Sydney so far

Yo kids,

After a fair chunk of time since my last blog, the steady stream of quiet clammering for more blogging news on Australia has finally cajoled me into writing another entry. Leaving beautiful New Zealand behind and saying farewell to the Englishness of Christchurch, I arrived in Sydney to none other than the most English of weathers - rain. Definitely feeling the jet lag (or possibly it was a hangover from my last night in NZ as the time difference is only three hours!), I put my self straight to bed and happily awoke to a rather stunning sunny day, which I spent meandering around Darling Harbour and soaking in the Sydney vibe. The next week or so went whizzing by in a frantic search in more rain for a job. After being offered various sales roles in which I would either become one of those heinous door-to-door people who are universally hated or become a random street wanderer wanting to shoot myself on a minutely basis and harassing people with various contract sign-ups, I finally signed up to a few agencies to get me some 'proper' work. The small (read very scary) deficit in my bank balance did however force me into a small bit of handing out leaflets for a travel firm...a position in which I got to entertain tramps on the street, enjoy the slightly sunnier weather, be entertained by some random transvestites and be asked on numerous dates by inquisitive ozzies...as you do. So my first couple of weeks , to be honest, were pretty non eventful in comparison to the skydiving, dolphin swimming excitement of NZ.

With the agencies on the task of getting me a proper job, nevertheless, was able to spend my remaining hours buying clothes for bargainous prices, wading around in the rain and being overjoyed at snippets of sun, going to interviews, searching for flats, and all sorts of fun things. I also moved into a much cheaper backpackers where I met some utterly fabulous long-term room mates, and discovered the wondrous secrets of goon. Now ''goon'' is the slang for Australian wine in a box which can only really be described as so cheap and so bad that it can only be good. My new roomies, Lydia, Cole, Andy, Wayne and Sean spent a fair few nights on the goon talking travel and watching DVDs, staying up all hours and being generally backpakery. All this was a great contrast for me, until I managed to land a job with none other than Deloitte, who will be employing me when I get back to the UK next summer. A week of trying to get up at 7.30 after not being able to sleep in the hubub and party atmosphere of the hostel finally got me to move into a flat. I had been flat-searching with a rather lovely Irish girl I met, named Marian, but after viewing a lot of 6 person flats with 10 people in, rooms where beer was being dried out of the carpet with haridryers, 'double' rooms with scarcely enough room for a double bed, one flat where the asian lady was clearly running some kind of illicit business judging from the myriad boxes cluttering every square inch, and numerous apartments where people were sleeping in the lounge and even on the balcony (I kid you not) we agreed to search on our own. The flat I found is ideally located, 15 minutes walk from Deloitte (which is, incidentally, a very cool job) and 5 minutes from the restaurant I am waitressing in (which is a great job when the evil senior manager who threatened to fire me for turning up early for a shift is not working), and is cheap for the area, clean and modern. So after a few weeks of uncertainty, managed to land pretty happily on my little feet :-)

And since then it's been same-old, same-old. Luncheoning on Sydney harbour, working at Deloitte with my very friendly colleagues, having my very own Deloitte mug, getting lots of free cake and tea, enjoying the much better weather, working at the restaurant, going out, chilling out, passing out through sheer exhaustion at working so many hours...and also a few highlights to pot. One highlight was going to Darling Harbour on the King of Thailand's birthday with my Thai flatmates May and Nui and Ana (Croatian), Benny( Korean), and Lee (Ozzie - May's husband) to celebrate. We joined the throngs dressed in yellow, watched Thai dancers, marvelled at the sitting-in-lotus-position-power of the monks, held candles, listened to 81 repetitions of happy birthday wishes in Thai (the King was only 80, but they thought they would do an extra for good luck, bring the whole episode to a lengthy 20 minutes!) and had a splendid evening. I started to get itchy feet though and have thus been thinking ahead to new travels. Hopefully I'll be off again in February. Other highlights include the staff Christmas party trip to Rod Island and getting the ferry back in a thunderstorm, taking an office trip to Manly for lunch, and wandering Paddy's market, watching the ibis birds stalk around the harbour. Fun stuff.

Sorry this has been a bit of a boring blog. I'm afraid my life can't always be exciting. It should get a bit more exciting in the next couple of weeks though as Mum, Dad, Rachel and Sarah are coming out for Christmas and New Year. I am soooooooooooooooooooo excited. Even though the Australian attempt at Christmas is regretably shabby, consisting of a few holly sprigs and Christmas trees (which don't grow here) adorning a few random buildings, snow flakes (which are definitely not a feature in the 30 degree heat!) speckling some merchandise, and a few mince pies (which fear are only a token gesture to the season for the British contingency here in Sydney). At least with the family here I'll get the traditional family arguments! Haha. Oh well - it won't all be bad I suppose...I am sure we will seek out some yuletide spirit somewhere in the city, while obviously sunning ourselves on the beaches, enjoying all the cultural stuff and going to gardens and zoos and aqauriums and suchlike. So hopefully some more news in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, Happy Christmas everyone. Enjoy the cold weather for me in the rainy, dark depths of England (making you jealous yet?), and watch the tv on New Year's Eve to see the Sydney celebrations. I'll be among those masses. (Jealous now? Hehe ;-) )

Love and Christmassy goodness to all,

Helen xxxx