SYDNEY BABY

so i finally got here and its amazing. we have already done some pretty amazing things, and i apologize if this post is a little bit rambling and what not.

ok so yesterday we got to sydney at about 930 in the morning and went right to the worldtower (the hotel we are staying at for the 5 day orientation). this place is amazing, i think one of our guides said that these apartment/hotel rooms go for like 1.5 mill$. yea they are pretty sick. im on the 73 floor so i have amazing view of just about everything in down town sydney. after we got our rooms yesterday we had time to shower and clean up and then we had some info session at another hotel. after that we went to dinner at this waterside place, the program paid for us to get one item... and of course i waisted no time and got KANGAROO! it was really really good, very tender very high protein meat. so after dinner we all went back to the hotel and got ready to go out to a local bar. we ended up at some irish bar, and the music they were playing was hilarious. blink 182, kris kross, other old school hip hop and rock songs. got some really good australian beer and had a great time.

then today we had to get up at like 6 to go to the blue mountains to do some ab sailing (aka repelling). it was about a 2 hour bus ride away from sydney. it was raining a little in the morning but it stopped by the time we got there. still things were a little wet so we got all muddy and what not. when we got off the bus we had to take another smaller bus to the actual mountain, and then took a 15 minute hike to the rappelling site. i got some amazing pictures of me and others going down these HUGE rocks and when i get my laptop online ill load all them. we started out on a 10 foot drop to get the hang of the whole thing and then stepped it up a bit. the next one was about 15 meters (about 40feet???) and another one that was about the same size. the way that you ab sail is you get hooked into a rope and basically walk backwards down the side of the rock. you are in totally control of the rope so if you slip you could really hurt yourself. but there is a safety bally (SP) at the bottom in case you do end up loosing your footing, which of course i did on the 10 foot one...just a little scrape on the knee. its pretty scary the for the first few steps because you have to walk over the edge backwards and put all your weight on the rope. but after that its gravy, you just lean back kind of like your sitting down and slowly (or quickly) move down the side of the rock. if you lean forward (toward the rock) too much you will go face first into the rock, and if you lean out too much you can do the opposite.

after lunch i rappelled down at 45 meter cliff, which is like 220+ feet. it was unreal. the best part about controlling your speed as you go down is you can just stop and look out and take in the view. this place was beautiful. i would take a few minutes on the way down and just look off the mountain to the forest below and just take everything in. again pictures to come. i got some really great shots of the things we went down and the view. and of course got some of me actually rappelling. this was totally amazing, we were towering over the trees and it was really breath taking.

so in a few minutes me and the other boys from indiana are going to go shower and get ready for dinner/to go out. tomorrow we are getting up at like 8 and have a walking tour of sydney and then going to a zoo... get to play w/ the roos and kuala bears, again some great pics will be taken and posted when i get internet.

this place is truely amazing and ive only been here just a few days.

more to come later.

cheers mate