Day 85: The Sydney Trip - One Big City, Two Young Ladies, and a Four Day Adventure

7 October 2014

For all of you anxiously awaiting my return from Sydney, we’re back! (Been here for like, a week now!) It was a wonderful trip, but we packed so much into it that I needed a couple of days to process it all! Here’s a recap of all things Sydney:

Welcome to Sydney!

Where we stayed
(Well, sort of, there's the sign! )

The plane ride down was pretty great. For both Kessia and I, this  was our first trip without our parents or really any adults in general (besides, I guess, ourselves) and we were determined to prove we could do this. Though, after wandering around Sydney for two hours looking for a bus stop with our GPS pretending to know where we were, it looked like we should’ve spent a bit more time planning. Thankfully, we finally made it to the hostel which was like nothing I had ever experienced! There were so many people and languages that it took some getting used to. But it was so cool to mingle with people from so many different cultures and countries. 

The next morning we planned to go to Hillsong church, which houses my favorite worship group, like, EVER. I was supposed to meet some friends there as well and was super excited. Imagine my

HILLSONG!!!

surprise when I found out that there was more than one Hillsong church in Sydney. The one I wanted to go to was an hour away! I was crushed, but determined to enjoy the service anyway. The singing was great, but when it was time for the sermon, it was broadcasted, from the other side of town! We literally watched a webcast! Now, I am as Baptist as they come, and watching a preacher on a screen on a Sunday morning is not how I was brought up. Headstrong me decided to go to the other side of Sydney for the 11am service and actually see the preacher. A bus ride later, I wound up at the other Hillsong church. When it was time for the sermon though, the preacher had gone to the church I had just left, so I watched a webcast, again! It was still a pretty great message, guess God wanted me to hear it twice. (And the experience was pretty hilarious when you think about it!)

The super endangered Cassowary
(Taronga Zoo)

After my two church services, Kessia and I met at the Skywalk, which is a really high building that you can walk around the outside of and see all of Sydney. I found out that I have a pretty big fear of heights, but the view was amazing. Sydney is so pretty looking down. Kessia had never been to an IMAX before, so we spent the evening watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at the “Biggest IMAX in the World” (They were definitely lying, Charlotte’s is bigger). All in all it was a great day, but it had too many hangups for my liking. If we were going to be in a huge city all by ourselves for two more days, we needed a plan, and a good one at that. 

A view of Sydney

After spending the night planning for the next day, Monday went perfectly! We visited the Sydney Opera House that morning, the Taronga Zoo for most of the day, and watched the sun set over the Botanical Gardens, right next to the Sydney Harbour. That night we had a “nice dinner” (Kessia’s suggestion, not mine) at a Malaysian restaurant called Mamak. It looked like we were finally getting good at traveling on our own. 

Our last day in Sydney found us at the “right” Hillsong church for their Leadership College's Open Day. The campus was gorgeous, I got to meet my friends and go backstage to one of the most influential churches in worship music. I was finally satisfied. We had done everything on the list. We had proved that we could conduct ourselves well in not only a foreign land, but a bustling city. (Starbucks and Krispy Kreme doughnuts weren’t bad rewards for coming all the way down to Sydney as well.) After shopping for souvenirs and finally finding our way back to the airport, we boarded the plane to take us “home” or at-least, as close as I’m going to get for the next 55 days. 

Sunset from the Harbour

Sydney is a fabulous city, but Townsville is more to my liking. I might be a bit biased, but out of all the places I could have chosen to spend a semester in Australia, I think I picked the best one. No, Townsville may not be home, but it’s definitely an acceptable substitute.