U.S.A. invades Australia

A real size comparison of Australia and the United States (and the U.K. in red but ignore that)

Now, I'm in Australia and you're not: 

For the most part, this statement is true. That wouldn't be the case, though, if some of my blog readers from the states were to come visit me here. When I finalized my plans and knew for sure I was studying for five months in Australia, my friend Anthony (known to many as G) made it clear to me that he would come to visit. I told him that was a nice thought, but I'd just booked my 2,000+ dollar flight and assured him there were better odds of me laughing at a Carlos Mencia joke. 

Despite these absolutely insurmountable odds, I found myself riding the Sydney city rail one Saturday morning on my way to meet Anthony and Christina at the international airport terminal. Either they like me enough to pay loads and come visit, or they saw an opportunity to travel to Australia and I happened to be their way in. We'll call it somewhere in the middle in order to preserve my self-esteem. 

As I waited at the terminal, I was anxious to see them and compare their pale winter skin to my new brown look. I prayed I hadn't missed them off the plane as they were without Aussie mobiles and there were more than a few people in the airport to get lost amongst. I looked up at the same sign I'd looked up at four or five times already. It reassured me their flight had landed. This time, I finally realized that the sign also told me which gate I was meant to meet them at: "Gate C or D". I thought "Holy crap, what gate am I at?" (it was early morning so the brain was at half functionality). Thanks to some serious dumb luck, I saw that the 2 signs above where I had been waiting read C and D. Even better, ten minutes later, I saw my friend's ugly faces coming down the gate D ramp. It was time to plan a little over a week of craziness where we'd end up having heaps of fun which you'll start reading about approximately now.

Christina is the most thorough packer I've ever met. I just want to put that out there. She packed more for an 8 day trip than I brought for my entire 5 months. I wish that was an exaggeration. So the first order of business was to go back to Unilodge and unload everything. This took some heavy machinery and hours of work, but it was worth it to finally get them settled in. Okay, enough digs at X. Also, no offense, but the two of them were in need of a shower. It's a long trip down here. I realize they might not be my friends anymore after reading this. 

Downstairs here is Paddy's Market 

Paddy's market is the biggest and craziest touristy market place I could ever imagine encountering in my human life. This is where I buy most of the souvenirs I get for myself (and very occasionally for others). They have hats, flags, kangaroo parts, jewelry, NBA jerseys (real cheap), crazy amounts of t-shirts, sunglasses (referred to only as sunnies here), beach towels, post cards, fruits, car parts, illegal underground passports, private jets (w/ pilot license), swimming pools, and rattle snakes. I like walking around Paddy's and talking to the extremely knowledgeable salespeople who seem to all come from different parts of Asia. Once, there was a really nice brown Red Sox hat I wanted to buy. I asked the sales guy for a smaller size and he did his job well. He came back with a slightly smaller brown one, though this one had the Yankees logo stitched into the front. He looked at me as if I was then meant to snatch it from him immediately and pay up. What could I do but shake my head and walk away?

 Anyways, this is the spot I thought might be appropriate to take Anthony and Christina the day they arrived. They somehow had the energy to walk towards Chinatown where Paddy's is located and do some pretty serious looking around. I'm not the greatest host, so I had nothing crazy planned for them as they stepped off the plane. But this seemed to be a good way to see bits of the city and buy some cool crap. 

This was sweet enough, but we also got a chance to check out Darling Harbour. We took it easy the rest of the day/night. I think we were all a bit tired and it was pouring. It was probably better to rest up and prepare for Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's an aquarium in Sydney. It's sort of been on my list of things to do since I've arrived to check it out. Some people here have argued that there are aquariums in the states and going here would be a waste of time and money. That's a pretty stupid thing to say. There are completely different animals at the Sydney aquarium, and since it's not even THAT expensive, me, Anthony, Christina, and Emily decided to go.

The aquarium isn't exactly a beautiful structure. It looks like a large, crappy white tent with a picture of a dugong on it. But it's in Darling Harbour, so at least the walk to it was nice. 

At Darling Harbour en route to aquarium. 

G...can't bring him anywhere.

The inside of the aquarium was a lot cooler looking. Right off the bat there were some good animals to check out. After taking 18 minutes to figure out how to work Emily's sister's camera, I was finally able to do just that. Platypus...one of the first animals we saw. Now that's the way an aquarium walk should start. They ease you in with the decently exciting animals and gradually build up to the big kahunas. I'm talking dugongs baby. They're native to the Eastern hemisphere, so I don't want to see anybody from the states commenting on how they see these all the time. In your face. But you may have seen a manatee (the same damn thing except a dugong's tail is like a dolphin's while manatees are paddle-like.) Thanks Wikipedia for making me sound marginally intelligent. It only took 15 minutes of back and forth walking down a ramp to get to the glass observatory tube at the bottom of the pool. Pretty much worth it to get this close to an animal like this.

You should have seen this one going to town on the lettuce. Picture Queen Latifah with a plate of donuts in front of her. But we had to move on from this tank. We walked through some more dark hallway with tanks filled with Australian ocean life. There weren't three minutes that went by where we didn't hear a child yelling something about the characters of Finding Nemo. But for me, the next big attraction was the shark tank. It was the exact same thing as the dugong tank but with sharks. I hope you're following. Another long walk down back and forth ramps to this:

They were some scary looking things. But they weren't alone in the tank. There were enormous sting rays in there too. I'm talking the size of an average bedroom. If those were the ones that got Steve Irwin, then props to him for having the sweetest death ever. 

I've always wondered why they put heaps of other animals in the same tank as the sharks. Do they not eat them? There were fish and turtles swimming all around amongst them. All I'm saying is it would suck to be a fish swimming free in the ocean with your school and then be caught and thrown in a small pool with 5 beastly sharks. Good fun. I'll throw a couple more random aquarium photos your way at this point.

As if we'd just gotten off a ride at Disney, we were thrown into the aquarium gift shop before we were allowed to exit. But I couldn't stand to be surrounded by stuffed animals for too long, so we had to leave. There was still plenty of the day left and we wanted to make some cool dinner plans. It was grill on the roof time. We went to the grocery store and got our supplies then headed up to the roof. It had been raining a bit and there was a layer of water for us to slip on, but that didn't dampen our spirits enough to ruin our barbie. Do I need to specify that barbie is not a plastic doll? We put our coins into the slots on the grill and fired it up. Hamburgers aren't just good in the northern hemisphere. I also saw what it looks like when a hot dog falls from five stories up (I'm really getting a good education down here). And what did I have planned for nighttime activities for my guests who traveled a million miles to get here? 

...We played Cranium. 

You all love that game, admit it. What would you rather do on a vacation? And this one is an Australian version. Every now and then you'll get a trivia question about cricket or something. It puts a little fun twist into the game. I'm pretty sure Anthony and Christina ended up winning? Someone correct me if that's wrong. But yeah, they had Cranium experience and it showed. 

Oh but they were in Australia, so how about some fun that couldn't be had in Massachusetts. One and a half days of their trip were already over so we quickly made an itinerary and booked some stuff for the rest of their stay....