After nearly missing my flight to Bali from Kuala Lumpur the week before I was not going to miss my flight from Singapore to Sydney, so I was really organised and got to the airport for about 5.30pm for my flight at 8, but then at check in I was talking to this Irish couple in the queue who said out flight was apparently coming from Frankfurt and had been delayed til 1am!! At least Singapore airport is good and they have loads of free internet computers and I got a food voucher so I was happy enough, I ended up just sitting in Starbucks for a few hours writing postcards etc and I met this woman and her daughter who were trying to get back to London for Christmas, they've lived in Singapore for 3 years and it sounds awesome! I'm definately going to live there at some point! I've moved on from moving to Australia.. it seems to rain a lot and its not that big on Christmas, Singapore totally was. But anyway, we eventually got on our way to Sydney at about 2am ish and I somehow managed to get one of the exit seats that I was quite excited about, but then the guy next to me decided to talk.. alot.. and he showed me a lot of pictures of his kids and his hummers because he owns some stretch hummer company (apparently they picked up the winner on im a celebrity) But anyway at some point I guess I fell asleep, because the next thing I knew I was getting rudely awoken by some annoying woman jumping up and down at my feet, LEANING OVER ME!!!!, to look out my window at Ayers Rock.. ok so at least I got to see it too and it was quite cool seeing it from the air like that but I was grumpy at her waking me and glared until she moved.
So eventually I made it to Sydney! Hurray! I got to my hostel, which was huge compared to the places I've been staying in in Asia, and I was sleepy after all my delays so I dozed for the afternoon before I went down to Darling Harbour with some people I met from my dorm. The next day I tagged along with the same group to Coogee beach where the sea was freezing! Who knew! But it was a good start to Australia, sun sea sand and a bbq.. and then my first taste of goon... cheap wine that comes in a 4L bag.. in a box.. and the label says may contain fish and milk products.. yuk but I don't like to think about that! We went out that evening before a couple of the guys went to surf camp and on the way back tried Aussie cheesy chips.. you wouldnt think it was really possible for them to go wrong but it wasnt great and we had to wait for ages but I still ate them so it cant have been that bad!
The weather on the run up to Christmas was great and really sunny and nice so we spent time doing stuff like walking to Sydney Harbour, relaxing in the botanic gardens, Tine won a $50 bar tab in a pool competition and we played hide and seek/murder in the dark. Then Christmas eve we did a massive food shop as a group for our Christmas day bbq on Coogee beach, and then bought Santa hats and tinsel to decorate the dorm. Tine (our danish friend) was off at a danish christmassy thing, so me and Emma went down to get our free Champagne at the bar before we headed down to Darling Harbour to see the Christmas fireworks, they were really good and not overly busy so it was good before we headed back to the bar at the hostel to celebrate christmas! And so started my first christmas away from home, and I opened my package mam sent and all my cards that I got (thanks everyone!), before the champagne breakfast that the hostel put on. Then we all got the bus to Coogee beach where we spent Christmas day, it was busy but not as chocka as I expected which was good! I had a great day but it didn't really feel so much like Christmas day, Australians don't really seem to make a big deal out of Christmas like I thought they would, so I didn't really feel so weird not being at home but only because it didn't really feel like Christmas, if that makes sense? At least I managed to get skype working in the evening to get through to home, that felt strange but I'm looking forward to a proper Christmas back home next year! Not much really happened on the run up to new year, we did things like shopping, went to see The Tourist with Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp which was really good, went to Guylian chocolate cafe for cake, spent a day at Bondi beach and went on a day trip to the Blue Mountains which was beautiful (and hot!). Then it was New Years Eve, and we were at the botanic gardens for 10am!!!! And already the queue to get in was massive, we met some guys in the queue from Sheffield who had brought a ball so we spent some time messing around and sunbathing for a while.. it was such a hot day! Then when we eventually got to the entrance at about 1pm, they through away all opened bottles.. everything from water, sprite.. no alcohol allowed in, they even checked Emmas sun cream to check we werent trying to smuggle it in that way! We did manage to get our wine in but not our water (??) I thought that was pretty stupid seeing as it was such a hot day and they were charging $3 just to fill a water bottle froma tap! Thats just ridiculous! So by 1pm, the gardens were already pretty busy! But we managed to find a decent spot eventually and basically camped out there until midnight! And some people were most definately not in the New Years spirit and I was not a happy bunny for a while but that is a different story and I had a good night, the fireworks were amazing but 14 hours is a long time to wait.. next time I will just buy a yacht or something!! Sorted! So now there was only a few days left in Sydney after I finally managed to get a spot on the Oz Experience bus (another arguement and story I will not go into) leaving on the 3rd of Jan. I was originally going to do the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb but at $180 I thought I would do this Pylon Lookout instead, $9.50 and you still get amazing views.. I dont think you're allowed to take your camera on the bridge climb someone told me, but we got some good pictures. If it had been maybe even $100 I would've done the bridge climb but I just think its a lot for what it is. And so that was Christmas and New Year down under, and next I'm off up the East Coast.. I've heard rumours of giant floods further up but we'll see how I get on!