Day 18: Monday March 30

   You know how I said that Friday is Friday no matter where you are in the world? Well, the same goes for Mondays. My alarm went off at 6:30 am and my mood could best be described as "not feelin' it." But today was the day for my second observation so I dug down deep, put on a dress and smile, and headed to school. The universe was looking out for me though because the only class we had for the day was our beautiful year 10 English during second period.
   The lesson I was teaching was poetic devices. There is a competition in Australia called the Dorothea Mackeller poetry and the teachers have really been pushing for all students to participate. So Beats decided to work it into their assessment for the term and everyone will be writing a poem connecting this years topic, The Open Door, and the novel they just finished The Power of One." For my lesson we first discussed what they thought makes a poem a poem, then I gave a slideshow on various poetic devices that they were able to take notes on. Afterwards, I had them partner up and gave them some poems and they had to find the different examples of the devices. The last step was to have them write their own short poem using at least 4 of the devices. Since this is a high level class,  the students worked quite well. I established expectations with them and created a listening cue that they responded to nearly every time. They are kids so they were a little chatty but proximity monitoring seemed to work well. Of course, many of them complained about having to write a poem and struggled to get started with it but we talked it through. For those struggling, I had them first pick a topic (I gave a couple of suggestions- dream job, family, school- but they were allowed to pick their own) then write down any thought or word they had about the topic. Then they created circles where things connected in their thoughts. The last step was to manipulate the words to fit under one of the poetic devices category. Before they knew it, they had a poem. It was a lot of fun getting to know the kids and hearing about their interests. I helped one girl write a poem about Grey's Anatomy, another about kickboxing, and one about a cow. The only thing I would've changed was a comment I made about letting them chat. My teacher pointed out later that I "had them" and therefore should've "kept them." Overall though I'd say the lesson was quite successful.

Talking to one of my students about how awesome her poem was

    The rest of the day was pretty relaxed. We had a PLT (professional learning team) meeting after school. It was the first time I've really gotten to see some inner-workings of the school. We talked about updated procedures and also the 10 essentials of teaching. We also had one of the teachers present about Google Apps for Education, which is something I've used before in the US and it's super cool. After that, a couple of the teachers and our principal took all of us out to dinner at a place called Debacle. They had two for one pizzas that were amazing. I thought the uni pizza was good but I swear this was better. I had one called the Carnivore- so good! After a long weekend though I went home and called it an early night.

Day 17: Sunday March 29

    Today started off pretty awesome as I got to video chat with my dad finally. It was nice to finally see him and just get to talk. Two weeks is a long time to go without talking to your parents so this is a reminder to anyone who hasn’t talked to theirs recently: give them a call! Afterwards, Terri picked us up and made our way over the bridge into downtown to the Old Bus Depot Market, which is exactly what it sounds like.

It’s a giant warehouse-type building that used to be a bus depot and now, every Sunday, a bunch of street fair/booth vendors come in and sell, well, everything: jams, peanuts, meat, paintings, crafts, books, jewelry, baked goods, candles, anything! I, of course, bought way more than I should have. But I couldn’t resist! I swear I could spend all my money there. I forced myself to leave after my third or fourth purchase (who can keep track?). I met up with the group at Brodburger where I literally had the best burger of my entire life.

I mean I want these served at my wedding; I want to eat them every day for the rest of my life. Of course, then my life would be quite short but it’d be so delicious. They’re also huge, like bigger than my hand. I could feel my arteries clogging but it was well worth it.

"Floating Figure" by Gaston Lachaise

    After lunch a small group of us went to the Australian National Gallery. Emily’s teacher’s husband works there and offered to give us a free tour. The gallery itself is free but doesn’t offer guides. We went through the sculpture garden, the Aboriginal section, and the contemporary corner.

"Ik Ook" by Mark Di Suvero

In the reflection of "Ik Ook"

There is so much influence from the Aboriginal culture and the desire for equality; it’s amazing to see. David (our guide) explained how the missionaries saw the work the Aboriginals were doing in the sand and encouraged them to record them, some even on bark.

Me with an Aboriginal slit drum

Aboriginal story vases

By Australian artist Daniel Boyd

    Our final stop was the James Turrell exhibit (which David got us special passes into). It was incredible. Turrell is an American artist that works mainly with light and space and how they work together. He uses light projection to create a heavy affect and is known for creating a room as his work in order to control his viewer’s perception. He once cut holes into walls of his hotel to learn more about the different times of day and how it affects the light in the room.

