Daily Life

Hi there! I haven't done any more super exciting things (like throw up after drinking wine, ha!), but I'd like to tell you about my semi-scheduled life here in Sydney since things are starting to become routine. Since I work at a restaurant I usually work the dinner shift (so far) so my evenings go fairly late usually which means I sleep later and later into the day. I haven't gone past noon so far and I'm going to try to maintain that. Once I get up, I do the usual breakfast, shower, get ready for the day thing like everyone else on the planet, but then I have some free time. Some days I choose to surf... the internet. Thanks to Abbey showing me a blog a while back (gofugyourself.com) that keeps me fairly entertained for a bit. Other days I walk around the city, go to a park and read a book, or meet friends for lunch, etc. Normal random day things. Then I usually have work in the evenings. I leave my uniform in the change room at work so I just go wearing whatever and get ready there. At work I run drinks to tables mostly, but I also wash glasses, polish wine glasses, fold napkins, make settings, clear and re-set tables, and whatever random things the managers come up with for us to do. It sounds terribly boring and it does get monotonous, but the people are fantastic. I genuinely like almost every single person I work with which is a big deal since it is a huge restaurant. Jordon's has room for 600 guests to eat dinner so there are quite a few staff members. The other "support" girls (my job) are awesome, the bartenders are hilarious, the "captains" (waiters/waitresses) are mostly amazing, the "foodys" (guys that run food and work in the kitchen) are generally good guys, and the chefs are nice but they don't wear name tags like everyone else has to so it's harder to get to know them. I have closed almost every shift I've worked so far and almost every night someone is going "upstairs" (to COHI BAR) after work for a "cheeky beer." I've gone fairly regularly since I like everyone so much. I only dislike 1. the fact the the drinks at COHI are pretty expensive and I worked so hard for my money and 2. almost every single person I work with smokes so it sometimes bothers me and I think I would smell bad when I got home if I didn't have a nice 10-15 minute walk home to air-out. After the walk home I try not to wake Manon as I crawl into my top bunk to crash and do it all over again. :) Life is good. I still don't really know my purpose here, but I'm enjoying getting to know everyone!!

Miss you all! Send me mail! :) Cheers!

Taronga Zoo

Friday Russo and I went to Taronga Zoo! You have to ride a ferry to get there (love!) and it's a huge zoo set on a massive hill. We rode a gondola to the top and started checking out the animals. The most interesting part was this emu that was walking around the path on this walkabout. It walked RIGHT in front of me. I could have touched it, but look at those eyes! I was scared of it. We also saw kangaroos, wallabies, a wombat, and a platypus. The bird show was really awesome too. These birds just flew around and looked awesome. It's hard to explain, but it was fun. There will, of course, be pictures on facebook soonish. The giraffes there were sharing the branch! I loved it so much. And in that picture I was "filing" an elephant's toenails... it was a kid's toy thing, but I liked my outfit that day and I wanted to share that with all of you. I bought those shoes in Bondi (the i heart billy! shoes!) and I got those shirts at the mall near the grocery store. There are a lot of stores here... I need to cut myself off soon...

Anyway, the zoo was super fun. I kept thinking of how you would hate it Danielle! The pictures will tell the stories better than I can, so look forward to seeing those soon.

Hunter Valley

Last Thursday we took a trip to the Hunter Valley (just north of Sydney) to go on a wine tasting tour! Amazingly, Allie, Victoria and I all had the same day off! Clark and Russo came as well and it was a great group. We visited 5 wineries and a cheese shop and a chocolate shop. It was INCREDIBLE! I learned so much about what wines I liked and what makes what taste good, etc. We left at 7:15 in the morning and started drinking wine around 10:30. We drank a bit here and a bit there and never really got drunk, but were all pleasantly chatty all day. :) Russo borrowed my camera for most of the day since he forgot his, so check out the pictures on facebook once I post them - they are amazing.

Since we drank so much, I napped the whole ride home. Once we got back to the flat, I watched Glee!! then I promptly threw up (twice). It must have been a mixture of all the wines (white, red, blush - yuck, and dessert wines) and the food we tasted or something. I felt awful. I even missed an International night with my housemates! Somehow the others managed to go out that night, but not me. Russo was really nice and pretty much took care of me and set me up with a movie on my laptop in bed once I was all done puking. At that point, I was really homesick. :( I just hate throwing up!

