In Betweeny Day!

So here I am, I've been home for a whole month now, and it's like the novelty of my presence has worn off for all my friends and family..... Weird!

Here are a few more pics from my trip! After we went to Melbourne we had a day in Australia until we left for New Zealand. I was so sad the whole day and kept saying things like, "This is my last time riding the 317" (That was our favorite bus route) "This is my last time seeing a homeless man in Bronte" "This is my last time seeing the Rainbow flags flaunted down Oxford Street (that gayest street in Sydney)" ya know things like that. Brighton and Wendy didn't quite understand, because they still had a few more weeks in Australia after NZ, so I think they were ready to beat me from all my comments! :) haha


This is the Teeter Totter we walked past everyday and although we never actually sat on it until this picture was taken, we pretty much talked about it every time we walked past it!


Our friend Jess took us to this way rad place called Govindas cause it was my last night! It's a buffet style dinner, but it's all vegetarian Indian food! There was some crazy stuff but it was so delicious! And after that you watch a movie and instead of having chairs you lay down on these couch things with lots of pillows and stuff! It was way rad! Jess is way great and we're gonna miss her times a billion!

Melbourne (the r is silent)!

Well, it's that time again for me to put aside the procrastination and push forward with this! :) After the Gold Coast we flew straight into the freezing cold of Melbourne! Luckily I was prepared with my red racing stripe spandex to stave off the cold, the two of us have been through some cold times, and I was not let down as usual! :)

We flew in super late on Friday night and didn't get in to our hotel until about 2 in the morning, luckily there were huge pictures of Mick Jagger plastered all over the walls so we felt very safe getting to our room! Our friend Laura who is from Texas and graduated from BYU but is living in Sydney for work, flew down to meet us and got there first thing Saturday morning! It was way great to change things up a bit with someone new, but she may or may not have been ready to pull her hair out by the end cause she couldn't quite handle us and by handle us I mean we might be a little overwhelming for most people at times, like anytime we're awake! :) I mean I can't speak for everyone but I know I'm pretty pleasant and fun to be around always, so maybe I'm just being paranoid! :) haha


This was our hotel, I think it says "Classy, yet moderately priced with a mean continental breakfast" how about you?

Saturday we just spent the day exploring the city and we were there on a weekend of some big design thing that was going on throughout the whole city, so there was different stuff set up and on display. It's a cool city, very European compared to Sydney and just beautiful! This was also the big day we got to see Wicked, which was pretty much the whole reason we came! It was the Australian premiere of the most amazing musical of all time! Not too many people had heard about it and I just sat through the whole thing thinking, "These people don't even know what kind of a treat they're in for!" :) The cast was phenomenal and it was just as good as ever. That night we ate some authentic Greek that stays open all night and then went clubbing at a place called Qbar, that was recommended by our receptionist..... It was as good a time as you can have as far as bi-clubs go..... :) haha Needless to say we were getting looks from both sides.... awkward!


Here's our yummy Greek, I would also like to mention Brighton's sweet vest, she searched high and low for this, just so she could take a little piece of Australia home with her!

On Sunday we went searching for a ward to go to church. Brighton and Wendy had a friend who had just gotten home from Melbourne and told them where to go, so we set off on a 2 hour long adventure and ended up only missing sacrament, yay for us! We also chose the perfect week because it was soup Sunday and the ward just welcomed us into their fold and we were fed mighty fine! We even had a few offers to come over for Sunday dinner, but we still had some exploring we wanted to do! After that we went back into town where they had an open house with alot of the famous buildings for free and we got to see the Regency Theatre Ballroom, St. Peters Cathedral, Capitol Theatre it was all very cool and the architecture was incredible!! Later on we ate dinner at a place called the Pancake factory cause we had a coupon for buy one get one free short stack. We didn't know if that would if that would fill us up so we decided to get a side of potato skins to share, there was a regular for like $8 and a large for $12 when we asked the waitress if a large would be enough to share she just said, well it depends on how hungry you are, we should have taken that as a sign..... So we ordered the large and this is what we got....


