Saturday, July 17th 2010
Today we had free time until 5pm when we had a 2 hour meeting and then a dinner cruise. One group of people decided to spend their day taking a trip to the beach and walking it but my legs were killing me from the day before so that was out. Instead Zoe, Rhianon, Nicole, Vessy, and I decided to walk to Paddingtons Market. Russ and Matt had told us that Paddingtons Market held heaps of unique, homemade items crafted by local Aussies. We thought the market was way closer and it took a long while to get there, we figured we were lost a couple of times because we had expected to have passed it at that point. But we made it and the market was very lovely. They had handcrafted silver jewelry, clothes, paintings, pasta, and so much more. They had one place that reminded me of John, were there were entomology bugs done up in frames. We spend 30min exploring and then realized we were hungry. We headed back hoping that we would run into a cheap pizza place- this didnt happen. Most of the stores on the street we walked were high end the food was expensive as well. We ended upon a chicken place that was wonderful (and only like 7$). We then finished walking back.
The girls were done at that point but I wanted to explore Paddy's Market as well so Alysa and I walked down to the Darling Harbour area and found it. Very different from Paddingtons. Paddys was more commercial goods that were very cheap. Items were around 10, 40, or 50 which was way better than the goods in most other stores that were 200 or 400! I had heard Kelly, a guy on our trip, had found a bathing suit with an aussie flag on it for 10 so I was looking for the same. There were many suits for men but only one venue that had female suits- these were 35 and not 10 so I decided against it. We looked around a bit more and then went back to the hotel to get ready for the cruise.
The 2 hour orientation session was helpful but long.
We then walked down to Darling Harbour to get on the cruise. As we waited for the boat to dock Matt asked us if anyone knew why it was called the Sydney 2000. Matt promised he would buy a drink for the person who guessed correctly so we all had a go. I decided to ask a random couple if they knew but they didnt. Turns out 2000 is the Sydney postal code-it was as simple as that.
Once boarded we were given Champagne to toast to the night. Soon enough we passed the Sydney Opera House so Russ called everyone outside to the deck.
Pretty but very difficult to capture on a moving boat.
The whole of the group. After the photo everyone rushed inside again because we were all so cold. They started off feeding us rolls which were good but we were hungry. We made friends with the waiter so that he would keep bringing us more rolls. He took a fancy to one of the girls at the table, Julie. Salmon was brought out on vegetables. Delicious!! And then desert which was chocolate cake. So full at that point. We had been talking to the waiter in and out and someone had told him it was Julies birthday (even though it wasnt) so he had the musician sing her happy birthday and brought out a big piece of cake with sparklers on it. It was really sweet but she was already full and so were we. Russ was at another table and he didnt seem to pleased.
After dinner there was still time on the ship so people did different things: Brooke did the worm with Matt and Megan from Hawaii did a hula dance. (i tried to take a video but it really didnt come out). She taught me some, or attempted too- its very difficult when on a boat with champagne.
The boat ended and we got off. Megan, Sam, Nicole and I decided we wanted to go out so we talked to Matt about places to go. By that everyone had disappeared and all we had decided was that they needed to go back to change shoes. So we walked to our hotel and then decided to stay and chat it up where it was warm. We watched some footy and tried to figure out were all our keys were so that we wouldnt get charged. Then packed up for the move out to Melbourne the next morning.
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