echidna |əˈkidnə| noun a spiny insectivorous egg-laying mammal with a long snout and claws, native to Australia and New Guinea. Also called spiny ante

I'm really not in the mindset to do this right now after having spent roughly an hour posting photos to Facebite but I'll try anyways.

Whats new with us???

Went to the Blue Mountains where we stayed in a really charming little hostel called the No.14. We were there for two days. on the first day we went on a 3hr long bushwalk into the beautiful blue mountains, aptly named due to the blue haze given off by the eucalyptus trees over the mountains. That day was a scorcher at about 33 degrees. The second day, we woke up to the smell of rain but it's alright because we had booked a trip to the Jenolan caves, about an hour outside Katoomba. Really beautiful caves with a really annoying droning tour guide! But seriously, really pretty and highly recommended. (I'm soooo hungry!). Katoomba is a cute little town speckled with art deco buildings, as if much of NSW that I've seen thus far. OH and we saw an echidna. SEE title. (and see facebite)

Other than that, just enjoying the weird city quirks that come along with living here. We also went to the Glebe Fair which was pretty cute. They close the major street that runs through Glebe, the boho suburb where we originally were staying with Tanya, and ahve all kinds of booths. We got some Lebanese food and corn on a cob on a stick. YURM.

Also, it was recently my birrrrthdayyyyyyyy but I worked that night so it was actually really uneventful. We stuffed our faces with sushi in the afternoon. YURM.

What else what else?E
-Visited Bondi for the annual Sculpture By the Sea art show. Gorgeous. (See Facebite)

Also, quirky Japanese roomates giving me massages on the floor. LOL. Yoko-san is the greatest woman alive.
AND our japanese vocabulary is expanding to include roughly 10-20 words. And our Ndebele (Zimbabwean language that has a CLICK SOUND) vocab includes.....well, one word.

THE ENDDDDDSKI.3

S-BUCKS

Hey everyone
So the last week has been somewhat nightmarish haha.
So we move into our house, the one I wrote about in the last post, and realize it's so not what we thought. The people that live there don't clean up, smoke directly outside our window all the time, and party unti wee hours of the morning. They all get super plastered every single night and Tim and I decided that we left that kind of place behind in residence lol. One night they stayed up til like 3am completlely hammered and HOWLING red hot chilli peppers. Annoying, n'est pas? So needless to say, 3we went looking for a new place. We found one on the 14th floor of a really shiny, nice apartment building shared with 3 japanese girls and one Zimbabwean girl. It is cleannnn and the girls we live with are very respectful so we both like that a lot. They are quiet and all very nice, unlike the people we lived with in the last placee. The location is great too, a bit further from where I'm working but still walkable, and VERY central and urban which I like too.

Anyways yeah. So that's that.

What have we been up to?

Really just learning the city. Haggling at markets. BTW Paddy's Market is amazing! We bought a week's worth of fruit and veg for roughly 20 bucks. Amazingggggg. You can get everything there super cheap and so I'm kinda in love with that place lol.

Urmm what elseeeee?

We've gone to a couple of bars which has been funnn. So far Scubar and the Landsdowne Hotel. Scubar was that typical bar with the annoying ditzy, stuck up girls, and the annoying jock boys heh. BAD MUSIC. Awesome thing though, was that they had CRAB RACES ahaha. it was so much fun. For a dollar, you could bet on a hermit crab. You could name it. So Rose-Anne was my crab and she WON SECOND PLACE. Amazing little lady, she was. So I won a party bus ticket lol and a hat, both of which i gave away lol.

THe Landsdowne is our new favourite bar so far. It's grungy but they have live music which is always a bonus. It's reminscent of the Townehouse in Sudbury which was both Tim and myself's favourite band.

ANYWHO Gotta run....

Heading to the Opera House because its free to get inside there today! Yay free stuff!

Ta.

KINDA HATE ROACHES

Helllloooo all, it's been a while I suppose.

What's happened in the last two weeks? You're probably expecting me to say "WHOAAOOA WE WENtttt to the outback and rode kangarooooooooooooos covered in vegemite!"

But no.

Not THAT cool but we've been doin' well!