Needless to say, we all got our fill and then some, we actually almost couldn't finish and thought about taking it down the street to help the less fortunate :) haha


Don't worry though, we found our midget twins in that very restaurant, they were so funny and short!


Wendy loves this street, and for anyone who knows Wendy the reason why should be very clear!

Monday was our last day in Melbourne and we decided to hit up the botanical gardens right by our hotel, they were very pretty, but let's be honest a bunch of plants can only capture my attention for a brief time period and it was long before we were trampsing through the bushes making up stories as though this were our native bush!


This bird thinks just because its got a long droopy neck it's better than me, but I'm here to tell you that's not the case, so what if my neck is vertical and unstretchy, I'm still a person!

Later on we headed down to St. Kilda's which is right by the coast and where we heard they have some really good food! We ended up eating at this Italian place that was really good. Then we took a walk along the beach, the beaches aren't near as nice as the ones in Sydney and it was freezing cold!

So we're at the restaurant getting ready to order and they have pizza which sounds so delicious but they only have a small and a large. Small doesn't sound near big enough to be filling but I'm not quite sure if I can handle the large, but price wise it's not that much more. So I ask our cute little ole' Italian waitress about the sizes and she says, "oh yeah for sure a small will be plenty for you, there are 4 big pieces, the large is too big there are 8 pieces, small is fine", so naturally I hesitate for a minute and then order the large all to my self. Well later on she comes out with everyones food, Wendy and Laura ordered pasta and Brighton had a small pizza and then makes her own special trip for my massive family size pizza all to myself, sets it in front of me and says, "Here's for the hungry girl!" haha That was the big joke the rest of the time!


I had a midget in my pocket I was planning on sharing with....



I guess I thought we were playing thumbs up 7 up!

That night we went up Eureka tower, you go 99 levels in 38 seconds! It was crazy fast and made your ears pop like crazy! Then of course we had to check out the casino in Melbourne we heard its the best one around, but to my dismay they only had 1 craps table, what a joke, and it was a $10 min, I know I come across as a high roller, especially the way I'm wearing the same clothes in all my pics, but at this point I was running out of my money and as much as I wanted to win big I didn't want to lose big either! :)


This was on top of the skytower, people were just wanting to snap our pics like crazy, who were we to say no?


This was our $14 big deal movie theatre where we had the place all to ourselves and we couldn't help but wonder in what era our awkward chairs had been the "it" thing!

Too much fun?

This is one of the sweet beaches at Byron Bay! Finally a background that will do these girls justice! :)


This is the most popular beach in the Gold Coast... Surfer's Paradise the possibilities sounded endless!! Oh, and I'm sure there were some cool beaches and stuff too...

Ok, so I'm not really sure if anyone is still going to read this or not, but I feel as though it's a half done project, and I'm no quitter.....


Saturday July 12
This was the day we were supposed to fly to the Gold Coast! It was pretty much my last day in Sydney and we had been planning all along to wake up and watch the sunrise one day.... Never happened surprise surprise, so this day we made a special effort and despite only getting a few hours sleep we still woke up and got to see it! It was so beautiful, looking back it seems surreal, like I'm not really sure it even happened! After that we took a long nap and then started our fun task of packing! When we decided we were gonna travel to the Gold Coast and Melbourne, all we really thought was, hey let's by the cheapest tickets possible because we're all poor... Those cheap tickets just included bringing a carry on and no checked luggage which meant only our backpacks. This would have been fine except for the fact that we were gonna be gone 10 days and the Gold Coast climate is super warm and the Melbourne climate is super cold!


