My first roo

Yesterday, I woke up at dawn (ouch) to take a trip into the blue mountains. These mountains are actually green, but the leaves on the trees emit an oil that creates a bluish haze when they sun reflects off it, hence the "blue" mountains. It's supposed to be very beautiful. Well, it was a pretty day when I woke up, but the weather took a nasty turn the higher we climbed into the mountains. What I saw were actually more like grey mountains. Fabulous. So it rained and rained and this is the only decent shot I got. You can see the smallest trace of blue in the background.



The best part of the day was seeing kangaroos! Nope, that isn't a dog in the background...this one was so lazy; just chilin in the grass. Nice life.



So that was quite a long day and I was so beat that I stayed in and went to sleep instead of going out on Fri night. I couldn't have felt more lame. Then Saturday was Australia day. It was really amazing...bands playing everywhere, sailboat races, barbecues, and the best weather imaginable. I met up with a girl from my first hostel and we hung out in the botanical gardens for the better part of the day. That night I went to a few house parties around the beach, and once again, kicked myself for not going out in the city. Apparently, one of the girls I had hung out with at the botanical gardens won the Miss Backpacker '08 competition, and all the girls had one hell of a time. I on the other hand was doing this:



Yes, that's a karaoke competition. In someone's apartment. I could have been killing off as many brain cells as possible at the dirty backpacker bar, but instead chose to kill off my vocal chords singing Son of a Preacher Man. It was pretty fun though.

I made up for my lack of drunkeness on Saturday the next night at a barbecue on the rocks of Bondi beach. What a blast. The guy who owns the apartment is paid to have models live in his place. Yes, you read that correctly. Paid. To have models. Living with him. The place is right on the beach, and I was just psyched to be meeting so many Australians (it's easy to spend a year here and never even talk to a local). This is a few of us on the balcony at sunset. Not bad at all!