Thursday, July10, 2008- Friday, July 11, 2008

Today Jayne and Wendy met me for lunch and then after I got off work I met up with them to check out New Town. Thursdays are the days shops stay open later than the usual 5 or 6 so we were just going to check out the stores. Everything was really expensive, so we had a quick look around and then went home so Michel could come over and visit. Michel is the guy we are renting the apartment from that was super helpful in getting us over here and settled. That was pretty much our night, and we ended it with our favorite, so you think you can dance, via youtube.

Friday I came home from work and we decided to go out to a dinner and try to catch a movie at the theater. We went to Guzman y Gomez, one of the only Mexican chains in Australia. It was okay, but nothing compared to Mexican in the states. All of us ordered really spicy burritos so our mouths were on fire for a bit after dinner.

We then went to the Bondi Junction movie theater and went to Hancock, the movie with Will Smith, which I thought was a let down. We ended the night by staying up literally all night so we could figure out all the money we had been swapping before going on our three week adventure and pack for the trip.

Tuesday, July 8, 2008 -Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Jayne and Wendy met me at Cook and Archies, my favorite little café by my work where I got the Pumpkin Chicken Wrap that is literally amazing. I am trying to figure out how I could it, I am sure I’ll have to experiment a bit, but I am gonna get it eventually. That night we just did the norm, made dinner and ended the night with a wee bit of blogging.

The next day was way great. I met up with Jayne, Wendy, and Jess as soon as I got off work and we went to this awesome Malaysian restaurant called Chinta Ria at Darling Harbour. We got the banquet that was like $32/person but was literally the most food I have ever eaten. The food just didn’t stop coming out, but it was really great!

Don’t worry, that isn’t where it ends. Jess took us to this amazing chocolate café. Yes, I wrote that right, a chocolate café, called Max Brenner, Chocolate by the bald man. It was a super cute café. Everything was like a gourmet chocolate dish, it was amazing, and pretty pricey in terms of just desserts. Jayne and I ordered a belgian waffle that came with bananas, strawberries, ice cream and a cup of chocolate that was literally divine!

Jess is so cute! She is just so willing to drive us around everywhere, we are definitely going to miss her when we go back to the states. (Jess Goes Up!)

Just a note to anyone that does read this. I can't believe it, but my internship is pretty much over. I come home on Wednesday, and as you can see I am more than a month behind on my blog which I still plan on updating for my own sake when I get home, so if you are still interested in seeing what went down while I was in Australia and New Zealand, you are welcome to continue visiting my blog. When I got back from my 3 week adventure I planned on blogging my life away, which I started to do, but then was informed that we had practically used up our internet so my plans had to change. (Yes, internet here is "unlimited" which means that you are only allowed so many gigs which they claim you will never exceed, I guess they didn't plan on some American chickas to come and blog there lives away).

Anywho...See you soon, I know you thought the day would never come, but I am coming back!

Monday, July 7, 2008

Blue Mountains

Today I was still feeling sick enough to not want to be at work, but apparently healthy enough to go on a day trip with my amigas. The following is a long story about my near death experience in the Blue Mountains. Sorry if the story seems all over the place, there was so much to write that it was difficult to put it into words on paper. The moral of this story is that if anyone thinks that there isn’t someone watching over them, they are indeed wrong, and there is evidence of that here!

(The aboriginal people must've been watching over us in the story that is about to take place)

(This is the emu sausage Jayne made us try before starting on our adventure. Jayne said that we were finally getting revenge from our experience at Featherdale Zoo)

So, if you haven’t heard of the blue mountains then they are the major mountains in Australia, and there are always all these stories about people going hiking there and getting lost for days, and then their bodies are found later because the bush is so thick. So.... we decided to head there on monday morning.

(Drinking water straight from the mountain.)

(We couldn't fingure out why they were called the Blue Mountains because everything was green. This particular area smelled fowl.)

It is like a 2 hour train out, and we caught a trolley to this place called Scenic World where they have the steepest train ride in the world and this really cool Sky Cable Car that takes you over the huge mountain valley on a cable, kind of like a zip line, on a large scale. So we planned on staying at Scenic World for a few hours and then moving on to another part of the mountains. Scenic World has 3 trails, a 10 minute, 30, and 50 minute, so we decided to take the 30. We got on what we thought was the trail and were goofing off taking pics, and going off the trail, but we always got back on the main trail and would continue on our hike. We were enjoying ourselves like normal, not knowing what our day had in store.

(This is the Sky Cable Car that goes over the valley, it has a glass bottom so it feels like you are floating over the trees below.)