This is our finished product, somehow we managed, I mean it's not that abnormal to wear the same shirt for 5 days straight right?.... Maybe part of our success at this kind of thing contributed to part of the reason all of us came home single?.... :)

We got into the Gold Coast by the time it was dark and rented a car and set off on our way to a friends Uncle..... The only issue is that they drive on the wrong side of the road.... I drove and kept thinking I wish I had bought more insurance on the rental car... :) It was quite exciting and very rewarding when we made it safely!


This is just one of your typical, "Hey, mom look I'm driving on the wrong side of the road" shots... No big deal!

Sunday July 13
We stayed with Gary and Pauline from South Africa! The Gold Coast is set up with a lot of man made canals that run through out the city and eventually go out into the ocean. Gary and Pauline house was right on one of the canals, and it was awesome! They are the greatest and took the best care of us ever! They showed us all around the Gold Coast Sunday morning and took us out to breakfast! Later that day we just spent some time laying out at the beach and soaking in the rays!

Monday July 14
Even though we had quite a few days in the GC we knew we had to get down to business quick! That's why naturally we decided to go to Warner Bro.s Movie World! It's a theme park set up similar to Univeral where you experience a movie through a ride! It was pretty cool minus the fact that it closed it 5, apparently all Australians have somehow genetically altered themselves to where no one needs anything after 5 o'clock, because nothing is ever open :) haha


This was the actual batman boat used in Batman forever!!


This is in front of the Superman ride! It was a way sweet roller coaster that helped us beat the laws of physics as we flew every which way??.... :)


Strangely enough, we actually ran into the real batman whilst he was promoting not only his batman signal but also the chicken strips available for purchase at any participating food stands!


Badda Bing Badda Boom!

Later that night I got to play soccer with the boys! It was so awesome! One of the first things I did when I got to Sydney was buy a soccer ball, and even though Wendy was so great about passing it around with me, I just don't think it was that fun for her haha!! So Gary invited me to play with their mens indoor team, it was 4 on 4 and rather than having walls it was just big nets around the whole field so it never went out and the goalie had an arc he had to stay in and we couldn't enter that arc. It was very fast paced, but ya know I showed a few of them what was, and by that I just mean I think they were afraid to hurt me so they backed down :) haha I still scored though and we won, so it was like what more could I ask for?!!


This was a sweet action shot Brighton captured during the heat of the battle! :)


Put me in coach, I'm ready to play, today!!

Tuesday July 15
We spent most of the day at the beach while the weather was nice! We ate lunch at this cute Italian place called Mama Roma's. All the restaurants in the GC are half price at lunch cause most people just come out for dinner so naturally we loved that! I ordered a sweet shrimp pasta dish and the thing I love most about the seafood here, is that you actually get seafood... A lot of places are super skimpy on the shrimp but hey loaded me up and it was delicious!

That night Gary and Pauline took us out for a cruise around the canal in the party pontoon! It was way fun, but the weather was terrible and it rained like crazy! It was still awesome to see all the incredible million dollar houses!

Wednesday July 16
Found us at the outlet malls cause the weather was still bad, we shopped til we dropped and later went to lunch at some old friends of my parents! They had a beautiful house in the country and fed us an awesome home cooked meal of roast and veggies! They were awesome and we ended up staying and chatting with them all night and left only after we promised if we came again we would stay with them next time! I can't get over how amazing everyone has been to us!

Thursday July 17
We went to Byron Bay! Total hippie town, it was awesome! I've never seen so many hippie love vans congregated together in one place! The beaches were beautiful and we laid out all day and then got to watch the sunset from the light house which is the eastern most point in all of Australia!


Although this picture looks like Wendy tried to catch us unawares (impossible to happen to me....) she's actually really trying to get a good pic of the two men in the background, they proceeded to hit on us using what I felt like we very unorthodox methods, but maybe thats just me I mean maybe lots of girls fall for the old, I just got outta prison and I'm really lonely line?
That night we got to see Batman the Dark Knight it came out 3 days earlier than in the states so we felt like pretty big deals after getting to see it before anyone else!!

