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.

Pits, Drains & H2O

Before I delve into the main themes of this entry, let’s discuss something that’s also sort of important – my first day of work (that wasn’t temp stuff)!!!

I started at HSBC today at 9 am. I am a Retail Alliance Services Officer or Consultant or Associate or something like that. I just listened in on the calls today, and tried to learn as much as I could. The woman training me was really great, and gave me a whole binder full of useful stuff that wasn’t included in my training packet. It will take some getting used to though. They use tons of different programs for different things, and it IS a hardcore call center. The phone doesn’t even ring. Your headset beeps and you’re on the phone with someone instantly. No ringing. No warning. BEEP and then you have to immediately launch into your “Thank you for calling HSBC etc…”. Yikes! My first couple of days doing it solo are going to be super scary, but I think Bernstein actually kind of gave me the confidence that I will be able to sort this all out and will be at least moderately OK at it after I couple of weeks. I’ll even have my own work email! And it will be a sexy Aussie one, that ends in .com.au! I look forward to that indeed.

Now, the themed portion of our entry:

1)   Pits

Now by pits, I don’t mean the ones you’d find inside a peach, or the ones that plague motorists on poorly maintained roads. I mean the important kind. The GOOD kind. The kind filled with giant foam blocks, enabling people with limited skill levels to fall on their heads and harmlessly bounce right back out again in one piece. That’s right, I found myself a new gymnastics home for the next couple of months!

I actually tried two gyms. When I first started to seriously consider this whole let’s-move-to-Australia thing, naturally I had to first google the important things that are essential to a happy, well-rounded existence. One of those things was obviously soup dumplings, and the second was gymnastics for grown ups. When I first googled adult gym in Sydney, the Epping YMCA was the first place that popped up. I read all about it, and checked it out on a map. I’ve had this Epping place in my head for months, so I was really excited to finally go! It was a nice enough gym, with a good-sized pit for flipping and flinging, and the instructor was really good and friendly, but the commute was not ok. It involved two trains, and a total of about 35 minutes of walking. It took me almost two hours to get there. Granted I did get a bit lost (turns out the Epping YMCA isn’t a building, it’s a damn CAMPUS. Finding my way in the pitch back and the rain was not easy), but even without the getting lost, it was still far. Think living in Coney Island and schlepping up to a gym in the Bronx. Now throw in the 35 minutes total of walking to the stations, and then throw in sh*tty trains that don’t run very often and are slightly to moderately sketchy at night.

As a result of my lack of love for gym #1, I did further googling and discovered another place that was on the right side of Sydney for me (remember, Sydney has a giant harbor right smack in the middle of it), and enabled me to only take busses. I checked that out Friday night. Good pit, good instructors, MUCH better commute (50 minutes, with only about 5-7 minutes of walking!) and even slightly cheaper. YAY!!!

2)   Drains

I got a phone call late in the day on Tuesday from one of the 456 temp agencies that I signed up with, with a temp job offer for 2 days. Seeing as I had only submitted my HSBC background check that morning (I won’t bother you with all the disastrous details on trying to get that taken care of. I ended up having to pay $1 a page to scan things to them last minute. I was not pleased with that.) I was thrilled with the work. I was told it was a data entry job working for a company called Aquabocci. The job was based at the guy’s home office, and I was told that it would be necessary to work independently, as the guy was frequently in and out. No worries, said I.

I was curious to figure out what the company did, with that name. Aquabocci. Italian seafood perhaps?

www.aquabocci.com

Yeah. Drains. They sell drains. Can you get less interesting than that? Try to think of something less interesting. Go ahead. Try. I dare you.

Naturally I showed up a good deal early for my first morning at the drain man’s home office. He, on the other hand, was 25 minutes late. It was very confusing to ring the bell at my “job” and have no one answer. I started to question my own sanity. Did I make up the job details? Did I hallucinate the phone call? Did I get the day wrong? Was this not the right address? Very stressful.

