Shalom from Fair-Weathered Oz!

Let me start out by addressing the two curveballs that mother nature has bequeathed on my hometown in the past week or so. Why is it that I always miss the incredibly random weather/natural disasters?? Now don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t wish for mother nature’s wrath to flatten things. But when crazy crap goes down, I wanna be around to see it! We got a hurricane, which is a rarity, and I missed it. Manhattan skyscrapers shook and shimmied due to a Virginia earthquake, and I missed it. Last September, the ONE real weather phenomenon that I’ve always wanted to witness (that would be a tornado) tore through WHITESTONE specifically, and I missed that too. I was in Manhattan. There were no tornadoes in Manhattan that day. Just a lot of trains that didn’t go anywhere, which resulted in my infamous 5 hour bus ride home. Glad that the hurricane seemed to be mostly hype though. Bust seriously, what a weird week!

Sydney, on the other hand, has been perfect. “Winter” (I put this in quotes because their winter does not really exist, despite was Sydneysiders may tell you) is basically over. July and August are the nippy months, and we’re already heading into September. So how would I sum up my first Australian winter? Much like Irene, it was much ado about nothing. There were a few chilly days in July, one evening in particular where I was glad to have the gloves. There was a week in July where we got like end-of-the-world monsoon rain for DAYS on end. Other than that? Eh. Some days required a light fleece, but nothing major. It goes up to the mid-60s every day now. The chilliness hath passed.  I was initially sad at first about losing my summer (even though I’ll get it back in December and January), but it the end it was no big deal.

Work has been going along fine. Nothing major to report on that front. My contract is already half over though. I’ve finally gotten the swing of things, and it’s going to be time soon enough to start thinking about where my next paycheck will be coming from, so that I don’t have to start a new ramen noodle era.

My roommate is still sick. I wasn’t sure how this was possible prior to today, but now I think I understand. I’ve never been sick for over 2 weeks in my life. This is because when I am ill, I take medicine. I also EAT. We had a discussion about food today. Apparently ALL she ever eats are instant noodles or sausages. That’s it. Every night for dinner. Noodles or sausages. She asked me today if sausages are healthy. I had to burst the kid’s bubble. I informed her that sausages are about one of the worst things you can eat, and gently suggested that perhaps part of the reason she remains ill is because she takes in ZERO nutrients? I’m not sure what’s going on up there in that top bunk. She certainly does know about tissues though, I find them all over the floor. Several have landed on my bed. This does not amuse me. We did have a discussion about the importance of door locking though. Tom and Claire were also not amused by the front door being left open all the time, so they tacked a sign up on it saying PLEASE LOCK in giant bold letters. The other Tom is gone. Apparently he was in Australia for an unpaid internship, and he only had a limited amount of funds. This kid partied like 6-7 nights a week, so one day last week he finally ran out of money and hopped a flight back home to London. Just like that, gone. You’d think that if you were supposed to be staying in a country until October, and had no income, you’d perhaps pay at least a smidge of attention to things like “budgets” and “account balances.” Weird kid. Speaking of weird, Tom’s replacement has already moved in. He seems older than the majority of us here are, and has loud conversations with himself. That’s all I’ve gathered on him so far. So that’s what’s new on the home front.

I’ve made my second excursion out of the city! Cheryl and I went to Hunter Valley, which is the wine country a couple of hours outside of Sydney. It’s actually a fairly small region, as most Australian wine comes from other parts of the country, but since it’s right on Sydney’s doorstep, it’s fairly well known and well-travelled amongst the tourist crowd. We went on a real people tour (as opposed to a tour geared toward the backpacker crowd), so the bus was fancy and all that. We made a morning tea stop in a small town called Wollombi, and unlike my Blue Mountains tour (which was geared toward backpackers) morning tea actually was morning tea – the “morning tea” stop on the mountains tour was just a fancy way of saying we’re stopping in this town for a half hour in case any of you need to go to the bathroom. We got tea and a tasty scone at the Wollombi Tavern, which was quite nice. I certainly needed the caffeine, since I had to be in the city at 7:15 am to meet the bus.