Friday July 18
For our last day in the GC we went up a building called Q1 it's the tallest residential building in the world and gave an amazing view of the endless beaches along the Gold Coast and at all the intricate man made canals that clutter the city! When it was finally time to leave, we were all super sad 1) Because it was the first time we had legitmately been able to layout in the sun 2)We saw lots of hot surfers without wet suits and 3) Gary and Pauline were so great we felt like we were home!


This was just part of the incredible view from Q1, somebody really good must have taken that shot.... :)

After the Blue Mountains adventure, the three of us tried to lay low for a little while and by lay low I mean I don't think any of us walked normal for at least a week we were so sore! :) haha The rest of that week we just spent getting ready to read off on our 3 week long traveling expedition and I tried to squeeze in all the things I hadn't done in Sydney yet! I'm so super sad my time there is done, but we had lots of adventures still to come!! We flew to the Gold Coast for a week and then flew straight down to Melbourne for a few days and then out to New Zealand!! We haven't had the best internet for a while so here are just a few pictures until I can really get down to business!

Also I posted about the Blue Mountains below as well, make sure you're sitting down for that one because it's a nail biting tail of mystery and suspense..... :)


This is at a place called Chinta Ria our friend Jess took us to, it's an awesome Malaysian Restaurant and it means Temple of Love.... Apparently we didn't get the memo about that earlier because we just went with a group of girls! :)



After dinner at Chinta Ria we went to this place called Max Brenner's Chocolate by the Bald Man! I think you gain weight just by standing in the place! They had chocolate everything and it was delicious! Brighton and I shared a Belgium waffle covered in chocolate with strawberries bananas ice cream and of course an extra dipping vat of chocolate!


These are our favorite candy makers slash rock stars doing their thing!! Yeah, I am well connected in Sydney what can I say!! :)


This was my last morning in Sydney, everyday since I got there we just kept talking about waking up early to watch the sunrise and this was our last chance to do it all together! It was incredible despite the mad dash we had to make to the beach because we slept in and were afraid we were gonna miss it, just ignore the bed head and morning breath!


These are the cute birds that would come and visit Wendy and I as we did the dishes in our flat! They're called Lorakeets and one day we decided to get some bread out to see if they would take it. As soon as they saw the bread outside the window they started freaking out pecking at each other and at the window because they were so excited, it was awesome and I even got them to eat out of my hand!!


This is my men's indoor soccer team I got to play on in the Gold Coast! I was the only girl out there and it was super intimidating, but I loved it times a billion! We won and I even scored!! Boo yaa!! This was my favorite thing I got to do so far!

Blue Mountains, ughh!!

These are the Three Sisters, oh sure they look pretty now, but try getting lost in the bush and having to see them grow smaller and smaller the further out and more lost you got....


This is the calm before the storm, and by calm before the storm I mean yes we did make friends with the sausage slash emu slash kangaroo man!


On a happier note, I did finally get revenge on the Emu who thought it was cool to make the American girls scream! Look who's laughing now!! (Yes this is real Emu meat and it tasted just like chicken!)


Yeah I did jump over the child proof fence to pose for this.... Who's the tough guy now?

So Monday July 7 we finally made it to the Blue Mountains, yay! It's about two hours outside of Sydney by train and it's tons of rainforests in this massive ravine (I'm talking like Bryce Canyon or bigger wide if you can imagine that big of a space) and way high crazy cliffs and stuff. Anyway everyone that we talked to about the Blue Mountains would just always say be careful you don't get lost in the bush it can be crazy dangerous out there and people get lost and stranded all the time blah blah blah....