My favorite piece we saw, "Barmah Forest" by Lin Onus

One of his major works is called Roden Crater, which is an old volcano that he is turning into a naked eye observatory. He also is known for creating Skyscapes, where he creates a hole in the ceiling and uses the light and shaping to change the way the viewer sees the shape and colors in the room. We weren’t allowed to take pictures in the exhibit and it’s so hard to describe the full effect of it but it was truly amazing. Once we returned home the rest of the day was all planning: trip planning, lesson planning, dinner planning. I was happy to call it a night when the time came.

Day 16: Saturday March 28

    I’m always torn on the weekends between relaxing and doing things (I know some of you are yelling “Do things! You’re in Australia!” but we do still have a work week here). This weekend there was a nice balance though. Saturday morning started with a boat tour of Lake Burly Griffin. It’s a man-made lake in the center of Canberra named after the designer of the city, who was actually an American. It was beautiful and sunny out and there weren’t many people so we got to sit on the front of the boat the whole time.

    They gave us descriptions of everywhere we went and we got to see all the monuments and a better view of the parliament house. The center of the city is designed like a triangle with two bridges being the two sides, the parliament house being the peak, and the civic being the bottom.

It was about an hour long and it really did give us some great views of the area. Plus, we had some champagne, which makes everything better.

Jason and John being weirdos in the backseat

 
    Back on land, we split up and I headed back to the villa for some leftover fajitas. Refueled, Christy and I dragged the boys out and we all hit up the botanical garden for the Flora the Explorer tour! Which was actually just a one of those long golf carts driving us around but it was still cool.

The lemon tree

A bottle tree that stores water in it's trunk

Australia's desert biome

In the rainforest

We saw all the different biomes of Australia and some seriously funky looking plants. This also included a tree that straight up smelled like lemon pine sol. We walked the boardwalks in the rainforest then headed home.

Me with the bust of Sir Joseph Banks, an Australian naturalist 

 


















The rest of the day consisted of my relaxation. I spent 2 hours just lying in the sun by the pool then another hour actually in the pool. Well, technically the hot tub. But the pool is ice cold and the hot tub is like luke warm so it evens out. After the sun went down, the goal was to lesson plan. But I discovered that Forest Gump was on and it was the very beginning and I’ve never seen the entire movie all the way through (I know, shock, gasp. But it’s always only been bits and pieces). Turns out though that that movie sucks! I mean obviously it doesn’t actually suck, it’s actually so good but it does suck because it’s so sad! (SPOILER ALERT) Like the love of his life just doesn’t get it and is kinda not a nice person to him and then they finally get together and then she abandons him and then keeps a son from him and then eventually they get married and then she DIES. WHAT EVEN. And don’t even get me started on Bubba or Mama. After that emotional roller coaster, I left a note for Emily and then decided it was time to get some sleep.

Day 15: Friday March 27

    It doesn’t matter what continent you are on or what time zone you are in, Friday is always a good day. And mine was made even better by the fact that we had a relatively easy school day. I met some more new classes; we talked about anecdotes and how to structure them. I was happy to see some familiar faces in our last class; turns out that the year 10 foundational class I was teaching in with Mel has Beats for SOSE (social studies) so I was reunited with them. We learned about the atomic bombs dropped in Japan and it was nice to be able to add to their learning as well as provide additional information. It’s so interesting to read our own history in another country’s textbooks.

    After school we made our way to the mall. John and I went out to buy a going away gift for Karen (a pair of earrings and some matching bangles cause she loves her bling, as well as some body lotion). Then we hit up the grocery store because it was: Friday Fajita Night! Yup, we had another BBQ as a going away dinner for Karen. Guess what I tried this time? Crocodile. It was a little chewy but didn’t taste too bad; it was actually kinda bland. Definitely could’ve used some barbeque sauce. It worked though because I followed it up with three chicken and pepper fajitas, which were amazing.

    Since we didn’t have to be up too early the next morning, we hung out in the boys villa and got to know each other really well with a little game called Never Have I Ever. For those of you who don’t know it, you put up 10 fingers and go around in a circle saying something that you’ve never done but suspect other people have. If you’ve done something that someone says, you have to put a finger down. We didn’t play it just like that, we instead just raised our hands when we’ve done it but it was fun nonetheless. Of course that’s pretty much all I can say about that, given the topics discussed. After we had embarrassed ourselves properly, someone got the brilliant idea to set up a confessions booth in one of the bedrooms, Real World style. We had a blast just goofing around and pretending we were on reality TV. And yes, we are adults. After all that, we had one more activity left: to polka! Turns out several of our members are Polish and one of the boys was appalled to learn that none of us knew how to polka. So, we put on some music and he taught each one of us step by step. It was a blast and we heard some classics like “Roll Out the Barrel” and “Who Stole the Kishka?” Once everyone had danced themselves out, we hit the hay.

