Not Quite New Orleans

I realize I haven't blogged for awhile. But after looking at my calendar seeing if there were any cool events coming up, I realized the blog would soon explode with posts. This is the first of this explosion. My finger came across two words and one giant gay parade/festival, Mardi Gras. In the states, this parade is not intended solely to show gay pride (with the beads and all that accompany them...you know). HOWEVER, here it's a totally different story. Big old gay pride parade. I'm only here once so I was totally in. We're not in New Orleans, but I figured it wouldn't disappoint. Oh no, not another excuse to drink and wander the city. 

Truthfully, the only reason I was so aware of the upcoming festival was that a friend from home (Wuttup Tina!) was coming to stay with me in Sydney with a friend. I've dubbed this weekend the Wollongong Invasion (Tina studies in Wollongong, AUS) to pay homage to the Mass Invasions which occur annually in North Carolina. This paragraph is a 7.8 on the digression scale. 

The day of Mardi Gras came and could not be wasted. Tina and Megan (Wollongobstoppers) wanted to see the city, and since I pretty much know every nook and cranny, I was happy to share my expertise. So we basically wandered aimlessly. We walked by the famous St. Mary's Cathedral, a massive structure. To get an idea of its size, take Ste. Marguerite D'Youville (Margaritaville) from back home and multiply it by the entire town of Dracut. There were multiple alters and huge beams supporting the incredibly tall ceiling. After taking about 5-10 pictures inside this place, I walked into the gift shop in the back (because all churches have gift shops these days) and found out that you need to purchase a permit in order to take photos inside. All of us ignored this and walked back into the pretty part of the church for more pics. I don't think God will be as mad at me as he'll be at whoever scarred this place by deciding to put an obnoxious gift shop inside such a beautiful place of worship. On my last post I may have had the New South Whales police after me for posting pictures in the opera house. This time it'll be the pope. 

The cathedral is really awesome though. It's the kind of place that makes you sit and stare in awe, wondering if you're really there. It even had a cool little spiral staircase that led up to the slightly offset pulpit. I'd like to catch a mass here before I leave. Unfortunately, I'll be away for Easter. 

Anyways, we continued on to the Sydney Botanical Gardens and then on to the Opera House for some more photo opps. It was a long and hot day of walking, sweating, and picture taking. There was only one way to bring the daylight portion of Mardi Gras to an end: 30 cent soft serve from McDonalds. 

The Mardi Gras night life was finally here. YES!

So with high hopes of a smashing Mardi Gras extravaganza, my pals and I bought the very best 2-for-18$ boxed wine Liquor Land had to offer and swallowed them both. It may have been the wine talking, but I instantly decided I needed facepaint before we left for the parade. Unfortunately there was none in sight. But, it is a gay celebration after all. And Emily did have some pretty face paint-like eyeliner...I put makeup on my face is what I'm trying to say. I realize every man who was reading this has now closed the internet window in disgust, but I thank the ladies who are sticking with me to the end of the post. 

It was probably a 50 dollar tube of eye liner, but this moment called for it to be rubbed all over my face in no particular design. It doesn't count as wasting when you're drunk. Let me stress that it was not neatly applied under my eyes. Emily was kind enough to smear it on my cheeks, forehead, ears, and neck. I think I can find a picture. 

Tina y yo

Unfortunately, we were exactly on time for the parade. What this meant was that we were going to have the worst view of all time since thousands had packed the streets early due to something they have in Australia called thinking ahead. We fought our way through the crowd until we got as close as we possibly could. Through the arms, legs, masks, and feathers, we could barely make out any of the parade. I was confused. Where are all the beads being thrown about? Why are we all looking at the parade rather than mingling/partying? It seemed like everyone's eyes were so focused on the street that they forgot we were all trying to have a good time. This surprised me since there's no way everyone except me was able to perfectly view the parade. 

From what I could see of it though, the parade was good. There were extravagant costumes that left very little to the imagination. Clothing was apparently optional for parade participants....unfortunately. They were also allowed to whip each other which I found interesting. There were crazy masked dancers frolicking about back and forth across the street. Rainbow flags flew everywhere. It probably would have really been something to see if only I could have seen it. My hopes were so high for my first ever Mardi Gras that I was unfortunately left with an empty feeling of  "what now" as the parade came to an end. I probably won't ever go out of my way to experience the New Orleans version. This was the closest I may ever come and it was only mediocre. 

