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!

Week 3!

Hey hey!! I'm just trying to stay a little more on top of things.... I started writing that last week when I was gonna update my blog and that's as far as I got! :) haha


I feel like this should be the new poster for Australian tourism? Any thoughts?

Well down to the good stuff here's what we've been up to! Sorry again if it's kind of a marathon read, I'm pretty much doing this instead of a journal so don't feel like you need to read the whole thing.... Although I'm not really sure who would want to miss the opportunity for my brilliant intellect and charming slash witty banter? No? Ok. :)

Tuesday June 24
We have really been having an awesome string of weather, super sunny and no rain! This is not normal, because it’s supposed to be very rainy during the winter! Naturally we’ve been trying to soak up as many rays as possible, so Wendy and I spent the day down at the beach! The waves were huge and there were so many surfers! We must have just gone at the right time today, because normally there are only a few surfers. It was fun watching them and made me want to learn how to surf like crazy!

Later that night we took our flat mates Ely and Jorge out to dinner. I don’t think I’ve said too much about them but they have been here since February, Jorge is going to school to get his Masters in something with Computer IT and Ely is just working at a place called Harvey Norman (it’s like Best Buy) to support them, even though she has her degree in graphic design it’s super hard to find a job out here for that! They are both super cute and so sweet! School just got finished for the semester for Jorge so he was going back to Ecuador to surprise his mom and I’m going to be gone before he comes back, so we wanted to all get together one last time! They wanted to try Thai so we took them to our favorite Thai place! Later that night we made them Peach Cobbler and they loved it, but probably not as much as I loved it, because I love it a lot!


This is Ely and Jorge they really like Tim Tams.... Really Really!


This is Brighton, Wendy and Jayne, they really like Peach Cobbler....really really!


These are all the residents of 5/34 Brown Street, they really like each other... and that sweet Thai waitress that took their picture and made sure the spring rolls were made with a little extra TLC!

Wednesday June 25
After having a lazy afternoon updating our blogs and chillaxin Wendy and I went to meet Brighton for lunch but we didn’t get there until 3 and discovered that everywhere shuts down their kitchens for lunch right at 3! Poor Brighton was starving and we had to wander around all over to finally find somewhere that was open! Haha

After that Wendy and I went and hung out in this cool park and read. There was Basketball and Tennis and lots of stuff going on and so many people had their dogs running around everywhere! So we’re just laying there minding our own business and this dog comes toward us and starts smelling Wendy, when all of a sudden it lifts its leg to pee on her! I started screaming and luckily she sat up but he still peed on her bag right where her head had been, who does he think he is, seriously! It was so funny!! We both couldn’t stop laughing but at the same time we were disgusted! We went back to Brightons work to clean up and I’m pretty sure her boss thought we were crazy! So Brighton was pooped on by a bird and now Wendy was peed on by a dog, I think we’ve angered the animal gods somehow and I probably need to be careful!  haha


Wendy was so sad slash confused at why a dog would mistake her for a fire hydrant!


This is the culprit to the aforementioned heinous crime!

Thursday June 26
We met Brighton after work down at Circular Quay, which is where the Opera House and Sydney Bridge are! It’s so beautiful to see the Opera House lit up at night! Randomly, as we were walking around the Opera House a security guard started talking to us and asking us where we were from. We told him Utah in the States and asked if he had ever heard of it. He was like “Yeah, I know it. I’m going there soon.” So we were kinda like oh sure but asking him if he already had the trip planned or if he knew where exactly he was going and he was like, “Yeah I’m going to Provo to the MTC.” We were like, “What!?!” Apparently he’s obviously a member of the church and got his mission call to the Philippines and is leaving at the beginning of August! It really is such a small world, we were laughing so hard!


For some reason since coming to Sydney I have become prone to pigeon hunting, this is not one of my stealthier approaches, but if we had tried to get a picture during my actual approach I would have been invisible to the naked eye..... That's how good I am!


Sometimes Brighton will pretend to be reading a magazine during the hunt, it's all just part of the routine.... However, in this picture I don't think she's fooling anyone


This is a sweet picture of the Opera House from the bridge!


Apparently this swing was not meant for big kids... Don't worry I made it work, it just took the removal of one shoe and the swing riding up places it shouldn't have been riding....

Friday June 27
Friday night we met Brighton after she got off work and went to an activity for our ward. The sister missionaries taught us some cooking stuff and about food storage, the best part to this was that they cooked some way sweet food! Chili, homemade bread, granola, cinnamon rolls!! Probably some of the best food we’ve had since we’ve been here, and you would have thought we hadn’t eaten in years the way we attacked that food like 3 starved cubs after a long winter!  haha

Later that night our friend from the ward Jess, who is so great, took us around to some of the really cool lookout points around Sydney Harbour! So gorgeous!! After that we hung out with Jess’s boyfriend and his flat mates. They are all from New Zealand and a lot of fun! For some reason though when the three of us get together boys tend to get a little overwhelmed, I’m not really sure why…  haha But we didn’t really even do anything but still managed to stay up until 3. And by we I mean Brighton and I stayed up talking, and by talking I mean squealing and being dramatic like we do, while everyone else including Wendy, who was not feeling like the million bucks that she really is, slept like angels! I just don’t think they’ll be inviting us to hang out the next time they want to actually get a good nights rest! haha


This is our friend Jess! She's way cool and even has a real Australian accent, some people have all the luck! And for some reason she even puts up with us! Way sweet view of the Opera House and Bridge!