I basically helped him with his marketing campaign, entering email addresses into a system that sends out email blasts and then tracks the percentage of how many emails are viewed and such. I also made a TON of phone calls, to pool places and architectural firms all over New South Wales and Victoria (that’s the state that is south of here – it’s where Melbourne is), confirming their contact details so that we could send them samples of lineal grates – more commonly known as strip drains. It was moderately stressful. I don’t know if you all know this about me or not, but I actually don’t know SQUAT about drains. Now some places just confirmed/updated their details and were done with it, but some asked for more information. And what am I going to say?

Me: We’d like to update your contact information, so that we can send you a free sample of our strip drains.

Pool Place: Your what?

Me: Strip drains? Also know as lineal grates. They are used in swimming pools.

Pool Place: What? I don’t understand.

Me: Drains. In pools? Where the water goes out?

Yeah, some of those conversations got a little awkward J

That apartment/home office was really quite sexy though. Very sparsely furnished, with the exception of boxes and boxes or drains all over the place, but the location was superb. The guy, Anthony, must have some serious dough. The place was in a nice, secluded neighborhood, and overlooked the Sydney harbour bridge, the opera house, the city skyline and the harbor itself. VERY swank. And the agency was right, he was out a lot. A good chunk of the time it was just me, alone in the drain man’s house, making phone calls and wrapping up lineal grate samples like Christmas presents. I know I haven’t had a whole lot of jobs yet, as I am only 26, but I do think there is a good chance that the Aquabooci 2 day role, which luckily for me turned into a 3 day role, might end up being the randomest job I ever have. I wish Anthony luck though. If I ever move to NSW or VIC and install a pool, I’ll definitely give him a buzz to buy some lineal grates.

3)   H2O

I’ll start with the happy water section: the BEACH

That’s me at the famous Bondi Beach! The water wasn’t too cold, and it actually turned into a really nice day. Cheryl and I went down there and then ended up walking a little over 6 miles along the coastline and cliffs down to Coogee Beach. Here’s me on a cliff:

And here’s a pic of me surfing:

Haha, j/k! Did anyone out there buy it? Even for like, a quarter of a second? No? Oh. Okay. Nevermind then.

Anyway, the walk was gorgeous. The cliffs are amazing, and you can walk right up to the edge and look down to the ocean slamming the rocks below. There are also tons of man-made saltwater pools built into the rocks, which look amazing. Once it warms up, I’ll have to go for a dip. I am considering taking a short winter surf lesson. It’s cheaper to do it in the winter, and they do give you a wetsuit and all. Although I’d like to go on a surf trip at some point down the road, I think I’d like to take my first lesson at Bondi. Just so I can say that I first learned (or attempted to learn) how to surf at Bondi Beach in Sydney.

Now for the sad water section:

From the time I schlepped up to Epping (Tuesday night) until this past Saturday morning, it rained. Now I don’t mean that it rained every day for a bit. I mean it RAINED. Nonstop. For days. It was like a freakin’ monsoon, I’ve never seen anything like it. It just didn’t stop. Never stopped. Rain rain rain. All day every day. The locals say that sort of unending deluge isn’t normal, but I don’t know that I believe them. That was an awful lot of rain. Ducky Q. Ferdinand (um, that’s my umbrella’s name) got a lot of exercise this past week.

Random thoughts/additional things to mention:

I came home Wednesday night and the top bunk was stripped. No more sheets. Obviously someone from the office had been here. But why did they strip the bed? Was someone moving in? When? Will she be worse than Helena? I can’t take the pressure, out with it already! I heard from the German guy who moved in last week that a girl was touring the apartment late last week. Is she moving in? What is she like? When is she coming??????? When is my last night of solitude, so that I can adequately mentally and emotionally prepare? It’s Monday night. I’m still alone. Every night could be the last night. This is no way to live man, it’s just no way to live.

