The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

The Good:

On Friday night I went out with some people who I met on Couchsurfing. It's a great website that connects travellers and locals. We crashed an office party and had some free beers (that's the great thing about being a traveller...if anyone questions you, you can just play the naive traveller card), and then just as we were walking down to the Harbour fireworks started over the Opera House! How lucky are we? It was awesome!

I live in a place with palm trees. Enough said.

I finally beat Tom at Scrabble. Although it was only by 2 points and mainly because he got the "Z", the "Q" and the "J" all within his last 4 turns. But still...I beat him. I made sure to rub it in his face all night. I hope I don't have to loose another 20 games before winning again.

This is the french coffee shop where I often go to get a "flat white" and read my book or people watch. It's really cute, but expensive. Coffee is $3.50 and a croissant is about the same.

This is the rep cinema in Sydney. It's right down by the harbour. It's a chain of cinemas called "Dendy". You can tell they have a lot more money than The Revue but the cinema doesn't have nearly as much character. We went to see "Hunger" there. It's about the hunger strike that happened in Ireland in the early 80's. It was very intense and sad but good. Don't go see it if you feel at all sad or depressed that day.

I love the many different kinds of local travel here. This train only runs downtown and is mainly a tourist attraction but still, it's just so neat!

This is the Asian market that is open Thurs - Sunday just steps away from my hostel. I love it! It's much cheaper than the super market and it's huge! Speaking of my hostel, I will be moving out of it on December 2nd. I got a room in this funky suburb about a 30min walk from downtown in a house with 2 other girls who seem really great and it's cheaper then my hostel and I will have my own room. Plus, it's available until Jan. 12th so I will have a place to sleep for X-Mas and New Years. Most places are already booked up during this time in Sydney and the ones that aren't are trippleing their prices.


They spray painted these on the road when the Olympics came to Sydney. They are very helpful to me. No matter how long I've been here, I still look the wrong way before I cross the road.

There are X-Mas decorations everywhere but since it's warm here, my mind is having trouble equating what time of year it is. It's very confusing. Example: picture below shows x-mas tree decoration outside with couple walking by in summer clothes. What!?

The Bad:

I still don't have a job. I thought that I had sent my resume to about 6 agencies on Monday but today (a week later!) I received 6 "Failed Notification Delivery Status" emails from those agencies. So apparently my resume has been lost in cyber space for the last 7 days doing god knows what. I will re-try that tomorrow.

I have had a couple of very homesick days/nights this week. It took almost everything in me not to jump on a plane and come home the other night. Thankfully I can text message from the other side of the world and was therefore able to connect with some people who listened to me ball my eyes out and reminded me that this feeling wouldn't last forever. Which it didn't. I am feeling a lot better today. I am making efforts every day to make new friends. I think this is the key to staying happy and ok for me here. The minute I am having a hard time and feel alone, I want to come home.

There is very little bike culture here, which is strange considering it's such a large city. Although last night I saw an independent film in the park about a naked bike ride that involved over 200 people that took place in Sydney a few years ago. I might try and do Critical Mass this Friday if I can get my hands on a rental bike.

The Ugly:

This is the Sydney Tower (not as big but I suppose somewhat like the CN Tower). Isn't it UGLY??? Bleh!

That's all for now. I would update more often but the wireless connection at the hostel sucks and it literally takes me a few hours to upload pics and do a proper update. I imagine when I start working it will be even more difficult. Although I hope that the connection is better when I move into the house on Dec. 2nd.