I should warn you know before you sit down to read this it is going to be a long blog, so please feel free to take breaks in between, because I certainly will when writing this.

We arrived in Sydney after our early pick up from our hostel, internal airport security in Australia is very lacked, you check in on a computer, you don't show anyone your passport of ID and when we arrived in Sydney, the luggage carousel is right by the exit so anyone can walk over and pick up your bag. Up to this point up to this point we have had a surprisingly easy journey, no issues, no panics, this was very weird for us. This was all to be taken back when we had to wait 2hours at the airport for our transfer to our hostel. We finally made it to our hostel, the Jackeroo Hostel in Kings cross, this place was literally in Kings Cross station, when you went into certain corridors you could look over the interior of the station. It was very new, clean and everyone was so friendly. It was great to know that we were one of the 1st people to stay on that bed. Karina arrived not long after we arrived at our hostel, she collected us with her friend Shannah and they took us on a mini guided tour of the CBD, and drove us over the bridge. We met some of her basketball friends at Milston Point, so we grabbed some beers and went and sat on the grass down there. For just arriving in Sydney, this was the most surreal moment ever, we were sat by the harbour bridge, with a huge 'O' illuminated on it for Oprah, with the opera house opposite us with some event going on for Oprah, and while we were sat there fireworks over the Opera house occurred…AMAZING. The Oprah hysteria was crazy, everyone is talking about her, she is on every magazines, buses, on tv and even on flags across the city.

The next day 13th December 2010, after faffing around with buying food at Coles supermarket and sorting out our stuff, we jumped on the trains (which are double-decker) to St Lenoards, where Karina lived. She then drove us up to North Sydney to Freshwater beach where we spent the day. This beach was very small and not crowded so it was nice, we sunbathed, played in the COLD sea and had a little picnic. For dinner, Karina cooked us a BBQ on her balcony, our 1st really Australian BBQ, she cooked us Steak, sausages and salad. It was so nice to be able to relax away from a hostel and we were so grateful of Karina inviting us to her apartment and giving us lots of advice on what to do in Sydney.

On the 14th, we had a lazy day, we did our washing, had lunch at the hostel and just hung out in our PJs. In the afternoon, we tried to go to Paddy's Markets, which we learnt aren't open on a Tuesday…FAIL! So we wandered up to Darling Harbour/Cockles bay, Piers Point Harbour and through Chinatown. For dinner we yet again trusted the Lonely Planet's recommendations, for all of those that are thinking about doing it, DON'T, we keep doing it and it takes us to somewhere, expensive, horrible or closed. We tried to go to a Argentinan Tapas place that the Lonely planet suggested, however, after sitting down, we saw the menu and realised it was so over priced, we HAD to leave as we just couldn't afford it, this was SO embarrassing, but my wallet was glad for it. We then stumbled across a Korean buffet which had a number of bizarre dishes in it, and nothing was named, so this was fun to try and guess what meat you were eating, which i think was dog. After dinner we walked through the CBD and grabbed a couple of coffee from Starbucks, do not have the gingerbread latte as a cold coffee it was nasty.

On Wednesday, we went to Bondi beach, biggest mistake ever, we went on the 1st day of the summer holidays so the bus terminal at Bondi Junction was rammed full of loud and annoying teenagers. So we made a swift exit, did some shopping, and then did the 20min walk to the beach to avoid them. We grabbed some lunch from a local café, and set up home on the beach. Bondi beach is very much a posers/ teenagers beach, everyone was toned and buffed (or thought there were anyway) and just generally being loud and showing off. I'm glad I went but was not rushing back there anytime soon.That evening Fiona Graham came to meet us at our hostel, was so good to see her, we got some bottles of wine, had some pasta, caught up and generally had a good giggle. We also met Kyna and Michelle, two lovely girls from the north of England who came out with us to the Sugar Mill. We managed to get some free drinks and Jess flirted her way into another free drink, we had a bit of a dance then stumbled 4 doors down to our hostel at about 2am via McDonalds.

The next day we had a lie in because our heads where feeling a little sore, after too much wine and free drinks. We dragged our sorry asses out of bed and went to Paddy's markets for a wander round, shopped in my new favourite shop; Cotton On. We ended up getting lost in west Sydney, wandered around some dodgy areas, found the tram and got it back to China town. That evening we just made some dinner then TV and then bed.

