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