First steps Down Under

It took about 32 hours to get from my mother's front door to our hostel in Sydney. Three flights and two "nights" of sleep after our departure we arrived at Wake Up!. The hostel is located right next to the central railway station, which is very convenient for getting around the city. The place is pretty clean and has a nice kitchen and comfy rooms. We are staying in a 10 bed dorm with some completely mental Canadians, whose company we haven't really enjoyed: they are drunk all the time, wake us up 2-3 times per night and during the day as well if we manage to nap a little (which we have done a lot, trying to imitate koalas, I suppose). For example, this morning we had the pleasure to wake up to two people having sex in the bottom bunk. From this description one might guess that we haven't slept that well, so we're actually really happy to leave the hostel today and to get rid of these people.

Apart from interesting experiences when trying to sleep, we have enjoyed being in Sydney quite a lot. We have visited most of the outdoor sights in the city centre (somehow we end up in Circular Quay every day - the harbour just is so pretty), and did some hikes in Manly and from Bondi beach to Coogee. The sun is sooo strong - despite wearing sun screen, we've both managed to get some sun burns. I've succumbed to wearing a not-very-stylish side-ponytail because my right ear got burned so badly...

I've been so happy to get to hang out with my old Hong Kong best friend Amira, who moved to Sydney just a month ago to do a Master's degree. Through her, we have got the chance to meet some local people, in addition to other international students. We have had some great nights in having dinner, as well as visited some Cremorne pubs and a Darling Harbour restaurant.

We have been trying to be careful with money, because we're both on a quite low budget. The euro-dollar exchange rate is horrible, so everything is sooo expensive. For example, a big carton of yogurt costs the equivalent of 4 euros, and Inka has bought some avocados for more than 2 euros a piece. Luckily, we have managed to find some much cheaper store brands in the supermarket, and can make an affordable existence by cooking most of our meals ourselves.

Sydney seems to be a very cosmopolitan city: there are people from all over the world. Everybody's good-looking, fit and well-dressed. The people are, in general, quite wealthy, and seem to enjoy the outdoorsy enjoy, at least judging by their tan. Apart from the central business district with the skyscrapers, the buildings are pretty low. I'm used to seeing mostly apartment block in cities of this size, but actually it looks like most people live in houses, even in the suburbs closest to the city centre.

What also strucks me is the difference between the architecture of Sydney and Europe. It's very clearly visible that the city is only two hundred years old, as all the buildings are very modern. They are pleasing to the eye, but not very pretty. It feels like the city lacks history, when everywhere you looks there's just steel and concrete (there are some slightly older neighbourhoods like The Rocks, that have a bit more character though). It's also very clean everywhere - so much so that I start to miss graffitis and street art that we have so much of in Europe.

We have had very pleasant, although lazy, six days in Sydney. I wrote most of this on Tuesday afternoon in a Sydney library, where I got myself a reader's card just to be able to use internet for free. In the evening we caught a Greyhound nightbus to our next stop on the way, Melbourne. During the 12-hour train ride we actually slept almost better than in the hostel, as it was sooo nice and quiet.

We're in Melbourne now. Staying for one night though, to celebrate the Irish event St Patrick's Day, before we fly over to Tasmania island tomorrow.

Sydney pictures will follow in a later blog entry, because our hostel's computer doesn't want to transfer my photos now.

Aussie specialties spotted so far:
- huge spiders
- hot surfer boys
- kangaroo meat burgers (haven't seen living kangaroos yet)
- bluebottle fish warning signs on beaches