This is Jess's car and even though it looks like Wendy is driving, this is an authentic Australian car and the driver actually sits on the right side! :)

Saturday June 28
Well once again the plan for Saturday was to head to the Blue Mountains, but this time Wendy was not feeling good at all, she had a major ear infection and we hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before, so we figured what’s the big deal putting it off one more week… 

Instead we decided to check out Paddy’s Market in China town, which is sort of like being in downtown Beijing without all the excitement of the Olympics coming, but there are still lots of Asians! It’s supposed to be some of the cheapest shopping in Sydney, it reminded me a lot of some type of expo, it’s just in this huge warehouse type thing and there are tons of clothes and hat and trinket shops in one part of it and the other part is all cheap fruit and veggies! It’s a really cool experience! The shopkeepers in the food side of things were just yelling stuff and saying things like, “Oh you beautiful girls, you want come buy fruit?” “Pretty lady, where you from” Just different things like that, it was funny and don’t even worry we did get free oranges from one of them after turning on the old charm…. And by charm I mean we walked past and they said here have this... :)


This is just an example of the plethora of goods they had available for purchase at Paddy's Market

That night Wendy was still feeling way sick so Brighton and I, with Wendy still in our hearts, decided to go clubbing! They had heard from some boys they had met before I was there, that they should try a place called Pump House, which is right by Darling Harbor. So we went there only to discover that not only did the girls outnumber the boys 3 to 1 but we were pretty much the only white people in the whole place! Everywhere you looked you saw, Asians or Indians or Polynesians but none of our fair skinned friends!  haha It was way great though and the ratio of guys to girls did get significantly more balanced! It was a Hip-Hop club, and the way people dance over here is hilarious, it’s like they forget they actually have hips and that they can move them when they start dancing! Haha So needless to say we danced way different than everyone else and stood out just a little bit, which for anyone who knows me or Brighton knows that’s probably not a good thing, cause we usually stand out too much as it is! haha Also it’s interesting here, people don’t grind or freak dance, it was nice not having to worry about guys getting up in your grille! :) After dancing we went to McDonalds for a 30 cent cone, which has quickly risen to the top of my must do when you’re in Australia list, because everything else is so dang expensive! We met some boys from Turkey who were way funny but said in not so many words but in pretty much the same breath how much they hated America but all their favorite TV shows and movies were, strangely enough, American, explain that one to me chief?


"You can find me in the club bottle full of bud" or apple juice! On our way clubbin!

We took the bus home because the trains were down. On the bus there wasn't room for Brighton and I to sit next to each other so we were kiddie corner and this 50 year old drunk man gets on the bus on for some reason just starts talking to me, I didn't say anything and I couldn't even really understand what he was saying but he was just talking so much and telling me how much he loved his wife and that they loved each other so much they didn’t know what to do but he had met this girl and they were staying together but she would just beat the crap out of him then he started asking me about all these shops in America like Ross and TJ Maxx and if I knew what Jack in the Box was and I said Yes so he gave me knuckles and then said "God bless you" and kissed me on the forehead, I just froze I didn't know what to do! It was so funny Brighton and so many other people on the bus were just laughing so hard at me! Finally the seat next to Brighton opened up and there was a kid from Chicago in front of us that started talking to us to save us from the drunken kissing crazy man!!  Needless to say I washed my forehead with disinfectant that very night! Haha

Sunday June 29
Wendy’s ear was still hurting really bad and it had been leaking and oozing out and we just wanted to help make her better but didn’t know how! So after church we went to the clinic and she got some antibiotics and stuff, they have some type of socialized medicine over here, so it was pretty crazy how cheap the medicine was! It was cool to see how the doctor’s offices are set up over here and it was funny, none of the doctors wear lab coats, they’re just in their normal clothes and they think it’s weird that our doctors do wear lab coats!


This is waiting at the clinic, and even though Wendy still looks as pretty as always, she was not happy she had to come here and be sick!!

Monday June 30
This was the day that Brighton started her spell of this dang sickness we all had to catch! Wendy was still pretty sick too and I was finally all the way better, so needless to say I was a little restless and decided to go for a run to Bondi beach! It was perfect weather and I wished I had brought my swimming suit! But I just don’t think I’ll ever get over how pretty that run really is! And that really is such a beautiful beach!

Tuesday July 1
Wendy and Brighton were still sick, but Brighton tried work and only did a half day, so I decided to go for another run the other direction and got to see Coogee Beach and Waverly cemetery which is the huge cemetery with all these fancy headstones that overlook the ocean! It was very pretty! I didn’t bring a camera, but I’ll go back one day and get lots of pictures to post! Later on that night, we decided to splurge with our internet and got to watch another episode of So You Think You Can Dance! Although, I haven’t developed a connection with the dancers the way I did last year it still makes me giddy like a school girl every time I hear that intro music!


This was also the day I found my car's long lost twin, I've been searching the world over! Presley (my car) and Chester (the other car) were separated at birth, Chester seems to be in pretty good shape other than he got his fathers genes for driving on the left hand side of the road! I'm just happy to be a part of the special reunion that will soon take place!


Who says all Subaru owners are tree huggers?