Notes from Sydney

I stepped off the plane in Sydney to a cool, dry, refreshing breeze - what a change from Darwin! Ok, let's back up. Dinner Tuesday night was indeed crocodile - it was prepared like chicken fingers and tasted a lot like chicken with a little fishy taste to it, and a little tougher, but good. I enjoyed the second half of the trip a lot, especially once the group shrank and gelled. We were one night in Katherine, where we took a river cruise through the Katherine gorges (saw a live crocodile!), and two nights in Kakadu National Park, where we took another cruise, a hike in the rain to see Aboriginal art, and generally took it easy. Some nights Nicky and I hung out with the girls, some nights we hosted poker night for the boys - it was nice to have a girl friend who would play with the boys with me! Also she is my age, where the other girls are younger and the boys are older.

Anyway, then we were in Darwin for a night, and used it as a base on Wednesday, the final day, for our day trip to Litchfield National Park, which was great. Our first stop was the termite mounds, which frankly gross me out so I'm not going to talk about them. Then we got to do the fun stuff, which was swimming and hiking in waterfalls! We took about an hour and all jumped in the pool. There was actually a really strong current so we had to aim for a rock and grip onto it carefully! But the water was cold and clear and felt great. Then we took a 1km hike around the upper part of the river that feeds the waterfall, then back to the bus. We also stopped at another waterfall but couldn't go in because the water levels were so high that crocodiles had been seen there, though we didn't see any. Then lunch, then back on the bus and to Darwin for the official end of the tour.

Luke and Michelle dropped of Jonas, Jens, Phil and me at the hotel we stayed at the night before and where Jonas, Phil and I were storing our bags until our flights out that night and Jens had booked another night. We puttered around a bit, fiddling with our hastily-packed luggage from the morning and gathering things for the afternoon/evening, then headed out to the internet cafes. I finally wandered back to the hotel around 6:30pm, where Jens let us each use his shower before our final group dinner, which was really nice. The girls begged off early and the rest of us killed time at the club until it was time to leave for the airport. Jonas, Phil and I ordered a cab (ah, small-town Darwin) and made tracks. Jonas' flight was right away but Phil and I were both flying through Brisbane about ten minutes apart, on our way to separate destinations, and we were able to keep each other awake until boarding shortly after 1am.

I arrived in Brisbane with precisely five minutes to kill (waiting in the restroom line) before my connecting flight. The good thing about these tiny airports is that it's very easy to have a connecting flight! The second gate was right after the first, and in Adelaide it was the very same gate and plane. Love it. I also got to watch the sunrise during the landing in Brisbane, which made up for being SO completely out of it after 3 hours' sleep! The flight to Sydney was more turbulent but I really couldn't manage to stay awake long enough to get worked up about most of it! I easily found my pal/hostess, the lovely Miss Adina of Miss Adina's Amateur Chauffeur Service, and we made tracks to her house where we laid out a plan for the day. We tackled some of my errands, with varying degrees of success, and took a ferry ride from Watson's Bay to Circular Quay. Now I am SO ready for bed! Fingers crossed that we'll see my camera tomorrow...! It was a lovely day of exploring and I am looking forward to being up for more tomorrow :)

Lost in Australia

Actual conversation overheard between Alex and his friend Martek:

M: "I finally saw the Lost episodes."

A: "Oh yeah? How'd you find it?"

(Since I only caught that bit, I didn't realize they were talking about the tv show Lost and thought Alex was just being sassy ;))

Alex had "The Lost Kids" over for dinner and the season premiere last night. He had warned me on Wednesday that he was "booking" the kitchen from 8:30-9:30, and the lounge room (living room) from 9:30-10:30. When I got home, he was cooking up a storm, with sous-chef Mia chopping madly to keep up. Upon approving my request to be admitted to the party for dinner, he promptly sent me out to the store in search of more vegetables to be added to the cold rolls (Korean - think Chinese vegetarian spring rolls, only not fried), kangaroo fried rice, and soup. I forget what the soup was called but it was some sort of Asian cuisine where you put a bunch of stuff in your bowl (rice, potato, lettuce, cabbage, carrot, etc) and then pour just enough soup over it to get everything soaked and mushy. Delicious.