In no way was this going to ruin the night. We continued on (me almost getting into a fight with some non-English-speaking hooligans who intentionally bumped into me on the street) and ended up having a pretty good time. Late dinner and drinks at Scruffy Murphy's and a bit of dancing at Side Bar. It was an amazing time until Tina ended up with someone's drink all over her. That put a bit of a damper (pun intended) on the night, but overall I'd say it was groovy. Did I just say groovy? Anyways, I hope the Wallygongers decide to visit again so we can further explore this crazy city with them.

I'd post some Mardi Gras pictures up here but you'd only like those if you're into blurry photos of nothing. Keep an eye on this TNT-stuffed blog. It's gonna blow (in a good way).

They let me inside the Sydney Opera House

Some of us bought tickets to see "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Sydney Opera House. I really couldn't wait to go since I'd just read this play a few months ago in my Shakespeare class at UMD. It very well could be my favorite Shakespeare play. That or Titus Andronicus.  I kind of want to start this blog over because I'm starting to sound like a nerd. Too late, I've continued typing too far at this point. 

I'll set the scene. It was a gorgeous Sydney midsummer night. Very fitting, for in my hand was a ticket to "A Midsummer Night's Dream". I got off the bus and walked a short while before my eyes ran into this:

We all stopped and took seventeen photos each before we proceeded into the opera house (off to the right in the picture). The interior as I walked in was really cool. I don't know how to describe it and I didn't take a picture so deal with the fact that I saw it and you didn't. I definitely felt out of place though. We entered with a group of people in their early 20's. Everyone else there looked like they were born in the early 20's. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say we were the only ones who weren't old enough to potentially have grandchildren. The Shakespeare crowd must be a bit older than what I'm used to seeing at Showcase Cinemas. They also seemed more calm about the whole "being in the opera house about to see a world famous play" thing. I was genuinely pumped to be there. After some people bought a few snacks or whatever, we entered the enormous concert hall. I later found out this is the larger of the two main venues at the opera house. The other is the slightly smaller opera theatre. 

Why was a play being performed in the concert hall instead of the theatre? I was about to find out. But first it was time to find our seats. How exciting. It was extremely important to me that I find the correct seats without getting lost. I never want to be the person walking around absentmindedly looking like a tourist more and more every second. Especially at the Sydney Opera House. I figured they wouldn't be good seats. We got them pretty cheap. But that wasn't the case (entirely). As we walked up the stairs, and then more stairs...and then some more stairs, I finally spotted our row. We sat and I was pleasantly surprised by our view. We could see the whole entire concert hall. AKA we were in the very last row. I chose to look at it like this: Other people have to turn around to see just how big the place is. I was able to take it all in right from the comfort of my forward-facing seat. I was also far away from anyone who could yell at me for taking pictures (which I hear is not allowed but I'm not even sure). They're probably on their way to arrest me right now for posting these next few photos. Note the lack of youth in the audience.

I'd like to thank ^this^  gentleman for standing and disrupting 

what otherwise would have been a flawless picture.

You might notice that the stage has no set. There's an orchestra right in the middle of it. Confusing. I thought we were seeing a play. Unfortunately, there were no crazy sets or costumes. The actors simply walked through the musicians and recited their lines. It was still an amazing show, but much of the creative potential that "A Midsummer Night's Dream" has was stripped away by limiting the set like this. Still, the acting was great and they still managed to entertain me a bunch. Just watching the musicians play was something else. These are the professionals. I saw a very high quality show at one of the world's most famous venues. Maybe I'll go back to see something else that catches my eye. They have a Jerry Springer play showing there soon, no lie. The back row has my name all over it. 

A good way to tell how high you are on the obnoxious tourist scale is to see how long you stay after the show taking pictures outside. Since we were by far the last ones there, snapping away an hour or so after the last guests had left, I'd say we set a tourist record. You would have too if you were seeing the things we were seeing. I'll leave you with these nighttime photos to enjoy until I get around to my next entry. 

ADIOS

Aussie Life

I thought I was going to be really clever on this post. I thought this one up weeks ago while I was still in the states. The idea was to do a little mythbusters segment. We've all heard that the toilets flush in the opposite direction in Australia. I don't know where this came from, but I've heard it since I was a young warthog. Of all the things I could have been getting excited about in preparation for this trip, the toilet flush thing basically reigned supreme. I even took the time to record a video of  a typical American toilet flush before I left so I could post it here to compare it to a typical Australian flush. Try to imagine how stupid I looked holding my brand new camera over the toilet and flushing, capturing every second for you guys. Let's consider the myth. Take a second to look at the two flushes and make your own decision. 

