June 11- First Day at Sydney

The flight to Sydney was really uneventful.  There was barely any turbulence, I didn't sleep but I didn't just sit there like a zombie, and the food was ok.  I don't mean to sound like such a debbie downer, its just that when I described the past plane rides, they sound so eventful :) When we got to Sydney, we went through customs, security, got our luggage, and left the airport.  We went straight to the hotel but we just dropped our bags off.  After everything was off the bus, we head out (on foot) to the city.  We stopped at some cool looking buildings and we walked through some parks.  We passed a really cool fountain too!  I also saw a giant life size game of chess going on which I had never seen before.  I really wanted to play :)
For lunch, we went to a giant mall!  It was like three hawthorn malls put together! We had some lunch at the food court but we didn't go around the mall because none of us were really in the mood for shopping.  Instead, we went outside and watched some street performers! They were jump roping but it was more like extreme jump roping! They would go really really fast, double dutch, even flip in the middle of the ropes.  I donated some coins because they were awesome!!

After we regrouped with everyone, we all headed off towards the Sydney Tower!  We all got to go up to the top of the tower.  I'm not talking about the tippy tippy top of the tower, I'm talking about the observation deck.  It was like a big round room with a gift shop in the middle and the outside of the room all had giant windows that you could look out of and see the entire city! It was a great view. I even put me head against the window at an angle so that I could look straight down onto the city! It was pretty exciting/nerve racking!  Megan, Jenny, and I went to the gift shop in the tower, just to look around.  We found alot of intresting things including a coozy with a not so appropriate picture on it and a genuine kangaroo scotum (sorry if I am not allowed to say that on my blog).  Apparantly they are a really popular thing for tourists to buy.  We didn't get one but I think some boys in our class did :)  We found these really cool aussie hats that looked like cowboy hats but way cooler.  We tried them on and the cashier lady just laughed and told us we look great.....and they we should buy them because they were only half price!!!! She sounded really excited but then looked kind of bummed when we put them back on the shelf.  The hats are made

out of some kind of leather material.  At a different store, I think I saw some that were made out of kangaroo!  I don't think these hats were though :)  They smelt like new shoes or a new car in a way!  After we played around in the gift shop, we continued looking out onto the city.  There were big giant binocular things that you could use for free to view the city up close.  They were cool to use if you were holding them still but if you were looking into them and then move them really quickly, you get a headache feeling in your eyes! (sounds weird huh?)  After the tower, we took went on the tour of the rocks, which was just a tour by the water.  We saw the bridge and the opera house but we didn't get very close.  After the tour, we went to a popular outside market.  It started to rain but there were tarps above keeping everything and everyone dry.  We really didn't see much at the market.  We saw alot of over priced things but we found a couple of little things that were cool.  The only thing I bought was some fudge, rasberry and aussie mud :)