Partytown

I see that I haven't written a single entry from Sydney or Katoomba, which is clearly wrong. I should have written a couple of entries.

Anyway, we arrived to lovely winter's day in Sydney: around 18 degrees, the sun was shining. The hostel was absolutely horrible. Sugar shack. Never go there. They claim they have free internet nearby, but it turns out the internet's only free for the first half hour, and then if you book a tour through the travel agent in question. They do have complimentary tea and coffee though, and free breakfast. But it was dirty, dirty, dirty, I wouldn't go there again.

On our first day we went to the Sydney tower with a view all over the city, then to the Wildlife World to admire kangaroos and wombats and pat little fluffy koalas. Entry to the tower also included a random hologram show and a moving chairs theatre experience... those Aussies are strange.

The next day we went to the opera house (which really looks like a bit of inconvenient architecture) and jet boating. Jet boating was good fun! (I know, it's a bit of Kiwi ingenuity, of course it's good fun.) Then we took the train to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, two hours away (which by the way costs less than getting a train to the airport). Soon after exiting the station at Katoomba we were attacked by a man in a van. The van wasn't black; it was blue and had Flying Fox Backpacker Hostel written all over it. The Flying Fox turned out to be a very cosy hostel with a very friendly atmosphere. And free breakfast.

The Blue Mountains were all about bush. So we spent a day walking around the bush at Scenic World. We also had a ride on Skyway, a gondola with a couple of square metres of glass floor, Cableway, a cablecar from the bush to civilisation, and, best of all, Railway, the steepest railway in the world. We had a look at the "Three Sisters", i.e. some rocks.

My brother was in a great hurry to get back to the city. I was in no hurry. It had taken a battle to convince my brother of the original plan of two nights in Katoomba, instead of one. Kaleva wanted to party, I wanted to walk. I will never ever again go anywhere on a trip of than a couple of hours alone with my brother. Ever. He drives me nuts.

He's also vowed to send his girlfriend a postcard every day, which also drives me nuts. And the calling every other day and the texting every day a couple of times. If that is love, it's driving me crazy, and I will never fall in love. Dream on.

So anyway, after the second night at Katoomba, the only reason we didn't leave with the first train was because I had a massage appointment at 1.30. So in the late morning (after Kaleva had finally dragged himself out of bed, after drinking beer with other guests and hostel staff until 2AM or so) we walked to Leura, a village of art galleries and little craft shops. We visited exactly two shops: the chocolate shop (guess whose idea that was) and the shop selling post cards (that was the other person's idea). And then we were quite happy to walk back.

While in Katoomba, an old scout/guide friend contacted me. She'd moved to Sydney and wanted to speak Finnish for the first time in three months. So when we got back to Sydney we spent the next couple of nights with her and her boyfriend. We went to see a 3D short film about the ocean and coral reefs of the Pacific on the world's biggest movie screen. The screen was impressive, but the film lacked depth (figuratively). Then we went to the Aquarium to see sharks and fish and dugongs and a platypus.

And thank goodness we'd completely entirely run out of money on our last night or we might have ended up in that horrible nightclub for more than a couple of hours and two free drinks each.