Baby its HOT outside :)

Nativity at St. Mary's Cathedral

Yes those are roos on the tree

 Merry Christmas everyone!!  Doesn't feel like Christmas at all in this weather but I will take it.  Christmas Eve was pretty nice... I did have to work but as soon as I got off work I headed down to Darling Harbour for carols and fireworks which were spectacular!  Then we headed over to St. Mary's Cathedral for midnight mass.  They had a projection system on the outside of the Cathedral that was absolutely breathtaking.  I stood out there for about 15 minutes just mesmerized by it... it highlighted the architecture so beautifully.  There were about 4,000 people there and they served communion to everyone which I just couldn't believe! The whole church was PACKED with standing room only... people just kept piling in, but we got a pretty good spot on the floor near the pulpit.  And a girl got up and let us have her seat a little bit into the service because she goes there all the time and wanted us to experience the service properly from a pew.  That's Christmas right there!  It was a VERY traditional mass and a lot of it was in Latin, but the experience was nice and finally put me in the Christmas spirit.  We caught the bus home and by request from a random Aussie, sang Christmas carols and tried to get the bus to join in unsuccessfully.  And in a strange twist, a girl sitting right behind us was from Jonesboro, AR!  We got home around 2:30am and since it was technically Christmas already I went ahead and opened my presents :)  My family is so awesome!!

 

Christmas "morning"

Coogee Beach first thing on Christmas morning

Christmas morning I had to work (again) but it wasn't bad because BridgeClimb caters in a huge meal for all the poor suckers who have to work.  Everyone was in the Christmas spirit so it made work go by pretty fast.... I love my co-workers! Got home around 4 and the girls were all on the balcony enjoying the beautiful day and the beautiful view of the beach.  We had a ton of people over for our Orphan Christmas Potluck and it was a blast.  Went down to a pavilion right near our place had a little barbie and drinks to celebrate the holidays in true Aussie style!  Spending Christmas day in a bikini on the beach is defiantly a departure from the norm!  The group in the pavilion next to us even brought a refrigerator and stereo that they had run an extension cord from our neighbors apartment.... people are serious about their Christmas barbies here and the beach was PACKED.  All in all I'd say my summer Christmas was a success :)

Some of the orphans at our pavilion

tater-cicle!

My friend from work, Nana!

Marie, Ann Marie and I... 3 of the 4 roomies

Jen in the holiday spirit!

Oprah-mania hits Australia!

The whole country has gone mad this last week for Oprah... and I really don't get it.  I've never really been a fan and I don't think people here are either, but its just the novelty of it.  I did get to work on the Sunday that Oprah and her 300 American audience members came to do BridgeClimb which was pretty crazy.  We prepped 2 groups at a time, every 5 minutes and went through 19 groups of 14 people in about an hour!  To put that in perspective, on a really busy day at work, we prep 1 group of 14 about every 10 minutes.  Since I'm American, I got the honor of prepping "Group O", which was composed of the 8 superfans that were hand chosen to do the climb with Oprah and Gail.  I don't think they knew at the time that they were in a special group but I can see why they were chosen because they were so excited.... screaming, jumping and taking pictures of everything.  Some fans got some really unflattering shots of me, I'm sure.  Everyone wanted to know where I was from and they said they didn't think there was an Arkansan in the group.... so I told them to tell Oprah that I would be happy to be the Arkansan representative for the rest of the trip haha.  We did get a glimpse of the Big O thru the window when the entourage came back from the climb.... they were like a well oiled machine exiting and entering the Audis so it was very brief.  But as I suspected, Oprah was a big ole DIVA!!  Not sure it was worth waking up at 3:30am for a 5:45am start of work but it was sure an experience!