(Here is the famous three sisters. I didn't know yet but I'd be seeing plenty more of these!)

About an hour in we were thinking, this is weird that it still doesn't seem like we are getting close, and we hadn't seen anyone all day, but we still for some reason kept moving forward. Like an hour later we see a sign that says 1.3 km to Scenic Railway, (we later realized this had said 13 km) which is where we needed to go so we kept trucking on. So another hour later we see another sign that says Scenic Railway 2 hours and then all these other trails pointing in the opposite direction.

(We hadn't realized yet what we had got ourselves into. This is where Jayne was playing our Australian tour guide, explaining that she had cleared the trail for the "advanced climbers." If only she knew that she wasn't kidding!)

By then it was like 3:20 and it for sure is dark by 5:00 here and we had little water left, no food, and no flashlights so we kind of got nervous, but we figured if we moved at a faster pace we could get back before dark. We all just were trying to act like it was going to be okay, So we literally started running at a pretty fast pace in the same direction we had been heading, for another 30 minutes, when we came to another sign that said Mt Solitary one way, and then the Scenic Railway 3 hours back in the direction we had come from.

(Part of the trail we walked on for what seemed like hours....Wait, it was hours!)

So you can imagine our horror. We had just ran for 30 minutes in the wrong direction, And it was getting later and later, and we had seen nobody all day, So we said a prayer as we all were realizing the seriousness of our circumstance and really didn't know what we were going to do. We decided that we obviously had to run at a pretty fast pace so we just started running back the way we had come from because we didn't know what else to do.

About 20 minutes into our run, we heard voices, and low and behold we see 3 boys walking towards us. These boys looked to be about Tyler’s age, and were all geared up for some camping or something. We were so happy to see real life humans and asked them if they knew what we should do. They said there was no way that we would be able to get back to Scenic world, and couldn't even believe we had come from that far, but that there would be a sign that said the Golden Staircase that was a harder hike, but that it could get us out of the mountains before dark. They said it would take us to a road, and if we kept right on it the whole time, eventually we would get to the town. They honestly didn't know how long this would take, but that it would be a much safer bet. We thanked them and went on our way. Obviously knowing that we were being watched over and blessed because there was no way we could have known any of this without their help. (Just on a side note they we hiking to Mt Solitary to camp for the night which was another 10 km)

We said another prayer because it still was getting later and later, and knew that we still had quite the journey ahead of us. Because we knew we had a hard hike we tried to pace ourselves a little bit so we walked a very fast pace to the sign that was roughly 20 minutes away. When we got to the sign we started up on the Golden Stairs. Remember that we had literally been hiking all day, running even for part of it, so we were extremely tired. Because we felt an urgency to get out of the mountains as soon as possible we kept trucking forward.

(This is the only picture I took in all the chaos. It was a beautiful view, but we pretty much ended up seeing the three sisters from every view possible. At this point we were on the completely opposite side of where we had started.)

(This is close to where we started out.... notice how close the three sisters are compared to the picture above.)

We started up and soon realized why it was called the golden staircase. It was a straight hike up and it literally almost killed all 3 of us. The sign at the bottom said 1 hour to the top and we knew we didn't have an hour. We really were dying, had to say another prayer so we would have energy to do it. I wanted to give up so many times, but obviously knew I couldn't, and somehow made it in like 40 minutes, right as darkness really started to cover the mountains. I honestly don’t know how we did it in 40 because we all started out exhausted, and it seemed like we weren’t going as fast as we would need to be to even make it in the hour the sign had stated. Miracles do happen!

(A sign that we saw on the dirt road...notice the Enjoy your stay, we definitely felt like that was an over statement)

When we made it to the road, it wasn't like a civilized road, it was just a dirt road in the mountains, and we couldn't see any houses so we still were nervous as to how we were gonna get out before it got super cold. The boys had told us what to do, so we weren't nervous how to get to town, just how long it would take. We all really were so dead tired, but had no choice but to keep walking. We walked for like 20 minutes when a car drove by, and Jayne tried to get it to pull over, but it wouldn't. So we walked, and walked, and walked. For about 20 minutes more until we came to a road that was paved and saw some houses. The boys had told us to keep right so we turned right down a road that eventually had some people on it, so we decided to ask them to make sure we were going in the right direction.