I did nothing interesting this weekend. I was, however, quiet the portrait of domesticity. I shopped. I bought chicken breast in bulk and then sliced it all up in individual sized portions and froze it. I stocked up on veggies, sauces and whatnot. I bought myself a nice bottle of white wine and some fresh seafood to cook for Saturday night. I then marched right back to the store, after discovering that the house has no corkscrew to open the wine with. I then went to open the wine after cooking my dinner, only to realize that it was a simple screw top, and no corkscrew was needed. I did laundry. I vacuumed. I cleaned the bathroom counter. I windexed the windows and mirrors. I ironed. Hell, I even mopped. I don’t think I’ve ever mopped in my life. This weekend I am SO going on a tour of something. Anything. I am quite happy that the room is now clean to my standards, but I did not travel 10,000 miles to Australia to mop and vacuum.

The British girl who lives here says that sometimes the people at her job have a hard time understanding her accent. I dunno man, the Brits and Aussies all sound the freakin’ same to me.

I missed Shawn Johnson’s comeback performance at the Cover Girl Classic because Universal Sports’ live web feed doesn’t work outside of the U.S. What does this have to do with Australia? Absolutely nothing, I was just really peeved about it. So now you know about it too.

5 other people started with me in my department at HSBC. They are all Scottish or Irish. I am the lone Americano!

My funky cell phone doesn’t have a true silent mode, as far as I can tell. It only has vibrate or the ringer, so when I need it to completely and 100% shut up, I have to turn it off. When I turn it off, there is a recording of some Australian guy in a heavy accent, and he yells at me. I don’t know what he is saying, but he is definitely yelling at me for turning off the phone. It’s quite bizarre.

Here is a picture of my room! The curtains are covering the doors to the balcony, and the bathroom is sort of behind me.

I have obviously taken lots of other pictures, which will be posted to facebook soon. Make sure we’re friends, so you can see them when I post them!

I work Monday through Friday this week, and then I start my Thursday through Monday shift. It’ll have 5 days off! What to do, what to do…

Koalas, Kangaroos, and the End of the Ramen Noodle Era

Attention world, I’ve met both of my main goals for the week! Not only am I currently living a blissfully ghost-less (and more importantly, roommate-less) existence, but I am also employed! Or at least I will be soon. I can afford actual food now…I’m pretty pumped!

My roommate Helena moved out Monday morning. It was only 4 days, but watching her and her dim-witted friend pack up their things and leave my life forever ranked somewhere amongst the top 5 happiest moments of my life. Worst. Roommate. Ever. That terrible girl had every quality on the checklist of bad roommate qualities, except for the fact that she never went through my things. How do I know this? Everything was always exactly as I left it when I came back to the room – and trust me, had that foolish child explored any of my belongings while I was out, she would not have been bright enough to cover her tracks. Goodbye Helena - and more importantly - good riddance.

I’ve been alone since then in the room. I have my own private bathroom, my own queen size bed with 4 pillows, my own TV that gets about 5 (albeit grainy) channels, and my own private balcony. Granted, this newfound freedom is entirely day to day – someone could come tour the place at any given moment and move in – but it is winter, and the rental office said that things have been slow, so perhaps lady luck will smile down upon me, and I’ll be able to squeeze out a few more days of blessed solitude…

Last Monday was also my first actual job (as opposed to meeting with an agency) interview. It was for a telemarketing company. The job seemed awful: calling people all day long and asking them to donate even more money to causes they already donate to. The pay was pretty awful by Australian standards, and the hours weren’t great, but they accepted me. How on earth I ever managed to convince anyone that I would make a good telemarketer, I don’t know; perhaps I should be an actress? I did mull the offer over for a few hours. It seemed like sort of a gamble to turn down an offer for full time employment when one is in desperate need of said employment, but gamble I did and I told them no. The next morning I woke up and spent hours and hours on job websites applying to everything I could find that seemed decent. I lost count of the number of cover letters I wrote, but about 48 hours later I had a job! Woot woot!

So, as it turns out, I quit my finance job and moved 10,000 miles away… to take another finance job. O, the irony! What on earth am I doing, you may ask? Excellent question. Two weeks ago I may have just stared at you blankly and offered you a cookie in lieu of a real response, but my 1-year Australia plan has gone from a series of I don’t knows and I’ll figure it outs to something that is potentially approaching a vague outline of a pseudo-plan.

