Hiking, waterfalls, and... dewgongs?

Salutations!
I realized that I ALWAYS begin these with "hey everyone" so I'm trying to mix it up. Any suggestions?
I hope everyone is doing well! I am great. There has been a lot going on the past week. Last Tuesday I went to another play, Norm & Ahmed. It's about the interactions between an Australian guy and Pakistani guy, and it was really thought-provoking especially about race. I don't know if "I liked it" is the right was to say it, but it has really gotten me thinking and I'm getting a lot out of it.
One afternoon we went to the Sydney Aquarium, which was pretty cool. One of their big attractions are dewgongs (which are a lot like manatees)- they're surprisingly graceful. Apparently pirates used to mistake them for mermaids- although how you mistake a big grey animal for a half naked woman is beyond me. :)
This past weekend some friends and I went to the Blue Mountains, and it was an AMAZING trip. We caught the train up to the mountains Friday morning (only took 2 hours, and suprisingly cheap to do) and spent the weekend hiking, exploring, eating, and generally just hanging out. There were six of us, so we had a room to ourselves in the hostel we stayed at, which was really fun. Even though the weather was supposed to be bad on Saturday, it cleared up by 11 and that was when we were just starting to hike.
The Blue mountains are beautiful. The main access point, Echo Point, overlooks a huge canyon- it's kind of life the Grand Canyon on a smaller scale and with lots of trees. There's also a rock formation known as the Three Sisters- I've heard a couple different stories about them, but they all agree on this: three beautiful girls (princesses?) were turned into rocks by a witch doctor (who may have been their father) to protect them (from war, or a beast, or something). But he died before he could turn them back, and they're still giant rock formations. You can't climb on them anymore, but you could hike all along the canyons, which is what we did a lot of. We found a couple waterfalls which were beautiful -and slippery, which we discovered when we climbed up the sides. No one got hurt, but some of us got pretty muddy. :) The forest was closer to rainforest than they are at home- we saw a lot of parrots! Nothing lethal though- no snakes or spiders.
We also discovered the world's steepest railway. It's advertised as such, and journey comes complete with the Indiana Jones theme in the background as you go very fast down a very steep incline. Basically it's a really quick way to get from the top of the canyon to the bottom. There was also an air tram (I think that's what they called it) which gave a great view of the surroundings.
All in all, it was a great trip. There wasn't much to do in the town at night, but we had such a fun group of people that we had a blast just chilling at the hostel. A interesting side note: none of the four guys brought soap on the trip. Luckily I did, so crisis averted. :)
Well I think you're up to date! This week has been really crazy, I have three papers due within two weeks of each other. And here, papers are worth a lot more than they are at home. Also tonight I'm headed to a wine and cheese tasting put on by a couple of clubs at school- there's an arts festival for the next week or so going on, so there's a lot of fun cultural things to do.
I love you all! As always, the emails are amazing and make me smile every time I hear from you. Have a great labor day and do something fun (and slightly crazy) for me!
Love from down under,
Emma