?"

This is quite a long post so bear with us! We just want to catch all of you.

We arrived in Sydney at 7:30 am, or half seven, on Friday and from there it was just go, go go! We took a shuttle to our hostel, the Pink House, with the nicest family from New Zealand who invited us to come and stay with them if we ever went “across the ditch”. They gave us some advice about where to eat (at The Bourbon you can get a huge, delicious steak for only $10, too bad everywhere else is pretty expensive) and also told us about some other palces we should check out.

We checked into the hostel and met Miranda, the receptionist who is amazing and she gave us the keys to our room. The hostel is actually two houses that were joined together, there are 25 rooms total and probably about 65 people staying there. Katie and I dropped our bags off in our room, which is a coed dorm of 8,no one was in our room so we left and decided to go and try to find a vodaphone store (a cellular carrier). Of course we thought we could just find it on our own pretty easily and if not at least we would have a self guided tour.

We had a map from the hostel and went walking around through the city, our hostel is actually in Kings Cross so we hiked around and walked along a harbor and then we walked up a flight of stairs and found ourselves right outside of the Royal Botanic Gardens. GORGEOUS (also, quite humongous and maze- like). We walked through there and in the distance saw the famous Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge.
We continued our walk and checked out the opera house, took some pictures and proceeded into downtown.

The city actually reminds us a lot of with the tall buildings and the crowds of people, but the weather, so much nicer. We searched and searched for the vodaphone place but continually came up empty handed. While walking about, we found Hyde Park and the Archibald Fountain as well as St. Marys Cathedral and of course…a Westfield Mall. At this point it was about 1:30 and neither of us had eaten and we were on the verge of quite cranky. Finally, Katie asked someone for directions and found that there was a vodaphone about 5 blocks away.

Can I just tell you that I wish I never had an iphone? We bought the cheapest phones they had for prepaid users so we wouldn’t have to get a contract. After spending about twenty minutes there we walked back to the hostel. As MY luck would have it, while walking back we spotted a vodaphone. Katie had even mentioned on the walk back "Hey, I bet we see a vodaphone like a block down the street from the hotel". Had we turned left coming out of our hostel instead of right and around this corner, it would have been two blocks away instead of five hours and about 6 miles. How typically Jacque.

It was about 3:00 when we got back and we grabbed our computers and went to the back patio. This is where we met Jeff (France), Darby Danny (England,Derbyshire to be exact), and Felix (Germany). All of them had been at the hostel for at least a month and when we told them what room we were in they proceeded to give us a hard time saying how it was the “sex room” and was also, unfortunately, infested with huge rats.This went on for quite awhile until I saw Darby Dan winking at Jeff. Jerks! Being so gullible is quite a pain sometimes.

We had Darby Dan and Jeff take us to a store so we could get some energy drinks.When we got back to the hostel we went and changed and met three of our other roommates Thomas, who is from France, Marty who is from Ireland and Danny who is from Manchester. He will be reffered to as Manky (someone from Manchester) Danny. We met Felix downstairs and he introduced us to Aimee, Wallace, Curtis (Canada), Jamie (Toranto), Katie (the only other American in the hostel who is from Louisiana), Sarah (England), Jenna (England),Danny (Scotland) and Kate, our only other girl roommate. At this point if I forget anyone’s name at the hostel im just going to call them Danny, even if they are a girl. We all went to the Bourbon for happy hour and sat around and talked while some of the guys ate. We came to discover that Manky Danny, or our roommate, is pretty much “events coordinator” of the hostel. He gets texts of all the places to go that night and whoever is with him gets in free etc. Did I mention that Toranto Jamie thinks that Katie and I are quite awesome because he LOVES the “hyphy movement”. He began to rap some Mac Dre and E-40 and gave me a VERY good thizz face. We will be getting along famously.

So, Manky Danny gets a text and we decide that we are going to go to the Fringe. It’s quite a walk and when we get there, of course, Katie and I bring everyone to the dance floor. Every time an American song came on (aka something that wasn’t techno) Katie and I pretended like we were on American Idol and belted out everything. We danced for awhile and then we took a group picture, in the process Jeff spills beer ALL over my pants. Surprisingly, we were having such a good time I wasn’t even mad. Which is kind of a big deal since I only have two pairs of pants and laundry is $5 a load.

At about 12:30am Katie and I realized that we were REALLY, REALLY tired. We had gotten off a plane that morning at seven and had been walking around all day getting lost and sunburned, hadnt eaten and had drank instead and then danced the night away. Everyone was actually quite impressed we made it that long. We were about to go and Scotland Dan and Felix told us to wait and they would walk us home, we said it was fine and we would somehow manage to get back if they wanted to stay but they would hear none of it and told us girls should never walk home alone in the morning, such the gentlemen.

On the walk back I was talking to Dan about Darby Dan (confused yet?) and asked where DerbySHIRE was. He looked at me, laughed and told me that in fact, Darby Dan was NOT a hobbit and this is NOT Lord of the Rings and that Dan is from Derby-SURE . This American accent has done nothing to help me. Some things never change, I go halfway around the world and am still mercilessly teased :)

When we get back to the hostel the people who didn’t go to the Fringe are all in the family room (we aren’t sure what they call it) and we stay for awhile but by this point our eyes wont even stay open. We go upstairs and jump into bed.