On Friday, we went on the free walking tour around Sydney. This was a three hours of walking around the city, you think that was a very long time, but it was really interesting, the tour guide was excellent and I'm glad I got up to go. We went around the CBD, the rocks, around the bridge and the botanical gardens. For lunch we went to one of the food stalls in the rocks, (the rocks is the old area of the city, which is next to the bridge, this was where all the criminals lived in the 1800s, now it's a really cool area) we grabbed a wrap and sat down at Circular Quays, looking over at the Opera house and the bridge on our left hand side. I obviously dropped my meatball wrap all over me, so looked like a massive idiot for the rest of the day. After lunch, we went to the free rocks museum to learn about the area some more and learn about all the dodgy goings on when all the criminals occupied the area. The criminal history has been really interesting and I wished I paid more attention in my lectures about it now. We walked around to Observatory Hill and went to the Observatory, I must admit I wasn't particularly interested in this, the museum there was pretty dull, but you had some great views of the city so they made up for it being a touch boring. Friday was a messy night at our hostel, we had a BBQ on the roof, then it was FREE WINE NIGHT, and it was not 'goon' (cheap cask wine) it came out of a bottle and it was red, so you can imagine my head in the morning. Around 11pm, we got bored of being at the hostel so a group of us went to a local club called Soho, had a bit of a dance, then came back for more free wine. This was a really fun night and we ended up making so many friends and had a great laugh with Kyna and Michelle. Although at the end of the night, as we were walking back to our room the paramedics were taking a guy out of hostel, because he fell out of the top bunk and landed on his face; his face was a big mess and I felt so sorry for him.

So Saturday, also known as hangover number 2 of Sydney, Kyna, Jess and I thought we needed to stop rotting in the hostel and go for a walk, after we visited the Art museum which was full of aboriginal art; we accidently stumbled across the 'Carols in the Domain', the largest carol concert in Sydney and its broadcasted across to the nation. As we were hungover and did not have much Christmas spirit due to the weather and not being at home we thought it was an excellent idea. So we went back to the hostel, picked up some warmer clothes and bought some Santa hats and headed back down to the domain; which is an area of grass in the city. We also bought a Salvo picnic hamper for $15, which also lasted most of our trip in Sydney. The whole event was so much fun (apart from the irritating French girl that was sat with us that soon left as she was being a massive scrooge) and put some Christmas cheer into us, as it wasn't feeling like the Christmas at all as the Australians don't get the tacky side of it like we do. Josh Groban was the headliner act, but there was also loads of 'stars' from Australian's Got Talent, Xfactor, Home and Away and the Wiggles.The concert was great, but it made us both realise that we wouldn't be home at Christmas and it made us both feel homesick.

So the next day to make us feel better we tried to do our own tour of Sydney, we went to the Barracks Museum. As I have already mentioned before, I am getting into the convict history of Australia. This Museum was so much fun, lots of things to look at and of course they had dressing up boxes of convict clothes and colonial women's clothes, that both Jess and I enjoyed putting on. We then walked through Westfield shopping centre towards the Rocks. Had some lunch and then met Kyna to go to the rocks markets, where we wandered around and stopped off for a drink in an Irish pub. We followed this by purchasing a bottle of sparkling at the Opera House bar, this was an amazing thing to do, well it was until the rain came in, but of course being Brits we sat there under the umbrella and enjoyed sitting there by the Opera House whilst everyone else went for cover. Once the sparkling was done, we went back to Kings Cross and had a $10 steak at the Sugarmill and some more wine.

Monday morning, as I slept, Jess went to the gym. In the afternoon we went shopping, headed back to Paddys markets and Westfield, Jess was not feeling it so she went back to the hostel for a nap whilst I marched around Sydney trying to find a pair of shoes, could I find any under $150, I could not, so instead I hit Cotton On. Jess and I cooked up our leftovers and decided to have a quite night in with a bottle of wine and Kyna watching SALT in the hostel. Of course this did not happen for me, I ended up drinking Goon with the Dutch boy from our dorm room and some Swedish people who persuaded me to go out with them. After a massive trek around trying to find somewhere open we ended up at the sports bar next to our hostel. I was convinced that the dutch boy was a gay in denial.

