i've got nothin this time.

melbourne is just Sydney all over again, as a result, we don't really find it that attractive, in fact it is even more sydneyish than sydney itself. by that i mean, sydney is all about it's culture, arts, museums, cool looking buildings. i think melbourne has even more of it. we checked out an art gallery here and were bored out of our mind within 2 mintues, we are officially sight seeinged out. don't get me wrong, it is a sweet place and has a great downtown with lots of pubs, cafe's and jawdropping scenery, we're just over it. federation square is pretty cool, used to be an old rail yard that has been converted into this uber modern array of abstract steel structured buildings that house, you guessed it, galleries, museums and cinema. last night darcy and i just chilled in one of the covered promenades over a good beer (pepsi for darcy) check fbook for pics. right now we're staying with this guy called PUD, he's a big aussie dude, lives an alternate lifestyle but is a sweet dude. bin good to get some free accomodation and have a house to chill in. the other night we had a bbq which was awesome, something we haven't done since byron bay. he also took us out in the fishin boat for a quick spin the other night as he just got it fixed and needed to test run it. let darcy and i run it for a bit, not too difficult but still good times.

before this (sorry, i'm a terrible backwards storyteller) we spent a couple days on the Oz experience bus again with our ADD driver forest. this took us from sydney down to melboure, we got dropped off in canberra to visit a couple guys we met in surfers, canberra is not hightly regarded in australia although i must say it is a really nice city, it is primarily a university and government town and was actually designed completely before hand by an american guy. as a result the town feels like seattle with wide streets, lots of green space etc. i think that's why we liiked it. although it is true that it is a pretty quiet city, despite being 300,000 strong. sydney and melbourne hate it cuz they were both competing to be the capital and so parliament just decided to build a brand new city and had a competition to design one, thus canberra was born. k so back to our mates, we crashed at their dorm for a couple nights and i just relived my uni days during exams for a bit. was a good feeling not to have the stress everyone else had though. checked out the war memorial in canberra which is huge and elaborate. had some great cafeteria food and hung out there chattin for hours, just like the old days. after canberra we got picked up again and bussed the rest of the way, stopping at Mt. Kosiosko. This is where the skiing is done in australia, we did an amazing hike that took us to the highest point in australia, i even used the highest toilet in australia, which was on the mountain, yup cool story i know. being on the mountain and chairlifts made darcy and i really homesick for snowboarding and can't wait for the season back home. the next day on the trip we stopped at Wilson's promontory national park, but darcy and i and forest just went for a surf session rather than checking things out, the waves were big though so it was tough.

so yah anyway before that we were in sydney, like i said before, just a lot of site seeing, we did go up the sydney tower and had some fun taking pictures through the telescope, we also bought ourselves a pair of australian boxer breifs while we were up there. we've kind of been on a bit of a binge lately on concerts and shows, in 5 days we went to two concerts and a cirque du soleil performance, we went to a seether concert that darcy wanted, basically just spent the whole time in the mosh pit, pushing and shoving for position, i didn't really focus on the music much but it was a fun little challenge to try and stay close to the front of the stage. the other concert was Xavier Rudd, a local australian artist who uses lots of local instruments in his music, was a good concert but more chill for sure, then in Canberra (i hop around again, sorry) we went to the cirque performance, paid $120 for our seats, ouch, but it was amazing and a great time. anyway there's a ton more but we have to go back to pud's we're gonna have another bbq and then go out on the town once, we haven't gone out for a while so it should be fun. enjoy and like i said, check fb for some new pics, still missing there are our skydiving pics and those from the seether concert.

pining for a simpler time.

