Happy new year everyone!

Update: mark decided to take matters into his own hands with his hair. When it isn't gelled it looks like he has put a bowl on his head and cut around it hahaha.

Anyway.......

Where do I begin!! I've been very silly to not update this blog because now I am going to have to bore all of you with an essay of everything we have done so far!!. I promise to keep it short and sweet without all the dramatics as I have been told that my dramaticness ( is that a word?) is very tireing

So here I go ( breaths deeply, I can't actually remember what we did last week so il make something up) the weather was not atall great last week, I'm sure it was like 2 degrees higher than your temperature so we both had serious colds (runny nose and everything!). Christmas morning we woke up nice and early to open all of our three cards it was a very exciting moment, then we went to cook the kew family traditional gammon breakfast only to realise that the so called gammon was already cooked!, it cost £8, tasted like Asda wafer thin ham. Fail . We then quickly got ready and headed to Bondi beach! Wahoo. It felt strange to be on a beach at Christmas there was even a Christmas tree!. I decided to leave mark and go on a search for Santa hats, bad idea! I didn't find any so I bought a reindeer headband it(plays a Christmas song)then I headed back to the long, busy, Santaridden beach to find mark but i couldn't find him.....i was LOST. I had LOST Mark on Christmas day! Typical me, it took me half an hour to find him after nearly hyperventilating....... I finally found him.

We did the harbour bridge climb on the 27th which was really fun, I think they are extremely greedy with the price they charge you ( 200 dollars) to walk up steps, but you've gotta do it and the views are amazing. Even though it's high up it doesn't feel like it ( abit like driving across the dartford crossing). It takes 3 hours to climb, anyone can do it, its not hard atall .We paid for photos as your not allowed to take your camera up there.

On the 28th we went to the blue mountains which took 4 hours to get to! We saw the 3 sisters ( which are 3 stones, the story behind it- three sisters loved three brothers from a different tribe this kind of love was forbidden so war broke out. To protect the three sisters the three brothers turned them into stone,the plan was to turn them back after the war ended, but unfortunately the three brothers were killed in battle and no one has been able to turn the three sisters back.........REALLY??) Despite the weird tourist money making story the blue mountains are very pretty and actually blue, a lot of the walks were closed due to forest fires which was a shame.

We went on a bush walk the other day with the neighbours we went through an area the locals call the pipe, mark kept on getting leaches on his leg but luckily he spotted them before they went in for a suck, me on the other hand was not so lucky!. About 45 minutes into the walk I decided to itch my foot, so I pulled my trainer off on my scarred ankle foot, took my sock off, and there in front of me was a blood sucking leach, there was blood trickling down my foot, I was horrified. This leach was not getting off in a hurry, they literally dig their dirty jaw into you. My ankle didn't stop bleeding for about 3 hours, my sock and trainer were soaked. I discovered later that your supposed to burn them off, or put salt on them to get them off your skin otherwise there jaw gets stuck in you. So now I have a jaw inside my ankle. Thanks leach.

On the 30th we went to manly beach, we went across on the ferry which takes 30 minutes it's a really nice ride. You go past all the tourist spots and we got good pics of the opera house and harbour bridge( not that we need anymore). At manly we had a surf lesson.....wooo, mark caught on really quick, he stood up and everything, he loved it. Im not confident in the sea and the waves are absolutely monsters so I found it hard to stay upright let along surf!. If you haven't got upper body strength there's more chance of the surf board knocking you under the water, and when that happens its hard to get back up again because the waves just keep coming. We had a 2 hour lesson, there was 20 people in our group and only 4 surf teachers i don't think they should be allowed to teach more than 10 people at a time, so next time il only do it In a small group.

Of course on new years eve we went to the city and watched the fireworks!, some people went up there at midday!! The first fireworks were on at 9 so thats a long time to wait!.we went there at 8.00pm, walked to the rocks which is just beside the harbour bridge, this is where we thought the fireworks were going to go off from. So at 9:00 we heard some booms and bangs, yes we couldn't even see them!! Hahaha just our luck!they only lasted for 6 minutes but they were the kids ones. Next ones were on at 12:00 so we went to the pub for some drinks, by the time I finished my first half a beer I could feel my face going numb (must be the oz beer). The atmosphere in Sydney was awesom just like a huge street party we even had a boogie on the street. At 12 we went back up to the rocks and this time the fireworks were on the bridge, they were amazing, apparently there was music but the cheering was so loud we couldn't hear it. I counted down from 80, never done that before. I did take some pics but the fireworks don't look as good. Happy 2012

We are having an amazing time, feel like we've been away for ages! I think wer half way now. Eeeeeek I'm missing everyone loads but don't want it to end!

Ps we saw Sydney's deadliest spider yesterday. They live in holes in the grass so gotta be careful where we walk! Don't think my ankle can take anymore beatings.

Xxxxxxxx