We stopped at 3 vineyards, and the wine at all three was very tasty. The first stop was a place called Lindeman’s where we tried 6 types of wine. They were all really good, and I would have considered buying 5 of the 6 kinds, but I restrained myself to only one bottle. The next vineyard we stopped at took us out into their field for a bit, and we watched a video on wine making. Then we had lunch, which was sort of a smorgasbord of various dishes for the table to share. We each had a small glass of red and white wine, and there was a list on the table of which dishes went with each wine. Naturally I just ate and drank everything in sight. Gotta get my money’s worth! The third vineyard had more good stuff to choose from, and I bought 2 more bottles, and had to restrain myself from a 3^rd there. It was all so good! There was a nearby cheese shop, so we checked that out as well and got some free cheese. Minor drama ensued, as when we emerged from the cheese shop I realized that 1) we were 15 minutes late for the bus, and 2) the bus was gone. Ooooops! We had the winery call the tour company who called the driver. Turns out the last stop the bus makes for the day is at a tiny tourist village basically around the block from the winery. The driver came to fetch us. It was like a 3 minute walk back to where the bus was parked, so no serious damage done J

Friday night was my first real Shabbat dinner since Israel! Yigal (one of the FA’s who I worked for at Bernstein) was kind enough to introduce me via email to his wife’s cousin Justin, who lives here in Sydney. Justin and his wife Tami were nice enough to invite me to their family dinner. I was very pumped about that. Actual food in an actual house with actual adults, and my first contact with Jewish people since I’ve been down here! I went from being in NY and working at a financial firm founded by a guy named Bernstein to moving to a place where when I go to a supermarket and inquire about a kosher section, the kid starts talking to me about gluten-free cookies and the international section where the taco shells and tortillas are. Ummmm….

Justin and Tami picked me up at Bondi Junction, and I piled into their car with their 4 young kids. We were headed for dinner at Tami’s aunt’s house up in St. Ives, which was a bit of a drive up since it’s on the other side of town. Early on in the car ride all the kids started clamoring for their parents to play the dynamite song, which I assumed would be some nonsensical kid song that I’d tune out. Turns out they just all really love Taio Cruz’s pop hit “Dynamite.” It was really cute to see a car full of little kids singing about rocking a club all night long.

Anyway, there were maybe 12-15 people at dinner? Somewhere in that neighborhood. The food was absolutely wonderful, and everyone was very nice. It was a treat to be a part of it for a night! Cause my cooking is terrible, and backpackers tend not to discuss things other than beer, beaches and where to get cheap ramen noodles. So a nice home cooked meal and a lively debate on gender equality in the workplace was most welcome.

Sunday night I went to my first nightclub in Sydney., and of course it happened to be in Sydney’s most um… shall we say, “vibrant” part of town. I went out in King’s Cross, which is essentially Sydney’s red light district.  I dolled myself up and took the train out to the Cross, and emerged from the station surrounded by bars, clubs, strip joints, girls dressed to the nines and groups of drunk guys. Lovely! I also wasn’t 100% sure where I was headed, but luckily I found the place soon enough. It wasn’t bad actually. The music was good and the drinks were tasty. Plus the walls were lined with velvet couches with little tables, and I am a huge fan of clubs with seating for the regular joes. If I have to be out all night in little heels and can’t sit anywhere, then I get cranky.  We didn’t stay out too late, which was fine by me since it was a work night. I was surprised at how many people were out and about and looking to party on a Sunday night. I sort of wanted to go around and ask everyone, don’t you people have jobs???? But all in all it was a nice time, and I’m sort of glad that my introduction to King’s Cross was at night. That seems to me to be the proper way to meet the red light district for the first time!

Yesterday I went to the Taronga Zoo with Cheryl and her friend Josh. The Taronga Zoo is Sydney’s big zoo, so the tickets are quite expensive. With the ferry ticket, it’s a bout $50. Luckily enough, Josh’s work sponsors the zoo, so we got in for free!!! The zoo is very nice. It reminds me a lot of the San Diego zoo, in that it’s set on a hill. It’s a pretty place, and it boasts some great views of the harbor and opera house as well. Seriously, those giraffes have some awesome real estate:

 I think the oddest exhibit was the Tasmanian devil one. They have it set up so that when the poor little guy is resting (as he is here) he looks like roadkill:

 And the best picture from the zoo? No, I didn’t get to hold a koala – I will eventually, but the only state in Australia where it’s legal to do that is Queensland, which I have not been to yet. However, New South Wales has NO laws against koalas holding the people!!!!

