Sydney

There seems to be this big debate over what's best, Sydney or Melbourne.  I don't think I've yet experienced enough of either, so i'll straddle the fence a bit and say Melbourne, but with Sydney's climate.

Like a dumbass, I missed my flight from Melbourne to Sydney.  My punishment was to wait in the terminal another 2 hours until the next flight.  So I got in to Sydney a little bit later than I had expected.  I got to the hostel, which is really quite nice.  It's not the most social hostel in the world, but it's clean and it's got comfortable beds.

I dropped my stuff off in the room and went down to the hostel bar to grab a little food and socialize a bit, and hopefully meet a few people I can hang out with.  At first, I just befriended the bartender because it's always a good idea to know the bartender.  She ended up giving me a few free internet vouchers and introduced me around.  See?  Good to know the bartender.  Now I just need to work myself up to discounts on beer and I'm all set.

My first night, admittedly, was a little weird.  Here's what happened.

So I'm mingling and meeting people and I find myself talking with two Canadian girls.  All of a sudden things got weird when they started yelling at each other over something I had no clue about.  One got up and went to the bathroom, the other stayed behind and she starts telling me her side of whatever they were arguing about.  Then the other girl came back from the bathroom, and they yelled for another minute, and the one who had previously stayed behind got up and left.  This girl (the one who went to the bathroom a minute ago), starts telling me her side of the argument.  So when the second girl returned, and they both realized that they had each explained their side of the argument, they both started asking me to take sides.

"Uh, listen guys, I really don't want to get in the middle of this..."

Then they started yelling some more, and eventually apologized.

"Listen Jamie, we're really sorry you were here to witness this...this is like a friendship ending moment."

They both kind of stormed off in different directions after that, leaving me a bit confused.  It was a strange, bizzarre, and very awkward thing to just kind of fall in my lap on my first night.  I haven't seen either of them since.

So I then started hanging out with these two guys from the UK, who had witnessed this whole ordeal.  We had a few laughs about it and had a few beers together.  Since it was Saturday night, we decided to head out and explore the Sydney night life.  One of the lads had been in town a few days so he directed us towards an area with several good pubs and clubs.  Unfortunately, the two boys from the UK were too drunk to be allowed in to any of them.  They were showing me around a bit, so I felt it would be kind of a dick move if I abandoned them to go into a bar when they got refused at the door.  In my head I was kind of thinking, "come on, really?" because I thought Brits were supposed to be able to have a few pints without falling over themselves.  These two clowns were an anomaly.

Eventually they gave up and wandered home.  I tried going into a few pubs but it was late on a Saturday night at this point and everyone was way more drunk than I was (which usually makes social interaction a bit strange), so I headed back to the hostel for a bit of sleep.

I woke up the next day and it was pouring.  I donned the trusty rain gear and headed out anyway, determined to see the sights.  I just did the old aimless wander that Blove and I became so good at during our time traveling, and found myself in Hyde Park, which was a really nice atmosphere.  The rain had gone away so I sat at a park bench and did a little people-watching and some reading.

Cue Rain.

Out of nowhere, a downpour began.  The street performer playing guitar packed up and left.  The wedding party ran for cover.  The tourists opened their umbrellas and headed home.  I sat there, soaked, and decided maybe it was time to go home too.

I waited out the storm back at the hostel and actually got some stuff accomplished, like figuring out some future travel plans.  The night was uneventful, but I met a few people and had some fun.

The next day, I woke up and there was a new guy staying in our hostel room.  Turns out he was from the DC area as well, and went to Georgetown Prep, my rival high school.  Small world, huh?  He also went to Notre Dame, so we had plenty to talk about between high school stuff, Landon's recent bad press, and NCAA football.

We decided to wander around together, and our game plan was to explore the Kings Cross area, see the Opera House and the Sydney Harbor, and whatever else we happened to learn about along the way.  The weather was good, not great, so we decided to save the famous Sydney beaches for Tuesday and Wednesday when the forecast was for warmth and sunshine.

We took a bus down back toward the Hyde Park area, and I took a few pictures that weren't quite as grey as my previous day in the downpour.

