Boring Stuff

I found an apartment in Surry Hills which is close to Darling Harbor. It's not perfect, and not what I'm used to in the States because I'll still be sharing a room with 3 girls, but ANYTHING is a step up from the Boomerang Backpacker's Hostel!!! I think it's a great location. It's right next to Central Station, a gym, close to a big park, and my new Australian bank is right on the corner. I have to give the owner the OK today, so let's hope it's stil available!

I've been looking online and through the Sydney Morning Herald for some job openings and I applied for two jobs yesterday, both with global companies, so keep your fingers crossed for me!

I Started WALKING! (Haha, Kales/K-Dos)

I got up this morning and started walking without any real direction. I ended up walking for MILES and then wanting to cut my feet off and die at the end of the day! But I did happen upon some really cool stuff. I walked through downtown and started seeing signs for the Harbor Bridge, so I walked towards it. I saw the pedestrian walkway to walk across the bridge so I started heading there,but before I got there I saw the Sydney Observatory so I climbed up the hill and took some pictures from up there.

I left the Observatory and walked across the bridge and got some pretty good shots of the Opera House:

I wanted to go to the Opera House, but I wanted to save it for a prettier day and when I had more time so I put it off for awhile.

Sydney Aquarium and Wildlife World

I WANT A PET KOALA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!









Feeding time for the snakes:










There are tons more pictures on Facebook, so look there for more of them!

Friday Night!

I met up with my new friend Glen at my hostel and we walked to this place called Scruffy Murphy's and had dinner. I had my first "fish and chips" meal.
**Hannah, Scruffy Murphy's is one of the places that your British friend told you about. It was fun! Lots of people in my hostel love it there too!***

After we ate we walked thru Darling Harbor and had a drink at this cute bar called Baia and then walked around for a little bit. It was pretty at night! We rode that huge ferris wheel too! It had a nice view of the city, but due to the rain the pictures didn't turn out too well.

After that we met up with some of Glen's friends and went to this club called Sublime that was 5 floors (kind of) and they had different music on different levels. It was really fun! I was pretty tame that night.

My friend Glen:

After the club I got a taxi back to my hostel.

Chucktown News

Here's a copy of part of the December issue of The Chucktown News that I tried to post earlier and couldn't. Sorry it's not clear. (Tiffany, don't worry about it! They get the idea! Thanks for sending it.)

In case you haven't heard, I (hopefully) got someone to take over the newsletter for me in Charleston. Her name is Anne Machowski and she'll be putting HER first issue out in March, so all of you Charlestonians look for it!

In Case of Emergency....

Or if you have a good phone plan for international calling, then give me a call! My new number is

0406 200 033

On Friday, it was still rainy and gross outside so I spent the day getting my bank account set up and buying my new Vodaphone. It's prepaid and I get free incoming calls, so call away!

Sydney: Day 2

I slept GREAT that first night in the pitiful hostel! I woke up at 6:30 and went for a run through Hyde park (where the Mormans were yesterday). The weather is not typical Sydney weather, and the forecast isn't looking good for the next week. It's not quite raining, but it's very overcast and windy. That isn't necessarily a bad thing though when your hostel as no AC and you're walking around all day.

So after my run I went to an internet cafe further in Kings Cross, and even at 9 in the morning I could tell how scary and dirty that area is. Technically, my hostel is in Kings Cross which is why some people were worried about me staying there, but I am far enough east that it's really not scary at all. Its probably a fine area, and safe as long as you avoid the alleys at 3am, but if you walk down Darlinghurst St. all you see are pretty much sex shops and adult stores. It's the red light district and all of the tour books I've read refer to the area as "Bohemian" but it should just say "kind of trashy".

After that I took a long walk down to Darling Harbor and I was there early enough to avoid a big crowd of people, so it was really peaceful. It's kind of touristy with some souvenir shops and a huge ferris wheel, but I really liked it. It was clean and pretty and pleasant.

I ate at a little cafe by the park and then walked on through to Chinatown. It was just what you would expect Chinatown to look like, only there is a little covered extension of it called Paddy's Market. I found a few cute t-shirts and gifts in there. The first picture below is Chinatown and the second is Paddy's Market.

I left Paddy's Market and walked back through Darling Harbor on my way to the aquarium, but the line was ridiculously long at that time. I'm glad I didn't go then anyway, because later on this night I met a girl who gave me a free pass for 3 months! Sweeeet!

I wandered across Pyrmont Bridge (below) and had a glass of wine on the other side at a nice little corner bar called Oscar's, then headed back to my hostel to shower and get ready to meet up with my 2 Canadian friends that I met in the Sydney airport: Katie and Gracie.

I got to Katie and Gracie's hostel (which by the way is so ridiculously nice compared to mine) at 8:30pm and met one of their roommates named Abby who is from Arizona. She's the one who gave me the aquarium pass. After about 5 minutes of hanging out with the Canadians I was already being harassed about my "ya'll"s. And they taught me, "CHABOY!!!" but I have no idea what it means. Anyway, we all headed out and grabbed a piece of pizza then went on to explore Sydney's nightlife. The first bar we went to was fun and had a really good 3 man band playing covers of Radiohead and Weezer. Abby left after the fist bar. She is the one on the far left in the pic below (which was at the first bar called Side Bar). I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but Abby wasn't a huge partier.

The second bar which was highly recommended by a local Sydneysider was called Cheers. It was awful. There was good music but there were about 5 other people in the bar and no other girls.

The last place we went to was called The Gaff. We taxied to it and it was closer to my side of town so I was happy about that. The Gaff was AWESOME! They played 80's music all night and it was packed. I ended up seeing a guy that was staying in my hostel (I recognized him because he'd been wearing the same red shirt for 2 days) and he and his roommate walked back with me at the end of the night, which was really nice. It was a good day and-besides my fall on the wet pavement on the way home-a great night!