Well to even start hiking in the Blue Mountains we took the worlds steepest train! It was way sweet and steep and takes you deep down in. Once there we could choose 10, 30 or 50 minute hikes. We decided on the 50 minute and as we were marching along we just kept going up these different paths and messing around and taking fun pictures. Just a side note, hikes that would take a normal person a half hour turn into hours with us, probably cause the camera can't stop taking our picture at every nook, tree and cranny along the way! Eventually, a couple hours later we decided we needed to get serious about finishing the trail and start hiking so we could get back and finish exploring everything else, well after about an hour and a half and still nothing we started to wonder what was going on. I just kept saying oh its gonna curve around and we'll start heading out, don't worry guys it's fine. PS Wendy hates hiking anyway and was already a little panicky that we were even going.

Don't worry we were just wondering around lost down here somewhere, for so long...

So we had been hiking since 12 and it was 3 and it gets dark here at 5 and all the buses and ways to get up and out and back to town shut down at 5. Finally at 330 we come across this sign that says Mount Isolation 3 hours Ruined Castle 2 hours Scenic World 2 hours (that was where we had started) or behind was a sign that said Golden Stairs 1 hour so we were like ok, we've must have taken a wrong turn but it's gonna be the same whether we head back or just keep going this way we might as well keep going and see the rest of it. But we knew we were in a hurry and had to be super fast so we set a pretty good jogging pace through mountain trails and rocks and all that kind of stuff for about 30 minutes. We were getting so tired, but we figured we had to be there soon and we were running out of light, when we come across a new sign that said Ruined Castle 1 hour and Mount Isolation 2 hours if we kept going the same way but Scenic World was 3 hours back the other way. Apparently we had all read the sign wrong and we were going in completely the wrong direction. At this point it was 4 o'clock and the sun was really starting to fade! I've never been so scared in my life, really truly scared about what was going to happen and what we were going to do! We all kind of freaked, Wendy started to cry and Brighton dropped her veil of playing it cool for Wendy's sake,. So the first thing we did when we panicked was said a prayer which helped for about 30 seconds until I let a few choice words slip out... but it did clear my mind so I could think better, and I just had to walk away to make sure if the path said anything else and so I could freak out alone! We decided at that point all we could was head back as fast as we could. Also, we had not seen a single person on the trail the whole day, we even said probably four times why haven't we seen anyone else on this trail? So now we were already tired from hiking for 4 straight hours plus we had just been running for the past half hour, but we took off running back the other way. The whole time I have flashes in my head of us ending up on the six o'clock news stranded and lost and having to sleep there overnight, and mind you it's winter over here and we were in the mountains, I had to wear my spandex and jeans and a long sleeve shirt and sweatshirt it was so cold! Finally after about 10 minutes miraculously we see 3 boys coming toward us, we probably looked so dumb running down this trail with these terrified looks on our face, and I stop and ask them if they know where they're going, they were like, "Duh who hikes clear out here without knowing where they're going!?!" So we asked them how to get back and they said, "Not the way you came you'll just get more lost out there, we're camping and our tents are still another 10k away. You need to go back and go up the Golden Stairs and that will put you on a road and you can follow that road back into town. We finally made it to the Golden Stairs and it was still an hour to the top, straight up! We were all beyond the point of exhaustion and our water was gone we stopped and said another prayer and somehow we made it up, but we were literally shaking up the stairs and breathing so hard it was crazy! Plus Wendy has asthma and was going crazy with her inhaler, so that made it even harder on her!


These are not the faces of happy campers....


Apparently the Australian Division of Transportation didn't get the memo that there are still dirt roads out here.... maybe that's because we were still in the middle of nowhere?

We finally made it to the top and it was just this dirt road with no signs of life on it, I think we had all been imagining a paved road with a few houses by it, but we were still in the middle of nowhere! So we just walked and walked and walked. A car passed us that we tried to hitch hike a ride but the guy looked at us like "what?" and just kept going. Luckily right as we came to the actual road the only other person we saw was this friendly man who helped get us on the right road to Katoomba. So then we walked some more and it was like 6km into town but we finally made it by 630, which doesn't even really make sense that we did it so fast! I know I'm usually so dramatic, but I really can't even be dramatic enough for how scary this was. It was so crazy too, it had been really good weather even though it was supposed to rain, and literally the minute we got inside right by the train station it started raining! Seriously, it was such a miracle and I can't even believe how blessed we are! Really it was scary, but very cool to see how we were so blessed and still being looked after even though we weren't doing what we needed to, like paying better attention to the map!