On Tuesday 21st I was yet again hungover, I was really started to get bored of waking up feeling like crap. Today was a day of randomness, we went to Oxford Street looking for more shops, when we discovered we could not afford it so we jumped on a bus to the city, had another walk around Westfield (you find I went here a lot during our stay in Sydney) and I found some cheap shoe. Our plan was to sunbathe in the botanical gardens, but instead we saw a train to New town and jumped on that as apparently this a quirky area, similar to our Camden, where we explored. We spent the afternoon in Circular Quays basking in the sun. We met Fiona at Bar 333 for dinner and wine to plan Christmas day. I must point out that I was still feeling awful and was looking forward to climbing into bed. However found another bar with a roof terrace that had an amazing view of the CBD, now I was starting to get my 2nd wind, so we took a quick stop at our hostel and then went to World bar in Kings Cross to watch Kyna and an American girl Keegan sing Karaoke. This bar was a backpacker bar so it was obviously full of Europeans, but that was ok as we got a free drink on arrivals and you could buy a teapot of shots, so cool. Kyna was also AMAZING at karaoke. We lost Jess for a bit but of course found her flirting away with probably the only two Aussie boys in the bar. We dragged our sorry asses home around 1am, as I was longing for bed and we had a surf lesson the next day.

So on Wednesday, we caught the ferry over to Manly beach where we were having our surf lesson. We grabbed some lunch and had a bit of a sunbathe. We donned are oh so very flattering wetsuits, and had our half hour of theory of surfing with the rest of the group. Our instructor then got us in the water with a load of other instructors, and got us surfing. Surprisingly I managed to stand up about 4/5 times to the beach, and a lot of times semi up or I fell off, this was a big achievement for me as last time I tried I was useless, but I am convinced that is because we were taught a technique that was a lot easier than before and also the instructors help a lot too. After the knackering 3 hour lesson we headed home for an early night.

Thursday, we moved out of the Jackeroo Hostel to the Harbour City Backpackers in Wooloomooloo, we were sad to leave the Jackeroo but we were looking forward to a change of scenery and to be staying more central. We booked our trip for the following week to the Blue mountains. We went back to Paddy's markets again, and did our present shopping for one another, I bought Jess a new bag and she bought me a bag and a watch and purchased food for our Xmas eve picnic with Fiona. For dinner we went to Una's Bavarian restaurant where I ate a very large chicken Schnitzel, what the hell its Christmas, the time to fill your face. On the way back we bought our booze for Christmas day and goon for Christmas Eve. I miss cheap spirits.

Friday was Christmas Eve, we met Fiona by the nativity scene by the Cathedral (very festive) to find a spot in the Botanical Gardens. We ended up at Mrs Macquarie's Chair, which is the spot that looks over at the bridge and the Opera house, my theory is you have to always have one eye on the Opera house. We drank lots of our classy goon, ate all of our picnic food and chased the shade around the tree as it was a very hot day and of course pale Fiona forgot to put cream on. We had a really fun afternoon, couldn't of spent a better Christmas Eve in Sydney. At about 8pm, we headed back to our hostel for a swift change and then try to head into Darling Harbour to watch the fireworks, of course we missed them, so we went for a drink in one of the fancy bars there. Jess and I left the bar feeling a little tipsy to meet Kyna for Midnight Mass at St Mary's Cathedral. Trying to get into Cathedral was insane, everyone was pushing and running to get a spot on a pew, not particularly Christian of them. We managed to get a pew in the middle and sat and enjoyed the Carol singing and of course I joined in, got to love a bit of Silent Night and Away in a Manger. We snuck out about 1.30am as it was getting late and the service was getting a little too heavy for us.

