Happy 2006 Everyone! Hope you all had a great start to the New Year. I spent my Christmas and New Year in sunny Sydney, where I partied HARD; drinking and eating far too much! In fact, possibly drinking more than I ever have ever before. Am now on detox, which is pretty hard to persevere with on the east coast of Australia! My hostel over the festive season definitely had a relaxed attitude to life. Located off of the main drag of the 'Cross (Kings Cross is Sydney's red light district), at the end of most days it smelt of stale beer and weed and was littered with passed out backpackers who'd failed to climb the stairs to their dorms! On Christmas day everyone helped prepare an awesome Christmas supper - roast turkey with the works. Our dorm was in charge of carving the ham, which with typically blunt backpacker knives was far harder than imagined! We all sat down together for the meal and ate under the sun in the hostel courtyard. After dinner, I headed over to Bondi beach to sleep off the hearty meal on the beach. A few thousand other people had the same idea - the beach was packed. I loved that even the police and the coast guards had the festive feeling, wearing Santa hats and tinsel - which just added to the party feeling - brilliant! Most of Boxing day is a bit of a blur, as the whole hostel embraced the challenge of the day time pub crawl quiz, with my team being particularly enthusiastic and adding extra pubs (and moonies) at every opportunity! New Year's Eve continued with the drinking theme, and Becki and I successfully smuggled into the park a large bottle of vodka and lots of redbull. We started drinking at 2pm and didn't stop all night. The hostel organised a great picnic at Blues Point, where we had a fantastic view of Sydney Harbour and the bridge. The fireworks at 9pm and at midnight were really really spectacular. The combination of great weather, yummy picnic, fabulous view point, awesome fireworks and great people make Sydney the best destination for new year's eve - I can't wait to go back!