We asked a man and he told us we could stay on that road but that it would take much longer, and he said he would walk us to a better route. As we walked we told him our story, and he couldn't believe it, minus he said they get horror stories of people going into the bushes and never coming out. He pointed out where we needed to go, and by now it was completely dark. He said it would be at least 30 more minutes but we were happy to hear an end was almost in sight. We kept walking and I was really in a lot of pain in my legs, but we were by a road with people so I felt a lot better about our position so I kept moving forward.

Eventually we made it into town and found somewhere to eat. Right as we got into town, it started raining, another instance showing how blessed we were, having been outside for like 6 hours lost in the rain forest, and no rain! So we were able to catch a train home and had the 2 hour trip home to think about what had just happened.

(We were exhausted so as soon as we could accept that we were safe and sound on the train, we took some zzzz's before getting to Sydney)

I really did think I would have to spend the night in the bush, I was so scared! This is when we realized why they are called the blue mountains rather than green, because as it gets dark the mountains turn a very convincing color of....you guessed it, BLUE! There was so many things that should've set us off, like there being nobody on the trail, but somehow we overlooked them. I just feel so blessed to be alive, and I really do know that I am being watched over!

Saturday, July 5, 2008

(Waiting for the doctor, don't usually let people see me in my glasses, but the eye infection wouldn't allow for contacts! Traumatic, I know)

Today I decided I had to get to the doctor to get some medicine that would hopefully help me in some way. My eyes were still super infected and I couldn’t get rid of this nasty cold. The doctor wasn’t much help, but I was written a prescription that I hoped would help. Between me, Jayne, and Wendy we decided we had spent way to much on health care in the last few weeks; 2 doctors, plenty prescriptions, and heaps of over the counter drugs. Ugh....




After my doctors appointment we went to Paddy’s Market in China Town to see if we could get anymore souvenir shopping taken care of. I was able to find a few things for my nieces and a cool statue for me, oh and I can’t forget our Australia T-shirts. After that I went home and rested for a bit, then showered to get ready to meet some of our friends at The House Club.

(Don't we look ready to hit the clubs?)

We didn’t end up making it out until like 11:30pm and so we didn’t get in the club till like 12:15. It was a very different atmosphere than what you’d find in the states for sure. The club had girls walking around on stilts wearing floro clothing. (In case you are wondering, floro is what the Aussies use for florescent). We stayed at the club till late, because by the time we walked the 30 minute walk to the bus, waited, took it home, got a taxi, and got home it was probably almost 5 am. Not the smartest idea for someone that had been sick all week.

Friday, July 4, 2008

Today I went to work because I had to meet with a client with Greg, and had to suffer while I sat there trying to see if I could sniff enough to keep my nose from becoming a dripping disaster but not too much to disgust the client and anyone else that happened to be sitting in the room with me. I only made it a little over a half day, then I came home to rest for a bit. I wanted to feel better so I could celebrate Independence Day with Jayne and Wendy but all I felt like was dying. When Jayne and Wendy came home from the store with cute little gifts to celebrate the 4th from home, I tried to make my best of it, but was only able to celebrate for a bit and then run back to bed.

They had bought red and blue food coloring to make patriotic shakes, and sparklers, and gold medals because Jayne found out today that one of her best friends qualified to run the steeple chase in the Beijing Olympics. They went all out, and I tried my best to stay out of the pictures, but unfortunately ruined a few before managing to get to bed.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

No sick day today! Yay! Not that I wasn’t sick, but I still managed to get to work. Except I looked awful and was constantly running to the bathroom to blow my nose so it wasn’t exactly what I would call pleasant. Wendy and Jayne met me for lunch and then I made it to the end of the day and then home where I took a turn for the worst!

(This is a picture of my eyes. they were bright red, I felt as good as this picture makes me look. Really, that bad)

I don’t remember feeling so miserable in a very long time! Even shedding a few tears, which is so not acceptable in the book of Brighton (I just don’t cry, so this was even a shocker to myself). It probably just made it worse to that I was far from home, and feeling like I was never gonna get better. Ugh, I am just so happy writing this because I realize how much better I can feel than I did this night. Luckily I have great friends who got me dinner and made sure I was comfortable and then let me go to sleep early.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Well...the not so good news is I am still sick. Sick Day #3. I am starting to feel like I may just be on my death bed. Three sick days in a row. The only thing that is keeping me sane is that I managed to go to work for half a day yesterday.

(Jayne was nice enough to piggy-back me out to the ocean because I looked like I didn't have the energy to get there myself.)

(Can you imagine living in one of these houses along the beach?)