Random thoughts:

The acceptable term here for “bathroom” is “toilet.” No one uses the word bathroom here. When I put my phone on idle at work because I have to go, I punch in the idle code as “toilet.” When you’re telling someone about your call of nature, you say that you’re going to the toilet. I dunno man, I know it’s completely normal here, but I can’t get past the fact that to my ears it sounds kind of crude to say I’m going to the toilet now. I feel like if a kid said that at home they’d get scolded for being impolite.

I bought earplugs. It was the only way to get any rest. They work a bit, they do block out some of the lower level snorting, but when that girl goes full blast, she could wake the dead. There isn’t an earplug in the world that could block out those horrible noises. The problem with them is that they make my inner ears a bit sore. Apparently the uninvited fetus did go to the doctor about her cold that seems to NEVER go away. The doctor told her to eat garlic. A whole clove. Really? That’s your top-notch medical advice? I’m pretty sure that people were eating garlic to help with immune issues like, 500 years ago. Now granted, she does need the nutritional value, but really? That’s all you got Mr. Doctor? So she bought garlic. I asked her yesterday if she ate it yet. She said she did not, because she tried to smash it up with a knife and the knife almost broke, so she gave up and will try again another day. Uhhh…. I could find about 3 dozen things in this house that we could use to smash up garlic. If she doesn’t eat it soon I may have to force feed it to her.

I found a blog online about a group of people who went a trek across Sydney to find the best shanghai soup dumplings. They travelled all across the city in a day, and just ate soup dumplings all day long, looking for the best ones. What an amazing way to spend a day! While I don’t have a car, making such a trek difficult, I did write down a few of their top places, so next “weekend” I’m hoping to go on a shorter version of their dumpling adventure. It’s gonna be exciting!

I’m working on back walkovers at one of my gyms. The coach who is helping me comes from this big gymnastics family. His brother was the first Australian gymnast to ever win a gold medal at the World Championships – that’s a HUGE deal! It’s kind of cool that I am learning from someone blood related to a gymnastics World Champion!

Another week of HSBC awaits me…. I can’t believe this job may very well be over in a month! What on earth will I do with my binder and homemade granola bar box tabs?

HAYCH-SBC and the Uninvited Fetus

I should start off by sharing the most devastating news I’ve encountered here thus far. I’ll just be blunt and come right out and say it: I have a roommate.

This tragic turn of events happened just this past Monday evening. I came home from an ordinary day at work, and saw the light peaking through the curtains of MY room. Naturally, this made me quite nervous. However, it HAD happened once before, and it was a false alarm – my room had been shown earlier in the day, and the office just left the light on. However, upon closer inspection, I noticed a very disturbing detail this time around. Through the curtains, I could see that the top bunk was made. There was a bag up there too. This was it. The jig was up. Someone had moved in.

Her name is “Rebecca” and she claims to be from “London.” I’m not sure how much of this I believe. Her name very well might be “Rebecca” but I simply CANNOT come to grips with the fact that she claims to be from London. While she does have the funny British accent, she has NO traits characteristic of one who comes from an urban environment. Case in point: SHE NEVER LOCKS THE DAMN DOOR.  Now once I can forgive and chalk up to a freak oversight, but this girl has already moved onto her 4^th strike, so it’s time to lay down the law. When I come home at the end of the day, and there is no one in the room, that door better be locked. That does not seem to be the case. Everything is always open. Nor does she lock the front door to the house when she returns. Or leaves. Now maybe she thinks that a magical door-locking fairy takes care of these minor details. Maybe that’s how it works in England. I certainly don’t know. But here in Australia, when you DON’T bother to lock a door, guess what? IT STAYS OPEN ALL DAY LONG.  We are living in a backpacker community populated by a lot of frequently drunk kids with no money, in a city of 4 million people. Doors need to be locked. I simply don’t understand. Who leaves the house and leaves all the doors open???? This kid is not from London. She has the security mindset of a country bumpkin.