Overall, it was a great day... it just had an interesting ending!

cool people

So, just so you know, my third shift at work went much smoother. I didn't break or spill anything and Allie and I went for a drink with everyone after we closed. I didn't work today and I don't work again till Tuesday so I'm happy about having a break. Although Allie did just freak me out a bit ago and asked me, "aren't you supposed to be at work?!" which literally made my heart skip a beat. But I'm 99% sure I don't work again till Tuesday... I think. Blah!

So, I wanted to tell you a little bit more about my housemates. Let's start with Manon, my actual bunk-bed mate. She's French so she's instantly cooler than any American because she speaks French, English, Spanish, Italian, and German which just blows my mind. Her English is amazing, but most of the time she chooses words that I say to repeat in my exact tone. Her first choice was "groceries." Try saying that word over and over and NOT making it sound weird. It's all cool though because I have started to do the same with her, but the words I enjoy hearing her say the most are usually curse words. I have decided that cussing is so much more hilarious and inoffensive with a French accent. She also jokes around in English which I have heard is the hardest thing to do in a foreign language. Today at the beach, for instance, was pretty much a non-stop giggle-fest on my side. She is so much fun to be around! We co-bought a shirt/dress today at the Bondi market and we are going to send it back and forth to each other traveling pants style. I can not wait for that to start. Anyway, Manon is 20 and is here on an internship dealing with human rights. After this she goes to Argentina to study (in Spanish!) for a semester before returning to France. We get along SO amazingly well. I can't wait to make her come visit Texas!

Next we have Mike and Philippe. They live in the room next to ours and they are from Belgium. Both studying and here on internships as well. They also speak a multitude of languages and have such a good grasp of English that they are hilarious. Mike was having trouble saying the "ow" sound so he repeats the word "Howard" all the time but his mouth opens incredibly big when he says the "ow." He chose the word Howard because of the show The Big Bang Theory; he loves it. Now we have taken the word "Howard" and changed it into a way of saying something is cool. Today I got a text from him that said, "Hey roomies, the temperature is Howard in bondi, just perfect. We're waiting on you! :-)." I almost died laughing, but he was right it was perfect out there. His friend, Philippe, just got here last week and hasn't stared working yet. When Clark and Allie first saw him they couldn't believe he was real because he's quite pretty. They both have such a big crush on him, but not anything compared to this Chloe girl. She's French as well, but not a friend of Manon's, she's just random. I first met her Thursday night and she was ATTACKING Philippe. I mean hard core trying to make out with him at this bar. He was pushing her away and almost knocked over the table. I could not believe it was all really happening. When I first got there I said hi to him and we were talking and she came and stood right by my face inbetween me and Philippe and wouldn't let me talk to him. I had to grab his arm and drag him away from her when we wanted to leave. It was so nuts! Now it's a joke/threat for Philippe every time we go anywhere. She actually came to the beach today and set her towel right in front of Philippe's even though there wasn't really room. I mean, he is really cute and he's a totally nice and funny guy, but chill out girl! I havn't gotten to know him as well as some of the others, but I like him a lot so far.

Katie moved in the same day I did and she is from Germany. She's really funny as well (I really like the way they explain things in English... we've decided that Americans speak lazy English and the foreign speakers all use many more words to explain things, most of which are perfectly appropriate). She is a world-champion walker and has been everywhere! When you see her and ask what she's been up to you're amazed at what all she accomplished in one day. If I ever want to go anywhere, I can ask her and she's already been there, twice! She also has a bunch of random job-ish things like handing out flyers for this yoga place in exchange for free yoga classes (I was J). BUT, the most hilarious thing about Katie is that she recently got a "real" job where she will be decorating Christmas trees all around the city! She had like 3 interviews for this position and they are really serious about their decorating styles. She can't wait to start and I just can't wait to see her trees!

Katie shares her room with two girls from Columbia who are here studying English. They don't really hang out around the apartment much. They seem really busy, but the times I do see them they are nice! Hopefully they will cook some food for us soon and be a part of the group more...