I’m aiming to stay in Sydney now for somewhere in the 3-4 month range. At this point, I don’t actually care about the job. I simply want to be able to make and save money, have weekends to explore the city and do the tourist stuff in the area, and take advantage of the city’s resources for planning the next stages.  The job manager at the Work & Holiday office can place people in jobs outside of the city as well, so I’d like the next working phase to be about the job, not about the specific area. Wherever something fun, hopefully one of those you-can-only-do-this-in-Australia type jobs pops up, that’s where I’ll go. Plus there are some interesting farm work exchange programs and fruit picking jobs and cattle ranch courses that you can take, so I’d like to squeeze some of that in as well. And the end? T-R-A-V-E-L. That’s where my Sydney finance job will have come in handy. Granted I won’t be staying in 5 star hotels and dining at top-notch restaurants, but running around for weeks on end won’t come cheap! So now I do have a vague outline of a plan. Needless to say this is all subject to change, but that’s what I’m plotting for the moment. City job-fun job(s)-run around.

Yes, yes, I know, I have yet to define this fancy employment of mine. I’ll be working at HSBC doing…something. Honestly, when I interviewed for position, I did actually comprehend my role when it was explained to me. I just sort of forgot immediately after I left. I’m sure I’ll figure it out again though. Basically, it's call-center work dealing with application status questions. I can’t start as soon as I’d like unfortunately, since the bank does background checks. Hopefully I’ll be able to start in about a week. The job is a 9-week role, with the potential to possibly extend for a week or two at the end, depending on how well I do and if they still need the extra help. The great thing about the role is that instead of Monday through Friday, it’ll be Thursday through Monday. Apparently banks (at least Australian ones) pay time and a half on Saturdays, and double time on Sundays! So I’m really happy about the pay, and the commute is really easy. The job is right in the heart of the “CBD” or central business district. It’s right smack in the middle of Sydney’s downtown. Perfect! That’ll leave me with Tuesdays & Wednesdays to explore and be a tourist. Plus local attractions are less likely to be crowded in the middle of the week anyway.

So although the HSBC gig is the main event here in terms of jobs, I’ve already worked my first day in Australia. I woke up Friday morning to my first actual job offer from one of the 875 temp agencies I registered with (and THANK YOU again to those who have diligently provided reference requests for me…over and over again….). The temp job was a one-day deal only. I went from phone call in bed to the reception desk at KU Children’s services in a little over an hour. It’s really sort of strange answering the phones for an establishment when you have NO idea what on earth it is that they actually….do. I had no time to google it before I left, and all I was provided with by the agency was the address, company name, and person to ask for. Apparently it’s some sort of not for profit that runs free Kindergartens and preschool programs for kids all over the eastern part of Australia. I think. Most calls just needed to be transferred to the person they asked for, but I did get a few actual questions, which I had no idea what to do with. I kept fighting the urge to ask them if they’d just like me to instead send them a pre-filled IRA distribution form, or perhaps e-mail their accountant their tax package?

Today I did some fun stuff. Look at one of my new friends!!!!

And here is another new friend. Isn’t he cute??

Cheryl (the Canadian) and I went to Featherdale Animal Park, which is a small-ish zoo about an hour from Sydney’s CBD. If you’ve ever been to the Bronx Zoo (or any zoo, really…) you’ll know that it’s not uncommon to see peacocks randomly wandering around. I’m not sure why, but zoos always seem to have random peacocks. Guess who wanders around here? Kangaroos! They hop around everywhere, and you can pet them and feed them. Kangaroos REALLY love ice cream cones. The waffle cone kind. They go crazy for them, it’s like kangaroo cat-nip. They even fight each other for them:

I also obviously saw koalas, and also wombats (which look like the love child of a pig and a house cat – very cute though) and a wacky little Tasmanian devil.  The park was great. I’m glad we went. I’ve heard larger places charge crazy extra fees to pet the koalas, and I got to do it for free – twice!

