Monday, November 22, 2010

21!!!!!!!!!!!

11.21.10

Well,

Wednesday was the day I started packing up. I did very little packing and just relaxed since I only had a few days left at kings. That is until about 9:45pm. This is when I went to the bus station to head to Indooroopilly mall. This was opening night for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part 1. When I got to Indooroopilly, I filled in some crossword puzzles waiting for Jessica to show up with other girls from Women’s College. They finally arrived at 11:30. The theaters we went to had reserved seating so there was no need to wait in a line for 5 hours beforehand to try and get a good seat. The place was nearly empty until about 11:15. I enjoyed the movie, it was much more hilarious than I was expecting. Afterwards, I hitched a ride from one of Jessica’s friends back to King’s.

Thursday, I essentially finished packing except for the miscellaneous thing’s I used that night and on Friday. This took me most of the day since I had to empty out my closet and desk. I also had to do laundry so I had enough clothes to last for my trips with my parents. I filled all three of my suitcases and about 10 plastic grocery bags to fill the empty suitcases being brought by my parents. After I got done and felt that I had everything either packed or ready to be packed after I used it, it hit me that I was leaving Australia very soon. Even though I am excited to go home, I am going to have a tough time leaving. So to make myself feel a little better, I went up to see Gets, the head porter. Before I could really say much he asked me if I wanted to get some pizza and we headed to La Porchetta in the Vil. We got a Margarita pizza and went back to King’s and ate and talked for like an hour or so. It definitely cheered me up. After that I went to bed.

Friday was the 19th of November, aka, my birthday. Even though turning 21 here is not as climactic as it is in the states, I was still very excited. Unfortunately, this was that day I had to say bye to most of the people at King’s. I woke up early to make sure I got to see Lido and Wendy in the dining hall since they both leave for holiday and won’t be there when I return on December 1st to pick up my stuff. After having breakfast, I once again relaxed for most of the day. Since it was the end of the semester, most of the guys had left or had family visiting and so there wasn’t really anyone to do anything with. For lunch, I went to the kebab and pizza place in the Vil for a beef and lamb kebab and chips. It was really tasty. After lunch, I started to move all of my things up into a storage room since I couldn’t use my room for storage. I took about half since the rest still was not fully packed. For dinner, I found a place in West End that served kangaroo and I really wanted to have kangaroo for dinner on my birthday. I invited a group of people but Jessica was the only one that could make it; some were in Tassie, some had family visiting, and other just couldn’t make it. We met at about 5:30 to catch the 109 to the city to do some last minute souvenir shopping before heading to food. I made a reservation for 7pm and since I was unsure of the restaurant’s exact location, we wandered around West End until we found it. The place was called Tukka. I got to have my Kangaroo and I had a glass of wine. It was delicious. I am very happy that I will be able to drink when I return to the States.

I only got two hours of sleep Friday night due to anxiety for Saturday. I got up at 3:30am, left my room, turned in my room keys, and caught a taxi to the airport at 3:50am. For the third time, I flew to Sydney. My flight was at 6:00am and I managed to get to my gate by 4:30. I watched videos and listened to music on my iPod while waiting for the sun to rise and to board. When I got to Sydney, I got my luggage and headed to the international terminal to meet my parents. Once we found each other, we got a taxi and headed to a different Travelodge than the one that Erica and I stayed in at the end of September. Check-in time was at 2pm and since we arrived before lunch, we put our bags in their storage room until we could check in. we walked over to the QVB to walk around and take photos. Then we went to Darling Harbour to take more photos. After that we started walking back to our hotel and stopped at a Pie Face to get lunch. Since this was my parents’ first meal in Australia, I figured they should have an Australian food of meat pies and sausage rolls. After lunch we were allowed into our room. Luckily, our room is on floor 13. Once our bags were moved into the room, we left and headed towards the opera house. We caught the 3:15pm “Essentials Tour” through the opera house. Unknown to us, Saturday is matinee day so there were performances happening in almost all of the theaters. The theaters we were allowed into were the Studio, the opera theater, and the concert hall. We were lucky since we were not going to be able to get into the opera theater because of the ballet but it got let out just before the end of the tour. After we finished the tour we stopped in the gift shop and then headed to jetty #6 at Circular Quay. At 5pm, we left on our cocktail cruise. We sailed around the harbor for about an hour and a half and got some great pictures. We had a Sydney Bay Breeze, which was our complimentary cocktail, and a snack platter with cheese and olives and such. Then my dad got a gin martini, my mom got pink champagne, and I got a Mojito. After we returned to Circular Quay, we walked back to our hotel, stopping at some souvenir stores. Since we were not very hungry, we went to McDonald’s for dinner. Then we returned to the hotel and went to bed.

On Sunday, my parents were up early still trying to adjust to the time change and I slept until 8:30. We headed towards town hall and stopped in Woolworths for breakfast. I was just planning on grabbing a doughnut or something like that but we found they had a café on the top level and so we had a fairly large breakfast. My parents got to try the Australian breakfast sausage and we had eggs and toast. I had one and a half cooked tomatoes since neither of them wanted theirs. From there, we walked across the street to the anchor at Town Hall to catch the walking tour of the city that Erica and I took. The tour guide was the boyfriend of the tour guide that Erica and I had. The tour was just as good as I remembered it and I got another one of their awesome maps. The tour, again, took about 3 hours. Since it was the weekend, there was a market in the Rocks. We walked through them and headed towards the Hero of Waterloo to grab a beer. My mom had Pure Blonde, my dad had a pilsner, and I had Tooheys New. Tooheys is my favorite beer that I have had in Australia. It is so nice to be able to grab a beer with my parents, finally. After refreshing, we went to walk across the Harbour Bridge. After taking more pictures of the opera house and Circular Quay, we walked back across and over through the rocks. Once we got back across my mom needed a restroom and we stopped at the Australia Hotel. While my dad and I waited, we looked at the menu and noticed that they had kangaroo, crocodile, emu, and tons of other pizzas. So, we made a reservation, ran to a few souvenir stores, returned, and ordered a half and half Kangaroo and BBQ Emu pizza. We again had a beer with dinner. My mom had a Blue Tongue, my dad had a Beez Neez, and I had a Fat Yak. After dinner, we thought about possibly going to the Sydney tower or the other tall lookout. In both places, it was a bit expensive and not entirely worth the money to go to. While we walked back to the hotel, we stopped at Pie Face once again to grab a couple of their mini dessert pies. We had cherry, chocolate, and pear and ricotta. We ate them back in the room. Then we all went to bed.

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