I saw her resume lying on the floor when she first moved in. I saw the birth date (I swear, this crap was all out in the open! The kid is also a bit of a slob, but I won’t subject you to an additional paragraph ranting on that as well). She was born in 1990. She’s practically a fetus. This child can’t even walk into a bar in the United States. Her 21^st birthday is coming up soon though! I don’t remember my 21^st birthday, and I don’t mean because it was a rockin’ good time whose details have become hazy due to massive amounts of liquor. I don’t remember mine simply because it was over a half decade ago! Who remembers that far back??? I’m living with a fetus. Seriously, my stuffed dog Marbles is older than this kid.

Then there are the germs. Naturally, as she is a young child, she is sick. Ill. Diseased.  Flu-ridden. Coughs and hacks all over MY room. She warned me when she first moved in that she snores when she’s ill. Guess what? She’s right! I can’t tell you how many hours of sleep I’ve lost this past week listening to this unwelcome fetal invader snort through her REM cycles. I’ve tried shaking the bed. Getting up. Flipping on lights. Hell, I even threw something  (slammed, really) on the floor once. The throwing works sometimes. Usually I get 5-7 seconds of quiet before the disturbance starts up again. I’m being polite though. I even offered some of my cold medicine and magical vitamin C pills. Not so much because I want her to not be sick so she can enjoy herself, but I want the germs out of my domicile, and above all else, I WANT SOME PEACE AND QUIET AT NIGHT.

Rant over. On the positive side, she seems like a nice enough girl.

That being said, let’s move on to more positive things, shall we?

There honestly isn’t a whole lot to report on. I’m sort of in a settled down phase at the moment. Mostly doing regular things day to day. I’m enjoying HSBC, I’m glad I ended up there. It’s been a good experience for me to be able to sink into a new role, and having to do it quickly and in a new country! Most callers are friendly enough, but there are some real a-holes from time to time. Not too often though. And in the end, they are just cranky because their credit sucks and they can’t take home their $4,000 tv that they probably shouldn’t be buying anyway on the fancy buy now pay later scheme. The coworkers are all great, and I am thoroughly enjoying wearing my hoodie (or “jumper” as they call them here) to work twice a week on Saturdays and Sundays.

I’m making small efforts to sound slightly less foreign on the phone. Granted I have a blatantly American accent, but I’m trying to do some little things to make myself speak more “Australian.” I pronounce by letter “H” more like “HAY-CH” since that’s how they say it here.  “Z” is “Zed,” “calling” is “ringing” and “you’re welcome” is simply “no worries.” I’m getting used to the date formats, but sometimes I do make mistakes. Like when I ask a customer when they made their last payment, and I have, say, 07/08/11 on the screen in front of me, when the customer tells me August 7^th I have to catch myself before I tell them they’re wrong. My brain still frequently reads the dates as we do them at home, but it’s getting better.

I usually take anywhere from 25-40 calls a day. Yesterday I did 52, which has been the most so far. It’s karma in a way I guess. This is payback for all those days at Bernstein when I felt lazy and sort of ignored the phone. Now I have to answer it 40 times a day! It’s not so bad though. Most questions are fairly similar, it’s a lot of the same stuff over and over again. It’s a LOT of effort though, to sound happy and chipper on the phone all day long and talk to so many different people. I never realized so many people purchased things using interest free accounts. Do we do this a lot at home too? It’s an interesting idea I guess, although I sort of abide by the school of thought that if I can’t pay for an item right here and right now in full, then perhaps I shouldn’t be buying it.

We had a contest today at work. Predict the number of calls. I won! I guessed 323 and we got 324. I would have been dead on too, but in the middle of my last call of the day I accidentally hung up on the lady, so she had to call back. That ended up being the 324^th. Damn. I receive my prize tomorrow. ANYTHING I want from the vending machine. As long as it’s under $2. So I’m quite pumped to get my first free HSBC coke.

Are you grossly bored yet? For those of you who are still with me, here’s the tourist stuff that’s been tackled recently:

Cheryl and I went on a “ghost tour” of Sydney’s historic neighborhood, the Rocks. It was actually a pretty scary place back in the day, and I don’t mean because of all the ghosts. It was TOUGH. Like, you walk down the street and you might not make it alive to the other side tough. It was nice to see the neighborhood (which has gentrified quite a bit since the early 1800s, it's now chic and way over my price range) since that was my first trip up there, but the tour was just eh. It was mostly “ghost host” Maxine rattling on about all the different “experiences” that previous ghost tour customers had felt in the different spots.

