Hello friends!
I have a free moment and thought I'd let you in on my experience at the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade!
It all started with the commercials on tv.
And then the group from KU that we met was planning on going.
So they sent us all the info.
And we booked a hostel.
Easy peasy lemon squeezy!
Since none of us had class on Friday, we took a train right after we got done with our classes on Thursday night. The concession train ticket to King's Cross station was only 3.90!!! Yaay! We did, however, have to get off at Central Station and hop onto an inner city train to get us all the way to KX, but it wasn't hard or anything. Oh and to keep entertained on the train for 3 hours, we took loads of pictures and made a video. Pictures can be found on my FB page in the future at some point!
We stayed at Brado's Backpackers in King's Cross. To say the least, it was super sketch. There are lots of shady people and places hanging around there. There are lots of "adult" places and we were told several times to watch out for needles in the street from the junkies. Cool. ON the other hand: we were SUPER close to where the parade was, it was SUPER cheap, and we met LOADS of cool people. What can I say? You win some, you lose some.
Our plans for Friday afternoon were just kind of a whim, but it worked out well (enough)! We woke up and walked around KX for a while before deciding to go to the beach! The only problem was we didn't know which to go to. Another girl suggested Manly Beach, which could only be a too perfect return for me, since that's where V&M lived once upon a time! We walked about 2 miles to get to Circular Quay (pronounced Circular Key, just fyi) to take a ferry to Manly. They ferry was definitely more than any of us expected to pay, and they wouldn't let us get concession, so we got stuck paying 13.30 for roundtrip ferry tickets. YIKES!
Ferry ride was fun, the usual fresh air, nice views, crying children. We got off and it was crazy how much I actually remembered from my first trip there almost 4 years ago! But I definitely knew exactly where to go and saw all the familiar stores in the little shopping area, and walked straight to the beach! Crowded would be an understatement when we got there, but we found a patch just big enough for the 3 of us to lay our towels. The water was beautiful, and the sun was shinning! The water was colder than it is in Newcastle, but after laying out a while, it was just the right temperature for me.
On the way back to the ferry, we stopped to pick up slurpees from the 7/11 convenience store...delicious! And I'd say they were pretty close to prices back home too! Pear lime is a new flavor here and it's amazing!
As for our plans that night, we started at a pub in KX before being advised to go to Star City Casino. The advisor told us that it would be a quick train ride and short walk to where we wanted to go. Since I have never been in a real casino, I thought it might be fun to go. Well, the train may have been short, but the walk was definitely not. We get there expecting something great, but to me it looked just like any casino I've seen on tv. But it was in Australia. We hung around a while and realized that basically everyone there was much older than we were and it was not in fact a place we would want to hang out. We ended up going different ways and 5 of us were trying to get back. Of course, the train doesn't run that late. There wouldn't be a bus in that direction for about an hour and none of the taxis would take 5 people in 4 seats. It was basically a nightmare, but we called a bigger taxi and were finally able to get home! Well, KX.
For the parade on Saturday, we all decided to dress up and get into costume. Some people in our large group had wings, some had masks, there were hats, boas, fishnets, sequins, glitter, feathers, hairspray, wigs, and every color of the rainbow could be seen! We were advised to get there early since the street would fill up early for people wanting the best views. Luckily, I'm a professional getting places too early person, and we arrived 6 hours early. The parade was supposed to start at 8 and we got there at 2. Certainly, it was boring, but because of how many people were with us, we were able to take shifts saving our place while others would walk down the street looking, or getting something to eat.
When the parade finally did start, it was utter chaos! We certainly did have the best seats in the whole place...we were in the very very front on the corner and were able to see all the cameras from local tv stations and the famous people coming to host it! We took pictures of the parade and people would run to us and get in pictures with us! The parade lasted hours, but it was ok since we had let the anticipation build all night! It was simply fantastic!
We rode the train back Sunday afternoon, early enough to get to the grocery store and catch a bus home. We watched the parade again on tv that night, only to see ourselves on the screen about a million times. Thank goodness for the costumes or it might have been hard to spot us!
That's all for now! But here's a picture of the Arkansas girls dressed up with some of the volunteers that we made friends with on our 6 hour wait!
