Oh the places we’ll go…or not. Saturday marked the most dysfunctional day of traveling I will ever encounter (in my life), truth. But before I get into my hectic and wonderful weekend, let me back up to the series of events that filled my “study” week.
While I may have been done with classes, the uni visits continued this week from Monday to Wednesday…daily. So annoying, but in the end everything was settled with professors and I was on track to finish my semester well. Monday night a few of the Campus Easters and I rode bikes to North Gong for $8 Steak, the best deal in town and far from the awful cafeteria food! My first attempt at riding a bike failed with a flat tire, thank goodness I was still in the parking lot, but my second was the definition of a cute fixie girl bike. What a joke, but so fun! We had a sweet little family dinner then Beck, Belinda, and I came up with the fantastic idea to ride to Cold Rock (aka ColdStone). This soon turned into an epic pursuit up and down hills blindly traveling down new areas of Wollongong we had never seen before. Impromptu tour, YEWWW! In the end, our adventure only made the ice cream taste even better! Yumm Tim Tam Hazelnut Chocolate Ice Cream. The rest of the week consisted of a few runs along the coastline, some time watching the surf roll in off the Pacific, and reading a solid 9 chapters in my little PR textbook. Gotta love finals! J
As for my weekend, there were far more adventures to be found. Friday, my roommate Emily and I boarded an early train to Sydney. We dropped our bags off in Bronte where her uncle Michael lives and made our way to Bondi Junction for some serious shopping. I bought a few fun things to bring home and some that have been on my bucket list since coming here. Success! That afternoon, we took a tour around Bronte. The suburb/beach was absolutely gorgeous, the houses are so manicured and modern. Good company all around. Is this real life? We walked to Bondi just a few beaches down for dinner and along the way we took in the sites of the sculptures by the sea exhibition. We ate at a great Thai place, my newly found obsession, and then made our way home for the night. We played with Michael’s little kitten, Rupert, for a bit then began the attempt to fall asleep…after we made the little thing wild. Ooops.
Saturday, the day started out lovely. We woke up had a great breakfast then I caught the bus/train into Central to meet Beth. After getting lost far too many times trying to find the correct way out of Central Station, I found her! Thank goodness. With heaps of trackwork this weekend, our handy trains turned into hectic bus routes that took triple the amount of time as usual. Once we finally made it to Olympic Park, the real test came to find where the expo that I was so excited to visit, and locating our hotel. The trusty information center gave us all the help we needed…unfortunately. The expo consisted of one design of shirt and our hotel, well let's just say the convenience factor of staying at Olympic Park and not taking two forms of transportation ($$) was sounding heavenly. Instead of dropping our bags at the hotel, we jumped on a bus to go to Darling Harbor for lunch one last time. And by jumped I mean it took us two hours sitting on a bus in traffic, add it to the karma list haha. After a great lunch sitting on the harbor, we walked to Paddy’s to grab some last minute souvenirs and find the Chinese temple in China town. Again, this was a strike and a miss in the bus rides department. Then to sweeten our afternoon, we missed our stop and had to change buses. The driver felt bad for us so he escorted us to the other bus, gave us a free ride, and gave specific instructions to the driver to tell us when to get off. Directionally challenged, what’s up! Thanks a whole heap even though we had myMulti day passes, it’s the thought that counts! We met up with Nick, one of the first friends we made here, to say a last goodbye before his trip to Bali. Nope, this isn’t real life. I don’t like saying goodbyes, ever. I truly think I will see him again, but the thought that this could be it messed with my head. Once our prolonged and repeated hugs came to an end, we ventured to find our hotel. This was by far the best part and most successful part of our day for sure! We stopped by Wolly’s for some popcorn, yogurt, and mini muffins (college style always) and effortlessly made it to the Sleep Express Motel.
This morning we woke up early to check out and catch the hotel shuttle to Olympic Park for our race. They told us to meet at 6:55, but just our luck...we waited 20 minutes then started to get a little nervous as to where this shuttle may have been. We walked to the gas station to call a cab and thankfully it arrived within minutes. Lesson learned: convenience outweighs stress any day. Sure we saved $30 in the end, but if we would have stayed in Olympic Park, we could have taken a proper shower after the race (instead of a quick rinse at the aquatic centre), slept in a least another hour, and not have the stress of transportation as a tourist. Anyways *rant over* Our race was really cool. We ran around the entire Olympic Park and finished in the ANZ stadium. It was extremely hot (83F) and with the sun boiling your body, it made for an interesting run. The exciting part about the race that I discovered was that it was for the Sydney Children’s Hospital, how perfect! While I may not be able to participate in IU Dance Marathon this year for Riley Children’s Hospital, I still supported the kids! FTK in Australia! J The girls and I all finished within 20 minutes of each other which was perfect timing. After the race, we treated ourselves to Pancakes on the Rocks which hit the spot and continued our great day (all before 11am). The Rocks is a really neat part of Sydney that I had never visited. It’s the oldest part, therefore the architecture is exquisite with so much character. We tooled around the weekend markets for a while, sampling all that we could and finally came to the pinnacle of our afternoon. Like the little kids we are, we stopped at a lolly store named Sticky, to watch hard candies be made. This quick peek into the store turned into us having full conversations with the workers and learning every possible detail about the lolly making process, typical Americans. The unexpected came when they gave each of us handmade lollipops fresh off the rolling pin and a chunk of excess hard candy leftover from the roll. We were in love.
While our weekend hit a few low points, thankfully I can now look back and laugh at the times we had. It was a fantastic weekend, but continually running through my head was IUDM of which I am missing even as I type this post. Troubling…to make up for my absence, I wore my IUDM t-shirts throughout Sydney and took some pictures for IUDM around the world. FTK all the way! …12 days until I’m outbound Australia. If only it were warm at home this transition wouldn’t be so terrible.