We've been in Merrylands, NSW the last two weeks housesitting for a friend of my Nick's named Babar. His flat is pretty nice but this suburb is shadddyyyyy. If I were to compare it to an area at home, I would compare it to Brampton but the size of Milton. It is very ethnic which is really cool because there are all kinds of people and all kinds of places to eat. The problem is that I wouldn't eat at a single one because they are all kinda (really) dirty. In fact, Nick has this app on his iPhone that lists the restaurants and cafes in the area you're in that have been cited for health violations. Nearly ALL of these Merrylands places were on the list. Good side to that is that we've been saving some money eating in. So that's good. But.

I BLOODY HATE ROACHES and they seem to be everywhere in this apartment! We set bait out when we got here and I thought they were working til tonight when Tim had to pretty much chase a roach around the apartment and trap it in a cup while I squealed like a girl. Lol. Give me mice, rats, snakes, whatever but I don't do roaches. NO ROACHES.

We have officially waged war against the roaches.

Everybody says they are "a part of life" in Sydney but eff that!

Anyways, we visited our travelmates in Bondi Beach where they were lucky enough to be housesitting as well. Bondi is BEAUTIFUL. It's one of Sydney's most popular beaches and is probably the most well-known. it's gigantic. Too bad the weather has been LOUSY and it rained for the entire week they were there. It was at least sunny on the day we left haha and we managed to catch an amazing sunset there as well. Bondi is a hotspot for surfers and though the water is too cold for regular swimmers right now, there are always lots of surfers in the water safe in their wetsuits. OMG PHOTO!





We have been really busy trying to find a flat as well! We've seen some SERIOUSLY bad places, including, literally, a closet with a matress and a hot plate, as well as a room that was above an Indian restaraunt in which you shared the KITCHEN with the RESTAURANT. Wtf!? Lol. I'm really pretty sure that's illegal. Anyways, after having seen that kitchen, I prob wouldn't eat there anyway!

We found a place in an area of Sydney called Ultimo. It is really urban and near beautiful Darling Harbour. Actually, it's really close to everything. The CBD (Central business district), Glebe (where Tanya lives), Chinatown (where our travelmates live) and pretty much everything! It's a nice enough place with a few other people. We share a bathroom, kitchen and living space which we are pretty used to considering we're coming from University haha. And at 280 dollars per week (CHEAP in the city), we can't really complain. So we have to be there for 3 months so it looks like workin' life for the next three months!

Anywhooooo I suppose that's it! I have some more stuff to talk about but I think I'll save it for the next post.

Hope you're all keeping well!

Steph xoxo

Weird Aussie Things and Things.

Australia is weird. Australians are even weirder. Here are some weird Aussie things annnnnd whatever else comes to my mind while I write.

Tasty Cheese.

This weirds me out. For some weird reason cheddar, instead of being mild, medium or old, is broken down into well tastiness? They have Tasty, Extra Tasty, etc. It's kinda weird like that. Mind you, tasty cheese is effing...well, tasty?

Why do they call:

Pharmacists, chemists; Red peppers, capsicums; Zucchinis, squash; Squash, pumpkin; Arugula, rocket?

Because they're weird!

(speaking of produce, fruit here is AMAZING)

Aussies love J-walking. Why? I've seen a large number of Aussies (old, young, crippled, abled) nearly become roadkill because they love to j-walk on the crazy-busy streets. Often, you see them doing it barefoot which is somewhat comical but craaaazay.

Also, Aussies love saying "how ya goin?" instead of "how's it going?" or "how ya doin?". It's something of a combination of the two expressions and it still makes me smile when someone with a thick Aussie accent says it.

That, and "Y'alright?" Meaning interchangeaby, "You alright?" or "You're alright". They say it in response to nearly everything lol.

There are a berzerk number of brothels in Sydney, as well. Mostly they are pretty hard to identify and you wouldn't know it unless you noticed the THAI MASSAGES sign or notice the subtle exposed nipple on the poster on the door. Prostitution in this country is legal so brothels are a boomin' business! As is, subsequently, the sex industry in general. TONS of "adult shops".

