If it isn't the rain, it's the wind. Thanks, Sydney.

I had such great plans for this weekend. I couldn't have told you how excited I was to jump out of a plane to celebrate the Fourth of July, and I had a great awesome bushwalk (hike) planned for the 5th, and this was how I was going to spend my last weekend in Sydney.

And then came the winds.

The weather was absolutely beautiful. There wasn't a cloud in site, it wasn't too cold, it was perfect. Until someone mentioned how windy it was. Ugh, Sydney, I hate your weather! I took a two hour train ride only to find out we were on "hold" from jumping until 11am (the jump was planned for 9am). Alright, no big deal, I'll hold out until 11. We were on a beach (hence the name, Skydive the beach), so I decided to walk around a bit. It was a gorgeous beach, I'll give you that, but I would have much rather been seeing it from 14,000 feet in the air.

And then 11 o'clock rolled around, and yet again we were put on hold. This time until noon, and at noon they would either send all jumpers up, or call off all jumps for the day. Judging by the amount of wind, they said it was highly unlikely that any jumps would be taking off for the day. And thus concluded my excitement over skydiving.

Luckily they were able to refund me all of my money. There was a disclaimer somewhere that stated that $110 was nonrefundable, regardless, but since I wasn't able to reschedule my jump, they were kind enough to give ma full refund. Alas, two hours and $20 for the train ride just to see a beach.

By the time I got back I was pretty cranky, so I headed home and started packing a bit (scary to think of)! I thought I would start Sunday fresh, with a clear mind. I had a bushwalk planned with another member of the group, but as I started to think about it more and more, I did not want to take that two hour train ride again (we were going to be hiking right where I was supposed to be jumping). So, I called off the bushwalk.

Anyway, in place of the bushwalk, I decided that I was going to head out to Manly Beach on Sunday. Do you know what I found at Manly Beach!? Another $20 ferry ticket, a beach, and MORE WIND!! After about an hour I realized just how sick of the beach and the wind I was after two straight days of it, so I decided to go back down to the CBD and my most favorite shop that I've found down here (www.supre.com.au), and buy myself something nice to meet a special someone in at the airport. Who would have thought that XXXS would be so addicting? If I could get all my Supre receipts on the same slip, I'd be able to get all the tax back (If you spend over $300 at one place, you can file a report that says you're a tourist and they'll give you the tax back). Alas.

I can't believe that it's already my last week in Sydney. On Friday at 9pm Minnesota time I leave to fly into LAX to start part #2 of the summer! We've finally started to plan out where we'll be and when. Those two weeks are going to be very jam packed and we're going to see over 5,000 miles of the country! Exciting stuff!