It's Christmas Time - Sydney / 23.12. - 25.12.2018

On 23.12. we finally arrived in Sydney - our last stop together - at 7:45 am. On the crowded bus ride, we also met Karim from Fraser Island again, who apparently sat right in front of me the whole time, but since it was dark the whole time, I didn't recognize him until we were driving over the Harbour Bridge. Karim would be staying in an Airbnb with Iris and a few other Fraser people for the next few days, which we thought was pretty cool because we would have to change hostels 4 times during our time in Sydney and were a bit jealous.
At the train station, we first got the Opal Card - a rechargeable bus, train, and ferry ticket, and since Sydney was so big, we really needed it, as we read.
But since it was still quite cold, we decided to walk the 40 minutes to our first hostel, the Mad Monkey Kingscross, which ultimately put me in a bad mood because it seemed like it was always uphill and we had just gotten our train ticket. But well, we saved about 2 dollars... Besides, we passed by Hyde Park during our walk, which reminded me a lot of London (by the way, the Opal Card did too - Shoutout to Nina) and we got a small impression of the city, besides the fact that it was big.
When we arrived at the hostel, we found out that we couldn't check in until 1 pm, but we were still allowed to go for breakfast at a nearby backpacker office. They had pancakes, eggs, toast, yogurt, and apricot slices - everything a backpacker's heart desires. And with a slightly brighter mood, we went shopping because on the one hand, we needed food for the next few days, but on the other hand, we also wanted to get cookie ingredients because that shouldn't be missing on the other side of the world and we hoped to make Christmas a bit more festive.
We also got some German gingerbread that we found at Aldi and enjoyed it in the TV room of the hostel. Someone had just put on "Life" on Netflix - a really cool animal documentary with amazing shots.
Here we also met Anna again, who was also staying at our hostel.
After we could finally check in - and unfortunately noticed that we weren't in Anna's 8-bed room - we took the train to The Rocks, one of the oldest neighborhoods in Sydney, where there was a small Christmas market. On the way there, I caught my first glimpse of the truly impressive Opera House, and after we looked at the cute stands at the Christmas market (there was no mulled wine and no almonds and nothing really Christmassy, and besides, it was only open until 6 pm and it wasn't even dark yet, so it was a bit disappointing) and briefly visited an art gallery, we continued to Paddys Market, a large indoor market with many different stands, where I treated myself to a cool tourist sweater because I also needed some warmer clothes for New Zealand. Overall, you were bombarded with a lot of impressions here and approached from all sides, but there were somehow fewer people in Sydney than I had expected for Christmas, which wasn't bad either. At some point, Paddys Market turned into a fruit and vegetable market, which we weren't prepared for. Since we were already almost at the end, everything was super cheap, and in the end, we got 10 nectarines, a mango, 2 bananas, and a quarter melon for only $4.50, and we even got 2 corn cobs as a gift, which made us very happy, and then we already planned our next market visit.
In the evening, we finally started baking cookies, after we had met 2 nice girls who told us about their Christmas baking adventure. There was actually a proper oven here, and we had chosen a simple cup recipe. After the sticky dough kneading, we realized that we didn't have any cookie cutters, so we got a big lid-like thing and cut out a lot of circles. from time to time, one of us decided to make a complicated knife cut, which ended with a few deformed hearts, a Christmas tree, crescent moons, or stars.
Good 2 hours later, our 3 sheets of rock-hard cookies finally came out of the oven, and we heated the baking chocolate in the microwave while they cooled down. We then decorated the cookies with the chocolate and the highlight was the colorful sprinkles. Once we were finally done and very proud, we stacked our baking creations in a bowl and put them in the refrigerator with a 'Do not fcking touch' sign, which took a lot of trust in humanity.
Then it was time to sleep because we were still quite tired from the overnight bus ride. But we were somehow always tired here anyway.