I also finally walked across the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Now at some point I will actually CLMIB that sucker, but for now I’ve tackled the walking across part. I also went up the Sydney Tower, not so much because I cared to do so, but more so because I had a combo ticket for a bunch of local attractions so I basically paid for the damn thing already anyway.

We went on a daytrip to Manly last week as well. Manly is a beach town about 7 miles from the Sydney CBD. We took the ferry over, which was a nice harbor ride experience as well. Checked out OceanWorld, which is Manly’s small aquarium, and then we rented a kayak and paddled around for a couple of hours. Cheryl was smart and came prepared to get wet. I didn’t think all that was necessary at first, but in the end I was the one who had to waddle home in wet jeans and wet underwear. We were able to kayak to a small beach that’s only boat accessible, so that was kind of cool. It was a gorgeous day. It probably got up to about 70. I like how people complain about “winter.” Please. It’s the DEAD of winter, and I’m kayaking to a beach, wading around in the surf.  Australians wouldn’t know what to do with the white crap. I really want to tell people at work my day after Christmas story, the one where I tried to get to Bernstein but only made it as far as Citi Field and then walked home 4 and a half miles in over 2 and a half feet of the white crap. But first I must to the distance conversion, as no one will grasp the pain of that morning if I speak in feet and miles.

I also tackled the Maritime museum, which was interesting, and best of all, free! I like free. In a city where they expect me to pay $8 for a coke and a bad slice of pizza, free is my friend. I really miss pizza. I refuse to eat it here. I know it will be garbage.

Other news/thoughts:

My aunt and mother finally figured out their visit. So while a bunch of you talked the talk, only the two of them are actually walking the walk. Or flying the fly, or whatnot.

Gymnastics is going along swimmingly. I’m really enjoying both gyms, and both places are giving me the opportunity to work on things that I didn’t have the opportunity to do at Chelsea Piers.

For some reason, a lot of bars around here are called hotels. Now that’s confusing, mainly because actual hotels are also called… hotels. This falls into the chips (French fries) and chips (potato chips) category.

I get paid once a week here instead of bi-weekly, which is fun, because I’m just ALWAYS getting paid! However, rent is also paid weekly. So I am always paying rent.  Every Thursday, I have to pay rent. I don’t like it. I’d much rather pay them $600 a month and be done with it. This $150 a week thing is just too much. I forget more often than I remember to pay it on time. Good thing they don’t seem to care all that much.

I’m starting to think about what comes next. I think I have a vague outline of what my time here will consist of until about mid-November, and then it’s anyone’s guess. I have to make an appointment with the job guy soon to see if he has any potentially interesting gigs that I could tackle.

The America questions I get at work are funny. I actually really enjoy them, because it allows you to look at your own culture through the eyes of someone else. Sometimes things that we think of as perfectly normal are in fact quintessentially American in nature, but you don’t realize it until some non-American person points it out. I showed a few people my American driver’s license today. Someone had asked me to see it. Our New York State license got positive reviews! People like that it’s sort of bendy. Apparently Ireland only gives you a piece of paper that says “yup, this person can drive.” Once through the wash and it’s a goner.

Not much else to report. This isn’t really the most adventurous phase of the trip. I’m just living and working in Sydney.  But while most day to day details at this point are on the mundane side (at least in terms of providing enough firepower to keep a blog super entertaining), I’m very much enjoying adopting a new city as another home away from home. Sydney is starting to fall into the Paris category, whereas it might be a million miles away from what I’ve always known, but there’s still a nice, comfortable familiarity about it. I just wish the damn cars would stop coming at me from the wrong side of the road.

One Month Anniversary Down Under!

