We flew to LA today, yay! The plane rides weren't that bad and the one to LA had TVs we could watch, yay! Luckily Bianca slept for most of it so I got to actually enjoy having the TV. The disturbing part of our day occurred when we got to our hotel. We were starving by that point and had seen a fast food place down the road we could walk to, and since it's a pretty touristy place with lots of hotels and lights on the road, we decided to walk the whole ONE BLOCK to the fast food place. On our way there someone shouts to us, we try to ignore but got scared so we turned around. The guy pretty much told us he was homeless blahblahblah poor blahblahblah and I love Jesus blahblahblah all this other junk and then he asked for money. Number 1, we weren't going to give him any money ANYWAY, and number 2 we didn't have any cash on us, just a couple of quarters in my pocket. I apologized (ugh why?) and told him we don't have any cash, just some change and then we walked away. Oh boy he did not like that. He started yelling at us and basically told Bobby that he hopes he dies and that we're going to hell and that he hopes he gets cancer and dies. Scary crap on the streets of LA. Never. Again. I'd rather pay $50 for the hotel food than do that again...needless to say we walked on the opposite side of the road going back to the hotel (and he was gone thank goodness!)
December 27, 2011
Our flight wasn't until later on at night, so we decided to go out. The hotel had a shuttle bus to Manhattan Beach, so of course we decided to go and explore! We ate some Mexican food, walked along the beach, played in the sand, and got some yummy cupcakes that won Cupcake Wars (yes, I saw the episode. I was excited!).
Then we tried to rest and nap in our hotel until it was time for our flight. We made it to the airport in good time and super excited. We got our tickets and got even more excited. The excitement stops there. So we get on the plane and we notice we are not sitting next to each other. Well we are, but we're across the isle from each other when Bobby booked us having a window seat and sitting next to each other. Yeah. Other families came and sat next to us so we were just the lucky ones that were forced to be separated even though we booked the freaking things a year ago. We even asked the flight attendants if there was a possibility to switch because this wasn't going to work knowing Bianca...but they ignored us every time I politely talked to them. I was nice too!!!
VIRGIN AIRLINES SUCKS! LET ME SAY THAT LOUD AND CLEAR! NEVER FLY THEM!!!
December 28, 2011 (technically I suppose)
I'll write about our flight here because we technically lost this day in the air. Well the whole bassinet thing was stupid. Yes, nice to have, but they kept having turbulence. Once she was all fed and finally asleep in the bassinet, I had to take her out, which woke her up and led to her crying loudly. UGH! And I had to breast feed her next to strangers and it was awkward even with my cover on and UGH!!! It was so hard for me to get up to use the restroom or stretch because I had to pass Bianca to Bobby and it sucked. I seriously did not sleep at ALL on that 15 hour flight and Bobby slept for 10 mins. UGH UGH UGH!!!
December 29, 2011
When we landed it was morning out. Joy. We had not slept thanks, Virgin Airlines. Ugh. I have never been that tired in my life! But we were soo excited to be in SYDNEY!!! We got our stuff and headed to our hotel praying they'd let us in our room early. Sadly they couldn't for another couple of hours, so we had to go exploring Sydney in our zonked out state. We ate breakfast and walked through this mall and ended up just sitting in the food court for a while, me pretty much napping on the table and Bobby trying to keep his eyes open. We finally got our room and we had the most glorious nap of our lives!
When we woke up we decided to go down to the waterfront and explore. Outside of our hotel there's this INSANE crosswalk! All the pedestrian lights turn green at once and everyone crosses at the same time, going diagonal across the road and all sorts of crazy stuff. I wish we got a pic! It was pretty cool thought. When we got down to the waterfront, we found the coolest playground in the world. I'd go there to play on it myself, that's how awesome it was. Bianca had a blast playing there. We stayed there for a while letting Bianca explore the whole park.
Then we ate some overly priced Hard Rock Cafe food and decided to do our real sightseeing in the morning. This turned out to be such a fun day overall though!
December 30, 2011
Today we toured the Sydney Opera House! It was very beautiful and an interesting tour. Bianca liked watching the little movies they showed us.
That tour must have worn Bianca out because she napped throughout the whole subway and bus ride to Featherdale Wildlife Park, where you could pet koalas and kangaroos! Eek!