Living on the beach is ab-fab.  Every day that I have off of work I spend lying around in the sand, soaking up the rays (and slathering on sunscreen since there is no ozone here).  A bunch of the girls from IEP met us at our beach on Saturday which was great fun.... except that I apparently didn't turn over often enough because I was burnt on the front side, and casper on the back.  On Tuesday we went shopping and I finally found my perfect beach hat after weeks of searching.  The hats here are wonderful... my dad is going to have a field day!!  After we were done shopping we headed up to Maroubra Beach to do a little surfing.  I was really excited to go surfing again.... since I had been pretty decent at it in Taiwan, I was more worried about how cold the water would be than not being able to stand up.  Turns out the water wasn't that cold at all.... but attempting to surf on a short board was a disaster!!  On the long board, finding my balance was really easy and I stood up on like the third try.... the short board is about 100x harder so its going to take a bit of time to get the hang of it.  I couldn't find my balance to save my life since the board was literally my height, so I didn't feel stable enough to really even attempt much.... I'm used to using my feet to aid in balance, and they were about 18" off the board so that wasn't going to happen.  Also the waves are larger and come more often than the ones in Kenting did.  Also didn't help that we didn't really have much instruction either.  Dave (one of the people we met our first week here at pub trivia in Glebe) took us out, but really only provided good company and surfboards, not instruction, which was still awesome.  Oh well it was good fun, and I'm sure with a bit more practice I will get the hang of it.  Also thinking about going to a weekend long surf camp later on this summer which would be a blast!

Sydney Harbour BridgeClimb

Here are some pictures from when I did the BridgeClimb at the start of my induction!

Starting the ascent

With a few of my fellow new inductees in front of the Opera House

The whole group... with JAZZ HANDS!

At the summit!  and yes this is what I wear every day to work :)

The Brady Bunch in front of the skyline

Time for Caroling?

I don't know if it's just me, but it feels really wrong to hear Christmas carols and see decorations all over town when the weather forecast calls for shorts!

Last week of freedom before starting work so I've just been wandering around town seeing as many sights as possible.  We have had the longest dry streak this week (crazy considering how rainy it has been) so I'm taking full advantage of being outside (don't worry mom, I'm wearing sunscreen!).  It is so great to just find a park bench that has a perfect view of so many world famous landmarks and feel the ocean breeze and sunshine on my face! So ready to move to the beach at the beginning of December.... our fourth roommate dropped out but we are going ahead with the lease because the location and everything is so great that we don't want to pass it up.  Cross your fingers that we find a fourth soon so that we don't have to pay even more in rent per week than the extravagant fee we are already paying!

Best reading spot in town

Enjoying a "New Zealand Hokey Pokey" gelato

I spent hours just wandering around the opera house trying to get the best angles on the famous roofline and got some really sweet ones.  Check out the high-resolution photos in my snapfish group room: jenandmiki.snapfish.com/snapfish
 

how many pics can we take at the harbour? I think about 50 more are in order....

Last Saturday, we headed out to Manly Beach on a bright and sunny afternoon for the 2010 Manly Festival of Surfing.  We rode the ferry out there and sat on the outside of the boat which was very cool and got to the beach just in time to see the tandem longboard surfing competition and man was it impressive... ice skating style lifts while catching waves? Awesome.

Synopsis time....

So yeah I'm really behind on updating because I have been so busy. But I suppose that is a good thing.... sure better than just sitting around!  Got the job as a Guest Services Attendant at BridgeClimb.  The interview process was intense, but as soon as I left the first interview I felt like I had the job because we just clicked so well.  Plus, the interview was on 11/11 which is generally one of my favorite days of the year!  Pretty much what my job is will be to prep the climbers for 'The Climb of their Life'.... bring them in from reception, give them a spiel about safety and what the can/cannots are of the climb, and suit them up in a lovely grey BridgeClimb suit and pass them on to their climb leader.  I only have 20 minutes for each group to do this and it will be just me directing groups up to 14 people which could get very interesting.  And since I am the 'example' of what they are supposed to look at when they are all dressed, I get to wear a BridgeClimb suit all day too... which is awesome because I can pretty much come to work in my pjs and throw the suit on over.  We did two days of induction (read-orientation) with all of the new recruits for the summer casual season... there were 17 of us total and only 3 in my department (which I have been told is the best job to get... other than climb leader) and I was the only foreigner in the bunch.  Pretty sure I'm the only American at the whole company right now which is pretty wild... and every time I go to bring a climb group in, there are some giggles and smiles in the crowd because they aren't expecting my accent.  I actually had to turn down 3 jobs in the past week as well which is a strange feeling, but BridgeClimb is going to be an experience of a lifetime so of course I had to choose it!

