Part 2, Week 17: May 13-19
- Katie and Webster
- May 19, 2019
- 4 min read
This week we spent way too much time studying, explored Taronga Zoo, and tried some delicious restaurants from our must-try list.
On Monday and Tuesday, Webster and I both had full days at school. We are almost finished the semester so group projects and assignments are due. Since we have spent the last four weeks doing little to no school work, we found ourselves a little bit behind.
On Wednesday, we did a big grocery shop! We were so thankful to have visitors for the last month and that meant we didn’t need as many groceries. We stocked up on everything we needed for the next two weeks! Then, we took a trip to Kmart for some warmer clothes. This week it went down to 8 degrees at night, and only managed to reach 15-20 during the day. We did not come prepared for the Sydney Winter so we splurged on some $5 long sleeve tees, and $10 pants.
In the evening, Webster had ultimate frisbee practice. He met his team at Wentworth Park, after missing a few practices and got right back into it!
On Thursday, we woke up bright and early to head down to George Street and do some window shopping. We found ourselves in a local bookstore reading all the Lonely Planet books about our summer destinations!
Then we headed to the Strand Arcade for some Sydney famous coffee at Gumption. Webster had a cappuccino with a beautiful design, and I had a cold brew coffee. We were expecting to be blown away with the coffee but it was just normal. We more enjoyed our view sitting in an old arcade building, that was bustling with people and independent shopkeepers.
On Thursday night we spent some time booking our last few to-do’s for our summer trip. We finally booked a flight back to Canada on August 24, picked a hotel to stay at in Singapore, and booked a 52 hour layover in Bali!
On Friday, we spent the afternoon walking around Circular Quay. We are so lucky to be in Sydney and this is definitely one of our favourite spots. We had a drink on the harbour, wandered in and out of shops and watched all the boat traffic go by under the bridge. It was a little colder than normal, but the views were still just as good!
When the sun went down we headed to Frankie’s Pizza - a hole in the wall pizza shop recommended on a tour we took a few weeks ago. We both had a slice of homemade pizza for $4 - what a steal, especially in overpriced Sydney! Although it was a cool place, the pizza wasn’t the best. We talked about missing our favourite pizza in London, Franco Manca!
Then when we got back to our AirBnB we got all settled in for a few hours of studying and the building fire alarms went off! We quickly got our necessities (ie. passports) and headed out to the road. We were surprised at how few people actually left the building. When the firefighters arrived all the little kids clapped for them and cheered them on! We were allowed to go back in about 15 minutes later after they found someone had burnt a steak cooking on a BBQ inside…
On Saturday we had a busy day at Taronga Zoo! Taronga is directly across the water from the Opera House in Central Sydney. It is a big zoo, about the same size as Toronto Zoo, with tons of animals. We woke up early so we could be at the gates the moment it opened! We took a ferry from Circular Quay directly over to the zoo, then we took a gondola from the waterfront, over the zoo to the front gates. It was a great way to get an overview of all we could see during our day trip. Our first stop was the lemurs, tigers, elephants, and giraffes. The zoo has some 3 month old baby tigers so we spent some time watching them play. Then, we saw a great seal show where the keepers had taught rescued and injured seals tricks. In the afternoon we spent some time with the gorillas and of course Australian animals, the kangaroos and koalas. We really enjoyed Taronga Zoo and would highly recommend it to anyone visiting Sydney for more than a week.
On Sunday we spent the morning and early afternoon studying and getting some assignments submitted. Then we ventured over to Newtown for some lunch. Newtown is a trendy community in Sydney filled with unique food, street art, and vintage book/clothing stores. We had read about a place called Mary’s burgers on Time Out and from a few local people in Sydney so we thought we would give it a try! Mary’s was literally a dark hole in the wall with no sign outside. It was a small little dive with tons of people and tons of workers. Their menu was very simple, Cheeseburger, Mary’s burger, and Chicken wings. I had Mary’s burger (cheese, bacon burger with Mary’s sauce) and Webster had a cheeseburger (burger, double cheese, loaded with toppings). We were really impressed, the burgers were delicious - the best we have had on this trip for sure!
We spent the evening meal prepping for lunches this week and getting back to our school work.
This week we are planning to check a few more restaurants off our list and we have tickets to see a Sydney rugby game! With only five more weeks in Australia we are making the most of every moment!
Comments