Well, I've been here a few days and am almost adjusted to the time change... sort of. I have trouble staying up past 9 pm and gerneally get up around 5 or 6. I remember having the same thing last time, and it wasn't fun waking up that early every day and not being able to go back to sleep. Slowly, I'll adjust. I suppose it didn't help that the first night I got in to Sydney I wasn't able to sleep. I got a quick cat nap on the plane to Sydney to Brisbane, but that was about it. I immediately went for food at Pancakes On The Rocks and got a nice Aussie Sunrise breakfast with a cappuccino to try and keep me awake for the next 12+ hours. The bacon was just as delicious as I remembered. Salty in the best possible way. I milked my time in the restaurant since I didn't have anywhere else to go...
Eventually I left and sat in the stairwell outside of the restaurant. I had downloaded Frozen ealier and thought, 'we'll I'll just watch this to keep myself awake.' Now, I like Frozen, but not to the point of watching it two times in a row... which is what I did to keep myself awake. Granted I did get up and walk around for about 10 minutes between them, mainly because a late night cleaner came into the area and I thought it would be curtious for me to leave while he did his work. When it was finally about 5/6 in the morning, I decided to amble around the city. Luckily, the city is pretty safe, so there's nothing wrong wth walking around alone by yourself at night.
I don't even remember where all I wandered too, it's a bit of a blur. FINALLY, though, it was time to meet with my bank and get my cards. I had to reorder another card, because for some reason they just give you a savings card and you can't purchase anything online or with credit on it. After that it was a quick trip to get a SIM card then off to catch the train to my hostel in the Blue Mountains. (After I got myself a Boost juice in a Big Hero 6 kids cup, of course! - It was the only thing I'd had to eat since my intial meal about 10 hours prior).
It was about a 2 hour train ride to the hostel. I didn't sleep on the way there because I was trying very hard to force myself to stay up and adjust to the new time. However, by the time I checked in and saw my bed, I couldn't resist. Considering my last actual nights sleep took place on the floor of the Honolulu airport, I caved quite easily. I initially decided to take about a 2 hour nap and then get myself together to go back into Sydney for the fireworks. I thought I could maybe cheat it and see the family fireworks at 7 then turn tail back to the hostel. Well, 5 pm came, then 6, then 7, and by that time I had completely give up and decided to see if maybe I could sleep through the jet lag and wake up refreshed in the morning... It kind of worked. The sleep helped me get sorted a bit, but I still woke up at 5 am and couldn't go back to sleep.
I knew there was a Coles (grocery store) close by that opened up at 6 am, so I decided to go there for some food. Excpet I forgot that it was New Years Day, a holiday, and many places have adjusted or no hours. Sure enough, the earliest thing to open up was Woolworths (yay!) at 8. I meandered until then and I bought my college standard diet of bread, peanut butter, jelly and ramen. Oh, and some shapes and granola bars for good measure.
Once back at the hostel, I decided to get an early start on some hiking. I took a trail, and basically followed it through part of the Blue Mountains. I took a couple of detours (I think) and found myself at my desired destination: Echo Point. This is where you can see the Blue Mountains going into the distance and the Three Sisters rock formation appear to the left. After some photo work, I continued down another path that was supposed to take me to Katoomba Falls. I say supposed to, because I did get to a "fall" a small one, and it appeared that it was it, but I swear I could hear larger ones in the background but couldn't locate them.
After about 3 hours of hiking, and realising how out of shape for it I was, I grabbed some lunch. Then I was bad and took a nap. So much for powering through my jet lag! But it was only for like and hour, so chill, I wasn't being that bad. I wandered around for a bit, grabbed some extra essentials, and then grabbed some dinner. I looke dup som more jobs and purused some pictures then, at 9, I couldn't take it any more and I went back to bed.
I managed to get an extra half hour of sleep, but I was still up around 5:30. This wasn't too bad though, because I was plannign on catching an early morning train into the city to go to Taronga Zoo. I made myself some lunch for the road, then trekked on up the train station. The trains were easy to navigate, it was the ferries where I had trouble. Honestly, it's not my fault, Googe maps with public transport led me astray. After struggling trying to find the correct warf, i finally asked someone and was put in teh right direction.
The ferry ride over gets som pretty cool shots of Sydney Harbour. The zoo was quite nice. You get to take a gondola ride up to the entrance and you get to see a nice birds eye view of the zoo. In total I spent about 4 hours exploring, I even got to see a seal training show, and of course, I snapped some pictures of the stage and trussing they used in their concert section so we can have ideas for our own equipment. i had also successfully kept myself awake long enough where I didn't have the chance to take an afternoon nap - take that jet lag!
I constantly have to remind myself that the sun is much stronger here. I put on SPF 50 sunscreen, but still got some color. I even got a little red, but it's gone away since then. I managed to miss my train back to the hostel my literally a minute adn watched as it pulled away and I was forced to wait another hour for the next one. I killed time by texting my sister (thank you T-Mobile for free texting and data while abroad). By the time I got on the train, my phone was almost dead. I dind't have any books, paper, nothing. I managed to scribble down some story notes on part of a map my hostel had given me, but there wasn't much room. Eventually I was left to my own devices and tried not to laugh whenever some inside joke happened to pop in my head.
I made myself some dinner then watched Bolt (yes another Disney movie, they're the only ones in iCloud for me, so I watch them... but not Frozen for a while) and then went to bed at a staggering 10 pm. I know right, I'm so cool... not! My late evening gave me an extra half hour of sleep, I think I see a trend. So, 6 am was wakey, wakey, eggs and bacy time... except for me it ws peanut butter and jelly, again.
Seeing as it was early afternoon back home, I decided to try Skyping some of my family. I was able to chat with my sister and nephew fror a bit and later my dad when he came home. I was also able to apply for quite a few jobs and hopefully one of them will bite. I took a walk around town. It's very touristy, Katoomba, and reminds me quite a bit of Nisswa from back home, at least when it comes to all its kitschy shops. Afterwards I got a few more Skype calls, from my oldest sister then mom. My dog was quite confused my all of it. He could hear me, but didn't quite know what to do. Every tiem someone said "it's Celina," they would start barking, run to the top of the stairs and wait for the door to open.
And now here we are. I wisened up and downloaded some books so the train rides won't be quite as dull. I'll post up soem pictures here in a bit, and continue to put more up on Facebook as well. Happy New Year and I hope you all are doing well. :)