So other than work stuff, what has been going on?  We went to the Blue Mountains a few weeks ago which was a great little break from city life.  If anyone comes down to Sydney, I suggest you take a little day trip here (I will attach pics later, but since I'm on a public computer I don't have them right now).  Our first stop on the trip was Featherdale Wildlife Park which is AWESOME.  They had all the big Aussie animals; koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, wombats, crocs, Tasmanian devils, fairy penguins, emus dingos, fruit bats, and more birds than I could even think about listing (including a new favorite, the blue winged kookaburra). 

A lot of them were just roaming free so we could pet them, and a little kangaroo joey and its mum hopped right up to me so I grabbed some food and fed them right out of my hands.  They were so soft and friendly!  The emus are a bit scary.... they are huge and I can definitely see how they  were once related to dinosaurs.  Their feet are bigger than mine, and when they stretch up are a couple feet taller than me too.... I got a little too close for comfort to a few of them.  The koalas here are actually pretty active.  Usually when you see them, they are just like 'i'm sleepy, leave me alone', but one jumped out of his tree and walked right up to the fence and paced like a gorilla.  They had 3 koalas out in the open that you could 'cuddle up with' to take pictures, but no holding since we are in NSW. 

Jen's foot dwarfed by the Emu's

Terrifying

We got a great show from a huge croc, because we walked up right at feeding time and the trainer teased him a bit so he swam around the tank... man was it impressive!  Apparently this huge male croc doesn't play well with others because when they tried to get him to mate a long time ago, he killed 3 female crocs in the process... eek!  I could have spent all day here but unfortunately we had to head to our next destination. 

Wentworth Falls

Our tour guide/bus driver, Graham, drove us up into the mountains and we took a short (but hot) hike to Wentworth Falls.  The Falls, viewed from Prince's Fall lookout, were pretty far away but still large and impressive.  Apparently you can hike down and swim at the base of the falls but it takes about 5 hours both ways... which was about the duration of our whole Blue Mountains trip!  We ate a fantastic buffet lunch (btw... they pronounce buffet like it is spelled here... t and all) then headed to Katoomba to view the famous

The Three Sisters

Three Sisters rock formation and learned all about the Aboriginal legends surrounding it.  Definitely a beautiful site in the blue haze of the mountains that sit right in the middle of a Jurassic rain forest.  We got to go down under the tree canopy of the rain forest in Scenic World at Jamison Valley. 

Original "Mountain Devil" car

We first rode down "The Mountain Devil" which is the steepest incline passenger railway in the world (55 degrees at some points I think) to the mining regions at the cliff base... we had to sit so far back in our seats to compensate for the incline that our knees were above our heads!  We walked the scenic walkway and and rode back up on the cable way.  Great views from every direction! 

Cableway from below

After all the fantastic scenery we took a little break in the town of Leura and walked around the shops.  The candy shop was the best and I even bought a milk chocolate kookaburra that I just had to have.  The last even in a very eventful day was a boat ride back to the city, down the Parramatta River.  It was really nice and relaxing cruise down the huge river that funnels into the harbour.  While relaxing on the cruise, we looked out onto one of the cliff faces and saw a man standing out there, naked, waving at all the passing boats... hilarious.  He was so far away, people on the boat didn't seem to notice that he was naked and were just waving back merrily!  Only bad news of the day was that my camera battery died at Featherdale... it was surprisingly nice to view the trip thru my own eyes and not through  an eyepiece!

