Wine tasting / Sydney

Hola!
      So this past week has proven to be just as fun as the previous ones! Last weekend we went to the horse races here in Newcastle. I have never been to a horse race before so it was very neat. I lost $15 dollars on horses but with free admission and a few free drinks i think I went home on top. There were a lot of Hen and Buck Parties (like bachelor parties) at the races and they loved us americans. It was nice getting to talk to a bunch of local Australians.


       This past Friday our landlord drove a bunch of us to go wine tasting. It was about an hour away and was a pretty scenic drive out. We visited 3 wineries and a cheese place. The first winery was very cool, we got to walk around the grounds and see the whole process. But by far my favorite part of the day was seeing a WILD KANGAROO! It was my first Kangaroo siting and it was perfect, the little bugger was up on the hill just next to all the vines hopping along.  We learned the right way to taste wine and some techniques as well. My favorite wine of the day was White Port which is wine fortified with brandy or whiskey I forget which one. It tasted very much like honey and pineapple but not too sweet.

  Then on saturday me and some blokes woke up early and caught a train into Sydney for St.Patricks day. For only $5 you can take the 2.5 Hr. trip into Sydney, pretty good deal I must say. We stopped and got food for the weekend (PB&J) and then found our hostel. It was a lovely little place. We spent the day seeing the sights and man were they cool!!! The Royal Botanical Gardens were just around the corner from us so we started there. There were plenty of nice palm trees, flowers, fountains, and big spiders!!! From there we walked along the coast of the harbor and turned the corner to find the Sydney Opera House! It was soooo cool to see that in real life, its a phenomenal structure, and very big.    I stopped inside to see how much the cheapest ticket to the cheapest show would be. I was assuming it would be some where in the $80 range or even more, to my surprise it was only $22 for students! Ill definitely make my way back for a show. We sat out at the Opera Bar and had a nice cold beer over looking the opera house, harbor, and bridge.  From there we found our way up to the bridge and got a birds eye view of the city. It was a great sunny day and it couldnt have gone better. We found our way back to the hostel and got some much needed rest. We had some dinner (PB&J)  and some desert (PB&J with extra J)  and then headed out on the town for the night. It was very busy and a great time was had by everyone!

           In the morning we got up and it was time for the St. Patties Day parade. We found our way to the main corner in front of city hall and all the Irish Dancers. We ran into some friends and enjoyed the pre parade festivities! At some point just at the beginning of the parade I got the idea in my head that I just really wanted to try and see if I could get in the parade. We got a group of 4 of us together and made our way to the start where there were no barriers. Even with there being no barriers it was still clear who was in the parade and who wasn't so it was a little tuff. We lined up 4 across on the side walk and on the count of 3 we just went for it and swung out into the parade all in a line shoulder to shoulder. We were right in the middle of two groups and decided to follow up close to the group holding a big sign in front of us. Once it got under way and we were in an area with barriers we drifted back and become our own little group! It was awesome walking in front of thousands of people, knowing that we were not supposed to be there at all. We walked past a few of our friends in the crowed and they were quite surprised to say the least! It is very had to put into words just how amazing those 24 hours were that I spent in Sydney.

           Ive seen some pretty cool wild life down here so far, and all if it has been wild! One day down on the beach this really weird hang glider come over head, then it flapped its wings and we realized it was a bird. It literally had a 12 foot wing span and after looking it up online we believe it was an Albatross. One morning trying to find a spot to go surfing I saw about 7 dolphins playing in the waves and jump in the air. That was veryyy cool to watch. Something less cool was the fact that we found a Redback spider just out side our door, its one of the more venomous spiders in Australia although no one has died from it since the 1960's as there is a widely available antivenom.

Coming up

      Today I head out with some of the house mates to a surf camp for a few days. Then Im home for 1 night then off to New Zealand for 2 weeks! I just booked a flight to Tasmania next month and am working on planning out some details. I met a kid in Sydney who will be down there the same time as me, we plan on renting a van with a few other people and road tripping around the island for a week. 

      I hope everything is going well with everyone! 

 Cheers,

   Evan