Gloves, Ghouls & G'day, Mate

What a week!

I’ve now officially been in Sydney for a full week, but today was the first day that I did anything touristy. Turns out that trying to set up a life in a new country is actually kind of time consuming – who knew?? Starting with orientation day though, I definitely accomplished something important each day, which is a good feeling. Still have a long way to go though. Here’s the recap:

Monday was orientation, which was very helpful. I felt sort of lost and overwhelmed last weekend, and the orientation session helped me to feel that I would eventually be able to get a handle on things. In the morning they covered the basics, and in the afternoon the job-help guy went over his presentation. I got my sim card with my new Australian cell phone number, my temporary tax ID and information about how to set up a bank account – all very important items.

There were 4 of us at the orientation: me, two German kids and a Canadian girl, who actually slept on the bottom bunk in the hostel with me – small world. We went out to lunch together in between the orientation sessions. The Canadian is in the midst of travelling around the world, with Australia being a long 8-month stop. The two Germans didn’t speak great English, and mainly seemed interested in talking to each other in German. The program center office is nice. They have free wifi and a travel desk and Patrick the job guy. My main complaint is the lack of restroom facilities. Before orientation started I inquired about the bathroom, and was told to go to McDonalds. Um…really? I will add that feedback in at some point. The program center is great. Lots of helpful people and information there. But a toilet would really be awesome.

So post-orientation, the goal was simple: get a phone.  Since there is SO much to tackle, I keep having to remind myself to go in baby steps, and take one task at a time. Monday’s task was to get a phone. I found a little store that sold unlocked phones to take my sim card, popped in the card, et voila! Dara had an Australian phone. Monday’s mission accomplished. I should also mention that this was July 4^th. I was quite sad to miss it, since it’s one of my favorite holidays. I think the hostel bar had some sort of July 4^th thing going on, where if you’re an American you could skip the line or something. I don’t know. I went to bed at 8.

Tuesdays mission: Get somewhere to live. I started looking at room share options on gumtree (their version of craigslist) but got quickly overwhelmed. I’ve never really solo apartment hunted before, and the whole process of calling all these different people and making arrangements to go all over the place to check everything out just seemed utterly exhausting. Plus I had yet to figure out mass transit around here. The only thing I knew about it at that point was that it was way too expensive to be tootling around all day long looking at a bunch of different apartments. I wanted something quick and relatively easy. I ended up calling a place whose website I had checked out back at home. They are a bunch of share-houses designed for students and backpackers who are going to be in the area for a while. I made an appointment for that afternoon and figured out the bus to check it out. The first house I was shown was really sort of terrible. I was crushed, since I was really banking on living at the complex. The second, however, was considerably better. Plus it had an ensuite bathroom and a little balcony, so I would only have to share a bathroom with one person. Plus there’s a washer, dryer, and a little side yard with a picnic table. Not too shabby. I put down a deposit, and that was that. Tuesday’s mission accomplished. Here’s a pic of the house:

And one of the street:

Wednesday’s mission: Get together an Australian resume and start the hunt to find someone who will pay me so I can afford food other than ramen noodles. The work & holiday program’s website actually has an Australian resume “wizard” where you just pop your information in and it spits out an Australian style resume. Nice! I sat down with the job guy, and he thinks I’ll have a job within 2 weeks. Let’s hope he’s right. He sent my resume around to a few places, and one employment agency called within 15 minutes to set up an appointment. Nice again! I put on my little interview outfit and headed over to the agency that afternoon. As I was getting ready, I got a call from another agency as well, and set something up for Thursday. Trifecta of nice-ness! Of course I nearly shot myself in the foot walking home from the agency interview, as I left the employment office with a portfolio filled with information I had been given, and returned back to the hostel with… not a portfolio. Luckily enough I had a vague idea as to where it was. I was 75% sure I left it on a row of shopping carts at a super market while I was putting money away. I ran back to the market, where after asking 3 different people, I finally got it back. Whew. I don’t suppose the agency would have called me with any job offers if I had to run back to them the next day asking for another set of documents since I, um, lost everything 15 minutes after I left. Yeah, that would have been bad. Wednesday’s mission accomplished.