Hey Hey! Look at me, two posts so close together! I think this is a new record! Well we are getting ready to head off to the Gold Coast tomorrow (Saturday night)! We'll be staying with two different contacts and we're super pumped! The weather should a little warmer and there's supposed to be some awesome beaches! Anyway I just wanted to get caught up until at least this point so I just figured I'd throw up a bunch of pics and call it good! I'm not even sure if anyone reads this anymore, but I miss you all and sadly slash happily enough I'll be home in four short weeks! Well here's a rundown of how things have been in the last week!


Wednesday the 2nd we went to beach! I was so happy to be there with my friends I drew a heart in the sand with our initials, some people might be worried about the meaning of this.... :)


I was the only one who wore shorts that day, so I made Brighton get on my back and trust me to walk out in the water! A wave came up and surprised us and I had to sacrifice myself and get so wet but I didn't even drop her, if that's not friendship I don't know what is!


How amazing is this? Yeah, I live right by here!!


This picture doesn't even make sense, but these cliffs are sweet!


I'm like a kid in a candy store! I love it (and by it I mean candy) times a billion! Thursday was another special day we stopped by the candy store and got so much free candy!


Friday was the 4th of July and we were so sad that none of the Australians wanted to celebrate American Independence? I don't get it? :) But so many great things happened, but first and foremost one of my great friends Lindsey Anderson qualified for the Beijing Olympics in the 3000 meter steeplechase!! I was so excited to hear the news, we bought these sweet plastics medals in her honor! Then we lit these sweet sparkly sparklers in honor of lady liberty! It was a good night!


I was getting so nervous to find out about Lindsey all I could do is hold my trusty soccer ball and clutch HP in desperation as I searched for the results!


We were even feeling so patriotic we made red, white, and blue shakes!... Yes those are Australian flags on top, strangely enough we couldn't find any American flags, but not for lack of asking every barmaid and bouncer from here to the Opera House!


This is Paddy's Market where we went Saturday again. They have all the cheap fruit and veggies and tons of trinket and souvenir shops!


We love to go clubbin in pink shirts with the coolest characters from our favorite Disney Channel original TV show.... and by we I mean just me!! I really do!
We went to a place called Home Night Club, it's right in Darling Harbour and it's like 3 level high and looks right out over the water into the wharf! We met some people there we had met the week before. Australians favorite kind of music is House, which pretty much just reminds me of Techno music, so when we first got there that's all they played! It's way hard to dance to... But by the end of the night they were playing some fun R&B and Hip-Hop, so it was way great! Just super hot inside, and so many creepy guys just wanted to be our best friend! The best was this Indian guy (dot not feather) who kept trying to get Wendy to dance with him so we just tried to move somewhere else and he grabs her arm and says, "Please I just need to know your name" so she told him it was Wendy and then Brighton was able to just drag her away. But after a few minutes he came and found her again and just as we were running away he says, "Wendy, dance with me" in his Indian accent, it was totally classic :) haha Seriously hilarious!


We love ice cream with Chocolate and Peanut Butter mixed in! Their Ice Cream is so airy and fluffy, it's easy to mix everything like a shake because it's so airy it just melts down and blends super fast! Also apparently over here they take the phrase Milk Shake to heart because everywhere I've ordered a shake it is literally a little bit of ice cream with whatever flavor and then the rest is milk, so it's not thick at all! And usually ends up tasting like strawberry milk or whatever flavor!


This is just one picture of the Blue Mountains, they are beautiful! I will blog about that experience the next time I get on, but I just want to make sure all of you were aware that I almost died and now you should feel doubly lucky to still have me around!