The back room has Bastian and Michael, both German. Michael is here on an internship like everyone else pretty much. He's really nice and went to church with me and Allie last week. He works kinda late every evening which is a bummer because he's super cool. He met a bunch of people at this other church that he goes to and he hangs with them a lot, too. Tomorrow is his night to cook though, so I'm looking forward to hanging out with him more! Bastian is here on working holiday like me. He's 19 and just finished his service year in Germany where he worked with Alzheimer's patients. He is living and working in Australia for a year before he starts Uni because he doesn't know what to study. He'd like to study fashion merchandising, but apparently that's expensive to study. Hearing about their college experiences makes me so annoyed that we have to pay so much in the states to go to school. It's kinda ridiculous.

So that's pretty much my house. There are apartments above and below mine and there are usually people in and out from both of those. For the most part everyone is cool... and I'll just leave it at that. I'm going to take a page out of my friend's book and not talk bad about people... or complain in my blog. :) Hope things are going well back home for everyone! I'd love to hear about it, either way!

second day on the job...

So, if my first day of work was good and easy... my second day was an almost total disaster. It was Friday night so I was expecting it to be super busy and hectic, but it really wasn't. The night before was crazy busy for a while because we were under-staffed because two people didn't show up or something. Anyway, that was the good news. Bad news, I still don't know what the heck I am doing most of the time and there are like thousands of table numbers to remember. I ended up spilling a Stella on a lady (she was super nice about it though and I said at least I didn't spill your red wine on you!), then I broke 3 glasses over the evening and the last one cut my right hand and my left arm. I also ALMOST fell up the stairs at one point, but I caught myself (yes, it's possible to fall UP the stairs). The manager mercifully let me and Allie go home at 11 after only 5 hours of work since it wasn't so busy. We ended up meeting our friends at the Cargo Bar across the harbour. We danced for a little while then (I was exhausted) we went home.

Hopefully after a day at Manly Beach my shift tonight will go smoothly... fingers crossed...

International nights, beaches, and I got a job!

SOOOOOO sorry that it has been over a week since I posted on here... it's not even like I have a good excuse like Courtney or anything, I DO have internet access at home pretty much all the time. But, there has been a lot going on lately so let me get to it.

I wish I could share all the stories but I simply do not have time to type them all here, so I'll just highlight some of the good ones. Russo and my new friend Clark moved into the apartment downstairs in the same building and now we have taken over the building. I love all of the people here. My apartment has 9 people in it and since we are all from different countries I had the idea of doing these "International Nights" where we cook food from our home country for everyone in the apartment and whoever else wants to come. Manon went first and cooked us some French food and made crepes!!! They were delicious. We ended up having 15 people in our kitchen just hanging out, drinking wine, and eating. It was exactly what I had in mind. I cooked on Monday and made fajitas because honestly, what IS American food?? Everything came from somewhere else anyway. I did look up some American foods as research and found out that while we usually think of fajitas as Mexican food, they originated in Texas. They were the obvious choice after that and they ended up being delicious. I made cupcakes and brownies for dessert. If you've looked at my facebook pics the cupcakes were very photogenic. Wednesday night Mike and Philippe cooked some food from Belgium. It was really good. And since we'd been eating so many desserts (Manon made crepes again on Sunday... with Nutella for sure, no worries) the boys made us some fruit salad and it was yummy as well. That's as far as we've gotten on International Nights but we still have German, Columbian, and and more German food to eat. It's like a trip around the world! haha

Inbetween all the international food, Russo and I went to Manly on the ferry (it was so freaking exciting!) and hired bikes for a few hours. We got lost at first, but we rode the bikes along the beach and found this really cool hole through the rocks (see photos on fb). Sadly, it started to raid so we didn't get to go to the Northhead, but we will go back. Russo, Manon, Clark, Mike, and I also went to Bondi beach to go surfing last weekend. We hired surfboards and wetsuits from this shop and my wetsuit looked like a shark had taken a bite out of it. Mike's didn't even have a zipper pull! It was pretty funny. Clark put his on backwards at first until Russo helped him out. Finally, we got in the water (which was like 14-15 degrees celsius - COLD) and my feet went numb almost instantly. Manon was a badass surfer and stood up all the time and Russo was out there with some of the larger waves (which were REALLY intimidatingly scary and they hurt when they crashed on you). As for the rest of us, we played in the smaller waves and never really surfed. We did a lot of body surfing which was awesome. I maintain that my board was too short to be good for a beginner and that it's impossible for me to stand up on feet that I can no longer feel. I'll try surfing again when it's warmer... and maybe I'll take another lesson. Allie said she'd do a surf school with me.

