September 22

**Us during our long windy walk. t-shirt, 2 sweaters & a jacket couldn't keep out the wind!!**
Lindsay and I got up on Wednesday and ran a few errands before getting on the bus to go to Bondi beach. When we finally caught the bus we needed, it was the travel experience from hell. First, Lindsay is about 4 people wide when she's got her backpack on, and my suitcase is SO clumsy. Actually, I should say that I'm clumsy with the suitcase, hhaha. So the bus was packed, so we head for the first available spot to stand where we're not in anyone's way. We had to take a transfer, so off that bus and onto the next. The next bus was packed to CAPACITY! Lindsay somehow managed to get the spot right in front of the door where every stop she had to maneuver herself so that someone could get off. It was tedious and tiring, but eventually we made it to the beach. Lindsay bought me a lolly-pop to make me feel better. After unpacking, we headed to the frigid beach for a nap. I was SO cold!! We lasted for a while, even though it was freezing. At night, we went to one of the local pubs and lucky us (not really lucky at all) it was Backgammon night. So the main guy came over and gave us a long intro to the game and we played until we got bored and left. I think he was disappointed that we weren't interested, but invited us to join the 'Bondi Bi-weekly Backgammon' group on Facebook. Ok, sure.
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Thursday we were up early only to find out that it was the coldest day here yet. We trudged through, and ended up going for a long walk from one end of the beach to the other. I suppose it takes about an hour each way with lots of great scenery to look at. It was so windy and the waves were huge, but there were still surfers. We did a little shopping too. The sandals (thongs) that I bought last week were KILLING my feet so I needed some new ones. I ended up finding some really comfortable ones & Lindsay's sick of me telling her just how great they are. Lindsay's purse is falling apart, so we found her a new one of those as well. We went to an Italian place for dinner and when we left it was pouring rain outside! What a wet walk home. We played pictionary together for the rest of the night and read our books. At the hostel in Sydney, they have a book exchange where you can take one of their books as long as you leave one there. I left my old book and got the Chronicles of Narnia. I know, I know, it's a kids book, but I'm really enjoying it! It's an easy/interesting read.
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Yesterday we were up and out of the hostel by about 11 (with a slight hold up because of a fire alarm). The bus ride back was much less painful than our ride here and we went to check into the YHA hostel (the one we have a membership to and have been staying at the whole time. They have hundreds of hostels all around Australia). It was full, so we went around the corner to the 'wake up!' hostel. Thinking we'd be smart and save money, we opted for the 10 share room since we had to be up by 5:30 in the morning anyways. We tried to get up to the floor we were staying on but once we got into the elevator, there was a swipe card thing that only let you onto the floor you were staying on. We tried for 10 minuites, going up and down and up and down, but our cards wouldn't work (or we couldn't figure the system out). Finally we made it to our room... and no kidding.... it was full of sleeping boys. sick. As if that wasn't bad enough the lockers in this hostel are designed so that you can only fit small things in them with pointless little shelves everywhere (in the other hostel I could fit my suitcase, laptop case and more). So, since there was no way we were hanging out in that room all day, we had to leave our luggage on our beds (we felt a little uneasy about it, but the only thing that went missing was Lindsay's book.. which was mine & I let her borrow, but I didn't care because I was done reading it). We filled the afternoon by going to lunch (I had smoked salmon because according to Lindsay the health expert it's bad to have tuna every single day, hahahaha), then we went to the Hyde Park Barracks Museum. It was great! We had a little introduction from a historian at the beginning who gave us an overview of the place, and then learned all about how Australia came to be. We saw a bunch of old record books with names and offences and terms of sentencing. It was all very interesting. Some of the convicts were as young as 10 and a lot of them were over there because of stealing 10 shillings or something. They all got life... So scary. We got to lay in some of the convict hammocks too, the whole museum was inside the actual place where the convicts stayed. After the museum, we went to the theatre and watched 'Hairspray' (which I totally recommend, it was really funny). We tried to stay out of the room as long as we could so that we didn't have to spend much time with all the random people. When we went back to our room and went to sleep, there was just us and 2 other girls sleeping. In the middle of the night a pile of guys came yelling and being idiots and one of them came over and stepped on Lindsay's bed. It was basically a nightmare. We couldn't wait to get up at 5:30 and be out of there.
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We're in better spirits now that last night's ridiculousness is just a memory. At least now we know to ask weather or not the rooms are co-ed. I'm not sure why we never considered it. We're excited to be out of the city for good and things are feeling a little more like we're in Australia. The scenery here is beautiful!!! Once we arrived in Coffs Harbour, our day became a whole lot brighter. We were worried because it was pouring rain and we weren't sure how to get to our hostel, but as soon as we got off the bus, there was a shuttle waiting for us and brought us there straight away. Once we got to the hostel we got a 6 share room all to ourselves which was perfect! We unloaded and went for a quick dinner. After, we borrowed a movie and went to sleep.