Sydney Day 3 - Derek was still gone on his business trip, so I decided to take advantage of the quiet and do some actual relaxing on this vacation. I figured it might be my only chance - because I knew once Derek was back I'd go all Chevy Chase in "Vacation" on him and leave not even one spare second for relaxing. (This apparently was true to form as you can tell with the lack of blogging) I walked town to Pitt Street where they have the 2nd biggest mall I've ever been to in my life (first= Mall of America, naturally). It was really nice - they had quite a few options at multiple price points. I found the Forever 21 Australia version stores but also saw about three Louis Vuittion, Channel and Burberry stores too. They seem to have quite a bit of couture here yet no real strong style one way or another. The way they dress reminds me a lot of when I was in Japan where the girls' outfits definitely did not "match" per say but they did look like it was intentional and very pulled together. Sort of planned chaos I suppose. Anyway - the other interesting thing here is it is officially their Fall season - they consider it to be a bit chillier right now where Derek and I are running around in shorts because it's mid 70's. (20's Celsius) All of their clothes were sweaters and jeans etc...Shopping was also a bit of an experience to try and do the european sizing conversions. There was also a lot of touristy trinkets and trash shops, most of which carried hundreds of versions of UGG's. (probably fake)
In the afternoon I had a massage and facial scheduled. We've been lucky enough to be put up in the Four Seasons which is in the heart of the Circular Quay (which I keep referring to as the Circle K when I ask people how to get home and they get very confused until I remember I'm referring to an American gas station)
Here is our beautiful view:
I spent the night hanging out in the giant bed with the giant down comforter continuing my reading of Hunger Games. It was very relaxing and now a few days later I'm very thankful I took that time because we've been going like crazy!
Day 4 approached quickly. This morning brought my surfing lesson at Manly Beach. I had to leave the hotel by 7:30am - which on vacation, suddenly seems VERY early. I had to catch a ferry - my first time on the ferry. Sydney has GREAT public transportation. We bought a ticket each for $42.50 on the first day at the airport, which is valid for one week unlimited ferry, bus, and train rides. It's been really great and MUCH cheaper than what paying each time or taking cabs would have been. They are all pretty easy to navigate too. The Manly Beach ferry was about a 25 minute scenic ride from Circular Quay. For some reason, probably because I'm an Iowan, I took this day to go ahead and assume I did not need to figure out directions from the dock to the Manly Surf School. I guess I figured I would just ask somebody and certainly they would know. Turns out - they didn't. Nobody really knew exactly what I was talking about - but with perseverance, and about a 2 mile extra walk, I finally found it. I was rush off (because I was late) into a wet suit, t-shirt and given a surf board. Margo (a guy) was one of my instructors. On our walk down the beach to meet the rest of the group I learned two things that lessened my excitement for my first surfing attempt. 1) Today (of all days) was one of THE HIGHEST waves Margo had ever seen when teaching a surfing lesson (awesome) and 2) Margo followed a "broad" to Wisconsin, went to college (University) there and it didn't end well. Her name was Katie. (double awesome). He told me he promised to take care of me though - and since he was all I had, I grabbed onto the hope. During the first half an hour of surf lessons they basically explain everything NOT to do because (and they said this following sentence at least 10 times) it will literally break you neck. yikes! Then after you learn how to surf on land - the real quest comes, and it turns out the hardest part to surfing is actually getting your giant, bigger than yourself board out past the rip. (part where the waves are breaking) I kid you not when I say the waves when they were breaking were 2.5 (AT LEAST) times my height. They were so big that day they made us stand near where they were breaking without our boards just to get used to their strength. So going in blindly thinking - how hard can this really be - (said the girl who recently flipped a snowmobile) I jumped right in. First attempt out I made fast friends with another girl in the group because at the first wave break our boards went horizontal and pushed us both down under it and slammed us into the shallow sand bar. Lita (our other instructor) to the rescue though because he came up - basically told me to hang on, took my board out - flipped me around and caught me a wave. Then he said "JUMP JUMP JUMP!!!" so I did and I can officially say I stood up for 1.5 seconds. YEA!!! So that was fun and I grew some courage. Up next Margo took me out and I was exited until I realized the thing about surfing is once you're headed out with your board (attached to your ankle mind you) there's only one way to get back in, and it's catching a wave. So on the time I went out with Margo - I'll admit it - I TOTALLY freaked because the waves grew in seconds to twice the size of when they started. I started yelling - I WANT TO GO IN! Margo said Katie - you're fine - I'm going to protect you remember? I said yeah - I just really want to go in. He said there's only one way in (a fact I now noticed they DON'T tell you when they are teaching the land portion of the class). My last words I yelled before the wave hit us - YEAH - BUT I'M FROM IOWA DAMNIT! It turned out though Margo knew a bit more about surfing than I did, he was able to catch me a wave and I got up AGAIN! (maybe only for 1 second this time, but it's still up!) After that I was exhausted - it was extremely tiring. I decided to watch the experts after that. My teachers tried to get me out again but after you're in your head about it - it's over. I think I would definitely try surfing again, but with the following changes. 1) Get a one-on-one instructor and 2) get smaller waves - maybe I'll try surfing at Sailorville or Okoboji this summer? I think that would be more my speed. Here's a picture of one of my instructors and me:
After surfing though, Derek met me at this great bar called "Hemmingway's in Manly" it had old books everywhere. I'm just amazed we actually were able to find each other in a place we'd never been and with no phones. That afternoon we had fish and chips (of course) and laid out on the beach for just a bit. The sun is REALLY hot here so an hour and a half was all we really needed to be red.
This night we went to a beautiful restaurant called Cafe Sydney. On the way though when an elevator stopped on our floor we got in,like normal of course, but what wasn't normal was Lenny Kravitz in there! He had a show here that night and it was funny because I had overheard some Aussie gals talking about how excited they were for the show earlier that morning. He was very nice and even said "ladies first" to me. Of course Derek and I must have looked like Shrek to him because he was very short. Dinner though was great, I had a gnocchi dish and Derek had Tazmanian trout. It was definitely an amazing day.