CHRISTMAS DAY we awoke to a beautiful sunny day, in the morning I Skype the parents to wish them a Merry Christmas; then we opened our presents, I also bought Jess a stocking of Chocolate that she didn't know about and hung it at the end of her bed. Jess cooked us a lovely breakfast of Salmon and scrambled eggs on muffins and Bucks fizz, whilst around us we had the annoying youths in our hostel playing drinking games, not impressed, but who cares it was CHRISTMAS!! We donned our Koala Christmas tshirts and jumped on the bus to Fiona and Natalie's flat in Chatswood, North Sydney. We arrived at their flat and cracked open the fizzy to start the Christmas festivities, Fiona had already put the Turkey in the oven, so we settled down to do some peeling and chopping of veg in front of the 'Home Alone.' We however neglected the film and began our intense cooking, I say intense because the temperature was over 30 degrees outside, and the flat had no Air con, so you imagine how hot the flat was with the oven on. I helped out with cooking, which was nice as we felt like grown ups cooking our 1st Christmas dinner, well for me it is my 1st home cooked Christmas dinner. Natalie made some American dishes for the meal and also some tasty deserts, and so did Fiona. Jess made the table look pretty and plied us all with Alcohol. We were all sweating our t*** off in the apartment and I was just melting being near the oven, we took it in turns who would open it. We finally sat down at about 5pm with our starter, Natalie's brie dish, which was brie baked in dough, was truly amazing, but then I do enjoy a good bit of brie. Fiona's and Nat's friends also joined us for dinner too, Anja who is another American girl and Emil who they met at surf camp. Anyway, Jess carved Fiona's perfectly cooked turkey and we had our very tasty Christmas dinner with all the trimmings, and of course we filled our faces, I even went back for seconds because it was that good. We were all stuffed and our plan to go to Bondi was sacked off as it was getting late and it was so far away. So we stayed on their balcony, had dessert and homemade mince pies and played drinking games. We obviously played 'G'day Bruce' as we were in Australia and of course 'I have never…' was busted out. Christmas was exactly what I wanted, it was not in the hostel and we were all together with people we knew having an amazing meal with lots of wine and the weather was amazing.

I awoke on Boxing Day with a bit of a fuzzy head. Jess dragged our sorry asses out of bed as we planned to go to the races in Randswick, but of course it was taking an age for us to get out of the flat, Fiona and I were faffing around. We finally made it out of the flat, the weather wasn't looking to great, but we were going so that was that. We arrived about midday, and we got in free with our passports as it was international racing day. We had a table by the race track and Jess bought us a bottle of sparkling to start the festivities off. I won on the 1st race and won $5, my only winnings of the day. The weather also took a sudden turn at around 1pm, the sun came out and it was over 30 degrees, this was not great when we had no shade and I was in skinny black jeans and a shirt and the girls were in full length dresses, we were boiling hot. We carried on betting throughout the day with no luck, but then I was picking the horses with the most comical names rather than odds like 'fast and sexy' and 'sure thing.' The wine was flowing all day and we had a great time, perfect Boxing Day in the sun. We spent the evening at Fiona's watching Home Alone again and eating leftovers from Christmas dinner. Fiona and I both became a little delirious from being tired, hangover and boredom, so we started going crazy around the flat, was hilarious.

Monday the 27th our plan was to go to Taronga Zoo, the zoo is known for its amazing views from all around the park, but of course we didn't get to see these as it was so cloudy and rainy. We jumped on the ferry over to the zoo with Fiona and Natalie for our fun filled day of animals. We all donned are waterproofs, determined not to let the weather ruin the day. Nat and Fiona bought some sexy zoo ponchos. We saw lots of animals of course; Koalas, Giraffes, poo eating chimps, some oversized reptiles, big cats, elephants, penguins and my favourite were the seals at the seal show, they balanced a ball on their nose and everything. We also took the sky car over the zoo too, to get a view of all the animals, and to try and appreciate the misty view. After about 4/5 hours we grew tiresome of the weather and the animals, so Jess and I back in Circular Quays went to warm up with a calorie ridden Gulyian hot chocolate and cookie, Oh my god it was so tasty, but so sickly as they gave you so much.

Tuesday we didn't do very much, a nice quiet day, we just went to the cinema to see The Little Fockers, and we also bumped into Dani Newbry .

