Sydney calling!!

Our days spent in Sydney could not have been better planned! The morning we arrived at wake-up, our hostel there, the dark clouds loomed. What better to do on a dark day than the aquarium, apparently Australias number 1 tourist attraction. Well i'm not sure about that but it was damn cool, you literally walk under tunnels with sharks flying above your head. Sharks the size of me! Sting rays too-and all those other fish things! The powerhouse museum is pretty cool too-it has a mixture of all things, including Australian history and culture. My favourite part has to be the ecological section-which of course they would have, being as green as they are, and I even found out my carbon footprint is 5 acres! (Ruthies was 8-haha!) That evening we visited the spanish quarter-and what better to do there then enjoy some tapas-mmm.

We had read somewhere along our travels of tropfest, the largest short film festival in the world, held in Sydney and coincidently the next day! The sun shon brightly and 30,000 people came, picnics in tow, to watch the films, listen to the bands and generally soak up the atmosphere and amazing weather. Australians seem well practiced at picnics too-with picnic apparatus like you've never seen! The atmosphere was simply incredible!

Of course no trip to Sydney would be complete without a trip to the opera house and bridge. Another gloriously sunny day we headed out to get some of our obligatory pictures. The opera house is quite something! The bridge was a sight too, we contemplated walking across it but decided to be content with just imagining the walk. Instead we walked over to the rocks, an old-london style area with little ally ways and streets, and of course shops! Oh and a guylian chocolate cafe!!! To complete our tourist filled day we spend sunset up the sydney tour, their equivalent to the empire state building, and viewed the city in its entirity. Its amazing how 80% of Australias whole population lives on only 1% of its land!

Next thing on our list was Bondi Beach-the world famous, and clearly no secret. Again blessed with brilliant sunshine we relaxed and enjoyed the beach, although not the ocean seeing as over 150 people were stung by blue bottom jellyfish that day! Later in the day we walked to coogee beach, an hour and a half coastal walk which took us to another, and Australia seems to be full of them, cute beach town. That evening we checked out some of sydney's best nightlife, followed by a five star kebab (from which our mouths are still burnt!)!!

Our final full day in Australia, tear, and we did what we do best, shopped-funnily enough on 'oxford street'-although more notting hill then oxford street we walked and shopped until we were finally defeated (and suprisingly bag free)! Our last evening we went to, as we had enjoyed it in Melbourne so much, the moonlight cinema for another great picnic event! This time we saw breakfast at tiffanys and delighted in our hired bean bag beds!!