Good company too - I got to meet the famous Kate, sister of Jen (you may recall I met Jen and Kate's parents who drove all over Australia (and Europe) in a van - see "Mealtime and Roadway Fun," Tues Dec 4, 2007 - on the righthand side under "blog archive"). At one point Kate and I were talking about her childhood, and she said that for about three years (she was 11-14, her sister was 13-16), they moved around from Adelaide up to Darwin. I must have looked completely unfazed by this, because she said, "Wow, you really did meet my parents! Most people don't believe me!" Also present were Matt, Alex, Mia, Dan, me, and Jordan and Jill. Instead of crowding the eight of us around the kitchen table, we took everything out back (next to the turkey pile) and had a little picnic on what Mr. Turkey had left us of the patio furniture that was out there!

I am currently reading Bill Bryson's Australia book, called "Down Under" (the US title is "In A Sunburned Country"). Anyone who hasn't read any of his stuff, I highly recommend it. Start with "A Walk in the Woods," his account of hiking part of the Appalachian Trail. Absolutely hilarious. Anyway, I started this book, lent to me by a coworker here, a while back and it was so upsettingly dry and unfunny that I actually abandoned it for a while. I must've either lowered my expectations or picked up again just as it got funny, but now it's back (almost) to the Bill Bryson I've come to appreciate. I think I pulled a muscle laughing the other night!

Today's high: 28 C (about 82 F). Tomorrow's high: 36 C (about 97 F)! (For more temperature conversion fun, see the link on the righthand side!)

To do this weekend:

1. Go to pool.

2. Go to beach.

3. Try not to die of over-sweating/sticking-to-couch-itis.

Looking forward to the heat for a change - it's been cool and rainy here!

Housemate News

Interesting weekend... I got home on Friday to hear from both Dan and a note left in my room, that the girl I'm subletting from, B, had been by to start getting her things in order as she has signed another lease and is not moving back in. She also wanted to let me know that she would be by at 9am Saturday morning and could I please be around to move my stuff out of the room so she could get her furniture out. How nice of her to give me, oh, 14 hours' notice. Luckily I don't have that much stuff and I didn't need to pack it carefully, but still. So I threw it all into my bags and put them out in the living room, since I already had plans for Saturday morning.

I was a little annoyed and therefore grateful that I already had an excuse not to be there when she was there. The book group met for breakfast at a little restaurant, so unobtrusive in the tiniest strip of stores I've ever seen that they all looked closed and I walked right by without seeing the sign for the restaurant. I eventually found it and we had a delightful meal. After we ate, we realized we hadn't really talked about the book at all, despite its physical presence on the table, so we adjourned to a nearby park to discuss it without having to shout at each other over the din of the restaurant. It was a good time, and here is a photo of my fellow bookworms (minus Lauren, who had to leave early): l-r Meg, Megan, Damien, Haidee - pronounced Heidi - and me.

Then a bunch of us wanted to go on to the farmer's market, so I walked over there with Haidee and her sister (who took the photo) who then had to leave, and then met up with the Megs. Later, Meg called to invite me out for a beer, and I pointed out to her that usually we get to catch up with each other on the bus or car ride to wherever we're meeting, but we met in our neighborhood this time, so I walked and we didn't get to catch up. It was nice to get out and about, especially since I live right off the main road here.

B came back today for her bed and my room was quite sad and lonely-looking for a while with no furniture and just my stuff piled in a corner, till Ray helped me drag in the spare (twin) mattress. Alex said he might soon have a superfluous dresser, which would be very helpful! Turns out the person Dan is subletting from also is not coming back, so he can stay in the house as long as he wants.

Today being Alex's birthday, I made chocolate chip cookies. (Please see entry from Sept. 17, 2007 called "Australian cooking measurements" for a detailed description of why this was kind of an ordeal...) I basically ended up guesstimating on a bunch of stuff, but it seems to have worked out, except that they're flatter than usual, but still good. I also had to guess on the oven temperature, since my conversion chart gave temperatures for electric in Celcius, and gas ovens in numbers 1-9, but we have a gas stove that has Celcius on its knobs. But they taste pretty good (well, Dan and I had to try one, to make sure they were okay...), so I'm just waiting for Alex to come home from his birthday celebration with his parents so we can eat them!

He also had big plans last night, going from dinner to karaoke to a club with a group of his friends, and in preparation he had Mia shave his head in a funny pattern, so I will leave you with that image:

'Strayan

At work's happy hour on Friday I got to meet the lovely family of the partner here who got me the job. His wife is very nice and we spent a long time talking. She asked me how my Australian ('Strayan') is coming, and I told her pretty good! In light of that, some anecdotes:

At book group on Thursday, in addition to mispronouncing the bookstore name, I also was trying to spell Carlos Ruiz Zafon's second name to Meg. She kept spelling it "Louis," partly because she couldn't hear me very well and partly, it turned out when another girl "translated" for us, because I kept saying the last letter as "zee" instead of "zed." When they say "zee," I can suddenly hear how it sounds funny - mostly because they giggle as they say it!