Wednesday we had our Blue Mountains trip with Natalie and Fiona, called the Happy Coach. Our tour guide was a massive weirdo by he was also hilarious and of course I was stuck up front with him on the drive out to the Blue Mountains while everyone else was sat at the back…WICKED, little conversation was made on my part but I found out he was from Enfield, Sydney. He woke us all up on the drive there to tell us about Australia hip-hop, to save you all time looking it up, it's AWFUL, and one of the song lyrics was 'Shake your Gluteus Maximus.' Anyway, 1st stop was in the national park to look for Kangaroos, we snapped a few and the back on the bus for a coffee break. We had a feeling that this tour was going to be very laid back. Next stop was the very touristy part of the Blue Mountains, where the scenic railway and the three sisters were (three mounds of rocks on the side of a mountain that had an Aboriginal story.) We hiked down the side of the mountain to all the different view points down to the bottom, the views were breath-taking. We opted to go on the scenic railway back up to the top of the mountain. The railway went vertically up the mountain and through a rock tunnel, $11 well spent. Lunch was pie and salad in a park. After lunch we went to an area that is off the beaten track and as you walked out to the view point, you could see where the big bush fires had burnt away at the trees. The views here were also epic, you could see for miles down the valleys as the view point was a little island in the middle of the valley. We then grabbed some beer and sat on flat rock, to have a beer with a view was so beautiful although I stayed far away from the edge. On the way back, we had a quick stop at the Olympic park. That evening, we had an impromptu night of drinking the rest of our goon on the roof and in our room, whilst playing snap, we ended up at the Sugarmill for a drink.

Thursday, we did what we usually do, SHOP. I sent home 5kg of my stuff that I didn't need anymore and then I spent a lot of money and ended up visiting 3 different Cotton Ons around Sydney. I bought some warmed clothes, a NYE outfit and also some trainers.

Friday was NEW YEARS EVE, and we woke about 10am to witness the longest queue for the botanical gardens for people to view the fireworks at midnight, crazy people. We however had other plans to watch the fireworks. We spent the day in Hyde Park sunning ourselves and treated ourselves to a Frappe at the café. Around 7pm, we caught the bus over to Fiona's flat, where we pre-drank and played some drinking games with some of her friends. We filled up our water bottles of vodka (far too much vodka) for the bus ride to north Sydney for the party in the flat of a millionaire on the river. We arrived half cut to the party, and the apartment was amazing, so beautiful and the guy Dan had amazing food out, which I made the beeline for the cheese board and he also was servingvery expensive wines and lots of Veuve Cliquot which was helped ourselves too. Fiona had an epic fail, her bag was knocked off the side of the balcony into the garden below, which in the dark and with drunk boys trying to find was pretty much impossible, but for most of the night they were down there looking for it. Around 11.45pm we left the apartment to go down the road to get a better view of the fireworks, and drunkenly I bought my glass of champagne with me. My midnight kiss was with Fiona, which she was planning on all week, and she didn't fail. The fireworks where spectacular, they lit upthe whole of the night sky, they were over the bridge and all down the river which we had a perfect view of, and we didn't have to queue for hours for and it wasn't that busy either. After the fireworks everything got a little hazy, I made lots of phone calls, there was lots of chatting, drinking, some searching for Fiona's lost bag and lots of drunk heart to hearts. Around 3.30am we got the train back to Fiona's flat.

We awoke early in Fiona's boiling apartment, still drunk from the night before and not really feeling as bad as we thought we would,. We rang In the British new years in at 11am with a glass of bucks fizz and sparklers, which was very funny. Today was a day of not getting anywhere fast, we were heading for manly beach. After Fiona faffed around an epic amount to get ready, we were on our way out when we thought one of the cats had escaped so we had to look for that, finally when we made it out of the flat we went to the slowest serving café and then the slowest bus in the world, things were seriously not working out to well for us. Fiona went and picked up her bag as we got changed. We met up with Kyna and finally got over to Manly beach late afternoon. Longest faff filled journey ever. We sunbathed and frolicked in the sea for the latter part of the day. Dinner we had $12 steak and another bottle of sparkling to celebrate the New Year, which we followed with another glass of wine with some of Fiona's friends in a local bar. Finally made it back to the hostel at around 11pm where I had to pack and all I wanted to do was die.

2nd January was our day of departure and of course nothing is easy for us. The shuttle service were fobbing us off about coming to get us, we rung them 3 times, then at 9.45am they said they had already picked us up or 2 people they thought were us, which clearly were not u. Our flight was leaving in 1hour and 15mins so panic mode kicked in, so we threw our backpacks on up and marched up to George street as we had no luck hailing a cab where we were. Thank god it was a Sunday and there was no traffic, we arrived with only 10mins to spare to check in, I also had issues checking in, butfinally we got through security and we were on our way to Melbourne.