I’ve officially been in Australia for a month now! My one-month anniversary was August 2^nd, which means I have 11 months left to squeeze everything in. The first month went by pretty fast…

I’ve officially completed my first full week of work. I survived the training week. Monday and Tuesday I just listened in on calls, Wednesday I took a few (with someone else listening in on mute of course), and then Thursday and Friday afternoon I did a bunch.  I still had to ask a lot of questions though, as is natural when starting out a new job, so I’m fairly certain that when my first shift actually starts – Thursday –I’ll end up asking questions on almost every single call. It’ll definitely be a very sharp learning curve. I’m hoping to be comfortable with everything by the end of my first “week,” which as I mentioned starts on Thursday and ends on Monday. Some thoughts on the job front:

Coke from the vending machine is $1.40. Not too shabby at all by Australian standards, but it certainly does not hold a candle to the FREE cokes provided at Bernstein. Peter Kraus once wrote a phenomenally thought-provoking piece that was posted on the Loop (this is all Bernstein speak, for those of you who are lost. The Loop is AB’s intranet homepage) about how during the financial crisis, cutting back on the free cokes provided in the pantry was simply NOT an option. The cokes, he said, were crucial for staff morale. It was one of the most brilliant short essays I’d ever read. I should email Peter and ask him to send his thoughts to whoever the CEO of HSBC is. The joint could use more free beverages.

Everyone does seem genuinely friendly and helpful there, which is great. It seems like a nice work environment. One of the girls I trained with said that she started out as a 6-week contractor, and she extended the job to 6 months. I’d like to extend mine a bit as well (if I can stomach the job that is!), so that was good to hear.

They DO have free tea though. I went to the pantry with one of the other new girls to get tea sometime in the middle of the week, Wednesday maybe. It wasn’t as much fun as tea at Bernstein, but it was nice to be able to go. 

Saturdays and Sundays are casual! Not as in business casual – I mean casual casual. Like I can (and will) show up in jeans and sneakers and sit at my desk with my sweatshirt and hood on all day. Because if I hide under my hood then the people calling on the phone can’t find me…

I’m making the world’s most anal resource and training guide for myself. It’s filled with plastic sleeves and is color-coded and the whole works. I even made tabs from an empty granola bar box and some clear packing tape to further organize. I want to get the hang of this stuff as quickly as possible. For a 9-week job, you can’t putz around too much before you have to start being productive!

Friday evening was my first Australian happy hour. It was okay I guess, The drinks weren’t too steep and I did get some good tax advice from a couple of Irish kids that have been here longer than I have.  It was good to have a chance to socialize and whatnot, I certainly could stand to make another friend or two! Happy hour sort of wound down just early enough so that I was able to run over to the gym after and get in some more flipping time.

Speaking of gym, I found another one! I tried one last place and I like this one as well, so now I have two options. One has classes Monday and Thursday, the other Tuesday and Friday. How perfect is that? My work schedule is such that I can’t go a lot, but I should be able to squeeze it in twice a week should I so desire.

Have I bored you yet? Now, for the more interesting stuff:

Training was Monday through Friday, and then my real week starts up again on Thursday, so I left you last entry wondering what I would do with my 5-day weekend. I think I was quite successful at keeping myself occupied.

Saturday – Sydney International Boat Show! I had seen an advertisement for it, and figured for $20 it might be interesting. Plus it was coincidentally being held on my last free Saturday & Sunday for a while. I like boats, and I cannot recall if I’ve ever been to a boat show before. A boat show in one of the world’s great harbor cities seemed like a good idea to me, plus I am always on the lookout for the future potential R.M.S. Dilbert II.  And here he is by the way:

http://www.chaparralboats.com/2011/chaparral/Chaparral-Boat.php?boat_id=13&page=home

He’s slightly pricier than my current R.M.S. Dilbert (who cost me about $125), so I’m not quite in a position to put down a deposit yet. But isn’t he pretty? I think Dilbert the First would love his new big brother very much.

But seriously, the boat show was awesome. SO many boats and boat and water related products, everything you could imagine. I was about 1/3 of the way through the exhibition hall, when I made a beeline for the marina section of the exhibition. It suddenly occurred to me that some of the boats were only in the marina and not in the exhibition hall because some of them are simply too BIG for the hall. And I was right. The marina was filled with big, beautiful, sexy yachts:

There were some giant sailboats and catamarans as well, but mostly a lot of yachts. I like yachts. I think I want one of them too now. Some of them weren’t tour-able, it was “invitation only” boarding, but quite a few of the snazzy ones allowed average joes on, just as long as you took off your shoes, left your bags behind and left your contact information as well, for some of them. So I spent a few hours touring multi-million dollar yachts.