Vocabulary lesson

"Chase up" (as opposed to chase down - must be the whole south-of-the-equator thing - also means "follow up on") Ex. I'd like you to chase up an answer to this question.

"Bogan" - white trash. Also Bevin (though that has more of a car-obsession element, I'm told) - this also made the recent election of Kevin Rudd intensely amusing to some, due to the rhyming factor.

Unrelatedly, I have also been asked my opinion on all the election hoopla, often by people I barely know just because they know I'm American, and have given more crash courses in US election procedure than I care to count. Dan the Hungarian asked me why we were having an election now and one in November; that was a fun one. I have found it confuses people to no end that, even if I had a ballot, it wouldn't matter if I voted because of the Democratic response to Michigan's primary. It is a very interesting time to be here - having been here for the Australian election and getting a crash couse in their system, and now having the tables turned.

The house is in a bit of an uproar right now - we roasted Bunya nuts (Alex brought home an entire "cone" and it was quite a project - I took some photos which will be up as soon as my battery charges...) and people kept dropping in: Mark, Chris (who lives here and from whom Dan is subletting, so we're not quite sure how that'll shake out), Joe and his cousin, Ray's girlfriend Greta, and we're all making plans for our camping trip over 'Straya Day (Jan 26). I'm going to go rejoin the "bogan/bevin" discussion I sparked and eat some more Bunya nuts!

Happy Holidays!

This country is ALL about Christmas. I find people don't really understand when I tell them I don't celebrate Christmas, even less when I explain further that I'm not Christian (like, what does being Christian have to do with celebrating Christmas?). People ask me what I'm doing for Christmas, where in the US they would ask what I'm doing for the holidays - recognizing that people at least have some time off, though rarely the entire week like here (but then, four weeks per year is standard... and that's a whole other can of worms. Go see "Sicko"). There is also no religious diversity - people don't even attempt to pretend like in the US, where store employees are instructed to wish everyone "happy holidays" for fear of a lawsuit or something.

That being said, the housemates and I had a lovely Christmas dinner last night. After a full day of scrubbing the house (which was badly, badly needed - I barely recognize the living room anymore), we had a snack of meat pies (or "poy" if you're Australian, which amuses me - and therefore Alex - to no end) and then set off to the store for supplies. We started cooking around 5:30 and didn't finish until 10:30. We had mulled wine, roast potatoes and pumpkin, various chocolates, Hungarian dessert I didn't catch the name of, and ham (well, the rest of them had ham).

The next week or so I'll be up at the folk festival, so there won't be any posting going on. In the meantime, I leave you with a bit of trivia: What is the Australian national anthem? (And NO cheating by looking it up!)

Oh, and a follow-up to the Hamper entry: turns out "hamper" just means a gift basket, the kind that's all done up in cellophane and tied with a bow.

Peanut, peanut butter... (and jelly)

How people think peanut butter is disgusting is beyond me. Leaving aside for a moment that this is a nation of people who eat vegemite like it's going out of style (which is not so much gross as just really really salty) because Dan the Hungarian is grossed out by peanut butter, too. Grossed out - seriously - this is a guy who taste-tests his raw meat (to see if it needs more paprika, no doubt), and suddenly I'm the wacko? Riiiiight. (Though he did donate some celery to me and was so amused by the fact that I went straight to the cupboard and put peanut butter on it that he actually tried it, so I'll give him credit for bravery.)

In other news, my two places of employment have been duking it out for the pleasure of my presence in the new year. Place B was supposed to only have me for December and then give me back to Place A, but I am filling a gap made by a person on vacation and another one who quit and they are slow on the hiring uptake. The agreement they came to in the end was that I would go back to Place B for the rest of the first week of January just to hand things back over to the person who was on vacation, and then I'd go to A for a few weeks, until they run out of things for me to do, then back to B... sounds like a lot of bouncing. We'll see how it goes.

This is all in the midst of making preparations for my big camping trip between "Chrissie" and New Year's. Those of you who know me know I am not big on camping. However, this is a big music festival and a lot of people I know are going, so I think it might be fun. More fun than staying home and being bored out of my mind, anyway. I think I also have found a ride up and back from the festival - if this girl would ever email me back! I'm getting a tad antsy. I'd really rather not have to take enough things for a week of camping with me on a train and then bus.