    American

  Australian 

Right. I think we can pretty much consider this myth busted. The intense Australian flush not only startles me, it sucks straight down with no directional flow whatsoever. Boo. I was borderline upset to find that all Aussie toilets (that I've seen anyways) flush like this. I don't want to make it seem like this toilet fascination has totally consumed me, but I have done some research on the matter. You may have noticed the two flush buttons on top of the toilet. One is a half flush for liquid matter and one is a full flush for the other thing. Stop me if it's getting too gross. They also don't use plungers down here. Their toilets are better I guess and a plunger is a tool used by weird Americans. When I get home, I'm investing in an Australian toilet for the house. 

At least the toilets aren't exactly the same. That would have made this mythbusting experience even more boring than it already is. 

This isn't the only thing that's different here. My university orientation experience was nothing like what you'd see in any school across the United States. It was a few weeks ago but it's cool enough to talk about for sure. 

UTS threw international students a cocktail party which involved free beer, wine, and champagne for all of us. It also involved me double fisting to make the most out of the three hour event. There were responsible-looking faculty at this event getting their fix of the free booze as well. If it hadn't yet hit me that I wasn't in America anymore, this did it. Get jealous.

FREE

FREE

After the cocktail party we went on the pub crawl that was also organized by the school. It showed us a couple of good pubs in The Rocks and gave me an opportunity to drink a quick litre mug of beer. Solid. 

Not free, but still good

I swear everything seen in these pictures is 100% legal for me here. This beer mug was so big I could probably fit all the Australian change I've been accumulating into just two of them. An exaggeration, but I'm trying to make a point here. The change that inhabits my pocket/wallet/desk/floor space is getting a bit out of hand. The worst part is the infamous 2 dollar coin. This is the most valuable coin they have here yet it's the smallest in size. Try to imagine the USA coming out with a two dollar coin that is the same exact size as the penny. It's worth 200 times as much but takes up the same amount of room in my pocket. Every time I buy something I have to remind myself that it's worth taking the tiny coin back from the cashier. This is also why whenever I hear a coin drop on the ground, I immediately stop what I'm doing and crouch down in public like an idiot in search of whatever treasure may have escaped my pocket. It's funny to watch all my American friends struggle to remember that coins have worth here.

The ridiculously tiny 2$ coin (with US penny)

The other coins. Left to right: 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c, and 1$

The notes aren't that hard to use luckily. They're colour coded. Yeah, it's Monopoly money. I don't feel like I'm actually spending anything when I hand over a purple piece of currency. The cool thing about the notes is that they're completely water proof. I don't have to worry about putting them through the wash (not that my laundry will be done with any consistency). 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's talk about some of the things that can be watched on the gorgeous, 19-inch, snowy-pictured television I have in my room. Well, I'll just talk about it for now since I'm the one posting. But feel free to give your comments afterwards. When I sit down to watch TV here, it's a long process. I have to put some deep thought into it. Which of the five channels will I choose? On one station, there will be some sort of Australian soap opera. The only reason this potentially interests me is that a girl in my film class stars in one of them. I need to find out which one and when it airs when i see her this week. Normally I'd rather drag my knees across cement than watch a soap opera so I flip to the next station. Here's an unfamiliar face: Oprah Winfrey. I thought I was going to be able to escape Oprah's control over what people do and buy. This episode was about living a long, healthy life. I decided to leave it on (strictly for background noise, seriously). Apparently drinking goat milk can extend your life. Some old Italian guy on the show had been drinking it since childhood so its got to be the real deal. 

Like a true American, I absorbed Oprah's every word and immediately vowed to run out to the store and grab some goat milk ASAP. I must have told Lauren every day: "I'm getting the goat milk today". But again, like a true American, I was too lazy to actually go get the stuff. Eventually, I think Lauren got fed up with all my talk. I walked into Unilodge one day and she slammed a carton of goat milk down on my desk. Or did she just hand it to me? I don't know, but slamming it seems more dramatic so that's what we'll go with. We immediately cracked it open and had a taste. When I saw Oprah drink it, she looked like she was chewing on it. Fortunately, this milk went down pretty smooth for me. Of course, I forced other people to try it (despite their repeated attempts at declining) and got mixed reactions. I'm going to have to do further research, but if it really does add to your life, I have every reason to buy it again the next time I need milk (which coincidentally is today). 

