??

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