Speaking of weird country stuff, Aussies are also, well, really racist! (I'll take this opportunity to say not ALL Aussies of course). Mostly towards their Aboriginal population and towards Indians and those from the Middle East, so I really havn't had any trouble at all and mostly have to deal with being called "dahling" and "love" all the time. At the contemporary art museum, though, there was this one exhibit with this weird negative space word art where there were instructions for the piece that read "Pull outer corners of eyes to see words and read aloud" and the words in the negative space read "CHING CHONG CHINAMAN". I'm like :O. Like, that was seriously the face that I made. On a less serious note, at that same exhibit there was one that asked you to pull the outer corners of your mouth and read the statement: "I am a banker". Try it. That one got Tim for sure. Anyways point is that Aussies (not all) are strangely quite racist though ironically enough, not towards me! Score! (lol)

ALSO, though prostitution is legal in this country, abortions are not. I'm not gonna get into the women's rights red flags that spring up in my mind but I found that quite interesting. And worth mentioning is the law that was just passed here that states that a Church organization is allowed to deny employment to homosexuals and single mothers.

Anywho, enough of the political stuff that will probably get me into trouble.

What have we been up to??

Well, we took the ferry over to beautiful Manly Beach where we hung out for a while until it got to be evening. I really do love beaches and that place was great. Not quite as busy as Bondy Beach and full of lots of shops and eateries. We were planning on making it back over there to partake in the Jazz Festival thats going on but the dang sky won't stop dripping on us so, maybe next time.

Next day, we headed to Luna Park and if you havn't seen the photos of that place on facebook yet, I suggest you go and take a look, though I warn you that you may experience terrible nightmares afterwards. Funny though is that we took the ferry to Luna Park not knowing that it was the first stop. We missed it and ended up at the next stop which wasnt' too far but we got to walk through this really ritzy area. It was a nice walk, about 40 minutes along streets with ocean-front properties. Beautiful!

Mmm that night we ate at a restaurant called Flying Fajita Sistas. I swear to you, this city really does not disappoint with the food! Sydney is a city known for its' amazing restaurants! And wow is all i have to say. Here, Tim had his first fajita ever (!!!) and I had this delicious mango and cheese quesadilla and lots of guacamole. YUMMMMMM. So YUM that it is seriously worth documenting!

Next day, we headed to the Sydney Aquarium where we made friends with the cashier who joked that we brought our Canadian weather with us. The aquarium was gorrrrgeous but I kinda love aquariums so I guess I'm kinda...biased. They had dugongs and lots of sharks and poisonous things.

Anywho it has been raining quite a bit so today we took it easy. Got some pastries this morning (YUMMMM) and read for most of the day. Though I wish it were sunny, I do really enjoy days spent reading books and drinking tea. Something I havn't been doing too much of lately since we've been out and about.

Thats all for now :)

STEPHANIEEEEEEE <3

??

OH MY GOD WHY IS THAT SMALL CHILD/DOG DRIVING THAT CAR?!?!?!

Oh wait, the steering wheel is on the opposite side of the car.

Tims here!

Stay with me as my writing skillz arent up to the level of Steph's. But I wanted to mention the money, as I have had to reorganize my brain to use small change. Bills are easy of course but for small change there is:

50 cent coin which is a little bit bigger than the size of the canadian dollar but thicker and really kinda heavy they pull down my pants
20 cent coin just a litte bit smaller than the 50 cent but just as thick and heavy

10 cent coin the size and weight of a quarter
5 cent coin just like the nickle at home

then heres the kicker, I have not seen a one dollar coin or bill there is only the
2 dollar coin which is the smallest coin about the size of a pennie but a bit thicker

*EDIT* apparently there is a one dollar coin i just barely ever see it. It doesnt turn up much and its about the same as a 2 dollar coin except a big bigger.

I never realized how much I used 25 cents on a daily basis that I have had to reorganize my brain to used this crazy money

lastly job search is going quite swell i might actually be able to get an IT job here but a big shout out to Nick for helping me with my cv and search, actually if it wernt for Tanya and Nick we probably would not be doing so well here so a big thankyou to them

oh lastly I forgot to mention that there is no 1% or 2% milk here there is just milk. It smells rather like cream actually i dont know how it tastes i only use it in my really strong coffee (and no its not cream its milk that i am using)

ta for now

cheers
-Tim

Zooooooooo + Thoughts

Soooo today Tim, Sarah, Hilary, Alyson and I mozied on over to the Taronga Zoo. It was awesome!!! The trip there was really great too because we had to take a ferry that went right through the Sydney Harbour and gave as amazing views of the Opera House and the Bridge as well as of course the beautiful Sydney skyline! Then when we got to the zoo, we took a cable car up over the zoo to the top of a mountain and worked our way down. We saw tons of cool animals but couldn't get as close as we did at the Aussie Reptile Park. Great day none the less though.