Before the goat milk talk I believe I was blabbering about the television. You'll see a whole lot of American shows. "Two and a Half Men" (very popular), "The Simpsons", "Everybody Loves Raymond", "Beauty and the Geek", "David Letterman", and my personal favorite "The Ellen Degeneres Show".  I came to Australia hoping the TV was going to be crappy so I wouldn't get addicted to any shows and become a couch potato. I think I got my wish. As good as Ellen is, I don't feel like I'm missing out when I skip it in favour of a more quality study abroad experience. We did rent season one of the Aussie comedy "Summer Heights High" though. Whoever has seen it knows just how necessary of a decision that was. 

One show I'd wanted to catch is "Bondi Rescue". They pretty much show all kinds of emergencies and lifeguard rescues at the nearby Bondi beach. I've been to this beach a few times and have seen the camera crew doing their work. That got me really interested. A few days ago I was finally able to tune in. It was nothing like what I imagined. Maybe it was a boring episode, but I wanted shark attacks and I got beach arguments and cuts on the leg. Bondi Rescue is not dead to me, but I'm temporarily rescuing myself from the program so no time here is wasted. 

I have HEAPS more to write about. I've just been a tiny bit lazy and I'm again struggling with my internet. More to come. 

Tropfest

The world's largest short film festival right here in Sydney. A bring-your-own picnic style festival where a large screen in the center of a big field entertained the 70,000 people. 

Obviously, going to an event like this would take a lot of planning. For the first time in this entire trip, the group did a very good job preparing. We went to the grocery store for our picnic supplies, the liquor store for more picnic supplies, came home and made our lunches (I'm now excellent at hurry-up sandwich making), snagged Luke's frisbee, and headed out the door. It was an extremely hot day. One of the hotter ones I've had here. Since I like laughing at people, it pleased me to see that a few decided to wear pants. Yikes. 

Now, you wouldn't think it'd be hard to find an enormous festival like this. Especially when it takes place in a normally calm park (the Botanical Gardens of Sydney). BUT, we managed to stuff it up pretty good. We walked approximately 40 miles of garden paths before we realized we were headed in the wrong direction. Eventually, we did get there. That was a relief because we really needed to put all our stuff down. Why do bags get so heavy when beer is loaded into them? The place looked really cool and considering the gates to the festival had only recently opened, it was bumping with humans. 

^Stole this sweet pic from Lauren^

Upon arriving, I did what anybody with any sense would do. I looked for free stuff. Some of the best souvenirs are those you don't have to pay for. Unfortunately, the other thing about free stuff is that its usually flimsy, worthless, and pathetic. Which brings me to the free lounge chairs we were all given upon entry. They were orange, cardboard, fold-up chairs. Probably about as comfortable as a sandpaper pillowcase. When I would try to sit back in the chair, it would begin to crumble beneath me at about 1/4 the pressure I wanted to comfortably apply to it. The grass might have been a better option, but I battled it out with this horrible chair all day anyways. The other free item I received was a program giving the details of the festival. I did like this but I'm pretty sure I lost it. All I have are the pictures and the memories left. Sorry, I didn't save the flattened chair. 

Awkwardly trying to balance my weight in awful chair

The heat was very...hot. My first move upon arriving was to take my shirt off and again apply sunscreen. Let me remind everyone (especially those reading this who wore pants) to imagine the severe discomfort that was felt by those who had their legs covered in heavy denim. The second move after the shirt removal was the removal of a VB from the 6 pack. This was followed by the removal of the frisbee from Luke's backpack. We played a solid 30+ minutes of frisbee. People don't mind coming up and hopping in the games. Frisbee is not nearly as popular here as it is in the states and some even seemed intrigued by it. Tossing the disc is quickly becoming one of my favourite things to do. I'll thank my dad for providing me with a bit of experience in this field. 

When I took my sandwich out of the bag at lunch time, I was surprised to find that it wasn't soggy and was still 100% edible. So I ate it. I also ate pringles, carrots, cheesy bread, and the delicious product known as Nutella. It's a hazelnut/cocoa spread that does exist in the states but I'd never heard of it until I got here. Finding out about Nutella is in the running for most significant moment of my life. It's delicious and I eat more of it than anybody should eat of anything. 

