quite the eventful week!

o man... this week was quite eventful!

on thursday we went salsa dancing!! it was so exciting. it was at this place that's right in circular quay across the water from the opera house... prime location! it was gorgeous, and so much fun! there were so many people that actually knew what they were doing, and they were so fun to watch because they were so good! basically, long story short, i ended up meeting this argentinian guy who barely spoke english. all i got out of our conversation was that he was in the navy, they were having a party on their ship (he gave me an invitation--ladies only. haha...), and his friend thought my friend was "very nice." one of the girls i was with lived in ecuador for 5 months and is fluent in spanish, and another one is cuban and can speak way better spanish than me, so i took the guys over to them and they ended up coming to pancakes on the rocks with us! haha... it was funny. their party was last night (saturday). i didn't go because i was camping, but a bunch of the other asc girls went i think, so i'm excited to find out how it was. hahaha... it was just so random!
camping was so fun! it was ridiculous, and my mom and ann will be so proud of me. so... 2 other girls were going and i kinda just invited myself along, so there ended up being 4 of us that went. they were told that it was a 15 minute walk from the train station to the campsite, and the campsite was an hour trainride away from katoomba, where all the sites are, so we were going to camp out on saturday night, then head up the rest of the way to katoomba and do everything there today (sunday). so we get to glenbrook (where the campground is) and realize that we really don't know where we're going, but we follow this sign that points to the national park entrance. turns out it's a 15 minute walk to the park... but an HOUR hike to the campsite! so we walked DOWN the steepest road i've ever freakin been on, then UP a bunch of hiking trails, then back DOWN some more hills (keep in mind we were gonna have to come back this exact way in the morning. so you can imagine what i was thinking the whole time...). We finally got to the campground, which was the weirdest campground i've ever been in, but it was still pretty. by then we were all exhausted from hiking with all our gear, so we were ready for bed at like 7:30. so we slept, then in the morning we realized that if we could pack up and leave within 20 minutes then haul through all the trails, we could make the train we needed and not have to wait an hour for the next one. so we rushed through, and i was in front so i got lots of spider webs on my face. it was awesome. then we got to the steepest road ever and i thought i was gonna die, and by the time we got up to the gate, we had about 20 minutes to catch our train, and we still had to make it to the station. so we got a ride with a nice man named andrew and we made it on time! then we got to katoomba and learned it was like a 30 minute walk to echo point, which is basically where all the sights are (three sisters is the main one.) so we walked there, then hiked around to the scenic railway (the steepest railway in the world), then we rode down that. then we hiked further down another trail to the base of the giant steps. they start at the base of the three sisters and lead back up to the first sister, then there's a trail back up to echo point. there are supposedly a thousand of them (i counted 868... that's right: i was counting). it was miserable. and i was sweaty. haha... but it's okay because now i can say i've done it and i will never ever do it again. so then we went back through katoomba, which kinda reminds me of estes but not as cute. then we went back to the train and rode 2 hours back, and now i'm home and insanely tired an sore.
it was a good weekend though! here are some pictures...

this is our campsite... that's rachel, missy, and brenna making a fire in the pit

the three sisters... they're pretty famous. this is the view from echo point.

the bottom of the giant stairway

and the top... hahayes... that is sweat. eww!!

it was a good time :) i can't wait to get home and tell you people for real what it was like... i can't describe it on a blog. you will be proud though!

also... my host mom michelle's mom just died like 2 days ago, so they're all out near the farm for her funeral. she's pretty strong, but it's definitely been hard for her. so keep her in your prayers if you remember!