Goodbye, Study. Hello, Abroad!

I finally finished my last final today!  In the past week, I've written 2 papers and taken one exam.  It has been a long week.  And soon I'll be headed over on three weeks of travel before heading back to the U.S.

But for now, an update on my Australian adventures...

About two weeks ago, Dad came to visit.  It was really nice to see him and get to show him around Sydney.  The first day he was here, we walked around campus and then went to two of the beaches near the university, Coogee and Bondi.  We started at Coogee and walked to Bondi Beach.  There was a scultpture exhibit at Bondi that was fun to see.  There were around 100 sculptures all along the walk.  It was really cool because, while some of them were just placed on the ground and some were built into the scenery.  A lot of the artwork was really cool, but some of them were just plain weird.  We had a really nice afternoon, but both of got extremely burnt.  (If you want to see pictures from the beach, bug my dad to post them on Facebook.  They are all on his phone.)

The next day, we went to Circular Quay to see the Harbour Bridge, Opera House, and downtown Sydney.  We walked across the Harbour Bridge and climbed up a pylon (the towers on either side of the bridge).  From the top of the pylon, we had great views of the city and the Harbours.  Next we went to the Opera House and took a tour of it.  I had been inside the theatre before, but never inside the concert hall.  Dad and I both agreed that the concert hall was the prettier room.  It was gorgeous!  Afterwards we walked around the Botanical Gardens, which were really pretty.  I had only been there in the winter, and they are a lot prettier now that it is spring.  We also saw a lot of weddings happening there too!

The Harbour Bridge and the pylon that we climbed

The Harbour Bridge view from the pylon

Sydney from the pylon

On the Opera House tour

On the Opera House tour

On Sunday, we got to spend the morning together before Dad headed back to the states.  It was really nice getting to see him, especially so close to my birthday!  We had a lot of fun together!

On Monday, I headed off to Byron Bay.  Byron Bay is a beach town on the northern border of New South Wales (right near Queensland's Gold Coast).  The town is very hippie-ish and very chill.  It was a nice, relaxing break before finals.  I was there for three days, and most of my time was spent exploring the town or laying on the beach.  On Tuesday, we did a hike up to the famous lighthouse.  We wanted to get there in time to see the sunrise, so we woke up at about 4am!  The walk took us about an hour, and we were able to see the sunrise over the pacific ocean.  It was a really pretty sunrise!  A little bit farther down the path is the eastern most point of the Australian mainland.  It was a cool landmark to be able to see and stand on.

The B is where Byron Bay is

Superheroes at the airport! (the Hulk, Spiderman)

and Batman!

Byron Bay beach

The lighthouse before sunrise

The lighthouse and the moon

The moon!

Some of the clouds turned bright red!

First glimpse of the sun

Byron Bay from the lighthouse

Bright and early!

The lighthouse off in the distance

I had a cool experience during the presidential elections.  I was actually on my way to the airport when Dad texted me to say that Obama had been re-elected.  When I got to the airport, all of the television screens were tuned to the news about the American elections and any time anyone heard me speak and knew I was American, they would comment on it.  It was cool to see another country's reaction to the election.  It was interesting how strongly invested they were in it and how a tiny airport was playing only the elections on their TVs.

Ever since I've been back I've been studying and working on papers.  My birthday was really fun!  I went to dinner and went out with some of my friends to celebrate.  Now that all my finals are over, hopefully I'll be able to cross off the rest of the things that I want to do before I leave Sydney.