After so much rain that we have had, we finally got a clear day to go up in the Sydney Tower.  I'm so glad all this rain forced us to wait to go up in the observation deck, because it was really cool to not only get an aerial view of the city, but also be able to identify buildings and harbours that we have been to.  It really helped me get oriented with all the geography to see it laid out from above. 


Best way to describe it is to compare it to when I climbed Taipei 101... I thought it was really cool but I really had no earthly idea what I was looking at.  This time it was really exciting and I felt like I really knew the city and felt more like I belonged.  What a strange feeling!

We went out to Oxford Street (the street notorious for great gay clubs) on Saturday night, but kicked off the night at our friends apartment on Darling Harbour, where they just happened to be having random fireworks so we went up on the roof to watch them and what a view!  For some reason we decided to walk even tho a lot of the girls were wearing heels (thankfully not me).  The 20 minute walk turned into more like an hour and a half due to all our shenanigans(5 Americans + 5 Canadians = ridiculosity), but we finally made it to Stonewall and headed straight to the dancefloor on the third floor.  We had to alternate between the hot, crowded (but wicked fun) dancefloor and the one fan in the corner of the room... but we were pretty much drenched in sweat from the moment we stepped in the club.  Had a lot of fun and danced our butts off.... good times.

Bonus... I have officially passed the halfway mark of writing in my journal.  Craziness!

Team Bazinga!

"Garbage day is a very dangerous day." -- Rocco.  I took out the garbage on the morning of November 6th, and it all went downhill from there. WHAT a frustrating waste of a day.  Brief synopsis: stopped by the bus police, talked our way out of $100 each fines, bus trip was a waste anyway because the real estate agent rescheduled, got to the beach and it was raining. AH tomorrow is better, I know, it already happened.

Started off the next day by going to the famous Redbull Flutag! It travels around every year and we got lucky that they are going the 2010 at Sydney Harbour. Kind of sad that we could only stay for less than an hour, but today is full of events we MUST attend!  The first "plane" launched and, as predicted, did a lovely nose-dive into the harbour.  I made a gif image out of the stop motion photography I took, but it won't upload.  Hilarity!

We left as the second contestant was launching off to catch the bus to Bondi Beach for an IEP organized beach walk to Coogee.  They couldn't have picked a more perfect day.... the sun is shining, tons of people are out taking advantaged of the (long anticipated break from the rain) rays, "sculptures by the sea" is in full force... conditions are perfect! 

We had about 15 people in our group and trekked along the coastline taking in all the fantastic views.  I'm still surprised at how cliffy the coastline is, but there are several great sand beaches with brilliant blue water. 

After hiking up a monumental set of stairs and accompanying hill, we finally made it to Coogee, which is apparently the aboriginal word for stinky because the seaweed likes to accumulate on the beach and gives off a distinct smell.  Fortunately, they comb the beach daily so it doesn't smell now. 

Still haven't decided which beach I like the most yet... big pluses and no real minuses to any of them but I'm personally leaning towards the vibe that Coogee gives off... which is good because the apartment that we got shown there the next day is my absolute favorite.  Can you say balcony with a beach view? Sold! Just gotta find some roommies and its a done deal.  We attempted to get some beach time in at Bondi before our apartment showings, but as soon as we stepped off the bus it got cloudy.  I did buy my first souvenir because neither Jen or I brought beach towels, so we ended up getting uber dorky ones from a beach shop.  Turns out we didn't really need them because after we met up with some friends on the beach, it started sprinkling so we had to take cover.  Ducked in to Macca's (or McDonalds.... they shorten every word possible here) for the first time and got a McFlurry to pass the time.  We left just in time, because apparently it started hailing golf ball sized hail right after we left. 