The next morning I woke up and looked under me (I have the top bunk and hadn’t yet met the person sleeping under me) and to my surprise I saw a little man curled up in a ball on the floor. I assumed this was my roommate who hadn’t made it into bed,until another man crept into the room and looked at the guy on the floor, looked around quite confused, and reached over him to get his stuff from a bag that was on the bunk beneath me. The confused man then left and I fell back asleep. When I woke up the guy was still there so Katie and I ignored him continued to get ready for breakfast and accidentally woke up Manky Danny, I asked him who the kid was on the floor and he laughed and told me not to worry about it…hmm

We went to breakfast and invited the world to come to the beach with us. We had convinced Manky Danny and Marty that they were coming while we were upstairs and we got Jeff, Sarah, Jenna, Scotland Dan and Felix to come as well. Marty also brought his cousins, Tony and Kevin.

We went to Kings Cross Station and got on a train to Central Station and then took a bus to Bondi Beach, it was really easy. The beach was pretty crowded but the weather was perfect, the water was clear and the sand was white. We laid out for awhile, went for a swim (Yes, that is correct, I braved the jellyfish and the sharks), the waves were pretty huge and then went to lunch. After lunch we went to a bar by the beach and sat around making jokes and teasing each other about our accents and the words we use for things. For some reason we had also talked about hamsters and Felix told us about his pet hamster George (Katie and I thought he was saying Josh for about ten minutes until he finally used his American accent, which was HILARIOUS, and told us that it in fact was George).

By this point we had about 6 pitchers of beer and Jenna had made a joke to which I spit beer all over her and Katie. Apparently to hang out with me now you need a raincoat at all times.Katie had also been talking about how much she loves Australia, from the weather, to the city then to the Australia people that were "so nice". I asked her what Australia people she had met so far (slightly confused) and she proceeded to spread her hands in reference to our new friends. About halfway through she realized she was a fool and our new group of friends did not contain ONE Australian. Oops.

Shortly there after (also having created a drinking game with Texas Hold 'em) we left. On the train Jeff had been looking for something in his backpack and Tony had been staring at him for awhile, out of nowhere he asks Jeff, "What do ya got in there? Travel Twister?" It was about the most hilarious thing ever, I think it might have been becasue of his thick Irish accent.

Anyway, we went back to the hostel to get ready to go out ON HALLOWEEN. There was a box filled with stuff and Katie and I just grabbed some random stuff and threw it on. First,we went to O’Malleys Pub but it was really crowded and there was no dancing so we then went to Kings Cross Hotel which was excellent. There were three floors, all of which had a different atmosphere and music. We went to the top floor and danced for HOURS. Throught the night.
I :
- was licked by some creepy guy that im assuming was French (NO, I did not lick him first, and NO, I did NOT like it)
-knocked out one of Katie’s contacts with my elbow (sorry I love you),
-was asked to hold the balls of someone dressed as a tennis -lost a shoe on the stairs and some fellow picked it up, held it out and said “Looks like tonight im your Prince Charming”
-and met one of the most awkward Australians I think I ever will.

How friendly people are here. I also realized that I need new shoes with a little less heel.

Katie:
-was hit on by an adorable Australian, who she had to ask where he was from because we still suck at accents (she finally met her Australian friend
-had her contact knocked out (sorry I REALLY love you)
-picked up loose change she saw on the ground because she could only see shiny things because her contact had been knocked out (it accumulated to 70 cents)
-was picked up by an Australian on the walk home “Hi there, can I buy you an ice cream?” (Also, Australian)
-and lost her key, while obtaining about 70 cents.


We were surprised to see how many people actually dressed up and how many people there are in Kings Cross. I guess this area is the place to go out on the weekend. Eventually, after we realized the place had been playing the same techno remixes of “Sexy Bitch” and about 5 other songs on repeat we decided to leave. Jeff and Felix walked Katie and I back and it was straight into bed. Though, we did see Thomas in the halls getting painted black at 2am getting ready to go out, he didnt make it home till six and is probably still in bed (its now about 5:50pm)

Katie and I woke up at 8am this morning ready to be productive, however we rolled over and fell back asleep to find that it was 1:30pm when we woke up….the rest of our roommates were still asleep as well. I love our room.

When we REALLY got up we changed and are now at Roy's trying to get some work done and catch the rest of you up!

Oh, as a side note, the kid who had been asleep on the floor was a friend of the previous tenant of the bunk below me. How he ended up in the room....I dont think we'll ever know. Scary? Apparently, normal :)

We haven’t started looking for jobs or places to live yet. That will be happening this evening and tomorrow. We decided that we are staying in the Pink House for probably another week because we have already fallen in love with it as well as the people.

Pictures will be coming soon, we havent had time to upload them yet.

Ill try to make these shorter and more to the point...but you all should know that im terrible at that

I also havent said "nugget" since ive been here. Katie is thrilled

Katie and I also have phones! So, if you want to call or text us email us or facebook us for the numbers! Or get in touch if you want to be fit in for a skype date :)

We do miss home too. Dont worry.