Catching Up!

We had been home from Coolangatta for five whole days before our gang came to Sydney for Spring Break. Our posse for the week; Steph Desouza and her boyfriend Justin and Chris's little brother Stephen came with his pal Becca. (How two 20 year olds afforded the flight to Australia is beyond me...I am pretty sure at that age I consistently had about $.50 in my checking account) We were so excited to have them come stay with us,  and knowing that we would only have them in Sydney for 8 short days we had a jam-packed schedule....and a cozy apartment...but we made it work, who said you couldn't comfortably sleep six in a one bedroom? 

I will spare you the play by play, but I will quickly share with you everything we managed to cram into their holiday. Stephen and Becca arrived first, bright n early on Saturday morning and were immediately raring and ready to hit the beach. So we headed to Manly to give them their first go round with surfing...Stephen did a bit better than Miss Becca who left the beach that day with a a nice bruise on her thigh that had a strange resemblance to Australia - not a bad souvenir for your first full day in Sydney. 

And a quick 24 hours later Steph and Justin had landed and the whole crew was finally here!

We did the Bondi to Bronte walk on Sunday afternoon. Let's see...we did the Hunter Valley Wine tour, celebrated St. Paddy's by going out for Mexican and margaritas, and of course had several green beers throughout the day. We made several more trips over to Manly and Stephen worked on perfecting his surfing skills. They did the IMAX, visited the Blue Mountains, saw Chinatown, the shops on Oxford, Paddington, Darlinghurst, Darling Harbour, checked out the Rocks, and walked up and down  George St. multiple times. We did the Harbour Bridge Climb and one afternoon we let ourselves into the Sydney Opera house and shortly after were escorted out of the building by a mall cop type security guard named Sam... He looked more like a Ned to me. But either way our short stay at the Opera House was over.

I am sure I am forgetting things...they saw the QVB (Queen Victoria Building - huge shopping center), the Pitt St. Mall, Botanical Gardens, we went out in the Quay...took them to my favorite watering (and wedges) hole - the Custom's House. Had a night out at the German pub (think Hessen Haus) Lowenbrau, had an evening out at the Belgium Beer Cafe. We took them to our favorite restaurant in Kings Cross - Caffe Roma, where we had far too much wine but kicked off a fun night of bar hopping through Kings Cross and the CBD. We spent the last full day together at Manly, soaking up as much sun as possible. That night Chris and I headed to the Kings of Leon show at Olympic Park and met up everyone for one last send off drink after the show. (Guys please help me out if I have forgotten something). 

The whole crew at Caffe Roma.

Needless to say I was ready for a nap.