Saturday night I found out from Tom (the one who lives here with his girlfriend) that I have unknowingly already dodged not one, but TWO roommate bullets. Apparently a girl had a deposit put down on the room as part of some sort of internship with paid accommodation, but then pulled out of the internship. And then apparently this happened again, with a different girl. Now I don’t know how accurate that story is, but Lady Luck must be smiling down upon me. But will I dodge a third roommate bullet? I don’t know man, that doesn’t seem likely.

Sunday – I went to the Sydney Aquarium! It was okay, kind of smaller than I expected. I met Cheryl at 10 and we were done by 12:30.  Saw some dugongs and reef sharks though, which were cool.

Monday – time to get OUT of Sydney! I figured that I should take advantage of my time off, since I won’t have more that 2 days off until after the HSBC gig is over. So I did what everyone in Sydney (or “Sydneysiders” as they are called) does when they are looking for a quick “weekend” getaway – I went to the Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains are blue from the gases that the trillions of eucalyptus trees give off. It produces a blue haze over the hills and valleys. The stuff is actually super flammable though, and a small brush fire can turn into a giant fire ball quite easily. I bought myself a day tour package, and then extended my stay by reserving 2 nights at the Blue Mountains YHA (hostel) in Katoomba, which is one of the small towns in the region. It’s quite pretty, it sits right on top of a cliff.

Our guide showed up at 7:30, which was about 10 minutes late. His name was Smokey. I don’t know if that is his real name, but that’s what was stitched onto his shirt as well, and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if his birth certificate actually did say Smokey on it. The guy looked like he has just stepped out of the outback. Super “Australian” looking, but not in that I’m-a-tour-guide-so-I-dress-up-like-Crocodile-Dundee way. He genuinely looked like he might wrestle saltwater crocodiles on the weekends. He had that leather cowboy hat and a walking stick and a fossilized shark tooth necklace and was super friendly and said hi to everyone everywhere. He was quite a lot of fun. Definitely the first real “Aussie” person I’ve seen. Everyone in Sydney is either a backpacker, an immigrant freshly from elsewhere or the corporate office type. But the iconic looking Crocodile Dundee type IS out there!

The tour group was fairly small, which was great. Mostly young travelers, and one older couple from Rhode Island. Our first stop was at the tip of the Blue Mountains, to try and spot some wild kangaroos. They weren’t too tough to find, we quickly spotted a mommy and fairly giant joey. They were quite cute, and we were able to get fairly close too. Smokey also found a giant funky looking spider to show us. He said this particular one wasn’t poisonous, since one bit him in the past and, well, he’s still alive.

Pit stop in a small town was next. The brochure referred to the 30 minute stop in Glenbrook as an opportunity for “morning tea,” but really, it was just a bathroom break.

We then headed off to our first bushwalk! Doesn’t that sound a whole lot sexier than saying “hiking”? I like that word, bushwalk. It sounds so much more adventurous. Anyway, we walked for a couple of hours I’d say, and the walk was really quite amazing. AND, may I NOW present you with Dara’s first encounter with one of Australia’s top 10 deadliest animals:

See that hole? In that hole, lives a fellow by the name of Mr. Funnel Web Spider. He sleeps during the day, and that’s his house. However, if you piss him off (or walk in the woods at night when he’s awake…) and he bites you, without seeking immediate medical attention, you are dead in 45 minutes. Yup, that little fellow is right up there with the giant saltwater crocs and the my beloved great white shark in terms of danger level. It’s best to me nice to Mr. Funnel Web, and not to poke his house with sticks. There are also poisonous snakes in the Mountains, but since it’s winter they weren’t too much of a concern.

Smokey was a great guide, he gave us lots of interesting information on the plant and animal life in the area, and we also learned a great deal about Aboriginal culture. We hiked down to the bottom of a waterfall too. Here’s the cliff that we descended to get there:

I thought Smokey was joking when he said we had to walk back UP as well, but up we went. We stopped about halfway up, and he actually took everyone’s pulse to make sure no one was on the brink of dying. It was a hell of a climb.

We had a nice picnic lunch, where I was quite the little piggy. One giant ham and cheese sandwich, 2 granola bars and 3 servings of pasta salad. Like I said, that was one hell of a climb.

The last stop of the day was to view the famous three sisters rock formation, and to climb down the “Giant Staircase,” which is 900+ steps down to the valley floor.

