March 3- Day One in Sydney

I arrived in Sydney at 8:30 in the morning from about 30 hours of travel between Chicago--> Houston-->Auckland, NZ--> Sydney. Nothing to complain about with Air New Zealand! Good seats, food, entertainment and passengers. On my 15 hour flight I even gave up my window seat for a tall guy sitting in the middle. He was beyond thankful.

Once I landed I got my Sim Card (Vodafone), and headed off to my couchsurfing home. The weather by the way here is gorgeous, high 70’s and sunny! I have done couchsurfing once before (on an actual couch) in St. Andrews, Scotland and absolutely loved it. This time I am staying with Charles in Rose Bay, New South Wales and I got a whole room and bed to myself because one of his roommates is out of town for the duration of my stay. Once I got settled in he invited me to a pool club party at Ivy for his friend’s birthday. Oh and did I mention it is Mardi Gras/Gay Pride today?? How could I say no, it sounded fantastic! The party was wild

and everyone there dressed (and looked) like models. To top it all off there was great house music on, which I can’t get enough of. (Sorry for those of you who don’t like Edm/House/Techno, there will be a lot about it in this blog. But don’t worry, I like other genres and will be writing about those too! I hear the live music in Melbourne is fantastic.) Anyways…. I met a lot of fascinating people and loved hearing where everyone came from before they moved out to Australia: Scotland, New Zealand, Ireland, England, and a couple people from the states.

The vibe was cool and so was the venue (very posh), and then we headed off to an after party near the parade. We walked around the parade grounds for a while and got to see some of the downtown area.

It's pretty and spread out- kind of like Chicago! Lots of parks, cool bridges, and trendy restaurants. The parade itself was full of life and vibrant colors/lights because it happened at night. My favorite part was seeing all the outrageous outfits worn by the attendees. I’ve never been to a pride parade, and now I get to check it off a special list of goals I have at home! Unlike my usual self, but definitely because of Jetlag, I was ready to go home around 10 pm (because we started drinking and socializing at 1!) It was a great first day in the land down under and it still has not kicked in that I’ll be living in this country for so long... but I think it will once I get down to Melbourne. Excited to explore Sydney and surrounding areas this week!