Thursday’s mission: Move into new place. Naturally, of course, I didn’t have enough cash on me that morning to put down my security deposit, so I had to use the hostel’s dumpy ATM. It was nice enough to print me a receipt saying that I withdrew $300, and then never gave me the cash. Phenomenal! I also found out the hard way that TD bank’s “call this number collect if you’re outside the US” phone number on the back of the debit card is wrong. Wonderful. Eventually my 130 pounds of luggage and I made it outside, where I wasn’t able to find the taxi stand that I was told was “right across the street,” so I schlepped onto a train. The train station I got off at was, of course, “lift-less” (although they’re installing one in 6 months! Very helpful!) so I had to rely on a 70 year old man to help me drag my 130 pounds of luggage up 2 flights of stairs. I prayed that he wasn’t going to end up giving himself a heart attack or something. I didn’t want the nice old Australian man to keel over because I grossly over-packed. Anyway, got into the apartment successfully, where a nice British boy who recently moved in with his girlfriend offered me a cup of tea. That made me happy, I do like when boys invite me to tea (Not that I miss any of you. Because I don’t. So don’t think that.). I then headed over to the other employment agency. It’s address was 2 Chifley Square, which strangely enough, seemed vaguely familiar. I googled it. Guess which investment management firm also happens to inhabit 2 Chifley Square??? Level 37, in case anyone was wondering. After that I bought a portable modem, which I didn’t know even existed until the British boy showed me one in a catalogue. Who knew such an animal existed? Technology is marvelous. Thursday’s mission accomplished.

Friday’s mission: Successfully attend first social outing. The Canadian invited me to go see Transformers 3 in 3D. Did I want to spent $25 on a 3D movie that I had less than 0 interest in seeing? No. No I did not. But when one is alone on a foreign continent (doesn’t that sound so much more dramatic than just saying “country”? Because it’s true. I am on my own on this continent, not just in the country!), one accepts any invite one can get. So I figured out how to get to Bondi Junction and watched Transformers in 3D. It actually wasn’t too shabby. The special effects were amazing, and I sort of got the main idea. Bad robots vs. Good robots. Fridays mission accomplished.

Saturday’s mission: SHOP. Turns out that this house complex is a hop skip and a jump away from a full blown mall. I was really excited about that. I found a great little discount supermarket, and tore through Kmart getting some good cheap basic items. I bought two pillows (the ones here are like cardboard), a pop-up hamper, and finally found a great deal on a 24 pack of coke J. I cooked myself dinner. Yes, I cooked. I made spaghetti. Granted, some people may not consider that real cooking, but that’s the most cooking I’ve done in quite a spell, so let’s allow me my moment of glory, shall we? Saturday’s mission accomplished as well.

Today: I finally did something interesting! I went whale watching. Humpbacks are migrating up north this time of year, so there are plenty of them around. We sort of trailed one whale, and followed his course. I felt a bit bad, about 3-4 boats were stalking the poor guy, but I don’t think the whales mind all that much. He even hammed it up at one point and flopped around and “waved” to the boat with his flipper:

Humpbacks are big. Super big. They don’t even seem like real animals, it looks more like a submarine slowly surfacing. Only it’s a submarine with a tail that waves hello when the mood strikes him. Very, very awesome.

Thoughts:

I’m still in awe over the “mobile” modem. I pop this thing that looks almost like an ipod into the USB port, and google and facebook are mine again. It’s basically magic.

They are really into Ugg boots here. I even saw someone on the street handing out fliers dressed as a giant Ugg boot. Ever seen a 6 foot tall furry boot on the street? It’s strange.

No one here says you’re welcome, everyone says “no worries”

It’s cold here at night. I brought my gloves just in case with me when I ventured out Friday night to find the movie theater. And I used my gloves. In July. I used my furry winter gloves in July.

I’m finally figuring out Sydney’s mass transit. Not only is it expensive, it’s stupid. Really stupid. Everything is charged based on zones, but at a micro-level. Of all the big cities I’ve ever been to, I think Sydney’s mass transit makes me the angriest. Even I could design something that makes more sense than this.

I have a roommate! For the sake of not making myself angry with hashing out the bitter details, I will abide by the rule that if one cannot say anything nice, then one shouldn’t say anything at all. I do have one nice thing to say though: She moves out Monday (morning, I pray). Ok fine, I’ll throw out a little something fun: When I moved in, she warned me about the room. I braced myself for what was to come next. Roaches? Silverfish? Mice? A great white shark who lives in the bureau who only eats silly little American girls and their stuffed dogs? No. Apparently, our room comes equipped with not only furniture and linen, but with a supernatural “presence”. She told me not to worry though, she’s pretty sure the presence is about her, and will go with her when she moves out. Plus she put rock salt in all four corners of the room, so we should be safe. Great! I was really relieved to be saved from the ghostly presence by her rock salt (which no doubt I’ll have to clean up off the floor after she moves out). Obviously we’re not dealing with the brightest crayon in the box here.

This entry may have been a bit detailed and tedious, and for the more casual subscriber, I do sincerely apologize.  Hopefully future entries down the road will have more kangaroo and crocodile stories than bank account and tax ID ones. At least you got a ghost story though? But anyway, seeing as this was a sort of whirlwind week filled with taking care of the boring stuff, I had to throw it all out there for those who care.

Hopefully this is the last entry written by Dara the unemployed. By the next update, I hope for a job and a ghostless existence.

I leave you with this final thought:

You know you’re far from home when Florida isn’t the closest Sunshine State…