Fat Tuesday!

This past weekend I took a journey to Sydney to go to the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade! I first went down Thursday because I didn't have anything to do on Friday and my friend Carter from S.U. is studying at University of New South Wales in Sydney so I decided to stay for an extra night. My friend Matt didn't have Friday classes either so he took the hike down with me. The train was only $4.80 to Sydney but Carter lives about two miles from the city so we had to take a bus which stopped a gazillion times (yes, I know, gazillion is a lot exaggerated but that's what if felt like) and we got there in good time. We grabbed some food and went to a neighborhood cookout where we cooked our own burgers which I don't know why, but tasted amazing.
The next day was beautiful so Matt and I stayed at Coogee beach and soaked up some amazing rays. We decided to take a scenic walk to a different beach which ended up being a really cool walk where we saw all these awesome rocks and plants. We ended up taking a lot of kodak moment photos so the walk there took about an hour and a half and then we had to walk all the way back once we got there. When we got back, our other three friends from UoW had arrived at Coogee so we checked into our hostel and went out for dinner and drinks.
Saturday morning we woke up super early (my friend Amanda and I were the drill sergeants getting the other three out of bed) to catch the earliest ferry to Taronga Zoo. We ended up catching the ferry - miracle of miracles - and got to the zoo where it was basically empty. We got to see such awesome animals and attend a seal penguin, elephant and koala show! The chimpanzees were quite addictive to watch because they were all riled up playing with each other and the baby one even got a piggy back ride - I think we stayed in front of them a solid half hour. But I got to see my first koala and kangaroo which was so cool (but it will be even better if I get to see them in the wild so we'll see about that). Koalas eat leaves that have eucalyptus in them which is basically like a drug so the reason why koalas don't move a lot is because they are in a natural drunken state. Pretty awesome. After the zoo, we caught the ferry back and got some dinner before the parade. Already there were huge amounts of people but in the most ridiculous costumes ever. Rainbows galore were everyone and the floats were decorated and lining up. Apparently people got there at the crack of dawn to line up on the street corners so where we were was about 12 people deep so I didn't get to see most of the parade which is a bummer (but rumor has it I guess a lot of the floats were nude - hilarious...so I missed out on all the nakies...oh well!) But when we first got there and saw all the outfits we decided we needed to get decked out so I bought this ridiculous headdress of pink feathers and my friends bought boas. We felt a little bad ass but just enough to fit in. But it was a lot of fun to just be around the environment where everyone was just united in a free and open response of togetherness. Some woman who took our group photo yelled out "everyone say penis!" I mean honestly, how much better can it get!? haha But it was also really great to go back to a hostel and fall asleep for the night.