Chinatown, Pink Hair and Rallying.

Day One and Two

Can I just say how much sleep really improves your point of view?

Fun fact about me: Hungry/Sleepy Lauren = Grumpy/Negative Lauren.

We got into Australia around 8:30 local time and check in wasn't until noon, so KFarm and I hauled our worn out asses to some crazy asian shopping mall and proceeded to wolf down chinese food like it was manna from heaven.

Now full, but exhausted, my mood only deteriorated more after that haha. We ended up walking through Sydney's Chinatown about 4 times total, and I was so irritated at seeing anything Asian that I about lost my mind. We swung through Darling Harbor near the end of our walking excursion, KFarm and I decided that it was basically the touristy parts of Florida condensed and collected into that part of Sydney.

We crawled back to our room around 5 or 6 with plans to research what to do the following day. Instead, we promptly passed out at 8ish feeling none-to-impressed with the city of Sydney and ever more excited for a return flight to New Zealand.

5:00am rolled around and my ass was AWAKE. I wiggled as quietly as possible from the squeaky top bunk and came down to the lobby to read some more Jack Kerouac (interesting read all in all, he writes the same way my brain processes things: lots of run on sentences and back stories haha. So its easy enough for me to follow :)

Favorite quote this far from On The Road:
"...because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace things, but burn burn burn like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars..."

I loved it because it true! I adore people who have passion. Spontaneity and confidence together is such a dangerous and perfect mixture. So far, the people KFarm and I have befriended have been very much so of this caliber.

I spoke at length to a girl named Steph with bright pink hair at 5:00 am that day. She said "I love having pink hair, orange was better, but pink is great! People want to talk to you when you have pink hair, I cant even tell you how many friends I've made just because of it." It true, you do want to talk to her because her hair is pink, but more-so because she is so confidently friendly.

Now in all fairness, parts of this crowd of spontaneity isn't quite my style. A majority of the people at this hostel are wee little babies of 20-22 who drink for months straight. They have have the funds to travel to Cambodia for 3 months and get sick on malaria pills, only to stop taking them because they preferred to be vomiting from alcohol instead of malaria pills (True DudeBro story 1). Like I said, not my style but the most interesting and fascinating people to speak with for their stories and to compare opinions (and your home country's favorite curse words/sayings) with.

BUT there are also some AMAZING people here. We are bunked with 6 other people in our room, two very nice girls from different parts of England here on work visas and two Australians (Melbourneians?) in particular are hilarious. There are several people here traveling alone, which makes you a very friendly chatty person because you HAVE to be. I'll have to try that next, it's be good for me to learn how to be less reserved straight off the bat.

Anywho, a rough summation of yesterday:
- Expensive breakfast
- Expensive everything
- Hyde Park is BEAUTIFUL.
- The Royal Botanical Gardens are AMAZING.
- Sydney is full of gorgeous, perfect, blonde, skinny people that make me feel like a frumpy American
- The Opera House is TILED on the outside. ::surprise face::
- Free WiFi is my new best friend (Thank you Sydney Opera House and Art Museum for offering such services to the public.)
- KFarm's team is sooooo much better than mine! She is a much better people watcher than I am haha!

Needless to say, my initial take on Sydney was a negative and depressing one, but the city rallied today! I wouldn't get anything done if I lived here, there are too many beautiful things to look at.

More to follow soon!