(Sunset on the beach)

Somehow in my head I figured that some fresh air would be a good idea, so I took a stroll to the beach with Jayne and Wendy. I fell asleep for a bit, and then we decided to stick around to watch the sunset! So beautiful! I really just can’t believe it. Really things like this make me so grateful I get to experience this. (not the sickness, Australia)

(Even though I was sick I was able to save Jayne's life as she almost skidded into the end of her mortal state)

(Seems like there was a common theme for the night, here is Wendy saving my life, we make great friends don't we)

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Today I managed to get to work, but felt brutally awful, so only managed a little over a half day. I went home and rested for a bit and then went out with Wendy and Jayne to get some food at the Flaming Rooster, a cute restaurant by the bus stop I take to work everyday. I didn’t feel great, but was sure that I was getting better. That night we managed to have peach cobbler again, (can I say obsessed!) and watched our favorite show So you think you can dance before going to bed.

(Wendy and Jayne took a shot by the store they have given the most financial support to while being here in Sydney Yes, I mean the Pharmacy. You should see the bag of medicine we have between the three of us!)

Monday, June 30, 2008

Today I woke up and had the far-from-subtle realization that I was not able to avoid the sickness that was getting past around my apartment because I was sick! So sick that I had to call into work and not go, which is pretty drastic for me because I don’t even remember taking a sick day ever the 2 years I was at Wells Fargo, and the two years I was at Washington Mutual I only took one, and that wasn’t even in actuality because I was sick, it was more for the high school championship game that I was going to miss (Don’t worry, I have grown up and don’t lie to get out of work anymore). :)

I am pretty sure that being sick is not my favorite thing in the world, imagine that!

Sunday, July 29, 2008

So Wendy is still sick and somehow found the energy to drag herself to church, where we went to Sacrament, and then asked a few people where the nearest pharmacy was that would be open because by the end of that hour Wendy looked awfully sick. She got a blessing from the Elders and then our friend Ravenska got her boyfriend to drive us to the nearest pharmacy where we checked in and waited to be helped.

Wendy was able to get prescriptions so we are crossing our fingers that she will fill better. We are just so grateful that we had so many people willing to help us.

Saturday, June 28, 2008



Okay...I know you were rooting for us to actually make it to the Blue Mountains this time, but surprise, surprise, We didn't. Wendy was still super sick, and no sleep is not good for hiking around the rain forest. We decided to go to Paddy's Market in China Town (this is where all the cheap souveneirs are and cheap clothes and it also has a great Fruit and Veggie market), because it is only on the weekends and we never have been able to make it because we always have plans for the weekends.


We finally got some fruit and veggies, and although I had gone with the intention of getting little gifts for my family, I came out with a shirt and a jacket for myself. Selfish I know, but they were cute!

Some of the things they sell to tourists make me nervous?

That night Wendy was feeling too sick to go out, so Jayne and I stayed with her till 11pm and then went out to go to the Pump House at Darling Harbour. We heard about this club (the Pump House, that was really great and played Hip hop music and so decided to go there. After we had paid to get in we realized that it was maybe not as great as we had heard. It was really small and didn’t really have the A class guys we were looking for in it. Just a lot of smelly ones. Luckily, with time, it got better and we found a group of people that were fun.

We look pretty gangsta' don't we! Ready for a night hittin' up the clubs?

One thing that was interesting to me is that the people dance cleaner in the clubs here. I don’t know what it is, but in general people don’t dirty dance. I would assume it would be worse, but most of the clubs I have gone to have been cleaner in that sense.


We didn’t leave till like 3:00 am and decided to stop at Mackers (Australian word for McDonalds) for an ice cream cone before making the long journey home. While waiting in line we met some Australian/Turkish boys that were pretty cool. Except for the fact that they were convinced that America had made up the September 11th attacks to get money for something that I can’t remember because I tuned out. We got the digits after telling them they could not come home with us, even if they would pay for our cab, and started walking to the bus stop that was like a 20 minute walk.


The frustrating thing in Sydney is after midnight the trains stop running, and only a limited

number of buses run, and the ones that do come very rarely. This is why we had to walk to a bus stop that was very far away, wait like 30 minutes, and then it was like a 40 minute bus ride, then a taxi home. Kind of ridiculous, but that was the cheapest way to do it. We didn’t end up getting home till almost 5 am. Crazy, I know!

Friday, June 27, 2008

Friday, wonderful Friday. Tonight we hung out with Jess, this super amazing, really cool girl from our ward. We started the night with Enrichment night at church where Jess taught about food storage, and then the best part for sure was when the couple missionaries taught us how to make a bunch of different foods and had the finished product for us to just eat! It was great, home made bread, chilli, cinnamon rolls, chicken wraps, homemade granola, the works really.

