(Not) home alone

This Christmas was my first one spent away from home. Sad? Of course not! Impossible when you’re having fun like I am on this trip. In Australia, people usually celebrate on December 25th; different from Brazil, that has the main celebration on the Christmas Eve. But we here had our party even earlier. On the 22nd, we hosted “Simply Different”, a “private cocktail pre-party + art installations by The Smirnoff Ten – 10 souls in search of original nightlife”. The 50 lucky people that received this invitation got curious to know what was going to happen. And it really was a different party. From putting confessions on a Christmas tree to looking at a mirror (do you know who you are?), our guests really passed trough an original experience. Also we had so much fun that on 24th none of us was really thinking about any other festivity. I woke up really early on Christmas Eve and decided to go to the Blue Mountains, one of the most famous day trips from Sydney. I didn’t look for a guided tour before though, so I did some Internet research to learn how could I go by myself. With some information on my notebook, I caught the train and two hours later I got to Wellworth Falls Station. I found myself at a small village with no directions at all; but it was really easy after a nice lady from a grocery shop gave me a map and some directions. I walked for 30 minutes and got to one of the entrances of the Blue Mountains National Park. Inside, I walked for almost 3 hours discovering the beauties of the nature and, of course, I stopped for a really refreshing swim at a waterfall. It is a really soul renovation experience being totally alone with the natural world. The park is giant, you can spend one week walking all the pathways inside it. I walked back to the first village and took a bus to the next village, Katoomba. From there it’s possible to see one the most famous Blue Mountain’s postcard views: The Three Sisters. There is a legend from the Aboriginals that three sisters from a tribe fell in love with three men from an enemy tribe. It was forbidden for them to marry, but the men announced that they were going to capture their lovers. To avoid a war, the leader from the tribe transformed, with a magic spell, the three sisters into this rock. Unexpectedly the leader died, and no one else could ever know how to undo the spell. Nice, right? The history makes the view even more fascinating. Around the Three Sisters rock I walked for more 2 hours, and just stopped because the path was not so marked anymore, and I didn’t want to end up, spending my Christmas alone in the park!
So I came back to Sydney, we organized a cheap-but-fancy Christmas Dinner and enjoyed it like a real family – which we really are!