Because of our crazy schedule, we got there in the middle of the day when it was super hot out, yuck. But seeing all of the cute animals made it worth it! We bought some food and got to feed the kangaroos (when the rude Asians weren't PUSHING you out of the way to do it themselves). They feel like big hopping doggies. Some were even just hopping around the park hanging out. We got in line right away to pet the koala, which feels SO much different than you'd think! Think brillo pad texture. But still cute. I was sad that we couldn't hold it, but at least we got to pet it. Bianca didn't know what to think of the thing! There were all of these exotic animals and what did she like the best? "BIRD! A BIRD!" At least she thought the albino kangaroo was pretty swell.
A BIIRRDD!
Don't look at my child that way!
Bobby's friend
Cutest. Penguin. Ever.
I got in a fight with an Australian goat...
We discovered after that that we BARELY had enough money for the bus ride back. Ok. So we'll find an ATM, right? Wrong. They don't have one. We ask for one we can walk to, but alas, there is none, unless we wanted to walk over a mile in the heat. We just got on the bus anyways. Asked for a student fare, but they said only Australian students, but the guy took pity on us since we had the baby and let us on for what we had. Thank goodness!!!
We went back to the hotel and changed into our swimsuits and went to Bondi Beach to go swimming! It was a very nice beach, even though you had to climb this huge hill to get to it. It was beautiful there too. Some people were filming something in the water, which was fun to watch. Bobby went in the water, we thought it was too cold. Bobby said the waves were some of the craziest he's ever seen! He almost drown a couple of times, which I wish he never told me. Some people from Asia came over and asked to take a picture of Bianca. Yeah. I was like um, ok? She didn't want to pose with them, (nor did I want her to, that's just creepy), so I just held her and they happily took pics of her. You're famous in Asia now, Bianca!
Views from our hotel!
Bondi Beach!
See those waves?? Gah!
After swimming we got some yummy gelato and took the bus back to our hotel. What a crazy long day! Phew!
December 31, 2011
Happy New Year's Eve! We switched hotels this morning and then hung out and explored the big mall down there. It was still decorated for Christmas with beautiful lights and everything. We also ate there since apparently real food in Aussie is wicked expensive.
We didn't want to wait outside ALL day for the fireworks, so we left for them in the late afternoon. We got there at a good time I think. We found a good spot and camped out. We ended up moving like 3 or 4 times to better spots until we found where to stay. Bianca kept wanting to walk around up and down the hill and through the grass, so in our last spot we made sure there was some safe places for her to climb around.
The whole thing said "Trust in Christ"
It got a bit crazy when it got dark. We had to secure our spot so no one would take it. Luckily there was this Aussie family in front of us who let us come up with them so that Bianca could see better. They even had relatives or had been to upstate NY before! Crazy. So first they had a "family fireworks show" at 9pm so that you could put your kiddos to bed after that. The real fireworks were obviously at midnight. Our spot turned out to be just alright. A bit of the fireworks were blocked because of the bridge, but overall I'm glad we got that spot.
Amazed.
Blocked :(
That Aussie family left after the family show, they didn't want to put up with the craziness. So we took their place and waited. Holy crap people were so crazy. People kept climbing up and cutting in. There was this one dude who said he had a "friend" up there, but everyone around us were so sick of cutters, no one let him go up there (we had not seen him all day, and he looked very clean and non-sweaty, which if you were out there all day, you'd be sweaty and gross like the rest of us). Instead he tried to go anyways, almost stepping on my sleeping Bianca. Yeah. Not nice! But when the fireworks started, they were fantastic!! So much better than the family show. Amazing way to ring in 2012. Yay!
Getting home was horrendous! We walked to the subway and the line was out the building and down the block. And it wasn't moving it seemed. Bianca was crying and it was horrible!! Finally another family came up to us and said there was an entrance just for strollers/families with little ones. SCORE! We followed them and got right in. I wish we had known about that an hour ago though! It was still insanity in the subway though. We FINALLY got to our stop and then walked around trying to find our hotel in the dark. We eventually found it though and went to sleep at like 3am.
January 1, 2012
After hardly any sleep, we headed off to the airport to go to Ayer's Rock, which is pretty much a rock in the middle of nowhere in the outback. We were staying there for 24 hours, which we heard is all you need (and it was more than enough time...). We flew Quantas and it was awesome. They even gave Bianca a toy, aw! We also saw the rock from the outside of the plane!
