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BYE AUSTRALIA! I will miss you tremendously. For real. You have treated me like a sister during our time together. I learned so much from you. Like the fact that you are exactly like the US in terms of culture and fashion and lifestyle and politics. You just differ a bit when it comes to vocabulary. Plus your beaches are better. And you have cool stuff like kangaroos and koalas and platypuses and cassowaries. Oh, and a reef that is more than great (you should really consider a name change.)

It’s been fun, new friend. I will see you again. FER sure. I’ll be back with more time to spare so I can see your west coast. I’ve enjoyed all your foods, like pies and lemingtons and Cherry Ripes. I have also consumed your most tasty beverage, Lemon Lime and Bitters, and I will fantasize about its wondrous, bubbly taste until I return.

I will also miss being called ‘lovey’ by your most hospitable citizens. Oh! And I’ll miss all the roundabouts. They are such good alternatives to stoplights. I will also miss the masses of backpacking Europeans looking for work during their compulsory trips abroad.

But most of all, I will miss the vernacular. Pimples are spots. McDonalds is Mackers. The big dipper is the saucepan. And it’s always, ‘How you going?’ Never ask how someone is because that would mean they’re not going. Your words are charming. And you wouldn’t be the same without them. One day you will realize it is you with the accent.

Until later, my friend. Until later.

Josh wearing a sand hat.

I’m leaving sydney after a whole 8 days. In that short time, I feel like I really got to know the place. And now we’re great friends. So much so that I am sad to say goodbye. I learned a lot from my new pal. Like…

*Cities are best when they’re around water.

*I can’t live without Chinese pastries, found in Sydney Chinatown and probably in China as well.

*Sydney was originally home to the aboriginals, who were mostly obliterated by smallpox when the Brits came over to build a penal colony. They called it a social experiment.

*Meusli + yogurt + honey = magic

*Since there aren’t any illegals in Australia to do the dirty work, pretty much anyone can get a work visa and do anything from pick fruit to drive buses to round up cattle. It’s a great system that gets a slew of culture into the country.

*Kangaroos can lean back on their tails and kick their legs. So the tail is kinda like a 3rd leg.

*Bats help pollinate! And they live in the city’s botanical gardens.

*Ferries are an excellent form of public transportation.

*I LOVE Sydney.

I hadn’t seen a real bustling city for a long time, and when I stepped off the train in central station today, I felt I’d landed in a full-fledged metropolis. There is something about the sound of taxis and the smell of bus exhaust that makes me feel invisible yet right at home.

I walked the 15 minutes to my very first hostel with my 20-kilo backpack hoisted atop my sweaty and bus-scummy frame. It was a workout.

I didn’t see many friends to be made at 9am in the hostel, so I immediately made my way back to central station to catch the train to the beach. The beach! In a city!

I have been looking my entire life for a real city (meaning public transportation and a real skyline [read: not LA]) that hosts a nice beach, and, hark!, I have found it.

A few stops on the gritty 2-story train and I had arrived at Bondi beach, the bluest, whitest, most beautiful beach I’ve seen. In the middle of a city!
I spent 5 hours on the sand. It was like lying on pillows.

As I waited in line to catch a bus back to the hostel when I saw some people enjoying a Sunday Funday on a roof overlooking the beach. And my brain had a conversation:
“You should go have a margarita up there.”
“You have to get back to check in.”
“Yeah, it’s 4pm. They will be expecting you.”
“Who will be expecting you?”
“Oh. I guess nobody really.”
“But you planned to get on the bus right now.”
“But you made that plan. Can’t you change it?”

And I stood there stunned. It hit me. I don’t have any plans. And nobody is expecting me to do anything.
I had a margarita. It was 17 dollars, but man was it worth it.

PS Please note how well i am balancing that ping pong ball on my head in this picture. I took a class at the beach, and it’s really helping me make friends here.

I have had the most interesting week, and I have much to soon report on my new cast of international friends, Sydney, backpacking, and the history of Ireland. But first I would like to mention that I have not once wondered what’s been happening on ‘The Hills’. Until I realized that I hadn’t once wondered what has been happening on ‘The Hills’.

Byron Bay is a small town, home to the most Easterly point in Australia (of this, they are very proud). It’s known in Australia as a hippie town, and I guess I might compare it to a less plastic surgery-obsessed Laguna beach. The colors here make any US beach look washed out. I can’t stop thinking that someone might have manipulated the green saturation in Photoshop. The Australians are smart since they have refused to develop on the beach. All you see at the beach in Byron bay is clear blue water and coffee ice cream-colored sand that leads into a green forest. I could definitely live here.

The wedding was beautiful, at sunset on the beach by the famous Byron lighthouse. After the cake was cut and the bouquet was caught (by me, of course, being the only single girl there), we spent the rest of the week beaching it up, eating really good food and taking full advantage of our amazing beach house.

At one point we found enough motivation to get up early and take a boat to Julian’s rocks, the favorite hangout of many turtles and rays. Thanks to my friend Mike, I had my own mask and snorkel. My friend Jennifer threw up through her snorkel, so it made me much more appreciative to have my own. Meredith and I found a ray that had to have been 9ft wide. We were able to follow it for a while, and each time it raised its ray eyebrow at us, we screamed “Steve Irwin!”

We spent New Year’s Eve on the balcony of the house, the entire family and the ocean breeze. It was amazing. We could hear others on neighboring balconies count down as well. The custom is to write your wish in the air with sparklers. I went through a whole box.
It’s 2009! I can’t believe it. It’s so weird how you dream of something for so long and then all of a sudden it’s there, it’s your life. So quick everything is.

Right now I am cramped in a phone booth in an internet café in Byron Bay. It’s jam packed with travelers speaking so many languages, all looking at Facebook. Australia caters to the backpacker. For the rest of the world, it’s normal to backpack around for a year or two and Australia seems like the most popular place. I can’t wait to meet everyone else in here. My bus leaves in an hour, and I will spend 14 hours to get to Sydney! That’s when the real adventure begins. I feel like I’ve been cheating up until now. Here I go….