Alright, we've just made it to Sydney last night, however this does not feel like anything significant for any reason regarding momentus occasions in our travels. It's great but nothing special...if that makes any sense. anyway part of what's great is the hostel we're currently staying at. The Sydney YHA central is more of a hotel than a hostel, as such it charges like one too, we're now up to $36/night. which is a far cry from the 20-22 we used to pay up in cairns. it is really nice though, 7 floors, hundreds of rooms, great facilities, modern design and spaces. and very central (in case you didn't figure that out) i think my conception of a hostel is somewhat false, i always thought they were just previoulsly built accomodations that were purchased second or third or... hand and then just converted. but in our travels today we a sign for a new yha that is being built just a few blocks from us...a brand new high rise(ish) building in downtown sydney! i think they're charging us backpackers too much if they can afford to do that. any that is just my opinion. that obviously was not the best thing we saw today. darcy and i walked around for a good 5 or 6 hours today and checked out various buildings and monuments, including the sydney opera house and the sydney harbour bridge. the opera house was good to see however i must say that there was more satisfaction in acknowledging that i had now been to sydney and seen it, rather than satisfaction from actually gazing at it. we did do the tour inside although we had to debate it for a bit. it was really cool inside and i got some fairly decent pictures, even though our tour guide said we weren't allowed in certain areas, screw that, i paid 28 bucks to get in so i took pictures. i just always stood or sat behind her so she didn't see. anyway still not sure if it was worth it but i think i would've regretted not doing it as i'm not gonna be here often. from there, after meeting friends from past travels on two occasions, we checked out the sydney harbor bridge. the bridge was cool but once again for me more of a "check off the list" than a real desire to see it. Don't get me wrong, it's all great and i love the fact that i'm here, it's just i found myself pining for the relaxed beaches of byron as soon as we got to our hostel in sydney last night.

speakin of coming to sydney, our bus driver for the past couple days has been a riot, i swear he has ADD, but he has been a lot of fun and made the bus ride fly by. he has been informative and inspiring believe it or not about the area, really helpful, and really freindly and inclusive to everyone on the bus, this i guess wasn't too diffifult as there were only 10 of us on a 37 seater. on this journey from byron bay we had a one day stop at surf camp which is some random town between the two. darcy and i have our own boards and have surfed a bit now so instead of the lesson we just threw on some wetsuits and headed out with our bus driver for a session, the waves that day were a lot of fun and we also got a few pointers on how to do better, was a great day and i ended up staying out for over 5 hours, outlasting to surf lessons that came and went. the only reason why i could do this though was cuz of the wetsuit, and as such it is goint be something i will have to look more seriously into as normally i get frozen out of the water after an hour or so. that night the camp had another halloween party (i'm going backwards in time here, sorry, i'll get to the first one shortly) but we were too tired to really participate, a group ended up sitting around the fire (which i've really missed in our travels)and listening to a fellow canadian who worked at the camp play us a number of songs, some covers but also a bunch of originals, he was really good and made the fire that much more enjoyable, even if he was dressed up in a diaper and a green wig as one of the cabbage patch kids.

ok so now the day before, it was quite an eventful day, we were up at 6am just because we thought we should stop wasting mornings here in australia...yah ok you're right, that's a bold faced lie, no we got up cuz we were going skydiving!! the reason we were out so early was because the winds were going to be strong that day. anyway it was amazing, we got to the site, geared up, hopped in a plane with 3 other canadians (from calgary), sprialed our way up to 14,000ft, jumped out with our instructors (it was a tandem dive) 70 seconds of free fall, deploy the shoot, cruise to base, picture, high fives all round, pictures again, and all finished by 8:30am. i couldn't believe how quick it went, and how surprisingly unscary it was. i've had worse jitters and sickness on rollercoasters. but that feeling of sitting in the open door of a plane is something, escpecially getting to watch your brother jump out right before you! lol. was great. nuff of that. anyway after that we crashed for a bit till noon and then caught up with a couple friends we met on our whitsunday's sailing trip a month or so ago. we've met them on a few occasions and they've become our coffee buddies. so we went out for coffee again. splendid (that one's for cheryl) after that we spent the afternoon costume hunting, darcy found some items to become a magician and i found the sherlock holmes hat and a pipe and moustache to become...well yah i just said it. anyway was a great night, darcy called er in a bit early but i unfortunately had to stay on the clock all night as there were just so many clues coming in. lol k not really but i did stay out till 3, good times.

ok so now that's all, the rest of byron was a pretty normal, awesome routine of sleeping in, surfing in the morn, chillin in the aft. surfin in the early eve. supper in the late eve. and some hangin with our friends at night. i want that back. but for now we're here in sydney for a week, gonna check out a couple concerts, (Seether - darcy's choice, and Xavier Rudd - my choice) and do some sight seeing. then we'll hit up canberra for a couple days and bunk with a couple guys we met in surfer's paradise who are doing a semester abroad in canberra. from there down to melbourne for a few days, tazmania for a couple, the Great Ocean Road for 3-4, and then back up to surfer's for our resort time. woot! if you're wondering what happened to the job situation, we decided we didn't want one, so we're not getting one, it all adds up. can you tell i'm going to be an accountant? alrighty then, i best be off to make some supper, it is twenty to 10 after all. goodnight.