The time came for us to view all the finalist's short films. There were funny ones, sad ones, ones that make you think...overall a great show. I'm so completely glad I didn't fall asleep during it or I would have missed some really good stuff. Visit-  http://tropfest.ninemsn.com.au/ to get a look at the films we saw. The title of the winning film is "Be My Brother". Follow that link and go to the second page of Tropfest '09 films to see it. Boo yeah. 

An all day picnic/film festival/great time. Pretty much my kind of thing. 

Bondi Beach

You know what's even better than shoveling snow and knocking icicles from the roof? Going to the beach. I knew one of the first things I'd be doing here was going to involve a trip to Bondi Beach (though there are other beaches close by I hear are just as good or even better...I'll let you know). It was eighty something degrees out and we had nothing going on. Easy decision. 

Something I found out about myself on this trip is that I've been putting sun block on incorrectly my entire life. I kind of got harassed for it by some "friends". Apparently you're not supposed to completely drench yourself in it to the point where it's non-rub-inable. I'm going to have to blame my sunscreen overuse on the lingering paranoia i had after only recently getting over the extreme burning and peeling that resulted from my trip to the great barrier reef. I'm not willing to take any chances anymore. Sticks and stones people. 

This beach-going experience was pretttttty great. It wasn't like Hampton Beach for those of you from back home. There weren't a bunch of wangsters walking around with their pants halfway down. There were no dirty, smelly people asking for cigarettes. Basically the beach at home will never seem quite as good now that I've gone in Australia (Cape beaches are a possible exception). I personally really liked the atmosphere at Bondi. Some people said it was a bit too crowded for their taste, but I'm pretty much used to that. It was hot the day we went. No doubt about that. We warmed up a little further by playing some frisbee. But soon enough we were in the water (which was not very warm but easy to get used to). 

The waves. Just huge. Waves like I've never experienced in my life. It's no wonder there are so many surfers at this place. It's a great feeling to see a wave twice your height coming at you and knowing that soon you'll be thrown around the ocean like a rag doll with no control over any part of your body other than your panicking brain. The ocean water invaded my nose and mouth on quite a few occasions. It was awesome. I was literally washed up to shore by these massive waves. No control over where I was going. So much more fun than the water anywhere I've ever been.

Me baby. Me.

Some of us do stupid things like go into the water with our bus passes in our pockets. I'm not a finger pointer. Luckily today wasn't my day to be stupid (except for the sun block). My bus pass was safe and sound up by my towel. I left the water and headed up there knowing that I needed to eat some delicious Australian beach cuisine some time soon. After roaming along the roadside cafes and restaurants for awhile, me and Luke ended up at this cute little food joint called McDonald's. I think I've seen them in the states but I'm not sure. Visions of the Hampton beach McDonald's now flood my head. BUT this one was better. I mean, the meal itself wasn't, but the 30 cent soft serve ice cream served me well. Delicious. 

We walked the beach some more and came across a little skate park. I was thinking about reliving my 8th grade skate fad and hopping in the bowl to show off my skills. I think I can still get the rotation on a kick flip. That would have sent the crowd that had gathered into a complete frenzy so I left the skating to the amateurs that day. There were some decent skaters. This is a great spot to skate too. I had to get some pictures of the skating with the beach in the background. It took me about 76 tries but I did end up with a few photos that are good enough to not get laughed at. 

More lounging on the beach occurred shortly after this. I'm proud to say that even though hours were spent in the blistering heat, I was not touched with even a spot that resembled a sun burn. I didn't get a spot that resembled a tan either though. Again, I did lather it on pretty heavy that day. But we could only stay there so long. We decided to take a walk to the cliffs that we saw off in the distance. There ended being a nice little path that we could walk along that provided us with photo-op after photo-op. 

We weren't allowed to do this.  Though I don't know who would take the time to do the YMCA dance and point their feet towards each other in such an emergency situation. 

It's usually these kinds of beautiful places where you can find some of the best homes in the world. This was partially true here. But these homes weren't like the ones you see on Cribs. Here, we saw a couple of excellent homeless residences that had million dollar views. Props to these homeless people for somehow convincing the city that it was okay for them to live on a cliff near a touristy area. I can't seem to load these photos right now. Just know it's the tightest homeless crib I've seen in some time.