Ok, I'm off to work at Place B for a couple of hours, then it's Place A's Christmas party and then I don't have to think about either place for a week and a half! Yay :)

Right - the Weekend

Sorry, got distracted by housemates. The weekend was good and low-key. Tried out a new synagogue, which consisted mostly of six people about my parents' age, including two Americans and a "Pom" (Brit), who were just thrilled that I was there. I got home just in time to swing by the Saturday Farmer's Market, on the way to which I ran into Alex and his friend Juliette, who were on their way back from buying supplies for a massive meal. I got my basics for the week and hurried back to help. It turned out to be, instead of the promised ratatouille, a tuna-couscous salad, which was excellent. (It was a hot day, so no one really felt like cooking ratatouille.) When Juliette left, Alex and I agreed to go into the city and run some errands together - but laze about first, of course. He went off to take a nap and I went off to lie on my bed and read - I ended up with the nap and he ended up watching a movie. But we successfully avoided the hottest part of the day and by the time we got into the city, it was getting a little chilly.

I think it's safe to say that Alex is my favorite cooking buddy. I try to hold off on making anything for dinner until he's home because he usually has a better idea and many ingredients to contribute. Sometimes we get the rest of the kids in the house in on it, too. Last night he and Mia made pumpkin soup that I also got to contribute to and which was sooooo yummy. Sunday we made breakfast burritos - and the tortillas. He's (almost too) willing to try making every part from scratch, as much as possible, an adventuresome spirit which I appreciate, even if it does mean it takes hours to make anything! To top it off, he doesn't mind much if I laugh at his accent "like it's the funniest thing you've ever heard," as he described my unbridled amusement ;)

Mealtime and Roadway Fun

On Saturday afternoon, Dan and I were drafted into going to a barbecue going-away party for Mia and Alex's friends Jen and John. They had come over a couple of times and are very nice - they are moving to Thailand for at least a year to teach English. I met Jen's parents at the barbecue which explained Jen's wanderlust - her parents are these totally hilarious hippies who have traveled everywhere, mostly by driving and/or camping along the way. They had just gotten back from a six-month trip all around Australia so I picked their brains for a long time about where to go and what to see and do (but not how to get there or where to stay, don't worry!). They also regaled us with tales of their adventures in Europe, which were fascinating. I admire them for their courage.

(Disclaimer: Mom, and anyone else who worries excessively, you should probably not read this paragraph...) After the barbecue, Jordan (another friend of the group) let me behind the wheel of his car. Now, let me explain something. This was a manual car (they were intensely amused by the expression "stick shift," by the way), which I have only ever driven, joltingly, around parking lots, most recently under the direction of my very patient friend Andrew. I know the mechanics of it but had never tried to actually get anywhere, and certainly not on the wrong side of the car and the wrong side of the road. But there weren't many cars around and it was a quick 5-minute drive back to the house. Also, Alex was sitting in the front passenger seat, doing the actual shifting of the gears for me - I was just operating the pedals and steering wheel. All in all, a totally funny and bizarre experience! (By the way - the pedals are NOT reversed. I agreed to drive before I thought of that and had a moment of panic, but it was fine. More complicated was remembering the turn signal was on the other side of the steering wheel...)

On Sunday I wandered into the city and killed some time at the Botanic Garden, which was lovely as usual. On Monday I arrived home after work to find all of the housemates home - including the elusive Ray of Batman fame. Matt and Jordan came over and we ended up all cooking and eating a big meal together, which was very nice. I also got to have a long chat with Ray, mostly about books, which was great. He lent me one which I am reading right now, called The Solitaire Mystery by Jostein Gaarder, on top of everything else I'm reading (what can I say, I'm a book hog!). To round off the mealtime fun, I made latkes for Mia and Dan tonight to kick off Hanukah!

Day 1, Take 2

So, I had my second first day of work on Thursday. It's gone okay so far. There's a lot to learn and it's hard to keep it all straight, lots of details, but I will get it. They also have a happy hour on Fridays, like the law firm, so I stopped by for a little while. It was nice to chat with and meet some of the other people there, plus I was killing some time before heading into the city for the tree lighting. It was pretty nice, they had some different performers singing Christmas carols and Santa came onstage for a little bit and then they lit the tree. I took some photos of it and of the ride into the city on the ferry, so those will be up asap.

