David Down Under - Relaxing In Adelaide

This week has been pretty mellow.

Last Saturday I got to see Vlad play footy for the first time which was entertaining.  He talked a lot about playing while he was in the states so being able to see that he actually is good was fun.  I also feel like I know all the rules at this point.

Later that night a bunch of his friends came over for an early birthday celebration.  We headed into town and went to a bar for the night.  It was lots of fun.

Monday night we drove up a big hill to the "Secret Garden" which provided a pretty amazing view of Adelaide.  We then drove by the talk of the town, a very large Krispy Kreme, which opened about a year ago.  Sometimes it's the little things in life...

On Wednesday we headed to town during the day to explore.  We walked around the University of South Australia and then through various parts of Adelaide.  Our last stop was the Botanic Gardens which is the only place I remembered to take a picture this week.  Whoops.

Botanic Garden

On Friday, Vlad and I, along with two of his sisters, saw Ant-Man.  They somehow knew about a restaurant that secretly sells cheap movie tickets which was great because normal movie tickets here are  $20+ dollars.  Cinemas assign seating here which I found to be interesting (although it seemed like no one actually sat in their assigned seat).  The movie was great!  I recommend.

A bit later we headed over to Vlad's uncle's house for dinner.  I also got to meet a few of his cousins.

When we got back to the house, we headed to a bar in town to watch one of Vlad's friend's band play.  They were great although the group after made me want to leave ("Matthew McConaughey" appearing to be their hit single).

Vlad has another footy game today which I'll be headed to soon and then we're going into town tonight.  Should be fun!

For future plans, we've bought tickets to Melbourne so that will be happening in a few weeks.  We were trying to get to Ayers Rock but I highly doubt that will happen.  It is insanely expensive to get there and there's not a whole lot to do when you're there so we would be spending probably around $1000+ each to get there and then essentially turn around.  Not really worth it.  We're looking into other things to do instead.  I pitched Kangaroo Island which is near Adelaide but nothing is set yet.

That's all for now.  Bye.

David Down Under - Sydney and Gold Coast

For the first time in 10 days, I can take a breather (and a little more because it took me a while to write this/put it up).  After a brief, one day, pit stop in Adelaide last week, Vlad and I headed to Sydney.

Sydney

What should have been a quick flight ended up taking a lot longer due to plane delays.  When we arrived at the airport, we took a short train into town.  It's always so convenient when the train station is in the airport.  More places need to do that.  We were able to find our hostel with not too much trouble and quickly settled in.  There was an Australian Rules Football game of Sydney vs. Adelaide we wanted to go to so after a quick "feed," we walked the 20ish minutes to the stadium. 

Aussie rules football, or "footy," is not really like any game in the US.  The easiest thing to compare it to is Gaelic football.  From my understanding (I think I've got most of it down), there are 18 players on each side of the field.  The ball is similar to a rugby ball.  Players can run with the ball in their hands but must bounce it about every 15 meters.  They can also kick the ball in what I can only equate with a keeper punt in soccer.  To pass the ball, players essentially hit the ball out of one hand using a closed fist with the other.  To score, there are four posts.  Kick the ball between the middle and it's worth 6 points.  Kick it between the outside poles and it's 1.  That's the bare basics...I think.

Sydney ended up winning although it was a close game until the end.  Footy is pretty rough.  They don't wear padding and the tackles are intense.  One person got knocked out which I'm surprised didn't happen more. 

The common idea that Australia is always hot is very wrong.  During the day it averages 55-60 (it's winter here) but during the night it gets cold.  Sitting through the game was a bit of a struggle as it was freezing.  The wind didn't help.  

The next day we were ready to explore.  Our first stop was Hyde Park followed by the Royal Botanic Gardens.  Both were very picturesque.  From the garden, we walked to Ms. McChair's chair (actually called Ms. Macquaries Chair).  On the way, we got our first viewing of the Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge.  The chair wasn't really a chair and wasn't really that impressive but the walk there and views of the harbour made it more than worth the trip.