Allie had been hating her job and wanting to quit for a while, so we signed up to do this RSA (Responsible Serving of Alcohol) course that you have to have to work in a restaurant or bar just in case we got jobs like that. It was over 6 hours long on Tuesday and was super boring. The man just kept telling us what drunk people looked like and how to refuse to continue serving them. Good info, but 6 hours?? Anyway, it was a good thing we did the course because we now both have jobs! I went walking around on Wednesday handing out my resume like candy to everyone who would take it and finally walked into Jordon's seafood. They handed me an application to fill out and asked if I had time for an interview. I said sure and waited for a while, had my interview, and got a job as a drink runner! Basically you order drinks from the waiter, it goes to the bar where the bartenders make them, then I take the drinks to your table and serve them to you. I open bottles of wine and champagne in front of the customers (which I totally suck at, but I'll get better), pour your wine or beer into your glass for you and it's all very fancy. I feel like I'm awful, but I didn't break anything or spill anything on my first day so I guess that's good. Funny enough, Allie got a job at Jordon's too! She starts tonight. I think it's going to be really fun to work with her. The other people I met last night were good too. AND it's incredible money! minimum wage here is like 16 or 17 an hour and I think I'll make around 20. Isn't that ridiculous?! Sadly it's like the most I've ever made. But good for me so I can save some money and then TRAVEL! whoo hoo!!!

So lots more stuff has happened, but those are the major items (and the ones with corresponding pictures on fb). Hope everyone else is doing well!! I would love some mail/email/texts/messenger pigeons from y'all!

LOVE YOU!!!!!

week one.

I'm here in Australia now and I've been here for one week exactly. The first day I was here was sorta rough... I got to the YHA hostel at 8am but couldn't check in until noon so I had these two huge bags plus a daypack backpack and 4 hours to kill. I had to put my stuff in lockers and that required paying $6 and lugging my stuff up the stairs and shoving it into these lockers. I almost cried it was so frustrating/seemingly impossible to do, but I made it happen. Then I grabbed breakfast and wandered around the city. I was all by myself and it got really lonely because at that point it had been two whole days since I had held a conversation with anyone. I spent the rest of the day (after checking in) down at Sydney Harbour (I'm not misspelling it, that's how they spell it here) and the Royal Botanic Gardens. There was a party at the hostel (celebrating 100 years of hosteling) and I met some nice English guys there, Nick and Philip. I was so glad to be talking to people again! haha

The next morning, Russo found me in line for breakfast and we went to our IEP orientation together. It was long and informative. Then we went to the bank and set up stuff and just found our way around the city some more. We went to Allie's (my new friend... from TEXAS which makes me feel lame... I come all the way here to meet someone from the same place) apartment and had "mexican" food and "margaritas" with her and her roommates. It was a BLAST but we both were totally exhausted and left around 10. The next day we went to the aquarium (sorry no pictures, Russo took some though) and I came to look at my apartment to see if I liked it. Turns out it's the apartment directly below Allie's apartment. I wasn't sure if I wanted it, so I thought about it over the weekend, then moved in on Monday. After the aquarium we went to Paddy's market and the mall above it and got these much needed 15 minute massages. I'm telling you, my shoulders were killing me from lugging all my crap around.

