Friday 8th Jan

So last night turned out to be eventful, we were late to the cheese and wine after arriving on the rooftop to see most of the cheese and wine was gone and everyone was in full swing of playing beer pong, something neither of us were prepared to participate in at 7pm. There appeared to be other games that were to commence, giant Jenga and ring of fire, along with various items of fancy dress props people were getting into. We decided to stay for 10 minutes and then skipped the crazy 'forced fun' events (as Lauren would have said), made phone calls to home and headed straight to the downstairs Scubar where people would join after. After a few drinks it got busy and we had a guy called Jack from Redditch who was on his own join us to chat. I left Lisa with him and wandered off to have my face painted with UV yellow, and a flower down my arm and came back to them both laughing at me. I felt like an avatar and tried to use the UV crayons to draw on Lisa but she wouldn't go have the paint done. We stayed for a bit and also chatted to another guy staying in our hostel called DJ (David Jospeh) who was travelling alone from Illinois and also bumped into Talia who we'd met the night before. It was a good atmosphere and we didn't get too much of a late night.

Friday morning I was happy to wander down and find it was free pancakes morning. I grabbed myself a plate and caught up with Nick on the phone - it's so much easier for us to talk with this time difference in comparison to how it was in Asia! Lisa and I had booked a 9-11am time slot to go up the tower eye so headed straight there. Picking up our 3D glasses there was a short intro 4D cinema experience which showed highlights of Australia, and we went up to the observation deck which gave stunning views of Sydney.

We then went onto find some lunch so took a walk back near the harbour, an area called, 'the rocks', which we'd passed the day before and I'd said would be nice to eat around. There was a food market on so we grabbed a pork roll ($10) and sat listening to a busker in the square whilst getting attacked by pigeons and one domineering seagull. A lady who we had taken a picture for in front of the opera house recommended we took a ferry ride to take in the views and see the other islands, so we went and bought a ticket ($28 each) and went on the two and a half hour boat ride learning about Sydney. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and really was a better way to see the views from across the water. I chatted to an English lady who was visiting with her sister who in September had suddenly lost her husband. She opened up to me and explained how her sister had just bought a house with him in Sydney to visit their daughter and grandchildren, and also a campervan so the four of them, now retiring, could meet up with them and take trips. Sadly, she explained her brother-in-law never lived to see the house and she told me to live my life to the best I can as anything can happen at any point...I nodded and shared about my dads recent surgery and how I've come travelling while I can. It was nice to have had a moment with a stranger, something I've watched my mum do as I've grown up learning it's nice chatting to people in a friendly manner.

After the boat trip, we missed our train stop at central and went to the suburbs before finally making it back to the hostel for a quick change and onto to meet my friends who I'd lived with for 2 years at uni, Jamie and Katy. We met the girls at the Opera bar at 6pm and spent the night catching up and laughing about events whilst drinking bottles of the Opera sparkling. It was great to have seen them again and to watch the sunset...after a giggly night we all eventually caught the last train back.

xxx