Hyde Park

Gardens

From there we headed to the base of the Opera House.  It looks very different not seeing it from the side.  All the pictures I've seen have been from a certain angle showing the whole building.  What I didn't realize is that it's actually separate structures and from the front it sort of looks like big church buildings.  The actual material on the outside is ceramic tile which I also did not know.  After spending some time looking around outside and grabbing some food, we pushed through the crowds and walked across the Harbour Bridge.  Although a bit shorter than the Brooklyn, this bridge was long and large and offered even more amazing views of the harbour and Opera House.  Google tells me it is the world's largest steel arch bridge.  

Once the bridge was crossed, we walked to the water and Luna Park.  Although I've never been, this placed looked/felt exactly like Coney Island (or what I get from the pictures).  After giving our legs a much needed break, we made the hike back to the hostel.

On Friday, we took a train to Bondi Junction and walked the remaining way to Bondi Beach.  Beach-wise, it was just another beach.  However if I was a surfer, I would have been like a kid on Christmas morning.  The waves were incredible!  We ended up walking along the coast to Coogee beach where we got fish and chips (and prawns...not shrimp).  

Not me

Another long walk back to the hostel.  After a brief recoup, we chose a club close by with free entry and had a good night out.  Happy 4th.

While Vlad slept half the day on Sunday, I ventured out and ended up at the Anzac War Memorial.  Going down some stairs, I stumbled across the museum below the building.  It was interesting reading about Australian war history because I know nothing about it.  After wandering around some more I headed back to the hostel to find a still sleeping Vlad.  When he finally woke up, we walked down the main shopping area and then made our way back to the bridge to see it at sunset.  We came at the perfect time and it was pretty spectacular.  For dinner, we made a stop in China Town and got a ton of food for cheap.

War Memorial

Monday was...well Monday.  Let's leave it at that.

So Sydney.  The first thing I though about while being there was how similar it felt to New York.  A lot of the landmarks felt like things we had seen in New York.  Although there were a bit less, the amount of people felt similiar.  One thing I was impressed with was how even though Sydney has big tourist destinations, I never felt overwhelmed with touristy things.  It could be because I try and avoid those things but even walking through those crowded areas, no one was trying to sell me stuff or get in the way (besides the tourists standing in the middle of the sidewalk trying to figure out where to go).

Gold Coast

Monday night we made our way back to Sydney airport and headed to the Gold Coast.  When I travel, there are three things I have planned in advanced: how I'm getting to where I'm going, where I'm staying, and how to get to where I'm staying.  We only had 1/3.  When we got to Gold Coast, we quickly found there was a public bus that took us part of the way to our hostel.  Having no idea where to get off the bus, we went to the last stop where the driver had to tell us to get off.  We then got on a tram and ended up getting to exactly where we needed to be.  A short walk later and we were at the hostel in Surfer's Paradise.  The big surprise for us was when we were showed to our room and they had changed our 4 person room to a private 2 person.  Excellent!

We were pretty hungry at this point and ventured out to get food but almost everything was closed at 10:30 (we found out the next day we just needed to walk two streets down and we would have been at the main shopping street).  We settled for half-decent kebabs and a pizza.

Tuesday morning we started what was to be 3 days of theme parks.  First up, Dreamworld.  Dreamworld is apparently the "Disneyland" of Australia.  We started off full strength with The Giant Drop.  For a while, this was the tallest tower drop in the world.  It's essentially a free fall from 115 m in the air.  I'm pretty comfortable taking big falls but this was definitely a massive whipper.  Good times.  Because schools here are on holiday for winter, there were a lot of kids and lines were long.  We did manage to get on the rides we wanted though so everything worked out. 