Jason teaching John to polka

Now with Laura

Day 14: Thursday March 26

    Today I got to meet my real teacher, Melissa Beattie, and she is amazing! Not that I don't love my other Mel, but Beats had a more similar teaching style to my own. She's very funny and likes to joke around and tease the kids, but also has the authority and respect of the classroom that the students know when it's time to work. She has developed excellent relationships with her students so there is an equal amount of give and take between them. She's also just a really good teacher. She knows how to breakdown explanations for her students and understands where they might struggle. Since I have a new teacher, this means I also had new classes, some of whom I got to meet today. I met the year 10 English advanced class, which is wildly different than our previous year 10 English, since they are foundation. I also met a new Link class and overall some new students.

Mel and I

    Today was also the day that our "new" supervisor came in. CMU sets it up so that one professor brings you here and halfway through goes home then another comes and takes you back. So Teri flew in and we celebrated by having dinner at the Duxton. It was a nice welcome dinner.

Day 13: Wednesday March 25

    Today we were off in the morning then on all afternoon. I was able to get some work done in the staff room before heading off to year 10 English. This class is doing an in-class next week but because they are low literacy, they need a lot of support in the preparation of the essay. We decided that for the day I would work individually with students on their introduction paragraphs. I’ll admit I was a little nervous because, as I’ve mentioned before, this class is quite energetic and not all that interested in English, as well as being low. But I’m happy to say that my expectations were wrong. Turns out that when the students are separated from the whole class, they are actually quite interested in getting help. I had several students tell me they understood it better because I had sat with them alone and explained it. This is the kind of thing that made me want to become a teacher. It was made all the better knowing that the students were having these ideas themselves, all they really needed help with was a few tweaks here and there. Unfortunately I know they don’t see themselves as smart and therefore they don’t have the best view of themselves so I made sure to tell each one of them how well they were really doing on their own. After this, we had our usual SSR Link class (I truly love SSR) and then English with the year 7’s. They’re currently working on typing up their narratives so it was a pretty easy class. It’s amazing what you learn about twelve year olds when you give them a little creative freedom.

    Since today was Wednesday, we headed straight to the uni after school. This week we did individual pizzas and, much to no ones surprise, I ate mine all in one setting. I really can’t get over how good the food is. Afterwards class was first focusing on the things we wanted to take with us. A couple of things mentioned were patience, politeness, activeness, rewards, and environment. The rest of the night was spent on portfolios. It was late though so I caught a ride back with Karen and called it a night.

Day 12: Tuesday March 24

    There’s not much to say about today. We had years 7 and 10 English today, as well as year 8 social studies. Most of our classes are currently working on projects coming up, such as essays and reports, so there wasn’t much to do other than keep students on task and answer any questions. The end of the day was interesting as we had a Professional Learning Group (PLG) meeting. This is where teachers who are working on similar projects or committees meet and collaborate to benefit the school. Our meeting was on Response to Intervention (RTI). For those of you not in the education world, RTI is a three-tier system designed to identify students in general education that may be struggling and to provide assistance to them, in combination with the curriculum. The system was created to intervene and catch the students who are struggling before they fall too behind. Tier one is called the Core, after the common core standards that we teach, and 80% of students will only require this tier. This is where students are receiving the common core through differentiated instruction and it is successful, therefore they require no additional assistance. The second tier is called Core and More, where students receive additional outside assistance in whatever area they are struggling in. About 15% of students will require this but no more. Usually this is either small group during free or after school times. The third and final tier is called Core Before, which means that it is the last step before looking at special education. This is where a student receives whole group (core), small group (more), and one on one (before) instruction. If a student continues to struggle after this tier, the next step will be to look at special education. About 5% of students will require this tier. RTI can be either for academic or behavior issues. KSS has only just started implementing RTI and they use only academic right now. This is where their Links classes (the literacy program that all students attend) come from. What’s interesting is that RTI is something that has been around in the US for several years now and is something that all teachers (at least at CMU) have been trained on. It’s cool to see the early stages of implementation in a whole new school.