Since beach time was obviously over, we headed back to Glebe and got REALLY excited when we remembered that Monday night is Trivia Night at the AB! A new favorite activity of ours, even though we are terrible at it.  Steve and Julie met up with us to join "Team Bazinga!" and this week was even harder than last weeks because there were very few American questions and the categories were quite obscure.  We even used my favorite purple pen but it couldn't save us.  SO needless to say, we cam in last place..... way last place.  But it was so much fun and with the rain outside, a perfect refuge.  Our British roomie, Lisa, may come with us next week which would be a huge help.... we need diversity!! Steve and Julie are heading up to Hunters Valley (wine country) in a couple of days  and man are we going to miss them! Sad face :(

Sooooo the job front.  I had my first in-person interview and it was a LOT different than I expected.  Interviewed with Esprit and turns out it was a group interview... with 14 people.  A bit of a shock when I was expecting one-on-one but I was just like, ok let's do this thang.  We did a bunch of cheesy ice breakers and role playing scenarios and I was definitely the most relaxed and playful one in the group.  The funniest exercise was our group drew the question "If Esprit was a celebrity, who would it be?".  We chose Sandra Bullock... haha.  It literally lasted an hour and a half which is just nutty! UPDATE: I got a second interview for sometime this upcoming week :).  Had an interview with a sushi restaurant in Surry Hills and it was another odd interview experience... it was quite a hike all uphill from the bus stop and when I went in they just pointed me upstairs to where a bunch of employees were eating an awesome looking lunch.  The manager came over and we talked for 5, maybe 10 minutes, she gave me a menu to study, and said she would call me for a trial later... she even said if I found another job in the meantime to just let her know and they may be able to work around it.  It took me longer to write about the interview than it actually took to do the interview! 

Made it to the second stage of interviews with Sydney Harbour Bridgeclimb! SO excited! It's another group interview with one-on-one's afterwards and it's set for 11/11 which is probably my favorite day of the year.  The group interview was a lot less awkward this time, and actually seemed constructive.  Did about 30 minutes of croup and I think I did a good job of showing my personality, complete with quite a few of my weird faces.  I was chosen first for the one-on-one portion which I'm sure doesn't mean anything at all, but I think it went well....  it sounded promising and the job sounds right up my alley so I'm crossing my fingers, toes and anything else crossible for this one.

Since I was already up in The Rocks for my interview, and we had a happy hour planned their in a couple of ours, I met up with Jen in the Royal Botanical Gardens and just enjoyed the beautiful day.  Mosied up to the Glemore for happy hour on the rooftop beer garden which had a beautiful view of the Harbour.  Sidenote: people under 18 (the drinking age here) can be in the beer garden area of bars, and far too many people bring their children.  Quite a few people turned up and it was a fun time... Bree (with IEP) is really excited that we are probably going to be her new neighbors in Coogee and it helping us find roomies.  And they have beach volleyball teams which brightened up Jen's day.  I say 11/11 was a success!  Now off to get a good night sleep so we can wake up at the crack of dawn tomorrow to go to the Blue Mountains :)

No Job? No Worries!

Last night in the Harbour hostel... what a view!

Fairy Floss and Twister

Halloween! So Australians don’t really celebrate Halloween, and claim to not like the holiday much at all, but I’m not convinced.  All the international people dress up and take to the streets, and the Aussies join in on the fun…. Just not in costume.  We made Jen’s twister costume last minute by borrowing a bowl from the hostel kitchen to draw circles (she wanted to give up after drawing one circle) and it turned out pretty cute.  I was cotton candy (or as they call it here, fairy floss) and I realized after I started constructing it, that using the restroom might be an issue… I would just have to deal with that when the time came!  It turned out pretty cute too, but I felt huge with all that fabric!  We headed to sidebar for the IEP party and met some great people.  Strangest thing of the night was that once people realized what I was dressed as, they decided it was appropriate to lick me.  Yes… random people actually tried to lick me, and some were successful! Eek!

