Sydney Mardi Gras

March 5-8. Six of us - Scott, Sahill, Paul, Craig, and Sahill's brother all went to Sydney a few weekends ago for the gay mardi gras that Sydney is known to put on every year. So on Thursday night we flew into the Sydney airport and took a taxi to our hostel located a few blocks from the heart of the city. This hostel is supposed to be one of the nicest ones in all of Australia, so any hostel I stay at after will be far less tidy. Still, I was not a fan of the dorm-style living that we got hooked up with... So we quickly changed and went out towards the downtown and went into the Three Monkey's bar that we went to during orientation. This bar was apparently not the place to go to on a Thursday, so the night was kind of a bust. 

In the morning - more afternoon - we got on a bus to take us to Bondi Beach. It was about 30-40 minutes outside the city, but was well worth the drive. Once we got there, I met up with a friend from Maryland studying in Sydney, Emily, and actually realized that 80% of Study Australia's Bond students came to Sydney too. Bondi Beach is a decent size beach located in a sort of inlet surrounded by rocks and hills. It is a top 10 beach in the world and one walk across the sand will prove why. Tops are optional apparently and it is not like in Europe where the only people to take advantage of that alternative are the ones you wish wouldn't. Here, the topless girls are the same cute Australians that you see walking around everywhere. 

I had to leave Bondi a little early to go back to the hostel and get dressed up for dinner with my relatives living in Sydney. I changed and took the bus back to Bondi so Lynette, my cousin, could pick me up. I gave her details on what I was wearing, for my relatives down under and I have never met. Rodney and Lynette started a successful upscale women's clothing store in the 60's and has since grown to over 200 stores in Australia. Needless to say, I was thrilled to get picked up at the bus stop in a gorgeous Benz and be taken to their home looking over the water and city of Sydney. I was able to meet nearly 20 of my Australia relatives (although about 10 were under the age of 7 and will most likely not remember me...) and have a delicious shabbat dinner with some tasty Australian wine. The whole family was beyond delightful and I had a wonderful evening getting to know these family members of mine! After dessert and a tour of their beautiful home, Lynette gave me a ride in Rodney's new toy. A brand new hardtop Aston Martin sports car. Oh la la was I happy. It was really great to meet all these secret cousins and even get a home cooked meal. 

I met up with some friends after and went out at Darling Harbor to a crowded bar/lounge. The next morning I woke up around 9 and couldn't get back to sleep so I was forced to carpe diem. I got some breaky and walked around Sydney for a few hours checking out where the parade would be later that evening and getting some classy outfit to celebrate mardi gras. I came back to the hostel to wake up the roommates and we all went for a walk back towards the parade area. After hanging in Sydney for long  enough, we went back to get ready for tonight. I would be wearing bright yellow "fishing pants" that I had bought from Byron Bay, a red super hero mask over my eyes, three stripes of yellow paint diagonally across my torso and a big feathered set of white wings. I shouldn't have to stress how awesome I looked, but really, I looked awesome. The six of us all looked extremely outrageous - Craig looked like a gay Annie if she were into bondage - Sahill wore this creepy mask, shorts, and no shirt to show off those nipple rings - Scott just rocked these blue pants and a beater - Paul wore regular attire (sorry kid)- Sahill's brother had bought a little girl's size 12 pink shirt that read "Innocent by day : Partygirl by night" which squeezed his upper body tightly. We went bar hopping along the sides of the street as the parade paraded by. Abundant flamboyancy in every direction to say the least. I was a tourist attraction for the evening because of my stunning outfit - pics with strangers left and right. It took me a little while to realize, but I soon understood that to everyone that did not know me, thought this parade was for me. I got hit on by a number of guys while girls would come up to me and say "what a waste." Loved all the attention. Post-Parade we went back to the hostel to change and then went to this  awesome several story bar/club near the start of the parade and stayed out till late. Once we walked outside of the club the streets were still blocked off, so the streets were our playground for some time. The night dragged on far longer than necessary, got at least 2 hours of sleep, then had to wake up early to run back to Bondi where Paul and I got sushi and I bought an Aborginal's painting. We caught a bus back to Hyde Park, met up with the guys and jumped in a taxi to take us to the airport.

Another great weekend in Australia!

The Red Centre

Have I got a lot to talk to you about....

We are going to pretend this is Tuesday the 3rd and I am still fresh from The Outback. Okay? Okay.

So last Monday Craig and I went to Whitewater Park, a water park in the Gold Coast. Since it was a Monday, we nearly had the whole park to ourselves. We only had to wait in line for one ride and were able to walk right on to all the rest. Then on Friday, a bunch of us went to Warner Brother's Dreamland (a smaller Universal Studios style amusement park). They had a few good roller coasters and rides to keep us busy throughout the day. Friday night came around and I realized it would be a good time to pack because I had to leave at 3:15AM the next morning. I ended up not sleeping because I had laundry to do and I figured I would be able to make up for my sleep in the car/plane. Wrong.

At 3:15 I met up with Zach Mirsky, A Lowe, and Maxine in the lobby of our apartment and got in our shuttle van thing to take us an hour away to the Brisbane Airport. I had to go on a different flight connecting in Cairns while they connected in Sydney because I was late to book the plane tickets. I flew into Cairns and during our descent I was able to see the Great Barrier Reef from the sky. The different shades of water looked so nice and I got excited for a future trip to the reef. The beaches were everywhere and on the land were big green mountains of trees. 

