September 8

2:00pm
**LOOK where the steering wheel is!!! Check out the scenery too, beautiful,**
James & I took the car out again yesterday. We drove North this time. All the way up to Shelly beach. We were lost pretty much the whole time. It was fun though, we followed the coast most of the way & the scenery was fantastic. We stopped off at a bunch of different beaches too. While we were on the highway, we were traveling through some mountains/big hills. It was so nice! Trees everywhere, lining all of the cliffs & fog or mist coming out of the forests. Once we were out of Sydney, we went into a parking lot so that I could drive the car. What a strange experience. It's like trying to write with the wrong hand. I gave up after about 5 minutes. We watched some more surfers and I found the prettiest shells on the beach! They looked like really large (golf ball sized to dime sized) snail shells except they were bright white with bright blue stripes. There were sick little dead slimy things in them so I pried them out with a stick and put a few of the shells in my bag. This morning I was getting dressed and suddenly smelled the most awful smell.. I searched & searched and then remembered the shells. I don't know what was inside of them, but it was dead and rotting. I had to get rid of them because the smell wouldn't come off. I'm sad, they were so pretty. You would have liked them. It got dark around 6 yesterday, so we decided to drive home. I've never been so lost and almost out of gas in my life!!! First, we got lost for a while.. but then found our highway. Then we realized we were almost out of gas. So we took the next exit and I SWEAR it said there would be gas there. Suddenly, we were on some scenic route out in the middle of no where. Going up a mountain and winding, winding, winding. Probably no one for miles. I was envisioning running out of gas and having to sleep in the car & James was mentioning how the whole thing seemed like a horror movie because it was pouring rain in the middle of a forest and neither of us could call out on our cell phones. I was scared out of my mind, just waiting for the car to run out of gas (or petrol as they say here). BUT don't worry, we made it out ok & found the highway and even a gas station. I won't put myself into that kind of situation again, though. (Mom, don't worry, I'm Fine!!)
We were out on the road for 12 hours! It was a long day of driving so I basically went to bed once we got back.
...
This morning, we decided that since we have the car for one more day we would drive out to the blue mountains. We got started on our way there and got super lost, not even out of the city yet! That was pretty much the breaking point, especially having been lost for hours yesterday. We immediately took the car back to the rental place and washed our hands of the whole situation. It was a blast having the car, but honestly I'm glad to not have to worry about it anymore.
On our walk back to the hostel, there were helicopters hovering in the air everywhere! We followed a mass of people down the street and came across a major anti-war protest (because of the summit meeting & President Bush being here). There were lines of police everywhere, it was pretty impressive. I've never seen a protest before, & this one was MASSIVE. It seemed a little frivolous though. I wonder if they realized that President Bush probably doesn't care what a bunch of Australian's think, whether or not they're blocking the streets. Besides, I have a feeling he was no where near any of this unrest. They were pretty rude though, I mean the police were standing on the edges of the streets, making sure nothing crazy happened and the protesters were shoving stuff in the officers' faces and acting like a bunch of monkeys. I mean why fault a guy for doing his job? He's just there to keep everyone safe.
I came home soon after that. I'm not sure what I'm going to do tonight. Probably just take it easy or swim in the pool here.