04.-12.03.2018 SYDNEY

Finally in Sydney, I went on a journey to find a Western Union – turns out nobody on the airport knew what WU even is and that pretty much every office of the Australian Post has Western Union included. In the end I got the money and a prepaid sim-card as well and arrived safely at the hostel. It wasn’t the fanciest location and in comparison with every hostel in Japan pretty filthy, but after getting used to it, I really liked it there.

I spent quite some time chatting with other people at the hostel, it was mostly occupied by guys that were in the city for Mardi Gras, which took place one day before I got to Sydney. Looking back, I’m a bit bummed that I was (only!) a day too late to experience it… Ah well.

In the evening, I met up with the couchsurfing-host I was planning on staying with after my 3 nights at the hostel and we had a pretty good time: He showed me his favourite spot with a view of the Harbour Bridge and the opera house among other things.

The next day, I went to the botanical gardens with two people from the hostel, one of them being a German girl, Ina, the other a guy from Brisbane, Brad. He had extensive knowledge about all the birds around us but knew almost nothing about any of the plants, it was quite funny. We also went to see the Opera house, this time at daylight and from a much closer distance (yeah we touched it.). On the way back we came across a huge catholic church, we didn’t go further inside however, since they had mass at that time.

In the evening Brad demonstrated his amazing skills of cooking potatoes in the microwave and it was decided that I have to marry the Austrian guy that left the day I got to Sydney and lives in a town of about 150 people near Oberpullendorf in Burgenland. I was not the biggest fan of the idea.

The following day I explored a bit of Sydney on my own by foot and later had coffee with an English guy living in Sydney at the moment. Afterwards a guy from Brisbane showed me around, I got to see Darling Harbour at daytime, the Town Hall (not very special) and other things I don’t remember the name of.

Back at the hostel I got to know two British guys and we decided that we’d go to Bondi beach together the next day, which we did. We took the wrong bus at first and had to walk an additional 40 minutes to the beach, but some ice cream on the way made up for that. We then chilled on the beach the whole day, the waves were pretty strong but it was lots of fun.

Sometime that day the couchsurfing-guy told me that the bed & room I was supposed to sleep in was going to be occupied by an AirBnB guest and that I would have to sleep in his room instead – I was obviously NOT okay with that and fortunately managed to get a place to stay at someone else’s place.

In the hostel, I was persuaded by Ryan to go to the “Language Exchange Meeting” at the Prymont Hotel Rooftop in Darling Harbour with him, it’s an event that takes place every week and is supposed to get as many people from all around the world together.

Everybody there got a flag with his country of origin and flags of the languages he wishes to practice today, I decided to maybe work a bit on my French. I got to know loads of great people from everywhere, including a guy from Biel (Switzerland); a Viennese girl; a few Brazilians; lots of Frenchman and a Chilean. Ryan and me swapped numbers with lots of them, but I had to leave suddenly when my couchsurfing-host (James) told me he was done with work earlier than expected and that we could meet up now.

We went straight to the house in Newtown and after being told where everything was, went straight to bed.

The next day James showed me his neighbourhood, I was especially impressed by all the beautiful murals and other artwork in the area.

In the afternoon, I went to a meet-up set up by a really sweet girl I wanted to stay with, but who sadly couldn’t host me. The group consisted of us, a French couple and a Polish guy, we all got along really well.

In the evening, I went back to the hostel for some crappy wine (goon of course, as is Australian tradition) with the British guys, then one of them (Hayden) and I went out clubbing. We first searched for a club called “Ivy” that was supposed to be awesome, but we were thrown off the idea by two local girls coming from a “The Butterfly Effect” concert, who told us it was a tourist trap. Wandering around in the street we then met two other girls from Sydney who took us to a pretty nice club, where Hayden managed to constantly get free drinks. Afterwards, we ended up in some bar near Central and suddenly, there was an Artists-pass to “The Butterfly Effect” on the table.

I spent the next day sleeping in and chatting with the guys back at the house, James’ housemates are seriously awesome. Later I met up with the one girl to give her the Artist’s pass, I could feel that that would be like the best day of her life – I would have loved to go as well, but I guess it was the right decision – she actually got to hang out backstage and was more that just thrilled about it.

Afterwards I met up with Diego from the Language Exchange Meeting and one of his friends, we had a great night out in some Latin-American club.

I spent the whole next day at the house, just chilling with Patti, David and James and researching what I should do the following days.

I got up pretty early and took a train to the Blue Mountains, where I purchased a ticket for the “Explorer” Bus going through the Katoomba-area (it’s a hop-on, hop-off bus).
I saw lots of things there and hiked through the area for quite some hours, taking the bus from hike to hike. Some of the sites I remember seeing were:
Katoomba Falls/Cascades

Reid’s Plateau
Furber Stairs
Juliet’s Balcony
Scenic World (with a former coal mine)

Vera’s Grotto
Prince Henry Cliff Walk – various lookouts

Giant Stairway
The Three Sisters (& Honeymoon Bridge)

Leura Cascades

After coming back to Sydney, I met Diego again for coffee and then spent the evening at James’ in Newtown. In the morning, I packed all my stuff, had a chat with James and then went off to Wollongong, my next stop.