Still a little grey I guess

From Hyde Park, we took out our maps and found our way over to Kings Cross.  "The Cross" as it's known is kind of like the Red Light District of the city.  If that's not your scene it's still a big backpacker area and had a lot of bars so we did some scouting as to where we'd like to go when we inevitably went out.  It seemed like a cool, fun area.

Next it was time to see the famous Sydney Opera House.  We wandered over there and got a few photos.

The Sydney Harbor bridge.  I don't think the photo quite captures what an enormous structure it is.

After that we wandered around a bit more and eventually made our way back to the Hostel.  I did a bit of reading and ended up getting dinner with a few guys from Wales.  They explained that they are living in the hostel while trying to find an apartment they can afford and are working a 9 to 5.  Doesn't sound like the best situation in the world; Australian hostels are not cheap.

Tuesday we decided to head out to Manly Beach.  We took the famous Manly Ferry through the Sydney Harbor to Manly Wharf, and I think the photos of the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House turned out much, much better than when we were on land.

So we reached Manly and wandered around for a bit and grabbed some food.  The beach was very nice and we walked all the way down it and hung out on this outcropping of rocks and watched the waves pummel the cliffs and the surfers ride into the shore.  It was a really cool beach and a fun area.  We took the ferry back to Central Sydney afterwards.  I think the ferry ride was the best part about the whole thing though.  Seeing the city and some of its iconic architecture from the water was pretty cool.

Surfers at Manly

That night we went out to a club in Kings Cross, but it was overcrowded and was a bit of a massive dudestorm.  Lotta dudes.  I think when a club advertises 'wet t-shirt contest' it draws a big male crowd.  I didn't want to spend much money because Australia is so damn expensive, so I hung out for a bit but then headed back to the hostel.

Wednesday we took the train out to Bondi beach, which, like Manly, is another really fun beach area of Sydney.

Bondi Beach

Photo not edited in any way--the color of the water is amazing.  You can see the storm clouds rolling in in the background though....

I actually liked Bondi beach better than Manly, and there were tons of young people all around, making for a lively atmosphere. I think Bondi is the beach more for surfers and backpackers, so clearly it's where we should have been hanging out.

After an hour or so, these huge storm clouds rolled in and a downpour began accompanied with all the theatrics of a full-blown thunderstorm.  Colin (the guy from Prep) and I happened to discover a Bavarian Bier joint, which served Hofbrau Dunkel--quite a find.  Hofbrau dunkel was one of my favorite beers in Munich.  So we sat down and tried to wait out the storm.  Eventually it did pass, but it kinda killed the beach vibe.

We hopped on a bus to head out to Coogee, where I was going to meet up with Aidan, an Irish guy Blove and I became friends with in Cusco, Peru.  He's out here working in Sydney, so we figured we'd meet up and he could show us around Coogee.  On the bus out to Coogee, however, we met an American girl who was on her way to someones 21st birthday party, and she invited us to come along.  I wanted to meet up with Aidan first, so she just told us to drop by whenever and gave us the address.

We met up with Aidan at what was supposedly the 'highest-grossing bar in the Southern Hemisphere' or something like that.  I'm not so sure how accurate that is, but it was a pretty cool place.  We ate dinner and played some pub trivia until Aidan had to leave.  Then it was time to head to the party.

We went to the apartment where there party was being held and sure enough, there was some group of Americans celebrating someone's 21st Birthday.  We enjoyed the party for a few minutes then everyone decided it was time to go to a bar.  The whole huge group walked straight over to the bar we'd been at with Aidan.  But by this time there was live music and more of a party atmosphere.

After the bar, we got invited back to the apartment for the afterparty, along with the guitarist who was playing at the bar (I guess girls like a guitarist).  So we went back, had a few more drinks, and the guitarist and I swapped the guitar back and forth while everyone chanted different songs for us to play.  We played some Dave, Stones, Zep, Dispatch, Beatles, Oasis and all the other corny singalongs.  But by now it was getting late (4am...), so Colin and I said goodbye and left for our hostel.

I'm supposed to leave Sydney today but seeing as I got in at close to 5 in the morning and checkout was at 10am, I think I'll stay another day or so...