It was a very short night. I got to talk to Betty at home for a while and by the time I finished packing and cleaning it was 2am when I went to bed. I got a couple unanticipated visitors that came back from the Tavern and decided they needed to visit me. I was up by 6:45 to ensure that I was ready and packed in time to make it to the bus. I met Brendan on the way and we walked to the bus stop. We didn't realize how far of a walk it was to the actual airport from the bus stop, it took is a good 10 minutes to get there. The airport is really small so checking in and security was really quick. We didn't have long to wait before we boarded and took off for Sydney. We got a nice aerial view of the Maroochydore/Alex/Mooloolaba area and not too long after it got cloudy and we couldn't see much. The flight was 1 ½ hrs which went by pretty quick. We didn't see any landmarks as we were flying over Sydney to land but as we were taxiing to the terminal we went over a bridge with traffic below, which looked really odd. The domestic terminal is rather small so there wasn't much to do for the hour that we had to wait for the others to arrive. We found some brochures of things to do in Sydney but they didn't take long to read. We arrived about 11:15-11:30 and it was close to 1pm by the time the other plane landed. Fallon needed to go to the international terminal to see if she could change her ticket home and Joanna went with her. The rest of us called the hostel to let them know the shuttle bus should come pick us up. It took a while for him to come; he was a very interesting fellow. He was Russian and barely spoke English. He brought us down a back alleyway that looked pretty dodgy and left us in the van for dead. He came back a little bit later and was talking to another guy standing there in Russian and we figured they were deciding where they going to hide our bodies. It wasn't that bad, but it was pretty funny. Once we got to the hostel he showed us where to go and Kate, Karen and I checked into our room. We ended up with a 4 person and there was a guy already in it. We had to wait around for the other 2 before Brendan could check in with them. After we were all checked in and arranged we went over to an internet/travel centre to see if we could get tickets for the opera house and bridge climb. Joanna and Fallon wanted to go to the ballet at the opera house but the rest of us decided on a comedy since it was cheaper. The ballet was sold out so we all got tickets to the comedy. The Hard Rock Café was supposed to be close so we decided to go there for dinner before trekking to the opera house. It wasn't too far to walk and there were heaps of car rental places which was good to see because we want to rent a car on Sunday and drive to the Blue Mountains. Karen and I wanted to check out the City Night Market in Chinatown and skip eating at the Hard Rock but after much deliberation decided it wasn't worth it at ate with the rest. The food was decent, same as all the rest of them. After eating we stopped at the hostel quick to drop off a few things and then decided to leave for Circular Quay (pronounced key) where the opera house is. We had lots of time to get there and we used most of it trying to find our way. We weren't lost, we just weren't sure what the best route to get there was. We had a little time to explore and get ice cream at the harbour before getting our tickets. The comedian was hilarious, we were laughing almost the entire hour and 15 minutes of the show. Australians have a different sense of humour and I like it. I almost bought a CD of the performance but it was $20 so I decided against it. After the show Joanna and Fallon ran off to the Minus 5 bar where they had reservations. The bar is just that...minus 5 degrees Celsius. The bar is made entirely of ice, even the glasses. They provide the jackets, boots and a drink and you have a ½ to an hour inside the bar. You had to pay to get in, the reason why the rest of us decided against it. Kate, Karen, Brendan and I ventured to a few pubs in the rocks while they froze. They were interesting pubs but we didn't spend much time in the because we only had an hour. We decided to head back to Kings Cross and stop anywhere that looked interesting along the way. We didn't see anything until we were back near our hostel. We checked out a pub and then headed back to the hostel because it was getting pretty late. Unknown to us until we got there, most of Kings Cross is a red-light district. If we were interested we could have had our choice of any strip club or adult shop we wanted...all right around the corner from our hostel.