Moved into our 4share room at the Glebe Rooftop on Monday… first thing I noticed is that the sheets on my bed have Winnie the Pooh on them.  Everyone else has plain sheets but me which I think is funny.  There are two other girls in the room from Ireland and England who have been here for 3 months already, which unfortunately for us that means there are VERY settled and their stuff is everywhere!  So I’m still living out of a suitcase, but we are a bit more settled in than when we were in the hostel.  It has been rainy which kind of puts a damper on things, but since it was pouring outside we didn’t want to venture far from the Rooftop and went across the street to the Ancient Briton pub for dinner.  Turns out I was trivia night! Jen and I were team “Apple Pie” and we did pretty well for the first few rounds… that went downhill quickly but we had a blast!  Since our name called us out as American all the other USers in the pub swarmed us after the game was over which was pretty fun.



The "Charlotte" Ferry... not the one that took us to Manly,
but my personal favorite

Still rainy, but during a break in the weather we met up with Julie and Steve for a trip to Manly Beach.  We took a ferry ride out to the North Sydney and it was hard to imagine that the criminals and army men who originally settled in Sydney sailed on boats this same size all the way from England!  Another random interesting fact: when the British government realized it was all men on the island, they decided to correct it by sending more women 'criminals' over.... but since there were not many in their prisons at the time, women were being banished to Australia for infractions as small as walking on the wrong side of the street.

We walked almost half of the 10km coastal scenic walk that twisted, turned and disappeared in some places which definitely kept the walk interesting.  We saw a huge kookaburra and Steve go so close that he actually touched its wing!  The water was freezing but there were still tons of surfers out in wetsuits, which kind of made them look like seals bobbing in the water… I see why sharks get confused sometimes!  We finished the coastal walk just minutes after the Melbourne Cup finished and Americain pulled a huge upset for the win.  Everyone was all dressed up with big fancy hats on so we definitely stuck out in our hiking garb.  All in all I’d say it was a wonderfully successful day.

Julie, Me, Jen and Steve on Manly Beach

Steve about to touch the Kookaburra

STILL raining so we decided to make the best of it and went to the Sydney Aquarium and Wildlife World.  Did you know that the animatronic shark that was used in Jaws is actually smaller than the largest great white on record?  We stood next to a replica of the largest shark ever (7.5m) and let me tell ya, I would freak out if I saw something like that coming at me under water!!  The tail was taller than me and I could hula hoop with the actual jaw they had on display.  Unfortunately, even though they have a great white on their logo, they don’t actually have any in the aquarium… false advertizing!  We did get to see the little penguins (there is a colony on Manly Beach as well), a manatee (which they call Dugongs) and the platypus has always been a personal favorite of mine (the best of all different animals all smashed into one little package).  I liked Wildlife World even better! All of the animals were indigenous to Australia, and the insects and reptiles were first…. I was happy to go through that section quickly and get to the koalas.  They are so cute they look fake, and it was raining but it didn’t seem to bother them one bit…. You can’t hold the koalas in New South Wales so can’t check that off my list yet, but we were so close I could have reached out and touched one! 

The kangaroos weren’t fans of the rain at all… they were all huddled under the awning together, but luckily the rain let up and they hopped around a bit for us.  Surprised not to see any dingoes or wombats (or we could have just missed them) but the wallabies were there representing Rocco’s Modern Life beautifully.  “Garbage day is a very dangerous day.”  Still one of my favorites is the Kookaburra.  We finally hear it laugh but I’m fairly certain my jokes had nothing to do with it!  The Kookaburra has become an unofficial mascot for my Australian adventure… they are just so darn cute and their laugh is contagious!  Jen and I both applied for jobs here and it would be so cool to work here…. Trying not to get our hopes up but crossing our fingers and thinking ‘how cool would it be to work here’ the entire time we were walking through!  Its kind of nice to not have any ties so we can get up and do whatever, whenever… of course money helps to do more things… details!

Dun-nu Dun-nu

Jen likes fish :)

Random view of the SOH

Another random view of the SOH