Our flight to Sydney on Friday 14th was fairly quick and easy, although Tiger airways are not the most organised, but I guess that's why they are the cheapest airline to fly with so I'm not complaining. We arrived at Base hostel in the afternoon so spent the rest of the day looking around the winter shops and buying various thermals and socks for chilly New Zealand. After walking around the city, we went to the Casino to experience my first gambling ever! The Casino building was massive, it had really expensive deluxe shops such as Prada, Gucci, Rolex etc..and some high end restaurants too. We tried looking for Stefans French friend who worked in one of the restaurants but couldn't find the restaurant anywhere. The Casino was full of Japanese or Korean people, it was crazy. There were all sorts of people in there in various attires too, there was no specific dress code to get in so luckily us backpackers were safe. Stefan started the gambling session with $25 on roulette...which he one...once....and then twice....so ended up with $100! Go Stefan! So then I tried...and lost first time round. But hey, at least now I can say I have been into a Casino and gambled. Knowone needs to know I lost do they? Haha.

In the morning I had a surprise breakfast which included a large hot chocolate and a banana cake! YUMMY! Stefan went out looking for milk and porridge and ended up returning with a much more satisfying breakfast - thanks Stefan. We jumped on the 10am train to meet Laura and Toby near the Blue Mountains. They picked us up in Danger Mau5, their sexy red Yaris and drove us to the Blue Mountains. It was fab to see them again and hear about what they had been up to since I left. They both completed the half marathon so good on them!! After having walked down and up too many steps at the Blue mountains we decided to check out a waterfall and then drive somewhere for some lunch in a small town nearby. It was a cute cafe with live music playing all day and they had the most amazing looking flower-pot scones with cream and jam. Somehow I managed to resist buying one, but they did look like the cafes speciality. Laura took us back to her house where we met the family and we sat and chatted by the fire before jumping back on the train to the city. It was sad to say bye to them knowing that I probably won't see them for a while. That evening we saw Sydney fireworks and ended up going to Shark Bar as it was meant to be a big night with the Lions vs New South Wales rudby game...it wasn't that busy, but we had a dance and a giggle before heading to bed at midnight as it was Stefan's run the next morning!

Saturday 15th we were up at 6am...oh no hang on, we weren't up at 6am, I think it was about 5am I first woke up to Stefan eating his pasta in bed! He knows exactly what he needs to do before a race, eat pasta an hour before the race, then warm up half an hour before he runs, doing sprints and stuff, it was very professional! Haha. So we got up and went to the start which was down by the harbour. It was very strange being a spectator rather than a competitor- I don't think I have ever done that before, I have always been participating in the event. I felt so lazy and kinda wished I did it, but it was $100 and my foot still wasn't in great shape. Never mind, it was really nice to see Stefan race and he finished on such a high, he was completely buzzing. Not only that, but he did bloody well too - he came 10th in his age and 74th overall (out of ) So impressive, he is too sporty for my liking! And you won't believe that he did another 45 minute run with me straight after along the harbour and into the botanical gardens. Machine! It was great to be running again, and my foot didn't hurt one bit YIPEE. So after morning full of sport, we headed back for a nice shower and food. In the afternoon we did more walking and ended up meeting Stefans two Sydney friends - a French guy and a French girl. We met them in a very classy winery and sat outside drinking pimms and wine. We all decided to go to a sky bar called O'Bar as Stefan and I wanted to go on the sky tower but they suggested we should go to this bar instead...and oh my gosh it was so worth it! The views of the city were so impressive and the bar/restaurant rotated too so you got to see 360 degree view of Sydney. It was awesome. The bar was so sophisticated on comfy leather chairs and we all treated ourselves to some red wine which was only $10...cheaper than paying to go up the sky tower and a much better experience because we ended up staying the for a couple of hours chatting. So it turned out to be such a random night as we left the French girl we decided to go for dinner with the French guy. He took us to a popular Korean restaurant that his friend suggested he try. We had to wait 1 hour to get a table it was that popular. We thought it must be good so might as well try it out. Our dinner consisted of octopus, prawns, tounge, oyster, beef, chicken, pork....yes literally everything! And what's funny is we had to cook it on our table BBQ. It was so cute and tasty, but the waitress was concerned how black we were making the BBQ, and she told us it's not good for our health - so obviously we were doing something wrong. They changed the plate for us at least 7 times because it got so black! OPSY! It was so much fun though. Stefan and I also wanted to have a night out on Kings Cross as it was one thing on my tick list I wanted to do (as well as the sky tower), so we managed to drag the French guy with us and we ended up meeting Brodie there too. We stayed in a bar on the balcony for a couple of drinks before heading down the road to find a very sophisticated club/bar. It was half inside, half outside, people were dressed very smartly, the music was fab...BUT they were charging $10 each to get in. But somehow the longer we stood there deliberating weather or not we should go in, they ended up reducing the tickets to $5 and then the guy just said oh why don't you go in and check it out and if you like it buy a drink....so we all walked in looking rather smug that we hadn't paid a thing. I think Brodie and Stefan made up for it in drinks though, they had a fair few! It was a great night and we left when it closed at 3am...for the long walk back. We didn't end up getting to bed until 4am L I was tired!

So as you can imagine, we didn't rise out of bed until about midday on Monday 17th. We had a nice relaxed breakfast (our last breakfast together which obviously had to be good old porridge which Stefan now loves I hasten to add - he's getting into the good old English ways with cups of tea too - I think I am a good influence J) We managed to find a girl with a laptop to ask if we could transfer music from a CD to our memory stick - oh did I forget to mention that after Stefan's race on Sunday morning, we were dancing around by the DJ who was pumping out some awesome tunes and so Stefan went to ask him where we could buy his music and he returned with a 3 disk CD Running Trax set for FREE! Love Aussie's sometimes! The CD was probably worth a fair amount. So after transferring music to the memory stick we decided to head out and enjoy our last day in Sydney in the sunshine. We walked everywhere, and took each other to places we hadn't seen before. Stefan took me to the harbour bridge (I didn't realise you could walk along it!) so we watched the sunset of Sydney harbour before strolling around The Rock's and looking at a few art museums which were actually pretty impressive. We went to check out Jamie's Italian, and were told that it was about an hour wait, so we carried on exploring a little and then ended up in Max Brenner. I couldn't let Stefan leave Australia without having experience the amazing chocolate cafe that is so popular in Oz. We had a milk chocolate thick Italian mug (which Toby had previously kindly introduced me to) and a mini cupcake to share. It was odd starting with a dessert and then going for dinner, but hey why not! Then it was time for Jamies. We started with pumpkin wedges which were really different but scrumptious and then I dived into a delicious tuna and cinnamon pasta dish with herbs and breadcrumbs....mmm my mouth is watering! It went down a treat especially with a glass of red wine - thanks Stefan J I also tried some tiramisu, which in all fairness is OK, but I think I would stick to my chocolate treats. It was a lovely evening, and felt like I was at home dining in a normal restaurant and chatting away all night. It was nice to feel like a 'normal' person, rather than a backpacker for a change, even though I still looked like a backpacker. Thanks to Stefan for a lovely evening which he treated me to J A great night and a great ending for my Australia experience. We returned to the backpackers and ended up sorting more music and chatting even more...and this is where the cup of coffee and chocolate photo comes in! The first time EVER I enjoyed a cup of coffee all to myself...I am growing up ey Dad, I now love beer, red wine AND coffee. Now thats the kind of daughter you want to spend an evening with hey J.