Friday, May
18, 2012
I finally fell asleep around
7:30pm but it felt so much later than that considering how early it gets dark
here. I woke up and got out of bed at
6:30am. Almost 12 hours of sleep, which
felt great. I was the first one up so I
got a bowl of cereal and juice – whole grain hoops and orange mango
lemonade. The cereal is similar to
cheerios but when in milk they don’t get soggy, hardest cereal ever. But it
wasn’t bad at all. Once I finish the box
I’ll have to try out something different.
I sat in our living room and looked out onto the patio where below is a
major highway – it is loud, luckily our room doesn’t face it because if it did
I can imagine that’s what would be waking me up every morning. But on the other side of the highway is a
large massive park, it includes a golf course.
But the sun came up and after I finished eating I headed down over to
the café. Wifi password hadn’t changed
but I ordered a cappuccino – hmm I think most people know im not a coffee
drinker. The top was so foamy and I felt
like it was hard to get the actual coffee liquid out from under the foam. I think im just gonna try every kind of
coffee drink there. They don’t have drip
coffee here in Sydney. The list of
options I have to try seem like so many. But it
is the cheapest thing on the menu – all coffee drinks are under 4.50 while if I
wanted juice that’s 6.50. (keep in mind
the minimum wage here is 18.50 – great for them, unfortunate for anyone
traveling here) but I caught up on my
emails and facebook. 8:50 is when I had
to go down into the lobby to meet for my half day guided tour of Sydney.
So our tour was on a coach bus,
and at first I was really upset and worried that we were basically just gonna
drive by everything and just have the driver talk. Our apartment is right across from a massive
park. I’m thinking that if I ran all the
way around it it would be 6 miles. I’m
hoping to cross the highway and see a map that shows the different paths that I could use in the future for runs. But we drove past the park and then in the
park is the massive stadium for rugby.
It’s huge, size of soldier field and then right next to it is just as
large, cricket stadium. After we drove
past that, we came up to bondi beach.
(which is pronounced bond-eye) I of course was saying it wrong. But we were allowed out for twenty minutes - the
beach is breathtaking. The area around
it is just filled of multi million dollar houses. So many people were out surfing and the waves
looked massive. I saw someone paddle
boarding – which is something I’m dying to do.
If you don’t already know I’m working at Wairoa School (pronounced
why-row-a) I didn’t seem to understand how they say it that way. But the school is for children with special
needs. And lucky for me is in the Bondi
area. I could come down and eat my lunch
on the beach, if I get a lunch break that is. But one of the CAPA staff members
told me that Wairoa has an OT member and that I would be working with him or
her when they are there. She said they
just aren’t there every day. So it
definitely sounds like I’ll get time with an OT, which makes me really
happy.
But after our stop to bondi beach we drove through the visually pleasing
neighborhood. Made a quick stop at this
grassy area that at the edge you saw the whole city basically from the east
coast of the country. It was unfortunate
because at the time bush burning was going on so in my pictures they aren’t too
clear because there was a haze. However
it was still very pretty to see south and north Sydney with the opera house and
bridge between the two. The next stop
was probably my favorite thing of the day we drove to the gap. So its basically just the east coast of the
country, where the land basically drops off into the ocean. It is the place where most people commit
suicide in the country of Australia. But
the cliffs are so high up so the drop to the ocean is very far down and there’s
many rock below. We climbed up along it
and it was just incredibly pretty, with the waves crashing into the cliffs
and such. Definitely depressing that
people come there to die, yet the bus driver of our tour told us that a man
used to sit there every night and over his lifespan saved 400 peoples’
lives. Unfortunately he died last
week….
After that stop we drove closer to the city, driving through Rose Bay
where he said the houses cost about 25 million dollars. And then through Double Bay where if you’re
going to see anyone famous, it will be there.
I believe the next stop we made was this park where just across a short
amount of water was the opera house and bridge.
Definitely a much closer view than when we were all the way on the side
of the coast. Its actually amazing how
large the bay is that separates the harbour bridge from the water exiting out
into the ocean. But we could see tiny
little people climbing to the top of the bridge. After that we got lunch,
we went to harry’s, an iconic place to get the famous meat pies. It is a pastry filled with meat and then
topped with mashed potatoes, gravy, and peas.
I thought that sounds great, and it was at first. The peas were more of a mashed cream peas,
yet it tasted fine with the gravy and mashed potatoes. But the meat, beef, was gross. It was spicy and just not pleasing. But it was an experience. Following lunch, we drove for what seemed
like forever. We were driving to ACU,
Australian Catholic University , where I will be taking classes in north Sydney. The drive to get over there was forever in
traffic in the city. The campus is in
north Sydney so we got to drive over the harbor bridge. It took eight years to build. I couldn’t see too much being in a large
coach bus. Yet we got to ACU and had a
two hour orientation. Hmm we just
learned basics and such. The whole
calling thing is weird, like if youre calling someone in the city of Sydney you
add 61 to the front of the number and drop the first number of the actual phone number I
think? And they have this whole rounding up thing when you buy things. Tax is already included so when I buy a
coffee for 3 dollars that’s all it is. But yet if the amount ends in a 5
or higher they round up but if below they round down just because the smallest
coin in a five. And let me tell you
about the coins – they are so annoying.
They have 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 dollar bills. But their coins – the smallest coin is 2
dollars and then as the coins increase in size the value goes down. That has been one of my hardest things to get
use to, when I'm buying something I feel so foreign having to look at all the
coins in my hand and think what to give or try to find the value on the
coin.
After the orientation my roommate and I just basically ran out of
there. The group was going to head back
together and take a bus back to the hotel, but her and I just started walking.
We ended up in like a business district in north Sydney and underground was
this large food, shopping, farmers market area.
We went though a bunch of shops and she bought some clothes. It was definitely a lot more fun than
traveling back in a group standing out among the locals. Come time to get back home since we were
hungry and had a challenging yet fun time. Underground
there was a large train station, so we decided to get on one. We asked a person at the ticket window and
she said Redfern to get to Waterloo. So we looked to see
which platform had the Redfern stop on it, we got on and that train took us back
over the harbor bridge and we got off at Redfern. Once there nothing looked fimilar so we went up to another train official and
they just gave us some go straight, turn right, then left kind of
directions. And guess what we got where
we wanted to be ha. I made dinner – sandwich with cheese, turkey, cucumbers,
spinach, on bread. Im hoping to catch a
rugby game on the television, try to get to know the teams or something. Tomorrow’s plan – blue mountains, Sydney Olympic
park, and zoo.
Fun Facts
- Sydney is
the 7th priciest city to live in
- rent is
paid weekly for them
- it is
offensive to say “what”
- they have
four different colors for trash cans, unsure what each colors means yet
- we talked to an older man behind the counter in a store and his thoughts on American football - for sissys
No comments:
Post a Comment