March 5th
Thursday is my favorite day of the school week because, well, it's the day I have the least amount of school. I have optics in the morning for an hour and then I'm free. Optics class was in a different room than I was used to this morning, and I had a hard time finding it, but I got there alright. I had finished my homework the night before and was surprised to find that I got the problem correct when I turned it in. I felt pretty proud of myself.
Class was over early, and I went home and bought tickets for the Sound Relief concert festival in Sydney to raise money for the Victoria Brushfires. It's a really terrible mess down there, and if I can help people out and see Coldplay, Jet, Taylor Swift, The Presets, and more in the process, then I feel it's worthwhile. One of my friends here Hilde also wanted to come, so I got tickets for both of us and she paid me back. After that I got for my day at Bondi with Hayley from school back home. I Hayley's going to school in Sydney proper and lives on top of the Bondi Junction train station, where I met her Thursday afternoon.
I took the brand spanking new train from Macquarie Uni to Bondi Junction and it was a lot of fun. It's kind of like the Metro back home, with a double decker train instead of just one level. I sat on the lower level on the way there.
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| From Trip to Bondi |
When I got to the Epping station (the end of the brand new train line that just opened), I had to buy a ticket to get into Sydney. Unfortunately, I had to do this while watching the train I wanted take off without me. I waited for 27 minutes to catch the next one. Alas, these things happen. Luckily for me, I am very good at maneuvering public transportation. I am not sure why I have this skill. Everyone always seems incredibly impressed with my ability to get from point A to point B. I guess I must have learned something back in D.C.
I'm pretty sure I just ate before I met up with Hayley, but we were both rather hungry and went to a little eatery for some grub. I got an orange juice and a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato. It was yummy. Hayley got some food and then finished it off with this delicious looking mud pie cake thing which I couldn't help her finish because of my new lenten sacrifice. *shakes fist at the heavens*
I haven't caved yet. I have dreams of caving and eating Tim-Tams or ice cream and then wake up feeling guilty even though I've done nothing. I'm hoping these go away soon. Hayley felt bad for tempting me, but I told her to not worry about it. It's just an exercise of my self-control.
We decided to head out from the restaurant to Bondi beach, knowing that it would be a hike. It may have been long, but it was a very interesting walk. We walked around Waverley Park, and saw the Waverley Oval (I think it's used for cricket matches).
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| From Trip to Bondi |
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| From Trip to Bondi |
All the little shops on Bondi Road were a lot of fun too:
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We walked for a ways and then finally saw the ocean!
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| From Trip to Bondi |
We also found Hunter Park which had some cool sculptures and other strange objects that apparently belong in parks. Hayley and I had fun with this.
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From the park we walked down to the sandstone cliffs by the beach. We wanted to climb on them but the signs really seemed to insist that you stay on the path at all times.
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So cool. We also found this place called the Bondi Icebergs Club, which had the coolest pool ever. It is right next to the ocean, and waves come and splash into it while you're swimming.
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| From Trip to Bondi |
Hayley didn't bring a swimsuit so we spent awhile hunting for one for her. On the way we got to see the insides of a bunch of stores there, and their crazy mannequins with broken noses.
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We did get to the beach and it was a gorgeous, breezy day.
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| From Trip to Bondi |
We stayed for a bit on the sand and plotted to go see Watchmen in Sydney with Hayley's boyfriend. We left the beach and hustled back to Hayley's apartment in Bondi Junction. On the way I ate a kangaroo burger. It was delicious.
We met up with Ryan, Hayley's boyfriend near the Town Hall station (which I was familiar with, yay) and went to the movie.
Watchmen was amazing. I can't exactly describe it, but it was just phenomenal.
I had calculated that I would be cutting it close at the end of the night, but I didn't get around to calculating how close until the very end. The last bus out of the city back to Marsfield left at 12:10am. I left the theater at 12:01am. I left my seat around 11:55pm feeling incredibly anxious about missing the bus and watched the last few minutes from the back of the theater. I ran as fast as I could as soon as I saw the credits.
I bet it was amusing to watch a silly American girl sprinting across the streets of Sydney with her purple plaid backpack and black flip-flops, but I didn't really care at the time. I was just determined to not make this $14 movie into a $64 dollar one. (A cab ride back is about $50). I caught the bus and strangely enough saw Hilde, Vilde, Charlie, Karla and Austin, who all go to Macquarie with me. I believe most of them had been on a cruise in Sydney and were doing the same thing I was trying to get back.
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