The trip begins!

Hi guys,

Sorry for the lack of blog as of late; I have been busy being a tourist! So my friends (Sam, Claire and Kerry) arrived last Tuesday morning (a lovely 5.30am start to collect them from the airport) and it has been pretty much non-stop since then. We tried to cram in as much as possible in the three days that they would be in Sydney. The first day (Tuesday) was fairly uneventful, the friends were all jet-lagged and so I went to uni or a few hours whilst they tried to take a snooze. In the evening, they were just as tired so we sat around playing cards and generally catching up, it has been 3 months since I saw them last afterall.

On Wednesday the glorious weather of Australia returned and we did the beach walk from Coogee to Bondi (the walk I had done previously), stopping off at a few of the beaches on the way and just relaxed and swam. That evening we had a night out; had a few drinks at mine (well perhaps more than a few) and then headed off to Kings Cross. Kings Cross is apparently renowned for being Sydney's red light district and we did see a few prostitutes....lovely....! Best part of the night was losing Alejandro who also joined us on the night out. The bouncers at the bar we went to (World Bar) decided that he was too drunk to let him in, which to be fair he was. So I had to go in an collect my friends who had already gone in and bring them out so we could go somewhere else where hopefully Alejandro could get in. On the way to another bar, Claire and Sam decided to go and get McDonald's whilst me and Kerry went back to talk to the promoter of the bar as he was Norwegian and I wanted to speak to him in Norwegian. We told Alejandro to go with Claire and Sam, which he did to begin with. Kerry and I later joined them in McDonald's to notice that Alejandro had gone!!! Apparently he has just disappeared! Assuming he had gone home, we went back to World Bar!!

The next day I didn't feel great! I had to get up early to have a meeting with my PhD advisor (who was an hour late) so that was even better...NOT! After going home to collect the rest of the motley crew, we headed off to Manly (I have also been here before - see previous post). This involved a ferry which in my delicate state was not the best of ideas. But we managed to arrive safely and spent the rest of the day chilling on the beach in the glorious sunshine once more! What a life eh.

On Friday we had originally planned to go up the Oz Tower which is basically just a massive observation deck to get views over all of Sydney. Unfortunately the weather let us down; we awoke to rain and lots and lots of grey cloud. So instead the day consisted of checking out the Opera House, Botanical Gardens and Darling Harbour. I just love being a tourist!!! That evening it was time to start packing for the two week trip that I am taking up the coast to Fraser Island, stopping at various places along the way! Blogs will follow with updates about the various adventures at each place!