Conference and Pancakes (again!)

Today was much needed! Seriously I am exhausted. The only reason I get out of bed is because I'm in Sydney Australia and I don't want to miss a second. Funny we had a two hour time change and I didn't think it would effect me that much but it really has! Plus going home is going to be a crazy adjustment because now home is 15 hours behind which will be awesome when it comes to readjusting to 'normal' American life.

So because of the time differences conference Sunday here is a week layer. We decided to make breakfast with pancakes and eggs. They were so yum!! I missed some of the first session just because I was skyping the family. I stayed in my pjs all day long and it felt awesome!!


After both sessions of conference I thought it might be nice to shower :). Plus we had promised Julie that we would meet her daughter. We ended up working something out and Julie's daughter came to the temple with her husband and 18 month old baby girl. It was so much fun to meet them. She made us biscuits (cookies) and we just enjoyed the view of the temple while we chatted. They dropped us back off at our place and we got ready for bed. It was so nice to be asleep by 10 :).

Feeding a Kangaroo and Dressing Like a Convict

Sara, Elise, and I were at the bus stop by 9 looking forward to a day at the wildlife park! We've heard that the wildlife park is a lot cooler than the Sydney zoo so that's where we opted to go. Almost 2 hours later we arrived (we had to ride a bus, then a train, then another bus thank goodness for that pass!). It was so awesome! We had a chance to feed kangaroos and pet them! I was surprised by how rough their fur was- it wasn't as soft as I thought it would be. Same with the Koala- yes we also got to touch and take pictures with a koala! There were little joeys poking in and out of their mother's pouches. Emus and peacocks were just walking around like they owned the place. It was incredible! There were also animals I had never seen before like Dingos (the coyotes of Australia  they look like dogs), Bilbys (rabbits are pests here instead of an Easter Bunny they have an Easter Bilby which makes more sense since they lay eggs (they are mammals though) and they are nocturnal), Echidnas, and Wombats (I touched one!!). There were also tons of birds from tiny finches to large eagles. All in all it was a neat experience!

We ate lunch while waiting for the bus to take us back into town. We got dropped off in time to catch the train that would take us to circular quay (pronounced key) and from there we walked down to the Hyde Park Barracks museum. Along the way I had my first taste of heaven- allow me to introduce you to Magnum bars! This is no ordinary ice cream bar- oh no it is so much more! I decided to go with the carmel flavor which was vanilla ice cream-covered in dark chocolate- covered in carmel- covered in milk chocolate. SO YUM!! We ate our bars on the way to the museum. This museum was one of the coolest museums I've been to and we had a coupon with our student ID that brought the cost down from $10-$4.

The barracks were where some of the convicts that were shipped here from London would stay. It was super interesting because I was able to learn more about the history and colonization of Australia through the convicts as well as a brief history of the aborigine people and their relationship with the british. They gave us a walkie talkie like thing where we would push a button and it would give us information about a specific room or place. Along the way we had the chance to dress up like convicts and chance ourselves to a chair :) (Mom aren't you proud?!) The barracks were also were thousands of Irish young women were shipped during the potato famine in Ireland back to keep them from starving.  I love learning about history that I have never heard before.

After the museum we walked through Hyde Park and on to Chinatown. The walk was nice. We got to see Darling Harbor which takes in part of the marina as well as a giant square with the largest IMAX movie screen in the world. By this point the sun had gone down and we got to see the city light up again. There are so many parks and beautiful squares that make the city look very clean and taken care of. We eventually came across Chinatown which turned out to be a street full of chinese restaurants with lots of people trying to get your business by holding out menus for you to look at. The coolest part was that we got to see giant crabs in front of one of the restaurants. We walked around for a little while and then decided to head back home.

After being dropped off by the bus we stopped by the grocery store (about a 20 minute walk from where we are staying) to get some food and such for the rest of the week. Although it was only around 9 by the time we got home we were again exhausted and ready for bed. Thank goodness tomorrow is our conference Sunday so that we can just relax and rest.

Me and a Koala!! 

The Wildlife Park

Feeing a kangaroo! 

Kangaroo and joey! 

More Mom and Joey! 

Wombats! 

Real Australian Crcoc! 

The most venomous snake of the world! Inland Taipan

Dressed as convicts... :(

Chained up... 

"Eating"

Hyde Park! 

Chinatown

Giant Crabs!  

 More Chinatown! 

Darling Harbor at night

More Darling Harbor 

Opera House Tour and Crossing the Bridge

My goal for Sydney: See as much as possible in the week I'm here.

So I was up and gone by around 9 to catch the bus. The other girls had gotten in yesterday morning but had left by 3:30am so they were all still pretty exhausted. All of them have tickets to see the ballet at the opera house but paying $80 for a ballet isn't really my thing so I opted to take a tour of the opera house instead. The tour was only $28 and I got to see all four theaters instead of only the one that the production is in. The opera house is amazing! Obviously the architecture is incredible but also the beautiful woodwork on the inside is also amazing. Funny- there are bright fuchsia pink seat cushions in the largest theater and bright purple carpet in one of the lobbies. As part of the hour long tour we watched a few video clips talking about the history of the opera house. I didn't realize how recently it was created- it was finished in 1971 after almost 20 years of work and millions of dollars (originally it was projected to take 3 years and only a few million dollars). I'd definitely recommend it as a must see in Sydney!

