Better Than New Zealand

As I predicted, October was a busy month, so it’s story time. The last week of classes I had two essays and a test. Of course I procrastinated horribly and finished my 2,000-word paper on the myth of Cleopatra at 2:30 am on the morning of Saturday the 17th. The fun part is, I slept for about 45 minutes and then got up at 3:30 to take a shower and pack in time to catch a cab to the airport with Briana at 4:45 because we had a 6:30 flight to AUSTRALIA! My friend Emily from Wake is studying at the University of Sydney and invited us to stay with her for a few days. Here’s a secret: in a lot of ways, Australia is actually better than New Zealand. Shhhh.

Being a bit of an idiot, I forgot that you can’t carry on liquids, so airport security took my shampoo etc. (but left me my razor???), which gave Briana no end of amusement. I also accidentally marked my customs card to indicate that I was a convict with tuberculosis. But it’s ok, because I forgot to turn it in.

Somehow we managed to make it to Emily’s flat by 10 for breakfast. Then Emily and her boyfriend Rob took us to the market at the Rocks for some shopping. We checked out the Circular Quay and the Opera House, and then we went to the Botanic Gardens. There was a tree full of bats, which was really interesting, and there was a guy in a plane skywriting about Jesus. Super cool. After we had lunch at a café in the Gardens, all four of us fell asleep on the bus back, so we decided to take a nap. Emily very generously turned her room over to us and we passed out for a good three hours. At dinner we discovered that Australia has legit pizza, unlike New Zealand. That night Emily and Rob took us out to a club called Argyle, which totally dazzled us because Christchurch nightlife has nothing like it. Emily asked for four glasses of water and the bartender looked at her like she was nuts.

The skies Sunday morning looked like rain, and we decided to go to the aquarium. We took our sweet time to get down to the Quay, though, getting distracted by the tall buildings, a cupcake bakery and a Krispy Kreme. I was extra excited about that last one because they do NOT have it in New Zealand. It was Briana’s first Krispy Kreme doughnut. I was so proud of her. We stopped by the Opera House to see if we could catch a show while we were in Sydney, but it’s hard to find a good one on such short notice that’s not too expensive. We missed a whole string of great orchestra concerts they played the week before we came. Oh, we also went back the Rocks to do some more shopping. Then we went to the Aquarium, which was awesome. It had two underwater tunnels with sharks and stingrays and dugongs and sea turtles and everything… so cool. I love aquariums. Afterwards Briana and I walked along the Sydney Harbour Bridge and took pictures from the top.

On Monday we had breakfast at the Museum of Sydney Café, on Rachel’s advice, which was great. I sniped a roll of toilet paper from their bathroom to give to Emily. Then Bri and I walked to the Quay and took a ferry to Manly Beach. We decided on Manly pretty much because Rachel told us about this great chocolate place there—Chocolate by the Bald Man, Max Brenner. And it was so nice to actually have warm weather! It’s November now, supposed to be quite summery but stupid Christchurch is cold and rainy and the wind will almost pick you up sometimes. Fantastic. So yeah, we got sunburned and freckled and maybe even a little tanned, and swam around the jellyfish and loved every minute of it. That evening we met up with Emma, my friend from high school, for Mexican food—I mean real Mexican food, the likes of which Christchurch has never seen—and gelato. It was really nice to catch up with Emma; I hadn’t seen her in a year at least. But it’s a small world, so we met up down under rather than in North Carolina.

Tuesday, our last full day in Sydney, we debated between Bondi Beach, the really famous one, and the Blue Mountains. We opted for the mountains, because I would have been disappointed if we hadn’t seen them because everyone makes such a big deal about them. Plus for some reason I like trains as much as your average five-year-old boy does, so I was psyched to take the two-hour train ride to Katoomba. We walked from the train station to the mountain lookouts and laughed at the ridiculously overdressed tourists. We stopped laughing when we got to the Mountains. The thing is, we’ve spent the past four months in Middle-Earth, living among some of the world’s most breathtaking scenery, and the Blue Mountains look like, well, Arizona. Lame. It wasn’t a total write-off, because we got to go walking on the trails and check out some pretty waterfalls, but still. The walk from my flat to the grocery store is more interesting than what we saw of the Blue Mountains.

The next day we were up at seven and psyched for the ZOO. The highlight of Taronga Zoo is definitely the “Australian Walkabout” (John Locke anyone?) wherein the kangaroos and wallabies and emus run free and you can pet them. It’s like the petting zoo at the state fair, only a million times more amazing. I made a mental note that when I have kids, I’m taking them to Sydney just so that they can pet a kangaroo. Because Bri and I did and it was super cool. What was NOT cool was the wallaby. We spent about ten minutes watching it and had the following exchange:

“Does that wallaby have a hole in its tummy?”
“What is that thing sticking out?”
“Maybe it’s a boy wallaby, if you catch my drift.”
“Oh-my-gosh it’s a baby. It has a BABY in there!”
“Oh, disgusting!” etc.

Moving on from the momma wallaby and the tiny pink hairless wallaby junior, we saw gorillas, tigers, giraffes, sea turtles, ostriches, zebras, all manner of creepy crawly things, and so on. After the kangaroos, the elephants were my favourite. We watched a zookeeper hose them down for a while, which was too funny because some of the elephants absolutely loved the water and others would have none of it. The baby nearly tripped over his ears trying to get out of Dodge. Speaking of little ones, I found a small Australian kid who was too short to see the lions, so I held him up to the glass while his mom had her hands full with his sister. The lions were too far back to see, so he amused himself by smashing flies on the glass. Then we went to check out the meerkats together. It was nice to spend some time with a little kid again, and his Australian accent was precious. We also saw koalas, which are almost as disappointing as the Blue Mountains. All they do is lie around in the trees and snooze. After we had seen everything there was to see, we rode a gondola back down to the ferry, which afforded a great view of the Sydney skyline. Christchurch doesn’t have any real skyscrapers, and Sydney’s massive buildings reminded us so much of the States. It was like a preview of home.

I think I’ve already established that I do not travel well. Actually, Bri and I do not travel well together. (It’s a good thing we aren’t flying to LA together next week. Oh, wait…) So at the airport, they had trouble with our Australian visas, and then we were almost late for our plane because of course our gate was at the very end of terminal, but then we got there and weren’t sure if this WAS our gate so we had to go find out, and all this rushing went on with me huffing and puffing to keep up with Bri who is six inches taller than I am. By the time we sat down, we were both grumpy and hot and hungry, and then it turned out that out plane was delayed. How lovely. Bri had plans to go on a five-day hiking trip the next day, and I had an essay to write that was 40% of my grade, so neither of us were real keen on cooling our heels in the Sydney airport with nothing to do besides gripe and listen to our stomachs growl. When we did board the plane, however, we found ourselves seated near a little boy with Buzz Lightyear and Jessie action figures who were dive-bombing each other. I was very tempted to lean over and holler, “To infinity—and beyond!” but I resisted the urge. I had bought some Reese’s in Syndey, because guess what ELSE New Zealand doesn’t have, and Bri and I ate them for dinner during the three-hour plane ride. Delicious.

So we got home in one piece, our friend Sam picked us up at the airport, Bri got off on her tramping trip ok, and I got my essay done. This only brings us up to 21st, but it’s almost 2 am so I will continue tomorrow, or something. Rachel went on a ten-day tour of the north island last month and right now she is on a road trip down south, and when she gets back I would love for her to have a bunch of messages demanding that she post on the blog. Thank you.

To be continued.
love-
Carie