It's been tough, and EXPENSIVE to get on the internet until I met Gloria Jean and her coffee shop with free internet. Otherwise internet at the hostel is $4/hour!! So, thanks to Gloria Jean's and finally settling down after my quest to find a place to live, I can write my first post from AU.
So I arrived in Sydney at around 9:30 AM local time on February 13th. The picture to the right shows the sight of my first shower in a bathroom in the Sydney airport. I took a train right from the Sydney airport to a station about 3 blocks from my hostel. I sat next to a big shot Australian state lawyer on the flight from LA to Sydney. It was good to talk to him to figure out some more about AU. I got the low-down on the different sports they play here, including soccer, Rugby league, Rugby Union, cricket, and Aussie rules football. What he didn't tell me, though, is how expensive it is here!!
As soon as I got here I was pretty shocked. To put it in perspective, a can of soda costs about $1.50 and a case of beer (24 375mL cans or bottles) costs, at the least $40. Way more than $12 for the Platteville case (30 12 oz, 355 mL cans) of Keystone light!! I have found ways around it, though. First off, you can buy a good steak in a store for about $2 to $4. Processed food is REALLY expensive here so I'll be doing a lot of cooking. Also, at the hostel (see left), there are free dinner nights 5 nights per week, so that definitely helps. We will be living in the hostel for two more weeks until we move into our house.When I say we, I mean Joe from Arizona and Mikkel (pronounced me-kell) from Norway. They are the two others that I will be living with for sure. We've already introduced Mikkell to beer pong, well actually, we played "wine pong" with boxed wine because it is way more economical than buying beer here. It will be a four bedroom place about four blocks from the beach. The address is 3 Young St, Cooks Hill, NSW 2300. You can look it up on google maps and look at the street view. I'm going to upload some pictures when we move in. It also has a fenced in backyard for barbies and the landlord is going to let us use his surfboard whenever we want. We will definitely need the practice if we want to surf. It's one of the hardest things I've ever tried, the guys on TV make it look so easy. Here are some pictures of Newcastle Beach, which the hostel is near to. Newcastle has an unbelievable coastline.
I took these pictures today, and it's cloudy, so they don't really do justice, but it's unreal. I have a lot more motivation to get outside and exercise when I can run along beaches like this. Our house is about a 30 min walk from this beach but about a 5 minute walk from Bar Beach, which is equally awesome.
It has been a hectic first week with getting used to the new culture and trying to find a place to live, but everything is falling into place nicely and I'm starting to love it here. Jess will be coming in 84 days and will be staying here for a month. It's like a dream come true to be able to live with her in a place like this!
Ok well I've been at GJ's for about 4 hours now, and I didn't come to AU to be on the internet, so we're gonna play some volleyball on the beach.
Cheers!!