Then Jess drove us to all these sweet views of the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour bridge and we ended the night hanging out with her boyfriend and his friends from New Zealand. We spent the night reading eachothers fortunes, interpretating the way we ate our oranges, (long story really), but it really was just all the fun in the world, put into one night. Okay, maybe not all the fun, but a lot. We were pretty dumb though cause we didn't leave till like 4:00 am and were still planning on going to the Blue Mountains the next morning, bet you can guess if we actually made it or not!

This may not seem significant to you, but we were so excited to get to drive with Jess in her car because we have been completely relient on public transport, which can definitely get old.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Tonight Jayne and Wendy met me at the end of work and we went to Circular Quay originally to try to walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but never actually made it across. We first walked over to the Sydney Opera House and it was the first time I had gotten really close and personal with it. It is crazy something like that, that is an icon for the city, and then realizing that you are actually there. A security guard walked up to us and started chatting and asked us where we were from. We said Utah, expecting him to say he had never heard of it, but he replied with something like, "oh, I'm going to Provo in a few months."

You can imagine our surprise that one, he knew where Utah was, and two, even more surprising, Provo. We eventually got out of him that he was LDS and was going on a mission. It's a small world isn't it!

Then we did what Jayne and I love to do, and just wandered in the direction of where we thought the start of the bridge should be. Our wandering almost always adds time to our journey, but at the same time it adds a hint of adventure as well. Wendy would much rather just ask somebody where to go, so we don't waist time, but I guess to all there own. I feel bad because she is such a planner and I am sure Jayne and I drive her crazy!

Jayne was mesmerized when we walked by a soccer game, we almost couldn't get her to go home with us.

This was the view of Sydney when we got to the street on the bridge.

Just one of the random places we took pictures at while we were on our adventure.

We ended up just exploring around the rocks and then were so hungry so we made our way home and ate at a burger joint called Flamez that was delicious and that was it for the night. Poor little Wendy is still sooo sick! Cold, Ear Ache, pretty much the works.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Today Wendy and Jayne met me at work and then stayed at the park near my work and played for a bit before going home. Not too long after I had been back from lunch Jayne and Wendy walked into my work nervously and asked if we had a garbage bag they could use.
Apparently a dog had come up to Wendy while she was reading in the park and just in time, before the crime happened, she jumped out of the way, but wasn't able to save her bag. Now if you are wondering what the actual crime was, I'll give you a clue, it envolves something yellow that doesn't smell very pleasant. Yes, A dog peed on her purse.

That night we called our friend Matt, but Wendy wasn't feeling well so she went to bed.
meet at work, peed on by dog (Wendy) P.S. I don't think I have mentioned this yet, but Jayne got sick last week, like hard core cold and cough. She is just barely getting over this week long thing and passed it on to Wendy, who is now miserable. Sad :( It is only time before I get it I am sure. We are all just crammed into a tiny room, so even if we don't want to we end up sharing everything.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Today our flatmate Jorge was going to visit home in Ecuador for a few weeks so it was Jayne's last time seeing him so we decided to take him and Ely to dinner to thank them for all they have done in putting up with living with three crazy (and probably at some times annoying), college age girls for this last little bit.

We took them to the Thai restaurant that we had gone to close to our house and after we went home and made them peach cobbler, cause yet again, it was our new favorite dish and they had never heard of it. This time I must say that it was perfected a bit more, and tasted divine!

Monday, June 23, 2008

Today Wendy and Jayne met me for lunch and i tried my first kebab. We learned while we were here that there are two different kinds of kebabs, greek and turkish. A greek kebab is on a stick, but a turkish kebab is actually almost like a wrab. I was impressed, I'll be honest, but still not my favorite thing to eat in the world.
That night we went to Family Home Evening taught by the missionaries. It was fun and Jayne developed a little crush on one of the missionaries from Spain. It was quite hilarious.

Boy am I behind! I am gonna do my best to get caught up, so this may be a lot at once! That is if I do what I need to! :)

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Today we went to a going away party for John, and American student that has been in Australia for the past year. He was my secret crush, but I didn't even know he was American till he spoke today at church! Unfortunately he is already taken, but he was super cool. We pretty much said hello and goodbye all in the same meeting. It was fun thought to mingle with our ward. Everyone brought food, and we played games, it was a good Sunday night activity. We hadn't known about the party till after church and had nothing to bring, so we combined everything we did have and came out with a peach cobbler that tasted great! We love experimenting, but this will definitely be a new favorite!