The good times end there. So our stroller didn't come off of the plane with the rest of our stuff, so we get in the costumer service line. They basically said too bad. Then about 15 mins later they ended up finding it, ugh! They didn't have to be rude about it though...Oh! And speaking of rude, there is one guy who drives the bus to take people to their resorts (there isn't anything else out there). Well we went out to get on the bus and he yelled at us saying "oh well too bad you missed your bus. You've gotta wait until the next plane arrives in a half hour and maybe you can get on then." REALLY?!?!?! He didn't have to be a jerk about the situation but whatever.
The other plane comes, we get on the bus and go to our resort. It was kinda gross. There were bugs everywhere and junk. Yuck. Whatever. Bianca was exhausted by this point so I stayed and slept with her while Bobby went to get the rental car. He came back and rested with us and watched 1 out of the 3 channels we got on TV. When Bianca woke up we explored the resort and looked in the grocery store. Since it was still nice out, we decided to go swimming in the pool since that actually looked nice. It was really nice and it was the best time we had here at Ayers Rock (spoiler, sorry). At dinner time we ate at one of the food places there.
Then we decided to go out and see the rock at sunset which is supposed to be spectacular, although, just our luck, it was going to be rainy and overcast that night. Excellent! Backing out of the spot in the huge car they gave us, Bobby nicked a car a little bit apparently. We didn't think we actually hit it, but I guess we did. Remember this. So we go and watch the sunset which was only ok because it was overcast.
We get back and park and this guy comes out of his car and says he's from some other car rental place and that these girls saw us back into a car and drive away? We didn't even realize it until we saw a TINY scratch of paint on the front of our car. TINY. Obviously if we knew we hit something we'd get out and/or leave a note with all of our info on it. Well it doesn't matter because we got the full insurance, right? Remember this too. The guy was nice though (maybe because Bianca was screaming) and he said since he works for the other company he'll just talk to them tomorrow and all we have to do is stop by and sign some junk. Ok. Cool. We apologized because duh we didn't mean to do this. We're not those kind of people. Whatever. Fell asleep in our stupid bug infested room (thank goodness they gave you bug spray) and didn't see the stars at night that are supposed to be fabulous because of the stupid clouds. Stupid.
January 2, 2012
We were leaving today, thank goodness. So we woke up early to go and take a closer look at the stupid rocks. We drove around and took pictures. Yes they were pretty. But worth it? For us so far, NO WAY! It was fun driving on the opposite side of the road though. The only thing that messes you up is when you try to put your blinker on, since it's on the opposite side too. I put my windshield washers on so many times doing this haha. We drove over to the other rock formation too and there was a trail you could walk around, but it was BLISTERING hot by that point and not stroller friendly, so we walked a little bit and gave up. We didn't care anymore by that point.
The white part was the scratches that we did I guess.
So...hot...
Water!
We came back to the resort and waited around until the time we needed to be at the airport to settle that car crap. We got some toffee "milkshakes" at a store, which were more milky than ice creamy, but were still spectacular. That and the pool were the highlights here, and you can get that crap anywhere in the world pretty much.
So we get to the airport, drop the car off and think, no prob, we TOTALLY got the whole full insurance, we would be fools without it. Apparently they didn't give it to us even though Bobby had proof that he wanted it *smacks head* ugh. They told him he needed to pay $1000 or something crazy right then and there FOR THAT SCRATCH. THAT LITTLE SCRATCH. AND IT WAS SMALLER ON THE OTHER CAR!!!!!!!!! Well we don't have that money, unless they wanted Bianca to go without food and diapers the rest of the trip, and Bobby told them that. So the guy gets on the phone with his manager and they're all talking, I start getting teary, Bianca in turn is getting upset, and Bobby's like "so what are you gonna do, throw me in jail??" Bah! Luckily they decided to have mercy on us. We pleaded to them that we could totally pay them by the end of the month, we 100% promise! We're honest people. They said they could do that, so they got ALL of our info we had and yeah. Yes, we were billed a stupid amount later, but not the full $1000. So yeah. Never accidentally hit a car with full insurance. It doesn't work apparently. We barely were able to board our plane and off to paradise we went...BYE BYE HELL, OOPS, I MEAN AYERS ROCK! :-P
We got to Cairns that night (where the Great Barrier Reef is) and it was GORGEOUS! There was the ocean and mountains. So wonderful! We just walked around, enjoyed the nice weather, and ate dinner, melting away all the stresses from the stupid rock place. We'll start part 2 with something fun and end this here :)
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