This morning my housemate Dan the Hungarian and I went to the farmer's market, which was a lot of fun. There was a lot of food: fruits and veggies, honey, jams; plants; clothes; random guy cutting people's hair; massage table; musicians; etc. I got two enormous mangos the size of your head; Dan got a bunch of vegetables and swears we're going to make a vegetarian feast tonight. I said, "with meat on the side, right?" because every meal he makes has meat; he just laughed. He made kangaroo the other night and I tried some - he cooked it rare, which is not how I prefer meat anyway, but that aside it wasn't bad. It tasted a lot like beef, actually. I'm sure I'll have it again, so stay tuned!

Some notes:

• Australian women wear a lot of sundresses - or just dresses in general, like to work. It makes them look really dressed up, at least from an American perspective.
• Tobacco products have enormous warning labels that say things like "Smoking causes cancer" and "Smoking while pregnant harms your baby."
• Light switches are on the outside of bathroom doors.
• The drugstore is called the "chemist" (or pharmacy). They sell nothing but drugs - none of this random stuff like notebooks and Hallmark cards and food, like CVS.
  

More soon!

Pizza, pie....

“Looking for fellow ex-pats to share a turkey sandwich with on Thursday,” my posting on gumtree.com.au said. Kay from Nebraska took the bait and we met up in her neighborhood of Bulimba, not for a turkey sandwich after all, but for pizza. It was delightful to share our memories and talk of our families’ traditions surrounding this most American, and least commercial, of holidays. Then we headed back to her house where her roommate Kendra, also from Nebraska, was making pumpkin pie – from a pumpkin! They don’t sell canned pumpkin here, so Kendra actually roasted a pumpkin, which no one here thinks much of because they eat it as a vegetable like that all the time! Who knew? Anyway, it was delicious and tasted exactly the same, so kudos to Kendra and her mad baking skills. It’s just not Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie. I did buy some potatoes today to make mashed potatoes though, which I have been craving for a few days now ;) I hope you all had wonderful Thanksgivings!

Oh, there’s so much to share! I had an eventful past couple of days. Let’s see… Kendra gave me a ride home Thursday night, which was a bizarre experience. I kept thinking cars were going to come right at us! I also sat in the front seat, left side, and it was weird not to have a steering wheel in front of me. Ernie, the American at work, said that you get used to driving on the wrong side of the road, but the weirdest thing is biking in the road because it seems like you never know where the cars are going to come from.

Speaking of transportation, I took a ferry for the first time yesterday. Let me back up for a minute. On Thursday, I was contacted by someone from a company with a connection to the law firm I’m working at, because my boss had suggested maybe I could pinch hit over there while one of their employees took a month-long holiday. So we made a plan for me to head over there Friday morning. As it’s based at the University of Queensland, which is across the Brisbane river to the west of me, I took a bus to the ferry and then it was just a quick 5-minute ferry ride down to UQ. On the way back, I just took the ferry right into “downtown,” which they call the CBD here (Central Business District, also known as “the city,” all other neighborhoods are called the suburbs). That second ride was half an hour and did not sit so well with me, but I can handle the ferry for five minutes. It was actually rather pleasant and peaceful. The river is not very wide, maybe half a mile. So I’ll be working at that company for about three weeks, starting Thursday. Both the company and the law firm are closed over the week from Christmas to New Year’s, so I’ll have to find some way of entertaining myself.

Speaking of holidays, yesterday, and entertaining myself… I went to a synagogue last night. It was definitely a very Orthodox service and I probably won’t be going back there, even though it’s right in the CBD and very convenient from work (well, for now). There is another synagogue in Coorparoo and a third one in Camp Hill, which are other “suburbs” nearby, so I’ll try those out.

It is raining right now. It rains really hard and with virtually no warning, for about half an hour and then stops completely. There is no wind so my windows have been wide open all this time and nothing has gotten wet. One of my housemates did have laundry outside that got soaked, though. You take your chances, I guess. The summer here is the rainy season, which is not what I expected. I expected warm, even hot, and sunny all the time and really it’s mostly hot, humid and overcast if not actually raining. But apparently March and April are good times to travel, so that’s good.

For Tom, who asked about the supermarket – I went again and paid a bit more attention, but yeah, it’s basically similar to a US supermarket. The one by my house is not as big as your average Safeway or Meijer, but it gets the job done. They don’t have weird things, at least not that I was paying attention to (I didn’t go looking for kangaroo meat, for example, though it might be there), but there are fewer things in general, just less of a selection. Fewer fruits and veggies – oh and apples are awful and mealy here, fyi. Mangoes are excellent, though, to make up for it. If I have an occasion to get to a supermarket elsewhere in the city I will let you know how it compares. The one by my house is a Coles, which is a chain, and they sell their own reusable bags for just $1, so I got two for lugging my groceries and probably one will follow me back home, which is fun because it says “Australia” on it.