For breakfast this morning, Tim and I hit up a place called Naggy's Cafe which is just up the road from Tanya's. ORdering coffee has proved to be a tremendous challenge here because there is no such thing as well, a plain old filtered coffee like we have at home. Mostly all they have here is espresso so all their coffee is stupidly strong. So here is the Aussie Coffee Translation Guide:

Short Black = plain shot of espresso

Tall Black = two shots of espresso diluted with water...

Latte = Latte, duh

Flat White = Cafe Latte with no foam (my order of choice)

Americano = closest thing to a black filtered coffee.

Apparently Aussies like their coffee really strong. Even the Starbucks' here have mostly gone out of business because they don't make it strong enough! The one Starbucks we did visit had an option of adding extra coffee flavour shots if you didn't find their coffee strong enough. Much different than at home.

The lingo here is also rather interesting. It has proabbly been the biggest adjustment we have had to make. That and looking the opposite way when crossing the street lol since they drive on the left here. Further, cars have the right of way here but for some bizarre reason, Aussies LOVE to jaywalk. It's insane.

Lol anyways, it's been fun.

Ta, mate!

Steph

Meeting Kangas and Koalas

So today, we went to the Australian Reptile Park which was super coooool. Cool because there are, incidentally, all kinds of creatures running around the place!! There were wallabies and kangaroos just hopping around the place with little kids chasing after them. We got a number of great photos with the animals which was cool. There was an emu running around too but I was somewhat afraid that it was going to hurt me or cut me with it's enormous talons lol. I think it liked Nick, though. We met some Dingos as well; they really just look like skinny labs, haha. The guy that runs the shows there is a lot like Steve Irwin, what with playing with lethally venomous creatures all day long. We watched that guy feed a 170kg croc with a chicken tied to the end of a 2ft stick! We also watched him piss off a Sydney Funnel Web Spider, one of the most lethally venomous spiders in the entire world. I swear, just like Steve Irwin. The place was a lot like a zoo but it let you get a lot closer to the animals, which was really cool. Before we went there, we ended up eating at this absolutely terribly cafe thing. I ordered a tomato sandwhich (to-mah-toe, not to-may-toe) and a medium fries. The fries ended up being seriously HUGE. It probably weighed 3lbs, no joke. It was photo-worthy as I have never seen a larger portioned order of fries.

After the reptile park, we went to Umaima Beach which was beautiful. It was on the Central Coast. The drive there was really nice, nice winding roads up hills and through valleys. That place reminded me of what I imagine Hawaii to look like. Little surfer kids running around everywhere and a picture-perfect beach. So picture-perfect that apparently Nicole Kidman has an island that you can see from there. Haha. Yeah. We ended the day by going to a Japanese restaurant here in Glebe which was great.

Speaking of Glebe, I guess I havn't taken any time to describe it. Glebe is a very laid-back, old area of Sydney. The type of place where everybody knows eachother. There are pastry shops, fruit markets, a couple of "hippy stores", book stores, cafes and the like. It really is a cool area of Sydney and really is the most relaxed suburb that I have been to yet. Everything is easy to access from here, as it's only about a ten minute bus ride to the CBD. It is a bright and colourful neighbourhood where the people smile and say "g'day". I do like it here and I think I'd like to live here if the opportunity arose. Hopefully it will!!

Steph

Flights and First Days

Hey ya'll. I'm sure people really aren't THAT interested in our day to day doings in the Land of Kangas but I thought I'd do this anyways. I'll try to devote at least a bit of time each week to update you on what's going on and to assure you that we havn't been bitten by anything. D :

So here's how our flight went.

Departure was fine but it was sad to say "see ya later" to moms and dads. But exciting because we were gonna be doing something fantastical!!! Our flight was broken into three legs and worked out (to what was supposed) to be 24hrs in flight, and 36 hours with stopovers.