I connected flights, saw the nice reef and mountains again, and read some of my book. Next thing I know it is about an hour and a half later and when I look out the window I see nothing but a flat red desert as far as the eye can see. 

What was I thinking going to The Outback where there was absolutely nothing around. We got close to Uluru and I was then able to see the BFR (Big F*... Rock). 

Ayers Rock looked massive from the air and it would be even bigger in person. I also was able to get a quick shot of the Olgas which we would later hike through. My plane landed and we had to walk on the runway to get into the airport. This would be my first fly infestation experience. Between the plane and the airport a couple of flies found my face and made themselves at home. Annoying I thought, but I would soon realize that these 5 or so flies would be a light snack compared to the dinner feasts of flies I would later experience. 

I met up with Mirsky, Max, and A Lowe in the airport and played some card games as we waited for our ride. Daniel the Wayoutback tour guide came soon and took us to our campsite  near Ayers Rock. The campsite was surprisingly nice with a stove, refrigerators, sinks and a large eating area. We had lunch with the other people on the trip, chatted a little and got ready for our first adventure of the weekend. We changed into bathing suites and went swimming at the campsite's pool for a little and bought our very needed fly nets. 

After our short swim, Daniel drove us to the actual Ayers Rock and took us for a walk through the cultural center. We learned a little about the aboriginal's spiritual beliefs regarding the rock and then took a long walk around a portion of the rock (a walk around the entire thing would take 3-4 hours - BFR indeed). There isn't much to say about Ayers Rock besides the fact that it is pretty massive and intense. The four of us walked around for about an hour taking photos and climbing a few of the boulders near the base. A bunch of the areas are off limits to photos  because they are sacred male or female places so the other aboriginal gender can not see what it looks like and don't want to be surprised in a magazine or random brochure. It was about this time when the flies became overwhelming. The 105 degree dry heat didn't make us sweat as much as we expected, but the combination of walking and the pounding sun made us sweat just enough for the flies to become attached to us. They came by the dozen and at one point I lost track counting some 60+ just on Zach's camelback backpack.

After the walk, we excitedly got back into our 4 WD-Van-Safari car-truck and drove back to the campsite. Some swimming and relaxing until around 8:00. The flies would now disappear (with the sun) and we could take our nets off our heads. Dinner was not ready until around 10:00PM at which point I was exhausted (still hadn't slept). The meal was very good - rice, vegetables, pasta - and after we were shown our "beds" a.k.a. Swags. These swags are just padded sleeping bags which are placed on the ground with no tent or cover. Bugs would crawl in and out throughout the night and wake you up, but the irritation would vanish when you opened your eyes to the clouds of stars in the sky. Stars as far as the eye could see and shooting stars pretty often. 

Daniel woke us up at 4:30AM so we could drive to a viewpoint where we could see the sun rise beside The Beast and shine on the Olgas as it rose.

 The flies came out as soon as the smallest of light emerged and then the nets came on again. The sunrise was quite nice, and the Olgas were impressive from where we were standing. 

 Following the sunrise, we drove to the Olgas and went on a 7+ kilometer hike (~4 miles) through these boulder mountains. The Olgas are made up of thousands of smaller rocks and form several enormous "boulder mountains." Olgas means Heads in the aboriginal language, so each of these boulders is a different person's head. To me, they just looked like big red balls of clay.  The hike took nearly 3.5 hours and by the time we had finished we were hot, annoyed (flies), and tired.  It 

was just after 11:00AM and it felt like 11:00PM. The walk was a little hilly most of the time, but perfectly bearable until the very end. At many points the rocks made a perfect backdrop for pictures and I was able to take about 30 or so throughout the walk. 

Now it was lunchtime so we went back to the campsite, had lunch and a swimming sesh and got ready to go on our second part of the adventure. We ran into a slight logistical problem because we realized that the trip was ending 6 hours from where our plane departs. Oops. We had to book a bus to take us from the end of of our hike the following day back to our current location at Ayers Rock. 

Now that that was all figured out and we were running behind schedule, we had to drive 3-4 hours west to Kings Canyon. We packed up our stuff and got in the monster truck and started driving. We stopped at the only rest stop on the only road to take us to the only place there was to go. It was a trashy bar with hick-type people and probably the only 5 people that live within any sort of distance as regular customers. The one guy had like 7 teeth and a pet dog that we were not allowed to touch and he almost slapped Maxine's hand with a grimy fly swatter when she went to pet it. We bought some wine to celebrate with at an overpriced sum of money and then finished the drive to Kings Canyon. On our final lag to our campsite we had to stop in order to let a group of wild horses cross the street. How cool. 

Finally, we arrived at this campsite again in the middle of nowhere. At least this place had kangaroos though. We went swimming, checked out the kangers and made some food with everyone's help. We drank a box of wine which was nice after our intense past 2 days and set up our swags under the cloudless sky. I again woke up quite often but the stars here were even more overwhelming than the night before so did not mind the bugs bothering me. I was able to see shooting stars, satellites, and the entire milky way galaxy. 

The next day would proceed to be the greatest day of my life. I will write a detailed blog about that as soon as I get the time.