Oh, and just to clarify, I called my 50-person office “small” because I was comparing it to the last place I worked, which had 200+ people. The new place has about 70 people.

One more thing about the water-saving: there are two buttons to push on the toilet, one for a half-flush, usually designated by a half-filled circle, and the other for a full flush. Use at your discretion. What a great way to save water!

Monday morning in the big city

Yesterday, I took it easy, partly because I have a sore throat (must've picked it up on the plane - darn it!) and partly because I had to switch hostels mid-morning. I actually really like my new hostel, more on that later. When I did finally venture out, I headed for Darling Harbour, which is basically a big promenade. It was a bit much for me, so then I took a roundabout way of getting to Wentworth Park, which was not terribly exciting, but I did see some of a pickup game of "footy" (soccer). I got a little turned around heading back to pass by Paddy's Market and managed to get there just before their "official" closing time, although people were still buying like crazy when I left at quarter after.

Paddy's Market is the most intense market I've ever been to. Think of a big flea market, but with all Chinese people, all yelling "one dollah one dollah" at you, people everywhere shoving. I'm sure someone was making announcements, probably about the market closing, but you couldn't really hear anything over the din. I had read about Paddy's Market in my guidebook and it said you could buy fresh fruit and veggies there for really cheap. Part of the culture of my new hostel is that there is a huge kitchen and most people buy food at the supermarket to cook there. I managed to get enough veggies for two dinners, plus two apples and a banana, all for about $3 (maybe $3.50 US).

Walking around the city is a little exciting sometimes because it seems like you never know where the cars are going to come from! Seriously, though, it's a good thing they've painted instructions "Look Right" on the crosswalks so you remember to look the correct way for turning traffic. The crosswalk signals are interesting too, they make a funny noise when they change to "walk" (it's a little green man though). I wish you could hear it, it's really odd sounding.

About the new hostel. There is one medium-sized common room, right next to the kitchen which is very open, so it feels all connected. There are tables for eating and lots of sofas, mostly pointed towards the big screen tv. Last night, tons of people gathered down there to make dinner and watch tv. The channel it was on showed a bunch of episodes of Friends and Malcolm in the Middle, but there was also an ad for Maury, on later (oy). Amazing. It just has a much friendlier, more intimate feel than the other, enormous hostel (although this one's name is The Big Hostel, ironically). My dormmates are nicer and generally seem more considerate - I think because they tend to be longer term than the other hostel. All in all, a good switch.

Right now it's Monday morning and I am at the IEP office waiting for orientation to begin. Later I will get my cell phone and call the woman in Brisbane about working there, and go to the bank to open my account. It's supposed to get to about 25C today (about 80F) and it's been mostly gorgeous clear blue skies so far :)

Sydney adventures!

Last night I didn't have energy for much more than finding an ATM and some food and taking a quick shower before bed. But I did venture out into the big city on my own! I thanked Becca in my head last night, and again today, for teaching me as we traveled together in Poland a few years ago, to bite the bullet and get the heck out of the hostel. What I did manage to get for dinner was promising-sounding falafel, but it was about as good as you might expect Australian falafel to be, even though the guys who sold it to me looked and sounded Middle Eastern. Oh well.

Today I walked my poor little feet off! I meant to go to the Royal Botanic Gardens but got distracted by the Harbour (Harbour Bridge; Opera House) and climbing the Harbour Bridge. Well, I didn't do the whole bridge, as you will see as soon as I can post the photos - the real climb is insane, so I might do it later :) But you can go up to a lookout tower thing, which was cool. Then I grabbed some lunch and finally made it to the Royal Botanic Gardens, which were amazing. I spent a while just sitting, listening to music, soaking in the scenery, people watching, and getting sunburned (oops).

I took my time coming back, partly because my feet hurt and partly because I kept getting distracted by things. On the way back, I passed the public library (I refrained from taking a photo... although the building is beautiful), St. Mary's Church, the Great Synagogue, and went through most of Hyde Park, which is also amazing. I also managed to secure housing for tomorrow and Monday nights, which was making me a tad nervous (the program puts you up for two nights and then you're on your own, and my hostel was booked for Sunday night) but it's all set now.