Sunday, October 21, 2007

Sydney

Happy, safe and settled in Sydney! Although I was "warned" by almost everyone in Bakers Hill that Sydney was horrible, I love it (just as I expected). It really is one of the best cities in the world, and I've just started exploring it. The best part has been travelling with Jill again, and seeing Louise. Jill met me at the train station and helped me get my luggage back to the hostel. We're staying at one of the cheapest hostels I could find ($22 AUS a night per bed) so I'm pretty thankful that it's very safe, reasonably clean and well-located. Supposedly there are even free pancakes for breakfast, but we slept in today and had fruit smoothies instead. We're still getting our bearings in the city and doing a lot of walking. We're scoping out the "must-dos" that we'll be willing to spend money on, and anything that is free. Yesterday we got some terrific pictures in front of the Opera house, but I can't upload on this computer, so you'll just have to wait. The train ride went really well, by the way. 70 some hours in one seat is slightly tiring, but I had good books to read, I enjoyed the scenery and I got some really good sleep! People were really friendly, the food was pretty good and the showers had surprisingly good water pressure. I took a tour of the gold mining town of Kalgoorlie and saw a "superpit" open cut mine that is three kilometers long and 400 meters deep (and runs 24 hours a day). By the way, try saying "Kalgoorlie". Pretty impossible to pronounce it with the r and l, eh? Thankfully Aussies drop their r's so it's actually Kalgoolie. And talking about funny names, we're staying in a district of Sydney called Woolloomooloo! Anyway, I'm out of internet time. Hopefully I'll put up pictures soon.

Posted by Kathleen @ 1:02 AM