Why S#!t So Crazy?

Right now Sydney has a comedy festival going on and we were lucky enough to get tickets to see Reggie Watts last weekend. If you don't know who he is, I'm going to try to explain but the best I can do is probably just show you some videos.

The title of his show was "Why Shit So Crazy?" and if you could have been at the show there could not be a better title for the performance he put on. I guess you'd consider his act "Stand-Up" but he definitely does it different than anyone I've ever seen. To start the amazing thing is that he can literally do anything with his voice, and he'll be telling stories using all kinds of different personas and making an endless variety of noises while really not doing or telling jokes in any particular order. If this seems confusing that's good because everything he does is confusing but there wasn't one minute throughout the whole show you weren't entertained. 

So here's just his stage set-up and where I got to sit. It was a really cool venue and they had some good bottles of beer at the bar so that's always a plus.

And here is Reggie Watts. Yea his show is just as ridiculous and crazy as he looks. All he has for equipment is some sort of audio recorder a keyboard and his voice. What he basically does is talk a bunch of nonsense to keep you entertained/confused/hysterically laughing in-between playing songs for you that he creates entirely with his voice and sounds that he makes and then captures in small intervals on his recorder.

I wish I could show you guys one of the videos I recorded of Reggie but it wouldn't upload for some reason... Like most things though not being able to actually be there you can't get how amazing his show really was. This is a hard one to blog about but his performance was one of the best I've seen. I would probably say second to Cirque Du Soleil it was the best show I've been to. If he didn't have you laughing he'd amaze you with the music he could create and the incredible sound system he used. 

I'll leave you with a link to another one of Reggie Watt's videos so you can actually see how crazy it is when he makes the music. He also used to be on Comedy Central and toured with Conan before so you might have seen him there or can check it out more if you want. And you can check him out here too, it's one of his more popular songs. 

Free Cone Day!!

I've missed a few things everybody so I'm going to try and catch up. A couple of quick ones first but by no means does that mean they weren't awesome. As you can guess by this blog's title this was Free Cone Day at Ben and Jerry's. Wasn't expecting this to happen at all so when I stumbled across it on the internet that they did Free Cone Day here I had to go to get a little taste of home. And when I say stumbled upon I mean it literally. For all my followers that don't use the internet that often and sometimes wish they could find awesome things online but don't know where to start... Check it out stumbleupon.com, could be life changing.

Anyway so here's us coming up to the Broadway Centere that had the always delicious and even more so when it's free Ben and Jerry's inside.

Almost there and it was no surprise to see a lot of happy people coming out.

There wasn't a crazy amount of people there and they had about 10 people working behind the counter so line was moving. Much faster than I ever remember when it was going on in Montpelier anyway. I don't think the aussies fully appreciate how great Ben and Jerry's is yet.

Cherry Garcia!! The best Ice cream they make. Unfortunately there weren't any cones by the time we were there but we got to go through the line 3 times.

Just had to show everyone an example of what I mean when I say that everything is expensive. Absolutely no joke. Granted they do have cheaper ice cream than Ben and Jerry's but come on... $15 for a hand packed pint. 

Overall it was just a great trip to get a little taste of home. It actually tasted the same as home too. A lot of food doesn't. Ketchup for one is just not done right down here. Made me miss you all a little more but any chance I get to brag about something significant Vermont has done I'm taking it. And you can imagine it's not hard to convince college kids to get something for free around here. 

The Skywalk

Matty, Dan and I went to the Skywalk in Sydney last weekend. It's the highest point in Sydney (880ft), that's twice the height of the Harbor Bridge and the same height as the Eiffel Tower. The pictures are absolutely unreal from this one, but I can't take credit for all of them as we weren't aloud to bring cameras (or any loose objects for that matter because you'd kill someone if you dropped them) up to the top. We purchased the ones from above but I got a few from the observation deck.

Arriving at the Sky Tower. The Skywalk is what we went on, which is located on the top of this building. It actually has a bar/restaurant inside too but they wouldn't allow you to the bar if you planned on doing the walk after. They actually breathalize you before you get a pass to go up. I guess they have some liability reasons for not letting drunk people wonder around on an 880ft building...

The observation deck

These are the pictures I got from the observation deck (Harbor Bridge to left, Opera House between the buildings)

More of the Harbor. That's North Sydney across, Fort Denison is dead center of the water (more details on that later) and Manly is straight ahead along the horizon (Russell Crowe just bought a $10 million home there and they've got Ben and Jerry's Free Cone Day tomorrow! Extremely excited for a taste of home).

 Working my way around the observation deck. Coogee (where I live) is actually straight ahead along the horizon.