     After a quick stop at the grocery store, I made it back home and spent the rest of the night doing very little. However, I did cook myself dinner for the first time since I’ve been here! I’ve been living off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and dinner for the past week or so and I really needed a change so I made pasta! Admittedly all I did was boil some noodles and pour sauce in but it was a win in my book. Plus I even picked up some fresh broccoli to cut up. After that it was dishes and bed before 8:30. I know, such an exciting life.

Meet the family

    So I’ve been talking a lot about our group but I haven’t really introduced them. There are 10 of us total, 7 girls and 3 boys. Our brothers are Jason, John, and Eric. Eric is our younger brother that gets picked on quite a bit. He’s very friendly and also single, which leads to him being teased about hitting on girls. In fact, we’ve been spending time coming up with new pick up lines that he gets to try out. John and Jason are our entertainment. They do impressions and goof around. John is also our resident “waver” meaning every morning he waves the bus down for us. They’ve started coming up with a new wave every day. The other day it was raining and they started doing the “Singing in the Rain” dance with their umbrellas. They can be heard watching any sport, which here includes rugby and cricket, from any of our villas. They are also renowned in our school for being able to eat. A lot. The first week they helped in a cooking class that was making dumplings and when their teacher came back to the staff room, she went, “Those boys eat, and they eat so much!” The sisters are split into two villas. Lillian, Beth, Laura, and Christy are in one. They are an energetic group with a passion for teaching, healthy foods, and cheap wine. They are also the world’s fastest walkers and are impossible to keep up with. Our final two (not counting myself) are Emily and Sivan, my own roommates. We are goofy and loud and our place is always a mess. Currently there are clothes laid across almost every surface of the place, including pants draped over the curtains and bras hanging off the painting. There’s always food being made and the smoke detector seems to go off a lot. Lastly there is our mom, Karen, aka our supervisor/professor. She takes care of us, drives us places, makes sure we have everything we need, and does her best to try and make us work. We left home as strangers and will be coming back as family.

(From left to right): Laura, Sivan, John, Beth, Jason, Emily, Christy, Eric, Lillian, and me

Day 11: Monday March 23

    The start of our second week was a bit rough. After our long weekend in Sydney, everyone in the group wanted to call into work. Unfortunately, there’s really no such thing as that for teachers, especially if you were like me and you were teaching a lesson that day. Luckily it is an even week and on even weeks I only have two classes and one Link on Monday, both in the afternoon. Link is the literacy program at the school that every single student attends at the same time for 30 minutes every day. See, because the teacher I am with is an executive teacher as well as a year leader, she has a smaller class load than other teachers so that she can fulfill her other duties. This is also great for me because I can see another side of teaching where you’re not actually in the classroom but instead you’re working with and helping students and fellow teachers in another way. Even though we were technically “off” all morning, there was still plenty to do. This gave me a chance to work on my journals and portfolio as well as prepare for my first official lesson. I also got to see a high level Link class where students receive time for free reading, which I believe is incredibly important at every age.

    Finally, the time came. The period started at 1:20 and Mel had them for the first half then handed it over to me at 10 ‘til. I did my best to pretend I wasn’t nervous. The lesson was on irony and the three types of it: verbal, situational, and dramatic. This was our year 10 English class and they are all low literacy and high behavior so I knew I needed to make it both clear and fun. We started with a few slides and some guided notes. Even during instruction my style isn’t pure lecture, it’s more of a call and respond where I would give the first bit of information then ask students to help me build the rest. This gives them a chance to make connections and ask questions as well. Once we knew the content, I introduced an activity where I would present pictures or situations to them and they would decide which type of irony it was, then respond accordingly, such as either sitting down, standing up, or raising their hands. Our last step of the lesson was assessment. I made a mini-quiz where the students partnered up and the team with the best score would get a prize.

     After we had finished I realized that the lesson had actually gone pretty well. I was nervous because this class can be quite rambunctious and being a new teacher to them, who knows what they were going to do? But luckily they were the best I had seen them thus far. They also seemed to enjoy what we were doing. Looking back on it, there are a few changes I would’ve liked to make. For one, although they enjoyed the movement in the second activity, it seemed almost too much for them and it was a little difficult to pull them back in. If I were to do something similar, I might stand create hand gestures for them to respond with so that there would still be movement but they would remain seated. Also, I would work on establishing a cue for when they needed to be quiet. They are a talkative bunch and a couple times I found myself yelling over them. Instead I’m thinking that a raised hand may work better. Overall though I loved being in front of the classroom and had a lot of fun navigating a new set of students.

