A Week and a Bit of Sydney Experiences.

It's hard to believe that I've only been here for two weeks! Not that time is doing anything funny, but I seem to have done a lot since Monday: Worked a temp assignment, which involved talking to about 35 people in person a day, cycled at least 70 km, had two interviews, paddled three times with two different dragonboat teams (a crew is 22 people, so this also means that I met about 40 new people), went to the beach, and made some new friends :)




To keep things simple, here is a list of just a handful of things I learned so far:

1. The 8x11 paper we typically use in Canada is not a global standard. They actually use longer sheets here, called A4. I had to tweak my resume(s) to make them look good on the long paper.

2. A drinking fountain is called a "bubla" and garbage cans are referred to as "bins".

3. Generalizing here, but Sydney drivers are not friendly to cyclists. Talking to people, I have found I am not the only one to realize this. I'm quite surprised, because the weather here is great for cycling and some parts of the city have dedicated bike lanes, but drivers will try to run you down. I almost got into two accidents this week! ....only one was my fault.

4. On a related note, last week I was working about 9km away from where I live. It's an hour drive because of all the traffic, or, a 45 minute bicycle ride.

5. On another related note, that's a HARD bicycle ride. I was exhausted by the end of the week and I don't particularly want to build ginormous leg muscles so I have to figure out a transportation solution or make sure I live a reasonable commute from work. Or work a reasonable commute from home...

6. Sydney is probably the most multi-cultural place I've ever experienced. And it's also just interesting because even the Asians have Aussie accents.

7. Sydneysiders are super friendly so far. I don't know if that's cuz I'm new or if its because they just are.

8. There are lots of frozen treats establishments here. It also seems to be when I remember to take photos.

Frozen yogurt with Cheryl (friend from Calgary!) at Bondi Beach.

Gelato Messina, with Sophie (and Oz, who is taking the pic) after dragonboating. The clubs here are very social and this club goes for dinner after every practice. Then after dinner, sometimes a "sub-club" goes for gelato since it's out of the way from where we live and its by this park where they have apparently sat on every bench since they have been there so much haha.

Noggi frozen yogurt with Ashra and Henry, a friend from work. For some reason I remember the yogurt being even bigger than what this picture shows. These guys were really good with showing me around: After some Friday afternoon Australian beer in a pub, we went to the night market (a Chinatown street market that's set up on Fridays), for Korean hot pot (with soju!), to a Slip Inn, a famous bar with an outdoor patio to meet some of their other friends, and then to some random other pub to play pool. And then finally Moochi!! yum yum :D Or as Aussies say (phonetically): "real naice"

 9. You can rent boats and have parties on them! It was one of the girls from dragonboating's 30th birthday so we had a boat party cruise on the harbour Saturday night which was super fun. And of course it had to be themed and I didn't think of a costume 'till last minute. Supplies procurement took a long time. I had to cut up other cheap shirts to make the Incredibles logo. Cutting with non-fabric shears and hand stitching took fifteen minutes. I didn't have time to source gloves and I left my boots in Calgary. But I'm saving the shirt! I hate costume parties so now I will have something in the closet :)

 

10. It's hot and humid here. I find myself dripping in sweat quite often. I wish I had more Icebreaker gear with me.

So yeah! There's a lot going on it seems! I slept pretty solidly last night and today I was going to go to the Latin Festival at the beach but I decided to take up an offer from Hal (my "Australian Dad") to run an errand at the sailboat instead. (at the sailboat? How cool is that??!!) The errand was that last week (while I was working), they took the boat out and forgot to bring back the garbage. We drove out to the beach and then hopped into a little rowboat to row to where the boat was tied. Got the garbage and rowed back. Then I hung out on the beach for a bit while he went for a swim. I love walking along the beach when the sand is like new after being washed over with a tide :) Afterwards we got some ice cream and came back home for a barbecue for Chris's birthday (Chris is one of my "Australian brothers"). Yum! Was really nice to spend the Sunday with family....even though it's not my family haha. 

Mona Vale Beach

 Tomorrow is the start of a new week! I'm actually glad that I do not have to work tomorrow. I could use some time off to think and re-organize myself.

Mmm time to make some tea.