From Sydney with LOVE!

Well we made it to Sydney on Tuesday at 6:30am.  This is going to be a long post since I’m almost a week in and so much has happened! Jen and I went wandering around the city and caught our first glimpse of the Pacific at Darling Harbour.  We just sat there for a long time watching the birds, jellyfish and tourists buzz around, waiting for it to sink in that we are living here and it isn’t just a vacation.  Slowly but surely getting there now!  First purchase was an energy vitamin water to try and wake me up to beat jetlag…. Drinks are so expensive down here it’s crazy!  After lunch we stumbled onto Hyde Park which is just beautiful… the way the giant fig trees create canopy walkways through is awesome.  Best part of our first day here? A Kookaburra came and sat right next to us, then flew up into the tree (which I can only assume was an ole gum tree) directly above our bench.  I told it some jokes, but no laughs.  That was one stone faced Kookaburra!

Went to orientation and am kind of starting to get a feel for what we are going to do for work/accommodations.  There are a lot of places in the country I would like to visit, but as one of our hostel roommates always says “Don’t make plans, have ideas.”  So many options to consider, but I suppose that is better than not enough options at all!  Took an ALL DAY Responsible Service of Alcohol course…. Oh such fun!  You have to have this license to do pretty much any hospitality work so we figured it was best to get it over with straight off.  Luckily, a brother/sister duo that was in our orientation class was also in the RSA course, so we made the best of it together.  For lunch I tried my first ever meet pie! It was Thai curry chicken, and it was a complete mess but pretty delish!  Also FINALLY found a supermarket (I was beginning to think they didn’t exist) and bought some tim-tams and mountain dew.  The Sydney Central YHA, where we are staying right now, is pretty cool.  They have events and dinner every night which we are taking full advantage of.  Thursday night we all walked down to meet up with another one of the YHA hostels that is close by and had a good old fashioned Aussie BBQ, and yes, I had the kangaroo.  It was seasoned perfectly and who knew a picky-about-meat eater like me would like roo better than beef!  Then a group of us (strongly all Americans) walked down to Darling Harbour where there was a magnificent firework show.  If this show was for no apparent reason, I can’t imagine what the New Years show is going to be like.  Spectacular Spectacular!

Yesterday the YHA had a free walking tour of all the Sydney hotspots that we just barely made.  We went to the IEP office in a panic because after Friday night, we didn’t have a place to stay because the hostel was full.  Pete (who is in charge of accommodations) is awesome and set us up with a long-term shared housing room in Glebe for the month of November, then in December we can (hopefully) move to Coogee Beach as long as we find 2 roommates to share the apartment with.  That way we will have a place to stay for the holidays, because apparently everything books up fast unless you are in an apartment type arrangement.  It took longer than we expected and we thought we had for sure missed the walking tour, but as fate would have it, they were running late and we walked up just in time.  So glad that we did because we gat to see so much that we would have missed otherwise.  A lot of the buildings near Hyde Park were built by the convicts and we completely missed them the other day.  One of the building, Sydney Hospital, has a replica of the Florence Hog out front…. Just like the drooling hog in Fayetteville! So nice to have a little piece of home all the way across the world!  Legend is that if you rub its nose, it will bring you good fortune, which is why the finish is completely worn off!.  At the end of the tour was our first glimpse of the Opera House.   Its just as amazing as I imagined, and after watching countless documentaries in school about its construction, it was great to see it in person (more on that later, I’m sure).  We ended the tour and they Sydney Harbour YHA, which is where we booked a few nights until we can get into the place at Glebe (Bonus: when we checked in the next morning, the view as soon as you open our room door is of the SOH!).  The view from the rooftop is fantastic and you can see both the SOH and Harbour Bridge in fantastic fashion.  What was really cool also is because it was built on an ongoing archeological dig, it is on stilts sot he digging can continue underneath.  Whoever designed this building did an excellent job of preserving history… the buildings are the same footprint as the original buildings that were torn down during the Bubonic Plague and the original stone walkways are still intact. The tour guides were great and that tour has been the highlight of my week so far.

Decided to take full advantage of our Harbour location and the perfect weather and walked around the massive Harbour Bridge and Circular Quay (where the SOH is) and took in the sights.  Best street performer by far was an aboriginal man playing the digerydoo set to techno mustic…. It was amazing and when you throw money in his bucket, he says thank you into the dige while still keeping perfect time.  Then, since we had no plans, we decided why not go whale watching?  So we hopped on a boat to go look for some tails and saw quite a few!  We followed around a pod of 4 or 5 for a couple of hours.  Being on the water was amazing and probably the best part was just the ride in and out of the Harbour.  The views of the city from the water are absolutely breathtaking!

I have SO many pictures that I have taken this past weed and this is just a small sampling!  I will share more later :) Much love and no worries - Miki