Living in OZ

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Living in Sydney February - August 2010

Well living in Sydney has been amazing! I don’t know were to start, the entire 6months has been a brand new and exciting experience! Although it has come to an abrupt end, I’m not sad but grateful for having the opportunity to live on the other side of the world. I havn’t just visited Australia, Ive travelled to Western Australia (Perth), Melbourne, down the east coast, and finally Sydney. I have also worked here, lived here, ate here, made Australian friends and spoke the language (although you may think its English, its a bit more complicated than that), and fitted into the culture. And I’ve loved every minute of it.

It started by visiting my friend Dee and her boyfriend Andrew, they have a gorgeous apartment in a lovely location. We stayed a week with Dee and Andrew and enjoyed the luxury of a double bed and clean shower (we stayed in bunk beds with 6 - 10 other people for a month before we arrived in Sydney) and a swimming pool. One week rolled into two and three, two months later I was really trying to find accommodation but it was just so expensive, we were looking to share a place with other people. So Dee and Andrew suggested that we stayed in the apartment with them and work out the rent, and so that was our Australian home. We eventually picked up a moped and then a car mazda 121, it was a 1992 banger, but both the car and bike never let us down and we didn’t have to put much money into them ethier, which was great! Ste landed a job in a golf shop, and after two waitressing jobs I decided to stick at what I know best and thats caring for children with disabilities. It was alot harder to find accommodation and a job as I though it would be. There was a catch 22, you needed a job to earn money for the rent and you needed a place to stay while looking for a job. So thankfully dee and Andrew really helped us out, between letting us stay with them and lending us there car until we got our own, we really are grateful to them!

I cant even start to go through everything we did and saw here, it has been great. My first impressions of Sydney was love at first sight. It was so so hot and the city was buzzing. I loved the opera house, the harbour bridge, and my most favourite place in the world was darling harbour! No nicer feeling than walking along the harbour, feeling the sunshine (even in the winter), eating an ice cream, haha!! We celebrated Dee’s birthday, Ste’s birthday, Andrews birthday and my birthday and added two fish to the family (vip dash). We spent st.patricks day drinkin and eating tayto in the city and finished it off at a sing song and dance in an irish pub, who had curry chips!! We cheered along the gay and lesbian mardi gras parade, which was HUGE!!! We went to the rose of Tralee ball and behaved like lovely girls!! We dabbled in a few sports when we felt adventurous, like ice skating in bondi beach, archery in Olympic park, a bit of golf - one guess who won that, two hour cycling trip and even found a BMX track! We’ve visited places like The blue mountains, manely, bondi beach, Watson bay, we even took longer trips to Melbourne, Byron bay, Surfers Paradise, Ste went to Perth, I went to Ireland. Yes I did go back home, and it was the best thing I ever did! I surprised everyone (except my sister and Janet), and spent two weeks catching up with everyone, I loved every minute of it. It was worth the money alone just to see the look on my mam and dads face when I walked into the sitting room. Ste also went back to Perth to visit his long lost brothers!! He played golf and drank beer and well I dont think I wana know what else they got up to, but ste has a great family in Perth who looked after us so well!!! We had planned to go back for Christmas but unfortunately our plans had to change! Joanne and Olly also made the trip over to Sydney, we LOVED having them, we did lots of fun things but most importantly shopped and drank coffee and chatted and then shopped some more, ha!!

So in a nutshell, that has been our 6months in Sydney, we got so much done and had the most amazing time! I am so sad to leave Australia and the sunny beach’s, but we’ll definitely return, some day!

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Comments

[Joanne]

Cool
It's good that your internet connection is being good as you move on. I will defo return to oz with you... Ya never know we could end up visiting Ciaran. Ha ha book me in!!!!!! Great blog