Adventures in the City

Let me just start by saying that having your birthday in a time zone 14 hours ahead of everyone that you know is AWESOME! This year I have 2 days of birthday because even though July 29 is almost over in Australia, it is just beginning in America! Also, I wish that I had time to reply to everyone who writes on my facebook wall and sends me a message on my birthday, but I don't so I'll just say a blanket THANK YOU right now and it is up to you to know that I really do mean it. You should also know that the previous statement was totally not meant to sound narcissistic. Really.

I have a lot to catch you people up on so sit back and relax. Maybe go pop some popcorn, pour yourself some lemonade, get comfortable. Or maybe not because I say that I don't want to make these too long because you might get bored, but really sometimes I just get tired of typing so I leave things out. Only unimportant details though... don't worry.

On Monday, Renee had to work and Corrine was in Fiji so I decided to do nothing. I had literally been on the go for a full week and I was exhausted. Tuesday, Renee had the day of so we decided to head down to Bondi Beach ("Bond-eye") for the afternoon. I was more than a little excited. When we got there, we first went to this really cool cafe/used book store called Alice + Gertrude's (oh side note, the + sign for Australians says "and" but probably also "plus" but only if you are doing math). A lot of the places at Bondi have big doors that open the whole front of the shop or cafe up to the sidewalk, making the sidewalk feel like an extension of all of the businesses. We walked around a little bit more before heading down to the beach 'cause you KNOW I had to check out the cheesy tourist shops. Some of them, at least. There is a sidewalk that runs the length of the beach and let me tell you, if you sit or stand there long enough, you will see some interesting people go by. Renee and I ended up standing right behind the lifeguard station and there were a couple of people that kept asking the lifeguard to take a picture with them. I thought it was just because he was a lifeguard and they were at Bondi so they thought it was cool. Wrong. I mean right, but only half. Turns out, there is this really popular show in Australia called "Bondi Rescue." I think it would be like if you took "Baywatch" and "COPS" and mashed them into one show. Either way, this lifeguard (Renee knew his name, but I don't watch the show so I already forgot) is apparently one of the cute ones and I guess is sort of a local celeb. Or maybe just a celeb to the people that watch. I don't know. He's well known enough that Renee texted her friend that has a celeb-crush on him to tell her that we saw him and her friend was really excited. Then we saw him AGAIN while we were walking later on and Renee laughed and said she felt like a stalker. I have no idea who this dude is, so I didn't really get it. We also saw an old guy in a very small Speedo, a younger guy in a business suit, a whole bunch of surfers, and 2 guys who were clearly living out of their VW van cooking lunch on a camp stove in the parking lot. After people-watching on the beach for a bit, Renee and I walked a little further down towards the Bondi Icebergs. The Icebergs is a swimming club on the side of a cliff just above the ocean. The pools are cool because they are basically just a walled-off section of the ocean. Just past the Icebergs there is a path that goes up around South Head and connects Bondi Beach to Coogee (sounds like cook minus the k, gee). We didn't walk the whole thing because it would have taken 3 hours, but we did walk along a little of it at the beginning so that we (I) could see the cliffs and the view looking back at the beach. It was gorgeous. Eventually we had to leave, and I had to stop taking pictures because we had to get back for Sisterhood that night at church. While we were walking back to the car, we saw this really cute guy from church in one of the cafes, but we were so busy laughing like teenagers at the shock of seeing him that neither one of us actually thought to go get in line behind him in the cafe... dang it. Haha. We are pathetic, I know.

That night we went to Sisterhood United at church. Sisterhood is usually every Thursday morning and it's just for women, they provide a program for the kids so that moms can come and they have worship and a message. Every so often they have Sisterhood United which is when all the women from the different Hillsong campuses across the city get together at night, instead of in the morning. This gives the girls that work a chance to come. When we got there, they had girls coming around with cups of soup and bread, girls doing manicures, and girls giving shoulder massages. It was really nice. They had converted the main auditorium into "Theater Mode" which basically cut it in half and made it feel a lot more intimate. Bobbie Houston spoke that night and she was amazing. Obviously I don't know her, but the bit of her personality that comes across on stage reminds me a lot of my friend Anna Gayle. It was great.

On Wednesday, Renee and I woke up and made plans to go into the city and hangout all day, then have dinner... then we looked out the window. It was pouring. We decided we didn't want to be cooped up inside all day, so we were going to brave it and go into the city anyway. We went in just about every tourist shop in The Rocks. We also went in couple of other random stores AND the Opera House! For dinner, we went to a pub called The Argyle that Renee had said was one of her favorite places in the city.As soon as we walked in the door I could see why. It was really nice and had a great atmosphere, but was also very laid back. The food was really good too. We ended up just sitting and hanging out for a while before we finally made our way back home to hills. Despite the rain, both days wound up being so much fun!