This is looking back towards the city, with the Harbor at my back. Hyde Park (the equivalent to Sydney's Central Park) is located to the bottom left of this picture.

Just a look of how high it was from the observation deck. You think you could walk up to these windows mom?

Just the highest mailbox in the world. Thought this was pretty cool.

And we start to make our way out to the top. This is where we had to buy the pictures from the tower if we wanted them. Totally worth it though as you'll find out because they are absolutely amazing. 

First I'll show you some group photos. We got to hang out up here for about 40 minutes and get told a little bit about Sydney and just take in the views. We also got to where these sweet jumpsuits haha! You can see we were all strapped to the silver bar along the bottom of the picture, just to make sure there were no accidents...

Matty, Dan and I. And of course I had to ask if anyone has base jumped from this thing. Apparently one person has when it was first built in I think 1985... He got dropped off by Helicopter on the top and then leaped from there. Hasn't been done again since. Maybe I'll have to be the next...

We also had the most fun in our jumpsuits during our photo op

Dont let Dan fool you, he pushed off of Matty and my shoulders on this one

Definitely had the most fun. But now I'll just show you some of the amazing shots we got from them. Some are at night and sunrise and sunset too. Wish I could get up there to see some of those. 

In the fog. One of my favorites.

Sunset in the west overlooking Darling Harbour

Another cool one of the sunset

A couple from New Years. Sydney is apparently the place to be for the New Year celebration as they're the first place to enter the New Year. There's a restaurant on the small Island called Fort Denison. It used to be a prison, then a fortress during WWII. It used to have 3 cannons on it to protect the Harbor, but fortunately were never put to use as they later found out if all three were to be fired the fort would have sunk. Regardless, the now restaurant of Ford Denison costs $1,000 just to get on, then you have the bill that can only cost god knows what.

The night shots are definitely my favorites. This is where we get to go hang out on the weekends. Was actually hanging out on that bridge you see crossing this Harbor at one point this past Saturday.

And now I'll leave you with my favorite of the whole day like I usually do. The group that was on tour giving their best effort to jump in unison. I don't think Dan was quite, ready but I killed it haha.

The Blue Mountains

Matty and I took our trip to the Blue Mountains yesterday. Was also the first day with my new camera so I hope you enjoy. I don't know if you guys can tell or not but definitely takes a lot better pictures than the old one for just a regular snap shot digital camera. I'm just excited to see what the pictures look like under water when I take it to the Great Barrier Reef in a couple of weeks!

Anyway, so here is where we started our trip at the Blue Mountains.

The pictures on this trip can pretty much speak for themselves but this is where we began our hike

We began to make our way to the Three Sisters, Down the Giant Stairway (understatement) and along the Federal Pass which takes you through the valley below the mountains through a rainforest to Scenic World

The Three Sisters

And we begin our journey down the Giant Stairway

We wisely chose to go down the Giant Stairway through the Valley. Once we got to the bottom and read this information sign it was clear why people were out of breath at the top. 900 steps!!! Wish I had some better pictures of the trek down but we were literally scaling down the side of the cliff into the tree tops and the pictures weren't very clear on what I was trying to photograph.

The trail through the rainforest in the Valley, took us about 1.5 hours

Some of the trees were MASSIVE

And the snake that I stepped on! Pretty sure it was harmless but considering Australia has something like 11 of the 15 deadliest snakes in the world was kind of a scary moment. Matt chose to jump over it instead of step on it.

Made it underneath the Three Sisters. Thought this sign was pretty comical.

Did I mention the trees were MASSIVE!

Walking under the Skyway, one of the rides at Scenic World. We'll be up in that soon.

And our arrival to the Scenic Railway

Had a pretty good view of the Three Sisters from here

It seemed a whole lot steeper than 52 degrees

Getting ready for our ride up to the top of Scenic World. We made sure to get the front so we could get a few good pictures on the way up. Kind of a gay picture, I know.

Beginning our ascent 

Had a pretty awesome view of the Blue Mountains at the top. It started to get a little misty as you can see by the time we got there though. 

Waiting for the Skyway to come across. This is the gondola I took a picture from underneath before. Wasn't able to get the greatest pictures while on it because there were rails and quite a few people on with us, but it was truly amazing views of the landscape all around us, and beneath us. 

You could see through the floor all the way down into the Valley

This was an unbelievable waterfall that went down into the Valley, but like I said before I kind of dropped the ball with pictures on this one. 

And the other side looked out into the Blue Mountains once again. Really crazy views.

 I'll leave you here with the end of our trip to the Blue Mountains and my favorite picture from the whole day. I've got the one of the Three Sisters in the forefront with The Blue Mountains along the horizon. The shadows of the clouds looked really amazing along the canopies of the trees too.