    After that, the rest of the day was a breeze. I participated in a staff meeting where we talking about Google apps for education and how we can get the most out of them. With Google, we are able to share files, work collaboratively on any assignments, and give students fast and accurate feedback. They even have self-grading quizzes! Once I got home I hit up the pool and spent the majority of the rest of the night relaxing. Although, being the second week, it finally came time to do laundry. And guess how much it is? $4!! I honestly don’t know if that’s a lot at home or not but it seems like a lot here. And that was just for the washer! It was an extra $4 to dry. Opting out of that, I hung my clothes out in the “drying area” where lines are available. This was working wonderfully until about 2 am that morning when it started down pouring. Needless to say the clothes are now lying out to dry all over our villa.

Day 10: Sunday March 22

    Our second day in Sydney was just as jam-packed as the first so I was pretty happy to have started the day out right (meaning I got 7 hours of sleep while my fellow travelers got about three). I made a new friend, Barbara, in the bathroom (yes, this is a thing girls do anywhere). She heard my accent (that I apparently have) and we got to talking about where we were from and what we were doing in Sydney. Turns out she’s actually from Canberra and is part of the choir and they were there competing this weekend. I was also able to grab a “recovery breakfast”, as they called it, which was a bacon and egg sandwich. But not just any sandwich, an Australian style one, which means a toasted sub bun, thick bacon, and nice, runny eggs. Even though I didn’t need any recovering, it was still delicious.

    Our first stop today was the Sydney Tower Eye. Similar to the Sears Tower or the Skylon Tower in Niagara Falls, the tower eye is the tallest building in the city and gives you a 360-degree view of the entire city. 

It was so gorgeous! Seeing the harbor and the bridges and all the islands around us was amazing. I spent awhile just sitting on the window bench and enjoying the view. It was only the morning though and we had a lot to do.

   

 After the tower we made our way to circular quay (yes, that did rhyme) and caught the “Famous Manly ferry” which takes you off the mainland and over the to the island of Manly beach. It’s about a 30-minute boat ride and it gives you a great view of the opera house from the water, as well as the coast further away from the center of the city and the islands around. There were so many boats out as well, it was a blast just watching the sailboats and speedboats race around each other. Fun story- we decided it would be a good idea to sit in the very front of the boat in the open part in order to get a view of everything. This was going wonderfully until we got closer to the rest of the boats and the water started getting a little rough. The waves were fun to ride on until they came splashing over the side of the boat and drenched us. Of course I had just moved to the outside edge to get a better view. Good thing it was hot out and I needed a cool down but for the rest of the day, my hair looked like a hot mess.

    

       Manly Beach may have been one of my favorite spots so far. I am such a sucker for beach towns and Manly was the best one I’ve ever been to. It was quite similar to South Haven or Grand Haven back home but bigger and with gorgeous weather. There were shops all along the cobblestone and it led straight from the harbor to the beach, which had soft sand and the most beautiful teal blue water I’ve ever seen. 

I could’ve spent the rest of the trip just on that beach. But, I tore myself away to explore a little more, which I’m so glad I did because I found a small street fair with the cutest little booths. I swear I bought something from at least four of them. It would’ve been more if I could’ve gotten all the stuff home. I wanted to stay on Manly for the rest of the day but I knew there was more in Sydney I wanted to see as well. Two days just isn’t enough to do the area but it’s a start. I grabbed a quick Subway lunch (just to get a taste of home) and caught the ferry back.

     

This was the first time I had been on my own in Sydney. Canberra was easy now, especially compared to Sydney, but I was pretty impressed with myself that I knew what wharf to get to and what bus to get on next. Once I was back on the mainland, I headed down to darling harbor again, this time to check out the opposite side. I find a whole new strip mall that we hadn’t seen and at the end was the best part: Hard Rock Café! How could I have not thought about a big city like Sydney have an HRC? This is the reward I get for being brave and venturing out on my own. By this time I figured I should pull out the map and try to get back to the hostel and in doing so I came across something even better: Marketplace City. When I first walked in, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Imagine a giant warehouse and it’s just rows and rows and rows of different booths, similar to comic con or craft shows. Now double it and put a second floor on it and that’s the marketplace. There were hundreds of booths ranging from food to clothes to souvenirs to Halloween costumes to wigs to electronics. I was on stimulation overload. I was also in love. If you haven’t realized at this point, there was just no stopping the shopping. I could go to that place every weekend for the next year and still find things I want to buy. I walked as much of the first floor as I could before it was getting close to our bus time and I had to leave. Keeping a mental note of it though for if I ever get the chance to come back. By the time I walked back and got all my stuff around, it was time to get on the bus.

