Trip to the City

So we didn't have time to blog yesterday, although we also didn't do much yesterday. The day before we had gone into the city for the day.

Little story. Right before we took off to Australia, Stephanie and her dad ran into the clerk of the Legislative Assembly in Regina and he had offered to email the clerk in Sydney to ask if he could give us a tour of the Parliament Building. Russell Grove, the clerk here in Sydney, emailed him back saying he would be more than willing to do that for us. So on Thursday we met up with him. He is a very nice and sociable man. First, he took us into the legislative assembly's chamber where he just got to know us. THEN, he let us sit in the speaker's chair where he had a fellow worker come and take pictures of us to send back to the clerk in Regina. How cool?! Then he kept taking us through areas of the building that said NO PUBLIC ENTRY. I felt pretty special! It was so cool. There was so much that we got to see. It was a really neat experience and we learned so much about the history of the government in Australia. They start session in March and so he gave me a card and told me if I would like to come watch I could just call him up and let him know I am coming (apparently they are much more rude to each other here than our legislative assembly. Would be interesting to see...lol) (Stephanie would also like you to know that she watched me type this part so she was actually a part of this blog. hahaha)

Next, we headed off to the Botanica Gardens, it is very huge and full of beautiful trees and flowers. We came up to the Harbour and had a wonderful view of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. We walked a long side the harbour (with many rests because it was so hot!) and eventually made it inside the beautiful Opera House. We decided to take a tour since it looks like we will not be getting tickets to the show we wanted to see. We learned all about the history of the making of the building and got to go inside every theatre except the second biggest one. The theatres are not really that big. But they are meant to be more personal and intimate. The tour was totally cool.

Finally, we decided to walk to the wharf where we would catch the ferry back to Manly and meet Kristin for supper. We only got to see a quarter of what we wanted to see. We will be going back to the city on Tuesday when we have to go pick up our van. We may go and tour more then. Manly has a beautiful restaurant with live music. The food was also yummy. Steve, Kristin's boyfriend also came for a visit. He is a pretty cool guy! I got to see some really big cochroaches...Sick! We also looked at the stars. Are their constellations different than ours?!

Yesterday, we tried to wake up early enough to see the sunrise. We caught just the end of it. We woke up at 6 and then RAN to the beach. We watched it then started walking along the beach to Long Reef. It was about an hour walk on sand. Definitely, a work out I will be trying to do when I get back here. We went to a look out point where we could see almost all the heads of the Northern Beaches. Of course pictures do not do justice at all. We walked back down the road and stop at a little cafe for breakfast and then had a little morning swim. In the afternoon, Stephanie and I went to Manly to return her bathing suit and get a new one ( her bathing suit was falling apart.) Then we headed of the the Warringgah Mall, which they said was nothing special. It was huge. Definitely bigger than all of Regina's Malls combined. It was pretty overwhelming. We also spent the day riding buses. All of the bus drivers were quite rude. Made the trip more interesting. Our first bus driver started driving away before we even paid so here we are falling all over the place trying to hold on to our change to give to him.

Last night, we went over to Kristin's friend's house, Alicia. She cooked dinner for about 6 of us. It was delicious!!

Today is going to be a super hot day! I don't know what we have planned for the day but I know we will be going to her mom's for supper.

That's all for now.

Holly and Steph.


Oh, p.s. in the previous blog when I said they were funnel web, they weren't. They are called Red Backs. But they are still just as deadly as the funnel webs.