Random thoughts:

I think I applied to somewhere in the neighborhood of 14 employment agencies. I heard back from more than half of them, without me even following up. I actually stopped returning messages at one point. I have too many on my plate as it is!

I did real cooking Saturday night. It involved meat and vegetables and rice and even a little teriyaki sauce. It was quite tasty.

Australian jobs all pay either an hourly rate or a salary plus “super.” Basically, I get an additional 9% paid on top of whatever my wage is that is put into a retirement account. Real Australians can’t use it until they hit retirement age, but apparently people like me who are only pretending to be Australian for a year can claim the funds once they have left Oz and gone back to wherever they came from. So I’ll have a nice chunk of change coming to me next summer that I wasn’t planning on. Nice! I started thinking about how I would allocate the money, and then I came up with a superb idea. An EPIC idea, actually (I’m talking to one of you out there in particular – you know who you are). Three cheers for Australia superannuation funds!  So I now have an Australian checking, savings, and even a retirement account all set up at my new bank. Very cool.

My cell phone keeps time, but doesn’t actually display it anywhere, which is incredibly stupid. I wear my “Cartier” watch everywhere now. It’s become a necessity. So Seth, if you ever read this, thanks again! That turned out to be an incredibly useful gift.

People keep telling me I have an accent. I ignored some kid on the street the other day, who was trying to get me to talk to him to give money to charity, and he told me that he liked my accent. I called my bank to set up my online access, and she asked me where I was from, because I had “a strong accent.” I called up some commercial dishwasher repair place (this was for the KU Children’s Services temp job) and the repair girl asked me where I was from “in the States” since I had the accent. I don’t think I’m ever going to be able convince these Australians that it is not I who has the wacky accent, so I’ve decided to just roll with it. Yes. Fine. I have the funny accent. Whatever… J

We finally figured out how to work the heat in the townhouse, so I no longer have to go through 7 cups of tea a night to keep warm. Apparently there is a button that we were neglecting to press.

I borrowed a vacuum from the rental office and sucked up the rock salt off the floor. It was NOT easy. So far though everything has been fine ghostly spirit wise, in case anyone was really concerned about that.

I caught a cold! It was thankfully either a 24 hour thing, or else I really did just murder it with all the cold pills and vitamin C that I knocked back. I was stifling coughs all day at the temp job. I was trying so hard not to be the terrible American temp who came in and spread her germs all over the place...

I wasn’t sure all week what the British boy’s name was, the one who offered me tea when I first got here. I knew that the other British guy’s name in the house was Tom. It turns out though, that this one’s name is also Tom. So maybe he did tell me his name in the very beginning, and I just got the two British guys confused? I think the other Tom was the one who helped me get my bags up the stairs. But I’m not really 100% sure about that either. Or maybe it’s just that every boy in England is named Tom?

I’ve locked myself out of my own private bathroom twice in the last 3 days. I have an Ivy League degree, but I keep locking myself out of the bathroom. I’m sure I’m doing Cornell proud on that front.

I tried Australian Xiao Long Bao – or, as they are more commonly known – soup dumplings! They were good, but they were tiny. Then I started to wonder if our soup dumplings at home are just giant because Americans like everything big? Our cars are bigger than everyone else’s, our homes are bigger, our portion sizes are bigger, and our people are certainly bigger. Perhaps our soup dumplings are just bigger too? Just food for thought. Ha! I cracked myself up a bit on that one.

Someone called me “mate” for the first time on Friday. It was really exciting.

Plans for this week are a little up in the air. I won’t be working yet, so I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed for a day or two of temp work. I’m heading out to the famous Bondi Beach tomorrow to check that area out. I also want to start researching all the tourist things I want to tackle in NSW (New South Wales – that’s my current state of residence!). Now that I’ve got the whole job thing figured out, I can finally relax and start to have a bit of fun.

 I leave you with this thought:

When I arrived at the Qantas terminal at JFK a little over 2 weeks ago, this was the advertisement that greeted me:

Do you think that’s a bad omen?

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…