Day 9: Saturday March 21

    So the Murray bus is kind of becoming our best friend because it takes us the three hours between Sydney and Canberra. We grabbed the 8 am bus and arrived in the city around noon. We hopped off and started pulling out the maps trying to figure out what road we needed to get the hostel. We spent about 10 minutes trying to find out where we are (they don’t have street signs on the corner, they’re on the buildings) before looking up and realizing that our hostel was literally right in front of us. Turns out the bus station is just across the street. Gotta love traveling. We stayed at Sydney Central YHA, which stands for youth hostel association. 

Now I’ve personally never stayed at a hostel before this but I have a feeling that we were pretty lucky because it was quite a nice place. The YHA is a worldwide association and they take really good care of all their places. There was wifi and a café and nice clean sheets. What else could you need? Besides, we weren’t interested in spending much time in the room anyway; it was time to explore!

    Sydney was not exactly how I pictured it but I was in love from the moment I saw it. What’s great about Sydney is that is has both the city feel and the beach feel. There are three main areas of Sydney: Darling Harbor, which runs along the right hand side, Circular Quay, which runs along the southern boarder, and then downtown, or central, which is literally the middle of the city. Of course, this is only one the mainland. You can take the harbor bridge across and find so much more or you can take the ferry to any of the smaller islands. For anyone trying to make their way around the city, the main roads to know are George, York, and Pitt streets all running North and South then Margaret, King, and Hay all running East and West. Additionally, the green 555 bus is free and will take you to most the main areas along George Street, which is essentially the main shopping strip. Think Michigan Avenue in Chicago.

     Our first stop was in Darling Harbour. We walked down, checked out all the ferries and boats coming in and stopped at the Tokio Hotel for some lunch. The food here is just so amazing! I had an Aussie omelet, which was ham, tomato, spinach, and onion with some kind of special sauce. No idea what it was but I would put it on any food ever. After lunch we split up and a small group of us went to the Sydney Aquarium that is actually right on the harbor. Now, I’ve been to quite a few aquariums before but this one was just amazing. The very first exhibit was a little baby platypus and I could’ve watched him try to dig and swim around all day. 

Then there was an interactive stingray tank where you could sit in a little bubble and it made you feel like you were in the tank. 

                            They also had two tunnels to walk through; one was manatees and string rays and the second was the shark tank. They would just glide right over you and come right up to the glass. We also saw a small penguin exhibit and it was so bizarre to me to see them just laying in the sun and swimming around. I just always associate them with the cold. There were so many other tanks as well of pretty much anything you could think of; jellyfish, sea horses, there was even a few turtles! We spent several hours just looking at all the amazing sea life. I could’ve probably stayed all day but there was more to see.

    Our next stop was the Sydney Wildlife Center, which was right next-door. This was a little smaller than the aquarium but it still had some amazing animals. Of course, we saw a ton of kangaroos (including little joeys!). They were very chill and just enjoyed lying in the sun.  We also saw an echidna, which is only one of the three mammals that lay eggs instead of live birth. They look a bit like a porcupine. We saw some wombats and quokkas as well. Our last stop was at the koalas and they are so cute! All they do is sleep and eat and lay in the sun- what a life! Here is where I actually got to get up close and personal with one. As cute as they are, the claws on them are seriously terrifying. You gotta be careful around those guys.

     Next up was one of the most iconic Australian spots: The Sydney Opera House!

The house is located in circular quay and is just as beautiful as everyone says. It’s so big that trying to take a picture of it and get the entire building is quite difficult. 

We walked the steps and even stepped inside to get a feel. It was so surreal knowing that I was in the place I used to dream about as a kid. 

We had heard from nearly everyone that before we left, we had to stop by the opera house bar so that’s where we headed next. It’s an open bar all along the edge of the harbor next to the house and gives a great view of both the house and the harbor bridge. Even though we weren’t drinking, it was just amazing to be able to say we’d been there.

      By now it was getting dark and the city was lighting up. The opera house, the bridge, everything was shining in the dark and it couldn’t have been prettier. There was even a carnival across the bay. Unfortunately it was late and we were quite tired so we caught the 555 one more time and made our way to the hostel. The rest of the group caught second wind once we got back and decided to go experience the Sydney night life but I knew we had a big day ahead of us tomorrow so I stayed back. Had a quick yet delicious chicken caser salad down at the café then called it a night, drifting off the sounds of Sydney.