Sydney part 1.....

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Arriving in Australia

I arrived in Sydney to warm sunshine and bright bright blue skies which disappeared after 20 mins as the sun set, but I was picked up from the airport by my mate Louisa and her boyfriend Dom and whisked off to a gorgeous little restauraunt for a 3 course dinner and lots of white wine, a welcome to Oz treat for me which was indeed very welcome after the past few weeks of nothing more flash than beans on toast or a cheese sandwhich. Lou and Dom and a few others are living out in Bronte not far from Bondi, its a quiet little surburb with a beautiful little bay and I spent most of my first weekend just hanging out at the flat on Yanko Ave or at the beach with them, we even had a good old Australian Barbie to help me settle in. To be honest though I was hardly aware I was in Australia for the first few days as the flat is filled with folk from Cheshire, Stockport and Liverpool, I could have almost been at home, apart from the sunshine, sandy beaches, bright blue seas filled with black rubber clad figures bobbing on the waves waiting to catch the surf........

Harold Bishop is a liar

It was really sunny that first weekend and lovely and warm, Louisa had told me that it had been like this pretty much since she'd arrived 5 weeks ago, alas it was all about to change.... I have been considering sueing the makers of Neighbours and Home and Away for false advertising quite frankly, they'd have you believe that the sun is always shining and there's barely a cloud in the sky, but most of the time I've been here it has been jacket weather, we've seen quite a lot of rain and its been really windy a lot of the time too. Of course I'm not really complaining, its just coming out of their winter and its still lovely, even when its raining or grey its never very cold and we've had a fair bit of sun too, but I can't wait to head up the coast and fling off my jacket and jeans and lay out on the hot sand. I spoke to my friend up in Brisbane and he said it was 36 degrees up that way now..........

Working girl

When I arrived I had hardly a penny left in the bank and had to get a job straight away, I arrived on a Friday night and started looking on the Monday morning, I set off into town at 10.30am and by 11.30am I'd had an interview and got the job starting the next day, I'd sent off for my tax file number and set up a bank account, not bad going I thought! Unfortunaley the job I got was the devils work of Telesales, convincing people to do something they really can't be bothered to and getting abuse thrown down the phone back at you - great fun.
But the people were brilliant and I made some really good friends, particularly Farrah and Carwyn who've been over in Australia working for aquite a few months now, and on the first Friday I was there we all went out for someones leaving do and the company put on free drinks all night, not a bad start and it certainly made up for a week of being told to 'STOP CALLING'! by various angry office workers down the phone. I had arranged to meet up with Lou and the rest of the flat for a party in Paddingon at about 9pm but rolled up a few hours late after too much free wine and managing to walk past the bar I had to meet them in about 10 times before finally finding it, somebody then thrust a bottle of sparkling wine in my hand and the rest of the night is pretty much a blur.

In my first week I stayed a few night at a girl called Katie's flat in north Sydney, over the bridge, she's my parents friends niece and she very kindly put me up after getting a call from her uncle at the last minute to see if she'd mind helping out a penniless stranger. It was nice just to chill for few days while I got used to having to get up in the morning and sit at a desk again all day and do some actual work, and her and her flatmate took me out to a battle of the bands night at Sydney Uni where I think I was pretty much the only English person there, so I started to feel like I had really arrived in Australia properly. The bands were pretty good, although there was one particularly questionable group where the woman was dressed as a sort of bat and the lead singer guy wore a gas mask and generally only made a noise, that could loosely be described as singing, when he was being whipped by bat girl, I'm not sure I'd really class it as music as such........

Home comforts

I moved into the flat on Yanko Ave as a couple of the guys who live there, Natalie and Joe, were off on hols for a couple of weeks and I have to say it was so very nice to be out of the backpackers for a while. To have my own room and to be sharing a kitchen with only 4 other people rather than 100 was an absolute joy, not to mention the fact that Lou and Dom are fantastic cooks and supplied us with dish after dish of gorgeous dinners of fresh fish (yes I did say fish - for those of you who don't know I have never been much of a fish person, I hated it until about a year ago, I can truly say I am a complete convert now and just last night I cooked up some red snapper for the guys in the flat and very proud of myself I was too!)

I met up with a couple of guys I'd met over in New Zealand for a Saturday night out in Sydney, they were staying at a hostel in town and we went to some of the proper 'backpacker' bars and ended up dancing all night at some dodgy Irish bar but with a great band playing. On the Sunday Lou, Michelle and myself went to Bondi market so I got a glimpse of the famous Bondi beach filled with surfers and wanted to buy pretty much everything on sale at the market, but I managed to resist and instead we went for a bottle of wine at a very glam bar called Icebergs overlooking the beach and coast line, we walked back to Bronte along the coast afterwards and it is a beautiful place. I've seen prettier beaches and there are houses built up all around the area but its a beautiful stretch of coastline and if you imagine it as a place to live it is pretty amazing to have the bright blue sea and golden sand right on your doorstep like that.

To dive or not to dive....