We kept walking and got even more good views and even more good pics to accompany them. From up there, we could scope out the surf action pretty easily. A few days after we'd gone to the beach, we turned on the news to find out a Bondi surfer had been attacked by a great white shark. I'd show you some surf pics but again, I'm not able to load them right now. Internet issues continue to haunt me. 

Anyways, THATS what I need to accomplish next. Not getting eaten by a shark, but surfing. Learning to surf is one of my major goals and I'll have you know that I'm getting on it and will hopefully be able to share that experience with ya'll here. From the sunny city (not a real nickname for Sydney, I made that up),

Luke

The mountains are blue when you can see them.

Our little group decided to make the 2 hour train ride North for a one night stay in a hostile in Katoomba, New South Whales. This is the main place to go if you want to experience the Blue Mountains I guess. Originally, we were all on the same page and ready to go. A huge group of us. Then somebody made the mistake of looking up the weather forecast. Leave it to those 'planners' to try and spoil a good idea with logical thinking. So somebody hopped on the extremely slow internet and brought up the bad news: Cloudy - Rainy - 14 degrees (Celsius mind you).

And with that the plague hit our group. "I don't know if I wanna go." "Eww it's gonna be raining?" "Well then I'm not going either."

Who would want to go view the mountains in the cold, cloudy rain? I guess that sort of makes sense. But I'm a pretty big fan of the outdoors and rain never hurt anyone (I realize that in no way is the second part of that statement true.) Anyways, I was completely willing to rough it and take a chance. So were 7 others so we had a decent group still and decided to go.

This trip would prove to be yet another packing disaster for me. Did you know that at backpacker hostiles they provide you with clean sheets and a pillow? The 7 others seemed to know that. Unfortunately that knowledge wasn't shared with a certain me. There I was on the morning of our trip, walking down the crowded sidewalks of Sydney with a pillow and my brand new blanket I'd purchased from Kmart (yes THE Kmart). I pretty much gave off a slumber party vibe.

In my other hand I proudly carried a 4,000lb. bag of beer. This, I thought, was brilliant. My thoughts to myself were something along these lines: "Why am I the only one who thought to bring beer? These people are idiots. I can't wait to say no when they beg me for a beer later." I was happy with the decision. Shockingly though, I wasn't praised for this clever idea. Instead, every time my bottles clanked together on the walk to the train station, I was deemed an alcoholic. And, of course, in the end it turned out bringing beer wasn't a good idea. There was a "Liquor Land" pretty much right next to the hostile which could have saved my arms a serious Worlds Strongest Man type workout.

The conditions when we got to the mountains: fog like I've never seen. We couldn't see six feet in front of us, never mind trying to see the spectacular mountain views that were looming well past any hope of site. And of course the weathermen were correct in their prediction of rain. I swear to you, this story takes a turn for the better in a bit. But we're not there yet, and all the negativity will make the upturn truly rewarding. Maybe.

Quick picture along our walk

An Aussie woman (i still don't know if calling her a Sheila is appropriate or if I'm cool enough yet) at the Katoomba train station was nice enough to give us this optimistic insight: "You guys picked the worst time to come here". Damn. Just like that she walked away, not even telling us where she got her chicken wrap which looked delicious.

We tried to think positively, but there was a 0% chance of seeing one mountain or staying dry. The weather was that bad. Luckily, I was smart in one aspect of my packing. I'd remembered to bring a poncho. And after we'd settled in at our hostile and walked for a few solid kilometers towards the town's tourist centre, I realized I left the poncho back in the room. I must have been too excited/dumb. It was too late. I had to live with my stupidity. I was already wet anyways so who cares? Nobody, so I'll move on.

What did we need to do in order to stay positive? Well, we certainly didn't need a reminder of how bad the weather was for this trip, but of course, we got one. An Asian couple (in ponchos of course) who were virtually sprinting in the opposite direction we were headed asked mid-stride if we were headed for the blue mountains. "Yeah" we said, hoping not to get laughed at. Then we got laughed at. They gave us what was clearly an empty "good luck" to accompany their chuckle and were on their way to shelter. At this point, we realized the inevitability of being showered by "I told you so" from those who remained in Sydney. We officially had the Blue Mountain blues. Check out the killer view we had when we finally got to the lookout. This spot is where you would normally see the famous Three Sisters rock formation. Enjoy the temporary glaucoma.