That evening we went and got dinner down at Sydney Harbour to see it at night all lit up. The food wasn't that great, but it was nice to sit by the water. We were talking and I was kinda upset about not knowing my purpose here. I feel very selfish and listless and like I left a place where I was sure about what I was doing (Austin). Russo did a great job of calming me down and now I feel way better because I've made some friends and found a place and I'm working toward figuring out why I am here. After dinner we came back to the hostel and met up with Nick and Philip and went to this club down at Darling Harbour. It was super fun and I like those guys a lot. Too bad I didn't get their last names or any other info so we could be facebook friends. :(

Saturday we went to the grocery store since we'd been eating out so much and the hostel has a kitchen. Then we sat down and made some plans about what we want to do in Sydney and then Allie called me! It was my first random call from a friend here in Oz and it made me so very happy. We met up with her and one of her roomies, Victoria, and went to Paddington Fair market on Oxford St. and The Rocks market down by Sydney Harbour. It was so much fun! We also sat and had a beer at The Rocks until Russo and I had to leave to go to the Sydney Swans (Aussie Rules Football) game. It was fun too! We shared an Aussie dog and a beer and learned all the rules and such for the game. It's very complicated but super fun. I met this guy, Jonas, who was sitting next to me at the game and he invited us to his housewarming party the next night. He is from Sweden and is studying at the University of Sydney. So, Sunday I went to church at Hillsong church with Allie and her housemate Paul which was totally fun. Very different from what I was expecting, but still a good message. We are going back next week. Then we went shopping at Paddy's market again (Allie really wanted this hat...) and then hung out for the rest of the day until that housewarming party. Russo went with me and it was SO much fun. It was like a regular house party so it really felt like I live here. We mostly hung out in the backyard and it was freezing that night so there was a fire in a trash can... probably not the safest thing but it was warm. We met all sorts of people, mostly Swedish people, and they were so interesting! One guy asked me if I wanted to go take a walk (he was really cool), but it made me nervous so I pretended like I didn't know what he meant and just said something lame about liking the fire. I don't even remember how I played that off, but then the dude left the party so I was glad I didn't go with him anywhere...at night...in a new city...yeah.

Monday I moved into my apartment!! I share my room with Manon from France and she is soooo cool! She's 20 and here on an internship with an NGO working for human rights. After Australia she's going to Argentina for another internship for the same thing I think. She's awesome. My other housemates are cool too! I'm the only native English speaker, so they were all super excited that I moved in so I could help them all with their English. Mostly they are great with it so they don't need help anyway.

After moving in, Russo and I went to Bondi Beach and checked it out. The water was ICE cold so I did not get more than a foot in. It was also only like 19 outside (Celsius, it still cracks me up) so it was pretty chilly with the breeze. We walked around, took pictures, and shopped a bit. Once we got back I went to the grocery store with Allie which was hilarious. It was an Asian market and all the food was crazy and in all sorts of other languages. I got some stuff that I can live on for now. I need to go to Coles, the other grocery store, soon to get some more basic, Americanish food.

Tuesday was amazing. Russo and I had booked a trip to go to the Blue Mountains for the day so we went and I SAW KANGAROOS!!!!!!! It was a mom, a baby (11 months), and another mom with a joey in her pouch. I could not have been happier. They are my new favorite animal. Then we went and had a great cup of coffee in the town and headed up to the mountains. We bush walked around for a few hours, had lunch, bush walked some more and then rode the steepest railway in the world back up to the bus. The pictures describe it better, so I'll post those to facebook soon. That night we went and had chinese food with my housemates and checked out the rest of the building. We met all the neighbors (up and down - I'm on the middle floor) and hung out. My apartment isn't laid out very well and does not encourage hanging out as much as the top floor does, so we all ended up there. Then I went to bed because I was exhausted.

And that brings us to today! I slept in (to 8:30), did nothing but look online at facebook, gmail, and such all morning and finally got out of the house around 1:30. Russo and I walked down to Darling Harbour to check out a place I might work since one of the girls upstairs is about to leave. Now I'm supposed to be looking for a job, but I figured you good people deserved an update since I had the time... ;)

OH! and one more thing! I have a phone here and it's free (for me) for you to call and text me!!! I can also call and text back, but that's not so free for me (but I will do it since I love you). So here's what you do... To call/text me this is my number: 0011 61 406 198 853 that includes all the country codes and everything... so call me or text me!!! It would make my day.

I love you all and miss you!!! I will write again soon (maybe). Until then, I'd love some emails or letters or anything letting me know how your life is going. I'm not exactly homesick... but I'm friendsick and I miss you awesome people!