Chilling in Melbourne

I've been in Melbourne for three days now. Sydney and Melbourne might look pretty close on the map, but the travel to get here took 14 hours by bus. Feels good to be in Melbourne though, my impression of the city is good so far. I live close to St Kilda beach, so I've been to the beach a lot these days. I'm actually starting to get tanned. It's extremely hot here. St Kilda is a nice place anyway, it's lively and peaceful at the same time.

I've been tired these days, so I've spent most of them lying on the beach reading. I'm reading that sort of book that is hard to put aside. It's nice to have time to read, I haven't read anything else than course literature for a long time.

I'm a person who always thinks very much and reflects on things, but on this travel I've been thinking more than usual. Travelling really makes you see things from another perspective. You realize what matters in life and what doesn't matter at all. Suddenly it feels like I'm able to do whatever I want with my life. I mean, I went to the other side of earth because I wanted to. I skydived because I wanted to. What says that I can't do anything else because I want to?

Today I went to the central part of the city to check out shops and stuff. I found several rock clothing shops, that's nice. There are many cafées here and many street musicians. Tonight I've been partying at my hostel and talked to people from all over the world.

Taronga Zoo

I've been doing lots of things this week, one day I went to Taronga Zoo for example. It was fun to see kangaroos, koalas and other Australian animals. The koalas were sleeping though. The kangaroos were more lively, you could walk close to them too. Thought I should share some pictures with you. The last one is of a Tasmanian tiger, I thought I should get a good picture of him, but then he ran away into a hole. That is why the picture is blurry.

Happy birthday to me

I celebrated my 21st birthday yesterday. I can't believe that I'm getting so old! It was the first birthday I spent far away from home, family and friends. The day was perfect anyway.

I lay on Manly beach all day, it was a really nice beach. The weather was good too, it has been raining here for some days, but not this day. I've never celebrated my birthday on a beach before.

In the evening I went out to eat dinner and drink beer with Lisa. We ate lasagne on an Italian restaurant, lasagne is one of my absolute favorite meals. The best thing about the restaurant visit was that I got a huge piece of chocolate cake for free when I told them it was my birthday. I even got a candle on it and the whole restaurant sang for me. It felt like I was in a movie or something. After the dinner I drank Pure Blonde, it's an Australian beer which is very good. A new favorite actually.

Beach, lasagne, chocolate cake, beer and good company. Can you possibly have a better birthday? Maybe if you add a Green Day concert (I'm the world's biggest Green Day freak for those of you who don't know). Otherwise, I don't think so.

Talking about beer, I bought awesome earrings the other day. They look like Heineken caps. Heineken used to be my favorite beer back in the days. People in all ages start talking to me everywhere just because of the earrings, they always ask if I've made them myself or bought them.

Tomorrow I'm leaving Sydney for Melbourne. It's going to be exciting to see what Melbourne is like, I've heard lots of positive things about the city. Tomorrow it's three weeks since I left Sweden, time flies. I don't miss Sweden at all, this is so much better. What an adventure it has been already, I can't wait to see what the rest of the trip is going to be like.

Skydiving

I wrote that Lisa and I were going to do a big thing and that big thing was...skydiving! We did it very spontaneously, we were like: "I wanna go skydiving!" "Me too!" Then we booked it and the next day we did it. For me it was like an early birthday present for myself as I'm turning 21 on Monday.

People have asked me how I got the courage to do it and the answer to that is.. I don't know, I just did it. I didn't have that much time to get nervous anyway. Skydiving has always been one of the things on my to-do-list-before-I-die. Afterwards I can hardly believe that I did it. Was it really me, Emma, who jumped out of that plane?

We jumped over a beach outside of Sydney, the view was so beautiful. It was a little bit scary to jump out of the plane, but the free falling was extremely fun and cool! I must say that I thought it would be more scary than it was. It felt like I was flying, like I was Superman or something. I could totally do it again. It's difficult to explain the feeling, you have to do it to find out what it's like. To everyone out there: If you ever get the chance to skydive, do it!

Of course I have to post lots of pictures, enjoy!

Hardrock Café and Blue Mountains

There's so much going on right now. Two days ago I went to Darling Harbour to visit Hardrock café. I ate a delicious brownie and drank a beer there. Good combination, right? I also found some Green Day stuff, yay! That day I felt a bit down, because I had just found out about Soundwave festival. I really wanted to go, but all tickets were sold out.

Yesterday I went to the Blue mountains with Lisa. It was so beautiful there, impressive landscape. I've never seen anything like that before. We walked around the mountains all day and I wore a dress, not the smartest thing to wear. When we were on our way to see a waterfall I slipped down in the mud. You should have seen my converse after that, it's a miracle that they're still alive. It was funny, cause things like that always happen to me. People who know me know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, Lisa and I had a great day, we took many pictures and ate awesome ice cream. Tomorrow we're going to do something really big, but I won't tell you about it yet. You'll just have to wait and see. I can't believe that we're actually going to do it.

Back in Sydney

We came back from Surf Camp yesterday.  It was a very nice and funny experience, but after 5 days intensive surfing you’re quite exhausted. To learn how to surf was one of the things I had on my to-do-list when I went to Australia. Now that mission is complete.

On our last lesson we had a competition, we were in teams where everyone came from the same country. Everyone in the team had to paddle out into the water and manage to stand up on a wave. The team that finished first won. And guess who the winners were? Team Sweden of course!

I went out yesterday night with some girls I met at Surf Camp. We went to Scubar. The nightlife in Sydney is different from the nightlife in Sweden, it’s so much more people and noise everywhere. I like it. Australian beer is pretty good too.

Today I haven’t done much actually. I felt like I needed a rest. I’ve been walking around in the city, looking in shops and sitting at an internet café. It’s raining, so you don’t feel like going to the beach or something. I’ve gotten new roommates again, this time from Germany and Belgium. You meet lots of people all the time when you’re a backpacker.

I’ve just cooked food all by myself! Usually I never cook anything and if I do I cook noodles. I cooked Spaghetti Bolognese, it tasted good, but you should have seen me in the kitchen. When I should open the pasta package I used too much power, so the pasta ended up all over the kitchen. Am I too strong or just clumsy? You decide.

My plan right now is to stay in Sydney for a few more days. I’ve got a few things I want to do before I leave this city. Then we’ll see where I end up, I’ve not decided that yet. 

Surf Camp

Since the last time I wrote we've been to Bondi beach and then we went to Surf Camp.

I'm at Surf Camp right now and have been here for three days. It's a nice place, there are people from all over the world here and we're having fun. I'm sharing a room with girls from Denmark and England. Surf Camp takes place in a little village called Gerroa, 2 hours outside of Sydney. It's amazingly beautiful here, I'll show you some pictures. Too bad that my camera can't show you how beautiful it is in reality.

Surfing is a bit more difficult than you may think, learning to surf is like learning how to ride a bike. At least I'm developing, now I can manage to stand on the board some times when there comes a wave. Today we saw wild dolphins when we had our first surfing lesson, it was really cool even though they didn't come close.

Yesterday night was awesome, me and some Danish people sat outside with a guitar. We played and sang lots of songs together. That's what I call life.