Here's a picture of Liz with the three sisters in the background. I don't really think that's true but who's going to know the difference?

It had actually stopped raining. That was a bit of good news. But still, the decision was to go to the info centre and find out what we could do the next day , weather permitting. Inside this nearly vacant tourist hideaway, it seemed people were more interested in shelter than information. Apparently there had been days where the mountains were visible and the people at the tourist centre were nice enough to print those out on little cards and offer them to us for a fee. It was an odd thing to me, but the three people that were in there were hunched around the postcard rack snapping away at them with their own cameras. I almost offered to throw down the $1.10 simply to avoid this embarrassing moment for humankind. But no, people need to have these memories on their own memory cards for proof that they truly were there.

Time for the miracle.
After about a half hour of looking at thimbles, shot glasses, t-shirts, and koozies, we left the shop. Someone yelled something like "I can see!" (no, they hadn't been cured of blindness) and pointed off towards the mountains. Holy God, there they were. It all makes sense. God had just been messing with us. At that moment, all seven of us began a sprint towards the lookout where we finally had a view. Moments like this are always funny to me because people immediately reach to the cameras rather than take it in with their own eyes. Which reminds me, here you go:

This last pic shows the real Three Sisters

Now we were in business. We completely changed the plan (which was to go back to the hostile and enjoy the benefits of my beer lugging labor). With the weather in our favor, we had to take advantage of it. We walked a three hour trail through the very mountains you're looking at in those photos. Part of this walk was a climb straight down the side of a cliff where the stairs were not exactly built at a friendly angle. I couldn't believe how awesome everything was now that I could see it. We decided that the mountains literally went on for days and actually did have to take moments to just stop and absorb everything and look out into the vast expanse. I swear those moments had nothing to do with our completely urgent need to catch our breath. But, the fact is that we were just about unable to breathe at times. Now I was feeling grateful for the semi cold temperature. Heat wouldn't have helped in the comfort department.

The trail was supposed to lead us to a waterfall. It was one of those things where we could hear the water falling very long before we ever saw it. We would walk walk walk walk and still nothing other than the soothing sound of the falling water in the distance. Or was that Chuck having a pee just off the trail? Either way, we knew there was a flowing liquid somewhere and we all hoped that meant the waterfall was coming. It was a constant tease in our ears until finally we did come up on it. The walk ended up being worth it because this really was a great looking fall. Once again I drained another couple of AA batteries as I formed a one man paparazzi on this thing. I later went through my photos and was stunned that anybody could take so many pictures of the same thing. There are only so many different angles to shoot from. I'll just show a few of them that I liked.

That waterfall reminded me of the word awesome. We were all still pretty tired. Not necessarily sore yet but many of us knew the soreness would follow. And even though I'm not in the states anymore, it does get dark as the evening approaches. This was important information to know as we considered how much longer the hike might take. Getting stuck out there in the dark wouldn't be a good end to the day, even with all the little flashlights that are attached to everyone's vodafone mobiles. So, we knew we had to keep plugging away at the steps. Its hard to complain about all the walking when you're in the Blue Mountains. There's always something to look at and I barely noticed I was doing anything physical now that the stairs were behind us. It didn't take a genius to figure out that we were going to have to climb up some stairs on the side of a cliff to get back up though. The way down was difficult because balancing was a task, the way up was difficult because our legs were starting to feel the effects of three hours of walking.

Me and Luke were the only ones who walked all the way back to the hostile after the hike. Everyone else hitchhiked and packed into some car that in no way was meant to have five people stuffed inside of it. The driver who picked them up beeped at me and Luke as he drove by and Chuck gave us a one fingered salute. Sweet. Even walking in the town of Katoomba isn't all that bad though. I find this to be a good time to post this picture of some random intersection there.

After a good night's sleep (drinking) at the hostile, we woke up, had Belgian waffles, and caught the train back. The trip was completely worth it.

It seemed like there were heaps of things to do at the Blue Mountains. There was this gondola ride and some crazy train that goes through the forest. I saw some ads for horseback riding that looked like a splendid time. Basically what I'm saying is I would definitely consider heading back there at some point during my stay. It was very easy/inexpensive to get/stay there. It took an act of God but when we got back to Sydney we were able to tell everybody else about the great time (and sore legs) that they missed. Go me!