First was an hour and a bit's flight to Chicago. The most uneventful leg of the trip, but actually come to think of it, I'm pretty thankful for that. Tim and I were seated in the first row so we had plenty of leg room which was excellent. The fun started when we landed in Chicago and had to figure out O'Hare Airport. NIGHTMARISH. Everybody was really unhelpful and we were sprinting around trying to get to somewhere we weren't even sure we needed to be. When we tried asking one of the employees where we needed to go she said "gates change all the time". Yeah, real helpful. So with twenty minutes to spare before boarding time we finally made it to our gate. I had to smuggle pasta and cheese through customs which worked out just fine, but our water bottles created quite a stir, as did Tim's harmonica which was certain to be a disguised weapon. So we boarded our Japan Airlines flight to Tokyo; the longest leg of our trip which was a whopping 13 hours of FUN!

First off, big props to Japan Airlines (JAL) because they were awesome. We were kept fed and entertained with the personal televisions which had these little controllers that you could play games on and stuff. Twas good. Smooth and uneventful as a plane ride should be. It was just really, really, REALLY long.

Thennnnn we landed in Tokyo/Narita with nearly 6 hours to spare but as we found out, that wasn't enough time, unfortunately to get out and see any of the city. So we hung out at the airport, got some food and watched some sumo wrestling. Food turned out to be an interesting challenge to due my allergies (haha, imagine that). First I asked if anything had nuts, thinking that I could just explain it in English. Not happening. After my attempted explanation, the lady actually tried to sell me some cute little bags of nuts. So I busted out the card that my sister gave me that says "I am allergic to blah blah blah". She looks at it and laughs a little. Then she goes into the back and gets the chef who comes out and says something like "oil soy oil" and I say "huh?" Lol. So then, the lady comes back and writes down on a piece of paper "Oil made from soy beans". Then I say "OK" and order fries and edamame because that's all I feel safe eating. Anywho, Sarah and I sat in the restaurant and ate our fries and soybeans and then proceeded back to the gate where a few people were sitting around a TV watching sumo wrestling. That was quite entertaining; does anybody actually get that sport?

Next we got on the plane to Sydney, FINALLY. This flight was probably the most eventful of the bunch, but not in a good way. First of all, the turbulence was insane. The whole plane ride, there would be announcements saying "turbulence is expected" but they said everything in Japanese first so we were kinda confused. In the air, we got to watch the sunrise which was beautiful...This bizarre red colour that was unlike any sunrise i have ever seen, and soon I found out why. So fast forward to about half an hour before ETA when the pilot comes on and says "blah blah we are about to commence our final descent". So we start the descent, all the while watching the little icon of the plane on the map that tells us where we are. Then, we notice that the plane is turning around. Huh? Then a long announcement comes on in Japanese and then English saying "Due to poor weather and high winds in Sydney, we have been diverted to Brisbane International Airport". NOOOOOOO, I think. After spending 24 hours in a plane, 20 minutes before landing, we're diverted an hour North? BLarhghghhg. Now the landing in Brisbane was pretty much the worst landing I've ever experienced. We were up and down and side to side and I'm almost certain we landed on one wheel. People were throwing up and Tim even had to open the barf bag and make sure it was accessible lol. I nervous laughed all the way to the ground because I was so terrified!!! So we finally get to Brisbane, spend about 2 hours sitting in the plane on the tarmac, then take off back to Sydney.

When we landed, we found out that we had landed on the day that the worst sandstorm in 70 years decided to hit Sydney. LUCKY. I guess that's why the sunrise was so red. The air when we got here was still dusty but somewhat normal looking. So that was our adventure en route to Sydney. In total I believe the flight being diverted tacked on an extra 5 hours onto our trip, so in total it ended up being about 29 hours in flight. Yikes.

The first day we just kinda hung out, saw the ocean and what have you. Jet lag was a killer and I felt tuckered out most of the day. The next day, we did some touristy must-do stuff. Checked out the Opera House and the SYdney Harbour Bridge, The Rocks, which is a really old part of Sydney, Newtown which is a trendy area comparable to Queen West in Toronto annnnd the CBD, the Central Business District, the Botanical Gardens where we saw some really huge bats annnnd yeah I think that's it! The third day was spent relaxing. We went for a walk and in the evening, my sister and Nick hosted a dumpling party so we got to meet some of the neighbours which was fun, and the dumplings were delissioso.

WOW this blog ended up being really long and I'm sorry if it was somewhat boring lol. Hopefully the next one will be better!!!

Steph