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Published: June 17th 2009
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I made it down to Sydney all safe and sound!
After my little visit in LA I had a 12 hour flight from LAX to Auckland New Zealand and from there another 3 hour flight to Sydney. The flights weren’t nearly as bad as I thought they were going to be. I watched a few movies and slept a lot. I arrived here at 8am Sydney time on Tuesday morning. When you fly here you cross the international date line, so I left Sunday and got here Tuesday. Somehow I just skipped Monday. It’s like somehow on Monday June 13 I just didn’t exist.
The weather down here hasn’t been the greatest. It’s their winter and I’ve heard them complain that it’s freezing, but it’s all relative. When you come from Canada 16 degree day time weather is actually pretty nice. Yesterday it rained off and on and today it rained in the morning, cleared up for most of the afternoon and it just started to pour again as I was one block away from my hostel.
The hostel I’m at, The Wake Up Central, is pretty nice. To be fair and honest it’s actually the first hostel
I’ve ever stayed in, but I’m pretty sure it will be one of the nicest ones along my journey.
Yesterday I spent the day running around taking care of business. I opened a bank account. I got a SIM card with an Australian number for my phone. Best part of that is that it’s working in my iPhone. The night before I left Toronto I unlocked my phone so that I could use it down here, but I was worried about it because I wasn’t able to test it to make sure the unlock worked until I got here. I also found a place where I could store my larger duffle bag while I go travelling and I’ll pick it up when I get back down to Sydney for school.
Most of the day I spent in the downtown area so I could do all those things, but I also managed to go see Darling Harbor, which is just a little port that has a giant bridge that goes over and a couple of attractions like the Sydney Aquarium and the Navel Museum. I didn’t go into any of them, but I’ll know where they are for when
cross walk
these signs are painted on the ground at every crosswalk to remind you to look both ways I come back to Sydney.
Last night I went to the bar that’s attached to my hostel and made some friends with some of the other travelers here. I met a lot of nice English people, some Irish folks and a guy from Germany. The weird thing I found out last night is that bars around Sydney all close at different times. There’s no set time that all bars have to stop serving at. The bar we were at closed at 2, so we ventured to another bar that served until 6. We didn’t stay that long, but it was interesting to see that. The security guy at the second bar told me that there was another bar about a block away that’s open and serves alcohol 24 hours a day.
Today I slept in a bit because it was raining. I got up and had breakfast at a café while I read the business section of their newspaper I found on the table I sat at. I had no idea what any article was talking about because I had never heard of any of the companies. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try to find the front section of a
newspaper instead.
After that I decided to take a walk to go see the Sydney Opera House. It was only about a half hour walk from my hostel. It looks exactly the same in person as it does in all the pictures, just bigger. After that I took a different root home and walked through Hyde Park. It’s a beautiful park with an awesome water fountain and some crazy trees that form a giant canopy. It was a nice afternoon and the rain started up again just as I was walking into my hostel. Lucky me.
So far everything’s been pretty cool. There are a few things it’s going to take me a while to get used to though. For one, everything’s backwards. I knew before I came down here that they drive on the other side of the road, but even their escalators are on the opposite sides from what I’m used to. When I went to pick up something in a mall yesterday I kept trying to go up the down escalator and down the up because I’m so used to them being flipped around. Also, the money here feels a bit backwards. They have coins
that go up to $2 just like in Canada, except instead of the larger amounts being the larger coins, it’s opposite. The $2 coin is the smallest one they have, then $1, and by the time you get to the 20cent coin it’s huge. I have also yet to piss in a urinal that has water in it.
Speaking of being backwards and toilets, The Simpsons were right! The water in the toilets flows the opposite direction.
That’s pretty much what I’ve been up to for the past couple days. Tonight I’m going to stop by the bar again for a drink or two, but I’ll probably call it quits early because I have an early flight up to Cairns in the morning.
I’ll probably make another post once I’m up there because I decided this morning that I’m going to take my computer travelling with me after I tried to use an internet café computer and it was way too slow for me to deal with.
Till then…
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Lauren
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Monday June 13
Sheldon, You didn't exist on Monday, June 13, but guess what? Neither did I. That's because Monday's date was June 15th..lol! Hope you're having a blast! ~Lauren