Thankfully, this time we didn’t have to climb back up. We instead took a ride back up to the top on the world’s steepest railway, which goes back up the cliff at a whopping 52 degree angle.

It was a GREAT ride!

A couple of other girls from the tour were staying overnight in Katoomba as well, so we went out to dinner in town after the tour bus dropped us off. The Blue Mountains YHA is actually a really cute hostel. It’s probably been my favorite hostel I’ve ever stayed at. Very home-y feeling.

The next day I went to the Jenolan Caves, which are about a hour and a half drive from Katoomba. The ride to the caves was interesting. Lots of cliffside twists and turns, where if you go off the edge you plummet to your death.

Now I‘ve been on cave tours in the past, once in Budapest and once out in Arizona. They were both really fun and interesting, but neither held a candle to THIS cave tour:

Yes, that is me in the middle of a rock. I went on an introduction to adventure caving tour, where they stick you in overalls and give you a hard hat with a light on it. To get to the cave entrance, we had to abseil down to the bottom:

Some of the holes we had to get through were REALLY tight. Sometimes we had to go feet first. Sometimes head first. Some maneuvers involved sliding, and one involved crawling through an s-bend tunnel on our sides. It was a LOT of fun. The Jenolan caves have plenty of the boring-er tours where you stay on paved cement behind guard rails, but who wants to do that when you can crawl through holes instead? AND, I even found $4 in the cave!

My last day up in the mountains I went on a solo bushwalk. The reception lady at the hostel gave me a map and a recommendation, and off I went. They also have a sign up sheet where you’re supposed to write your name and destination, so that if you never come back to cross yourself off the list then they know to go out looking for you. She told me that the walk was about 3 hours round trip, but I took my time and enjoyed the scenery, plus I did meander a bit to hike down to the bottom of a waterfall. The walk was really awesome, to describe it somewhat crudely. It was like being in the rainforest. And it was the perfect amount of woods-iness  for my first solo bushwalk. Rural enough that you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere, but I generally passed another hiker every 10-20 minutes. Once I even passed a group of old Japanese tourists wandering about. So it wasn’t too scary.

So that’s been the past 10 days or so! I’ve been VERY busy, and now it’s back to work, so more business to come. I barely even found the time to squeeze in the blog update!

Some random thoughts:

Australians AND British people call French fries “chips.” However, potato chips are also, “chips.” Really guys, just call them fries. It’s so much easier.

I came home to ol’ Sydney and I’m still ALONE in my room! Phenomenal!

For my first night in the Blue Mountains hostel, I was lucky enough to be in a stuffy room with a girl who hacked and wheezed and snored and snorted all night long. Shockingly, about 36 hours later I started to feel the symptoms of an oncoming cold. When I got home, I knocked back some Vitamin C pills, and did the same the next morning. Cold=Vanished. This “vitamin C” stuff is like MAGIC. For the second time in a month I’ve gotten the start of a cold, only to have the vitamin C just completely annihilate it. Did everyone else out there know about these magical pills??? Am I the only one who didn’t know???

I’ve finally figures out how to do a quick conversion in my head from kilometers to miles, so that’s exciting for me. Celsius I’m still a bit lost on. I should be better at it, they used it in France too. In fact, everyone uses it. Why are we the only country who still uses the damn English system? Even the ENGLISH use the metric system. Don’t get me wrong, I love my miles and feet and pounds. I understand them. They make me happy. But the rest of the world doesn’t use them, and I never know when I should wear a jacket. I can’t wrap my little American brain around 40 degrees being broiling hot. It just seems odd.

I’ve already had my desk temporarily moved at work. It’s just for the weekend, but I’m not liking the precedent. At Bernstein they at least waited 3 weeks before they made me move. I’ve only been at HSBC for 7 days. I went on to move desks 6 times at Bernstein. HSBC better not start shuffling me around too, I don’t enjoy the life of a corporate nomad.

Apparently when you work past 8 pm, HSBC pays for your cab fare home. Three cheers for THAT!

Wish me luck for my first week at work flying solo! I might not have all the answers, but I KNOW that I MUST be more prepared than the other 4 new kids. I mean, I have a binder. With plastic sleeves. And tabs. Homemade tabs. Beat that.