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Today, on Christmas day, Michi and Jule would also arrive in Sydney and even move into our hostel. Since there were still 2 beds available in our room yesterday, we hoped they would come with us - in the morning, when I woke up late and wanted to take a shower, they were already occupied, so 2 must have arrived overnight.
But when I came back into the room, Jule and Michi were suddenly sitting there, explaining that they had taken an earlier bus and hadn't told us because they wanted to surprise us - which they definitely did, and we were really happy.
After we all had breakfast together, Linni and I went to the Sydney post station with my mom's small gift boxes, which we had been carrying in our backpacks until now, because apparently 2 packages were waiting for Linni there, one from her family and one from a friend of hers. We also wore our Christmas hats, but it quickly got too hot underneath, so I just had to carry mine around. After a few finding complications, Linni was on her way with a big package and a smaller envelope in her arms, and we went to Hyde Park, where there were many large decorated Christmas trees, and where we also wanted to have our gift exchange. We also took some cookies with us and then comfortably unwrapped the gifts and were very happy. Who says you only get gifts at home?
My mom's gift box contained all sorts of little beauty items, like face masks, a small, incredibly fragrant perfume, a cute eyeshadow palette that I already had in other colors at home, glitter, tea lights, and other great little things. Linni's friend gave both of us a really cool pair of hipster socks, mine had fried eggs and bacon on them and Linni's had fries. And Linni's family sent a huge candy package.
After we were done and had admired our treasures, we made our way back to the hostel because we wanted to bring the things to the room before we went to St Mary's Church with Anna, Jule, and Michi for a Catholic Christmas service.
The large church was really beautiful, but the service itself was incredibly boring and not really Christmassy, which disappointed us a bit because we had expected at least some singing or instrument playing and generally more love. But well, it was a glimpse into Australian church life, and besides, it wasn't really Christmas Day here yet, because that was on 25.12., tomorrow.

Around 4 pm, after a short break, we went with the girls to The Rocks because our Christmas dinner at Munich Brauhaus would take place there because we thought it would be cool to celebrate Christmas in Australia with a German dish. When I told Silvi that we would go to this restaurant, she said that the Munich House was not far away from there, which made me laugh.
We even got a seat outside at one of those typical Oktoberfest bench sets, and our server was even German. I ordered an Über Schnitzel because I felt like ordering something unusual, and besides Parmesan cheese, it also included dried tomatoes and rocket salad. But the food really tasted fantastic and it was even one of the best schnitzels I had ever eaten - of course, second to my grandma's (because I still want to get delicious food when I'm back home). We sat here for almost 2 hours and had a nice conversation, and even though the Christmas feeling wasn't quite there, we had a really great time.

After that, we actually wanted to go to Bondi Beach, but it was a bit too far away for us, so after taking a few more Christmas hat pictures in the golden hour light, we walked over to the Opera House and sat down on the steps in front of it, while the sun slowly set behind the buildings, which was really nice. From here, you could really see that the Opera House was actually made up of different buildings that together formed this unique shape, and when it got dark, the bright bricks were beautifully illuminated with different colors and patterns.
At some point, we had the idea to shoot a little Christmas video to "All I Want for Christmas Is You" on the steps, with Anna filming us and the four of us just dancing around strangely. It was really funny, and overall it had been a very beautiful day.

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This morning, we took it easy first: after breakfast, we went to Jule and Michi's beds and watched a disturbing suicide movie called "Bird Box" on Jule's tablet. It was already quite late afterwards, and secretly, Linni and I were a bit annoyed by the daily routine of the two since we preferred to go out earlier and then chill in the evening, rather than the other way around. But the movie was actually quite exciting, and we ate our cookies on the side, which suited the first Christmas day quite well.
Afterwards, we went to Bondi Beach with Anna, Jule, and Michi because everyone would be there - that was a thing on Christmas, everyone goes there. We quickly realized that when there was a huge line for the Bondi bus, but since we are the impolite Germans, we pushed our way to the front quite inconspicuously.
When we arrived, you could already see from a distance how the crowds of people were frolicking on the sand, and we put on our Christmas hats because somehow many people were dressed Christmassy, and some even brought a Christmas tree to the beach. We sunbathed for a while and soon it got so warm in the full sun that we took turns going into the water to cool off. Jule and I then had a deep talk about the difficulties but also the lucky aspects of traveling together, and I felt really understood by her because while Michi was very nice, I had already perceived her as a very dominant and difficult person.
Around 7 pm, we went back to the hostel and prepared a few things for a cool Christmas picnic. Linni and I chopped up a huge salad and cooked our gifted corn cobs and then transported them in a smuggled bowl from the hostel. We also had 4 liters of goon with us and a few gingerbread cookies from Linni's care package.
We ended up in a small park and told each other funny life stories for a very long time until around 11 pm.
All in all, it had been very nice Christmas days, it just didn't feel like it, and now I'm even more looking forward to the family celebration next year.

Song of the day(s): "All I Want for Christmas Is You" by Mariah Carey, because once you start singing it, it never leaves the heads of the whole group - at least until Christmas is over.