Lou and Dom headed off to Bali for a holiday and so there was just me Michelle and Chad left in the flat, Michelle and I headed out into town for drinks at Darling Harbour, a really nice area filled with bars, much nicer than my backpacking purse would normally allow, but we got dressed up splashed out a bit and then headed into China town for bar-b-q kings famous crispy duck and spent a lot of time lounging on the sofas watching films and drinking wine. I did a coastal walk up around and area called the Gap and around the South Head and the lighthouse with great views of Sydney and around the harbour from a distance, but I didn't manage to get very far as the night before I had run into a brick and really hurt my toe, luckily it was just one of the small ones but three weeks later and its still looking fat and a bit our of shape the poor thing. Michelle and I headed out for a day trip to the Aquarium as well which was pretty good, although I wasn't overly keen on the very dejected looking crocodile stuck in a big tank on his own or the little penguin encloser however much I liked seeing them, they all just seemed a bit sad and bored, but the sharks and huges sting-rays swimming above your heads was worth it. You can do a dive at Manly Oceanworld aquarium apparently or another place up the coast, you get in the tank with all the sharks....I am considering it but as yet I can't quite get the image of Richard Dreyfuss in his wetsuit stuck inside that metal cage when he's being attacked out of my head. Especially as there is no metal cage involved in this dive.........

Every Friday night I head out for drinks with work and quite often a few other nights in the week too, and Carwyn, Farrah and myself seem to always end up going back to Farrahs gorgeous flat in Paddington to carry the night on sitting, or rather dancing out on her balcony overlooking the city taking ridiculous picture of ourselves. I also met up with another guy, Matt, who I'd met in New Zealand. He is one of the folk I met in Fox Glaciar and he'd just arrived for a week in Sydney before carrying on with his travels and it was great to have a chance to catch up and see what they'd all been up to. Its like seeing an old friend when you get the chance to meet up with someone again even though I'd only met them for a few days, because you are constantly meeting new people all the time to see a familiar face even though its just from a few weeks ago is great. But thats the one thing that I miss with travelling on my own, having the chance to sit down with someone who really knows you and that you share a history with. Most of the time I love feeling the freedom of travelling on my own and being free to make my own decisions and do whatever I want when I want and to meet so many interesting people from all over the world, but sometimes I do miss not having that familiarity with someone or someone who just gets you and your sense of humour because of a shared life of times together.

Job swap

After nearly 3 weeks of telesales and repeating the same script over the phone about 300 times a day I decided I'd had enough. I hadn't done too bad, I'd got a few bills in (the aim of my calls) and even made a bit of commission and I really liked everyone in the office and the fact that there was table football in one of the offices that I could kick Carwyns butt at, but I got a phone call from the other company I'd called when I'd originally been looking for work and they asked if I could start that Friday and I grabbed the chance. It was another job on the phones but just doing Telemarketing and a bit of data entry, much less stressful and slightly better paid so I made the swap. They were very nice about me leaving, some people just walk out without saying anything after a few days or even hours, so they completely understood and so friday night drinks with them all carried on as usual after I left, especially as my new job was only round the corner. Both places are just by Circular Key with great views of the Harbour bridge and the Sydney Opera House which is a great location.

On my first day in Sydney city centre when I'd been job hunting I'd had a wander round and got my first view of the Opera House and had that familiar feeling I keep getting every now and then on my trip; absolute amazement as to how I came to be here doing this. It takes my breath away when I see a beautiful view or I see a fanastic buidling that I'd seen a hundred times on tv or in pictures. All the time I've been here in Sydney the Opera House has reminded me of that, when works been dull or I've been worrying about money or anything stupid thing like that a I take a look at that stunning building and it reminds me about what I'm doing and how lucky I am to be here travelling and seeing sights on the other side of the world.

Banking on the sun

With a bank holiday coming up I felt a little bit homesick for the first time, thinking about bank holidays back in london, drinking in a beer garden all day on a Sunday and waking up on a Monday to do it all over again. Also just being in the city makes me feel homesick a bit too, it reminds me a lot of London, getting the tube to work and just feeling like after work I should be able to call my mates and go out for a drink, or call my mum or dad from the office for a late afternoon chat. But there's too much going on here and too many great people to spend time with to get really sad or think about it too much, I've only got a few months travel before I get home and see everyone so I don't want to wish a single moment of it away! So anyway, Carwyn, Farrah and her mates Davide and Salonge and myself headed out for a night in Bondi for bank holiday Sunday and danced our socks off, I managed to drag myself up the next day for a barbie down on Bronte beach with Lou, Dom, Natalie, Joe, Michelle and a few others and also half the population of the Eastern Sydney suburbs - it was a glorious sunny bank holiday Monday so the world and his wife were out and about making the most of it.

I'm enjoying Sydney, it hasn't completely blown me away and I've not fallen in love with it, I still think London is the city for me, but there's no denying its a great place. A whole load of beaches 20 mintues from the city centre and when the sun does decide to shine (which is more often than not normally I am assured), everything looks so clean and bright, the streets are wide and well planned out and it all looks very well looked after, but I suppose thats part of why I love London, all the history staring back you from the buildings and the narrow winding streets where you're never quite sure what you'll find at the end of it. But I've still got a few more weeks to go before I can save enough money to head up the coast, and you never know what else lies around the corner.....

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Photos

my little abode
the house at Yanko Ave