Afterwards I had about an hour before I was to meet up with some of the girls from the group so I walked over to the botanical gardens and ended up catching a tour of the government house. This house is where the governor (the first woman governor) of New South Wales conducts government business. The tours are only Friday-Sunday because the building is in use. It was really awesome! The building has been around since the 1800s sometime and looks just like a castle. We saw a gorgeous ballroom, dinning hall, drawing room, etc. It was so cool!

Then I met up with Elise and Sara at the harbor bridge and we walked all the way across it. It provided such a beautiful view of the harbor, the opera house, and the city. We got to take a ferry back across in time to walk back into the city and find dinner. We decided to go to McDonalds just because they were advertising "the taste of America" with their new New York, Texas, and California burgers. So we thought we'd try that taste of America and see if it was valid. It was pretty good but I'm looking forward to getting a real taste of America when I go home on Thursday.

Finally, we decided to walk around the harbor at night. The city lights are amazing and I loved following their reflection on the water. We wondered around the opera house again and then decided to venture home. We didn't realize that the bus from the train station (we were at a different train station) stopped going around 9:30 and we got there around 10. So we had two options- walk home or get a cab. We decided the best option was a cab- this decision was reinforced when a bunch of crazy rugby fans showed up clearly a little more excited than normal as well as groups of police officers bunching up around the train station. We made it home exhausted and very much looking forward to our beds! Boy was it a great day!! :)

Opera House purple stairs

This is the end facing the harbor. You can see the bridge through the "ribs" and the water through the bottom of the glass. 

The outside is covered in thousands and thousands of tiles made in Sweden. They are cream and beige colored that creates a cool optical allusion of a white opera house. 

The government house

Government house 

Cool windows of the government building

The backyard gardens 

View from the bridge

More view from the bridge 

View from the other side. 

A popular theme park underneath the bridge on the north side. 

Me! :)

Taste of America!

Here is their taste of America board. 

Revival, Exploration, and Trek

I woke up to a beautiful sunset popping up right behind the city. It was so picturesque! Nicole had meetings and then a special sisterhood event she was supposed to help with so I ended up tagging along. Her campus is basically just one big building a few blocks from her apartment building. We stopped by the grocery store (Coles) on the way to pick up some fruit for breakfast. When we arrived at her meeting I had the chance to meet other girls from Korea, Sweden, Norway, Chicago, and Germany. One of Nicole's responsibilities is to oversee the university students and make sure that they are adjusting well- especially because most of them are from overseas. This meeting was to talk about how they could do a better job of taking care of the students.

Next came the sisterhood meeting. Let me preface this by saying that this was a religious meeting for all of the girls attending the university (think of it kind of like a relief society meeting). It was cool because they had a great speaker that talked about staying on the path no matter how hard things get. But they also had a christian rock band and lots of praying. It was a good experience to understand more of their beliefs. It just made me more grateful for the quiet relationship our churches teaches us to develop with Heavenly Father. Before the meeting there was a lot of mingling and I got to met even more of Nicole's friends from everywhere. Random- one of her friends is from Twin Falls Idaho and he knew some of my roommates even though he is a few years younger. It was cool because everyone was super nice but it was definitely a unique experience :).

Afterwards we stopped by the store again and bought the ingredients to make some soup for lunch. It was yum! Nicole had some classes to go to for the rest of the afternoon so I took the liberty of exploring the city! It was about an hour walk from Nicole's apartment to the opera house- not a bad walk. It was amazing!! I walked past the Sydney hospital, parliament building, New South Wales library, plus tons of museums. I also walked through Hyde Park (probably a relation way down the line) and finally arrived at the beautiful opera house! It's funny but my first thought when I saw it was "wow it's actually real!"

I walked all the way around it before walking over to the royal botanical gardens and just chilling on a hillside enjoying the view of the gardens, the harbor, the bridge, and the opera house. It was beautiful! Finally, I had to turn around and start walking back. I met Nicole back at her place and we had a dinner of spaghetti before she dropped me off at the bus station. This is where the real adventure begins- I had to ride a bus, two trains, and then walk about an hour with my wonderful suitcases of stuff (only because the buses stopped after 9)... Never have I been more excited to see an apartment complex in my life! It's actually wonderful because we are staying in temple housing only about a15 minute walk from the temple- there's a giant kitchen, internet and a giant room full of bunk beds for all of us. Plus I had a friend that hooked us up with this place and she had pizzas waiting for us. Oh it was the best!

Sunrise! 

Hyde Park

Museum Entrance 

St. Mary's Cathedral

Sydney Tower

Opera House! 

The city along the warf! 

The bridge! 

More of the city

Close up of the opera house

Inside of opera house

Nice reminder :)