Giant Drop tower

Another part of Dreamworld had a bunch of Australian animals.  We got to see a dingo, koalas, insanely big crocodiles (looked like something out of Jurassic Park), kangaroos, and much more.  The kangaroos were the coolest for me.  They were free to roam about the area and we got to feed/pet a few of them.  It was crazy watching their movement, especially how they used their tails.  In that same area I saw the biggest pelican of all time (I believe it was an Australian pelican).  It was pretty far away so I couldn't see its size relative to anything but it was massive!

The next day was Wet'n'Wild.  It was very cold outside which made going on the water rides pretty rough but there were hardly any lines.  The craziest ride was this thing called the 360 Rush.  You put a pad on your back and get into a tube.  The floor drops and you shoot down an almost vertical tube.  I normally don't get too hyped up over rides but not going to lie, this one had me a bit on edge.  It ended up being really fun but was definitely intense.

Part of the tickets we bought included entry to SeaWorld.  Yes, I've seen Blackfish.  Yes I know it's horrible but it was part of the ticket so we briefly went after Wet'n'Wild.  We saw some animals and went on one ride.  It felt like we did everything in about 2 hours so not sure how people make an entire day of it.

Is it trying to kill itself?

For our last theme park day, we went to Movie World.  The best ride (and my favorite out of all the parks) was the Superman Escape.  It goes from 0-100 km/h in 2 seconds and doesn't let up.  So much fun!

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So yeah that was the trip.  I was kind of shocked that everything went so smoothly.  We did get a bit of a surprise when we got to the airport on the way back to Adelaide when we saw our flight decided it wanted to leave early.  Luckily it takes about 10 seconds to get through security and we easily made the flight.

One thing I always forget to factor in while traveling is rest days.  These would have been much appreciated on this trip but we prevailed.  Now I'm back in Adelaide for possibly 2 weeks to relax.

That's all for now.  Bye.

David Down Under - Are We There Yet?

Oh boy two in one week.

Despite the highly disorganized check in process for Delta at PDX, everything went smoothly.  We were delayed about 15 minutes which was actually kind of nice because it made the wait in LA a little shorter.

When I got to LA, I headed straight for the wonderful In-N-Out.  Lugging around the backpacks wasn't too much fun but I forgot all about the aching shoulders whilst devouring my double-double. 

Pro tip: If you ever have a lot of time to spend at LAX, get on the free shuttle bus which takes you to long term parking lot "C."  From the first stop, take a left off the bus and then a right onto Sepulveda Blvd, walk down the street a few blocks, and you just scored yourself a free ride to In-N-Out.  To get back, head to the same parking lot and hop on the shuttle again.  I wish I could take credit for this but my friends on the TripAdvisor forums are responsible, so good on them.

Seeing as I was in the back of the plane, I boarded first.  My first thought was how hard the seat was but I was very happy with the amount of leg room.  Well done Virgin Australia.  The flight was long.  No no, it was really long.  I believe going from the US to Australia is one of the longest flights you can do.  Although the 14ish hour flight felt never ending, it got to the point where I sort of accepted what was happening which caused it to go faster. 

When we finally arrived in Sydney, I could not have been more relived to get off the plane.  Going through customs was one of the fastest things I have ever done.  They had machines set up that scanned your passport and then they essentially did a facial recognition match to make sure you were the one using the passport.  No human interaction was needed which made the process insanely fast.  It was one of those times things went too well where I felt like I had done something wrong because of it.

Alas, I escaped customs without getting detained and made my way to the last leg of the never ending journey.  Going through security was way different than it is in the US.  I forgot I had a full bottle of water in my carry on and they didn't care.  I never had to show my ID or ticket.  Everything was may more relaxed and it was a nice change.

 The flight to Adelaide was only 2 hours and flew by in comparison to the previous.  It was one of the most empty flights I've ever been on.  I actually got an entire row to myself until the captain said people needed to rearrange because the plane was weighted too much on one side.  When we landed, good old buddy Vlad was at the airport to reunite and pick me up.

This was kind of terribly written but I haven't really slept in over 48 hours so that's my excuse.  Headed back to Sydney tomorrow and then the Gold Coast!

That's all for now.  Bye!