Sydney Part I

June 8 10:40pm

Today Brett and I returned to Brisi after spending the last two days in Sydney. I would be excited to be back home, but tomorrow morning we leave for Melbourne. Do not get me wrong, I am excited to get to Melbourne again, but after travelling to Sydney and back we are both quite tired and would just like to relax here for a while, but we are looking forward to Melbourne. One of the worst parts about travelling to Sydney with Tiger Airways was that they do not fly to Sydney out of Brisbane. Instead, we had to take buses and a train down to the Coolangatta Airport in order to catch the plane out. When we got to the Tiger terminal, we realised why their tickets are so cheap: it was literally a warehouse with a ticket counter and a security checkpoint thrown in. It literally felt like we were flying out of the Millersburg airport. But let me take a moment now and fill in what has all been going on over the last few days after Brett got here.

Brett was due to arrive at 6:20 our Saturday morning here. Friday night, I went to bed early because I needed to get up early to catch a train to Central Station to meet him from the airport. Surprisingly, I was too worried about him making it to Central ok that I could not sleep at all, and then around 2:00am I realised that I gave him directions to the train from the domestic terminal instead of the international terminal. By now I was really worried and realised that I should probably just suck up the $15 charge and meet him as he came out of customs. I got on the internet and found a train leaving Toowong that would get me to Central in time to catch the airport train. Alas, the train was late getting to Toowong so I did not get the train to the airport, and the next one would get me there after he would have been through customs and possibly on another train heading towards the city while I would be heading away from the city. So I decided just to wait on the platform and pray that he would have enough sense to ask an attendant where the train was. To make matters worse, about ten minutes after I got to Central Station, an announcement came over saying that all trains between Bowen Hills and the Airport were shut down due to a power failure on the power lines. Now I was genuinely concerned that he was not going to make it to Central at all, and spent the next half hour plus walking around the station trying to figure out what was going on. I was then told that busses would be bringing people from the airport to Central, so I went outside to wait again. Just as I was about to give up and go back inside, I see Brett walking up the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street and say a silent prayer of thanks that he made it ok. After I finally had him in tow, I called dad to let him know that he made it, as I had been keeping him updated on the failed status of Brisbane’s transport system. He was happy to hear that we finally met up and informed mom that he was safe and in good hands. We then went to Cole’s so that I could pick up some food to make Brett a nice brekkie after his 24+ hour trip. I got some Canadian bacon and a thing of milk and we went back to the apartment to eat. First, I made the bacon, and while frying it, I got the idea to do a honey kind of glaze with it. So I got out my kilo tub of bush honey and my basting brush and glazed some honey onto the bacon. It turned out to be a good idea and really made the bacon rather enjoyable. After the bacon was finished, I then made each of us two eggs in a basket. This has become one of my favourite brekkies and Brett rather enjoyed it so that was good. We still had a few hours before we needed to leave so we rode the City Kitty to Queen St. and walked down the mall a little bit. I showed him City Hall and unfortunately it was closed due to renovations so we could not go in. Then I remembered that it was Saturday and the Southbank Market would be going on so we walked across the bridge to the south side of the city. As it was a beautiful day out, we rode the Wheel of Brisbane, something I have been thinking about doing and since Brett was here and the weather was perfect we decided to just go ahead and do it that day. After the Ferris Wheel, we went and saw City Beach and then Brett said he was hungry so we went back to Sir Fred to get some lunch. Luckily I had made pasta the day before so we had plenty to eat. After a quick lunch, we showered and packed quick and then went to uni to print off our confirmation emails. Then we left for Gold Coast, and, lucky for us, there was an Aussie on the bus who saw me looking at my map and was able to tell me exactly how to get to our hotel. The hotel was really nice, especially for the price we paid, but we could not figure out how to turn on the lights or the AC. When we went down for dinner, I asked the lady how to do it and was told that she couldn’t understand our American accents. So I had to repeat myself and then listen as she told me there was a little box on the wall that you had to shove the room key into to get power to the room. So we finally figured out how to do that and went to bed at 9:00 since he was jet-lagged and I was tired from staying up all night.