We hopped off the bus at Sydney's Central Station and had navigate ourselves to our accommodations: the City Resort Hostel in King's Cross. Now, to those of you who aren't familiar with Sydney or Australia for that matter, this section of the city is commonly just referred to as "The Cross." What you might also like to know is that it's not the best part of town. And by that I mean the worst part of town. It is basically known as the red light district of the city and it is home to all of the clubs, pubs and any other type of sketchy place you might be able to think up. Nice place to stay, right? We hopped off the local train in the the Cross and began walking in some direction towards our destination. It took us a little while, but we eventually made it. The place looked like a hole in the wall. That's basically all there is to it. We walked in, checked in and made it to our room. I'm not saying and I've never said that I need to stay in a 5-star hotel when it comes to vacation accommodations, but when you are subject to a 6-ft by 15-ft room with two bunk beds crammed right next to each other, a tiny, very unclean kitchenette and a bathroom that looks like it is right out of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho," I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to tolerate the conditions. To make matters worse, there was already a woman moved into the room. And I literally mean moved into. This woman's clothes were hanging from every bed, her food was lying around, her cookware was unclean and her panties were left hanging in the bathroom. Chelsey, JD and I looked at each other, deciding almost without words that we needed to find a new place, and fast. It's amazing what college kids will do to save a buck; and in this case we saved nothing, unfortunately.
Luckily, most of Burgmann College's residents come from Sydney, so we had a few people we could call. JD got in touch with a friend of ours, Alex, who said he'd put in a call to his parents. About 10 minutes later, after trying not to touch anything in the room, we got the call back from Alex and the okay that we could stay at his house in one of the Sydney suburbs. We gathered our things, told the reception staff at the "Resort" hostel that we had an emergency and needed to check out. It was all done within about 45 minutes, with no money refunded, but we just hurried our little fake-backpacking butts out of that place. We walked up the road, and caught a taxi out of the Cross and into Vaucluse. We vowed never to be stuck in the Cross again. Not even to party.
Ok, now I know I said I didn't need 5-star, but staying in a person's house, is practically 5-star. I didn't ask for it to be that way, but with Steve and Trine setting up the accommodations, that's what we got. Not only was the house in one of the nicest and probably most expensive suburbs of the city, Alex's parents were incredibly receptive, accommodating and just all around wonderful. We were welcomed into their home as their children and it was one of the nicest feelings ever. We tried not to ask for anything, but Trine willingly made us lunch and gave us directions for where to hang out and how to get to the city, while Steve drove us to the train station and bus station when we needed it. Chelsey, JD and I felt so comfortable and so welcome in their home, it was just so nice!
View of Vaucluse from Watson's Bay
The house was just a short walking distance from Watson's Bay, where we could catch a ferry to the city quay (which I soon found out was pronounced "key" and not "kway," only to be made fun of endlessly!), get food on the wharf and just sit by the water where hundreds of boats sat rocking in the windy sea. It was so windy the first two days we were in Sydney that as we walked along the shore, we were constantly pelted by sand. After our explorations around the bay, the first night we decided we would go into the city to grab some food. We met a friend in the city, and walked down to Chinatown for a cheap and delicious meal and some nighttime city explorations.
Watson's Bay
Getting Abused by the Wind
Of Course being the biologist that I am, I had to find and photograph the barnacles growing on the rocks!
Our trip back to Alex's house was another adventure in the form of figuring out the city bus system. Grabbed a train back to a local bus station that was closer to the house, and when we arrived at the station, we first had some problems finding the exact bus stop. It happened to be on the roof of the station, which we eventually came across. Once on the bus, we needed to decide where to stop. This was another adventure: we got off at the wrong stop, somewhere in Vaucluse, and somewhere near Alex's house, but in the dark, and in an unfamiliar place we were confused. We walked one direction, and it happened to be the wrong one. When we realized, we turned around and walked toward the lighthouse at the top of the hill: the lighthouse seemed to be a recognizable landmark. Lucky for us it was and we soon made it back to the house where we were greeted by the lovely Nessie, the Scottie dog!
After waking up the next day, Sunday, we decided to take another walk down to the windy Watson's Bay and then we made our way into Gap Park where we overlooked the Pacific Ocean as well as the city. Gap park consisted of a few cliffs on the edge of the bay right on the Pacific. We hiked up the cliffs to get the amazing views, inspecting the rocks for our resident geologist, JD. I of course inspected the plants that were growing and looked out over the ocean taking in the view, the beautifully colored water and the boats. I climbed up the rocks letting the little kid in me out, only until I realized I wasn't a little kid anymore in my troubles to get off of the rocks... especially in my jeans that were too tight.
View from Gap Park
A Pirate Ship!
A Battleship!
View of Sydney from the Gap
Once Alex got back from Canberra on Sunday, we had lunch at his house, which we of course helped Trine prepare. Again it was delicious, and so nice to be eating a home-prepared meal. Afterwards, Alex drove us into the city, past the enormous and amazing Bondi Beach, and to Bondi Junction where there is a huge mall. Spending money was out of the question, but window shopping was fun. Upon arrival back at his house, we went out to dinner with his family for Alex's 20th birthday for some delicious Italian food. On the way back from dinner we stopped to get some tubs of ice cream to eat while watching two movies. If I can ever give my two sense in a situation it would be right now: DO NOT WATCH THE MOVIE "QUARANTINE." I'm not one to be absolutely horrified by a scary movie, but this was just disturbing. Disgusting, disturbing and all together just plain nasty. Two girls, two guys, sitting together in complete darkness watching this flick, that was filmed from the perspective of a home movie, just not cool. Even Alex screamed at some points, jumping on Chelsey for comfort. Needless to say, the 4 of us went to bed shaking.
On Monday we went into the city again, this time taking the ferry from Watson's Bay. It was a nice ride all around the harbor until we arrived at our destination, Circular Quay, which is again, pronounced "key" and not "kway." We walked from the stop into the center of the city where we did some more mall shopping and window shopping and grabbed lunch. We thoroughly exhausted ourselves, but not to the point that we couldn't go out later that night! One of my other friends in Sydney, Simon, had called us up and we decided to get together and go out to dinner and a club later that night. Simon, Chelsey, JD and I met up with another friend, Laura, and went to Chinatown for dinner again, for another meal of deliciousness. We proceeded into the center of town to the city's most touristy club, the Scubar. It was jam packed with backpackers who all wanted a good time. There were even hermit crab races: gambling for awesome trips around Australia. All in all it was a good night out and it was fun to be with college friends.
On the Ferry on the way to the Quay
Tuesday was an easy day as Chelsey and JD and I were all heading off to our next destination the Gold Coast in the evening. The three of us ferried into town again to pick up some gifts for Alex's family. We also made our way around Darling Harbor to do some tourist things and see the Sydney Opera House up close. There were tons of people there, and with limited time we didn't stick around, but the site was still incredible. It would have been nice to take a tour of the building's inside, but for a college student on a budget, it just could not be fit in. The outside was still amazing and the view of the harbor and the harbor bridge were also fantastic.
Finally, the Opera House!
The Harbor Bridge
After getting some sun from just lounging on the porch when we returned, we packed our bags and Alex drove us to the airport. We had an awesome weekend, all due to Alex's family's hospitality and we really enjoyed ourselves. After a rocky start, our holiday was really going smoothly and I looked forward to the rest of the two weeks of adventuring. Things were really working out well, especially for having no plan other than accommodations in each of the destinations we chose!
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