goodness!

Wednesday March 12 840pm
Yesterday i signed the lease on the apartment. horray! The landlady and her family are lovely. The other tenants on the property are also very nice. The apartment is quirky. its certainly not a new style. but the point is it is a safe neighborhood, safe and quick walk to work and affordable. I will take pictures when i remember. maybe tomorrow. and i will send my address in an email, i dont want to post it.

yesterday there was a censure of the Prime Minister here in Australia because he did not promise to give a lump sum of 1600$ to the care givers. He was thinking about splitting it into 4 payments throughout the year. From what i understand a censure is a pretty serious thing. its a big mandatory meeting where the legislative people yell at each other because they disagree. if we had one every time our parties disagreed we really would never get anything done.

i also went to Bondi Junction yesterday and today (nope Aubrey, not the beach...). The bank and The Body Shop are there. It was my first experience with the bus and it was very easy. The Body Shop here in Australia carries the exact same products that the US Body Shops do. In fact, we have more stuff. I purchased coconut milk lotion because i looooove it!! and paid about 8$ more for it here. the only thing that is better is their bag for life. super usable. it has a flat bottom so i plan on taking it to the grocery store instead of using plastic bags.


Today I purchased a fridge. A second hand fridge. Most important it is clean and it works. i priced out renting a fridge of about the same size and it would cost me around $800 for 15 mo. This one was $200 and they delivered it AND carried it into the apartment for me. Sorry Aubrey, not a Bondi boy. These guys were French but one of them couldve qualified as a surfer long as he didnt speak.

i also, of course, have pictures of birds. the birds really are different and beautiful here.


This bird was on my walk back to the lodge from my apartment. I think its a magpie. It makes a sound almost like a cat or baby crying. Even her beak is black and white.


This bird was crazy. i was sitting at a bench ON CAMPUS and here comes this bird walking right towards me. i wasnt eating, i was just sitting. i busted out my camera, took some picks and hightailed it outta there because i didnt want him to go crazy on me. check out that beak. imagine if that started pecking at you!

I will end today with TimTams. yum yum yum. some of you may know one of my super fav things from england are caramel chocolate digestive cookies. well, no digestives here, but there are TimTams. chocolaty chocolate goodness! they even have a kind with caramel in them. those will be next.


xo S*

A little sunburn

Sunday March 09, 730 pm
Yes, i know what you are saying. jeez, shes blogging again. what a loser, shes in a totally different country and on the computer. yep because i am exhausted! its 430 am in Syracuse and only 730 pm here in Sydney. i am doing anything possible just to stay awake for a little while longer. i went outside and read a magazine, went for a walk and had dinner. I want to try to make it till 9 pm before i fall asleep. thats my goal.

so i will tell you what i observed on my adventures today.

I went to Coogee beach. If you think that name is funny Woolloomooloo actually exists. It was a lovely day out, 24 C which is 75 F. But i think they are lying because that was the friggin hottest 75 F i have ever experienced in my life. it felt like one of the hottest days i have ever felt in Syracuse. But i guess the sun is more potent here, latitude or longitude or whatever. hmm, is statement even scientifically correct?... you know what i mean.

One thing i noticed was a fair amount of garbage lying about at the beach and along the walking trails. a beer can here, a beer bottle there, a chip bag over there. I am probably being too critical however because there are so many people who frequent that beach. the garbage/people ratio is probably pretty small. Here are a few pictures from my beach trip which yielded sunburned cheeks.



There are also none of those heat bugs. You know the bugs. They sortof buzz saying "gee its hot out" when its hot out. Like if you had a disease and you couldnt feel temperature, these bugs would tell you it was hot. (way too much explanation for the bugs i know you know i am talking about)

I also saw a few birds along my walks. Here is a pigeon-like bird. I was kind of chasing them around like a maniac today trying to get pictures. Our neighbor, Ms. Jessie, loves birds and was always talking about all the pretty birds i was going to see. This ones for you Ms. Jessie!

I hope to see lots more birds, and hopefully more exotic birds as well. oh yeah and i want to hug a koala bear! i dont know how environmentally friendly that is though...its through a zoo, i am not going to run into the brush and grab a koala, but i guess it could be analogous to a petting zoo... whateves, i am hugging a koala.

There must be a helmet law here in Sydney as well. all the motorbikes i see have a driver and passenger with a helmet.

The cross walks make a sound like you are pacman (or pacwoman) and can go eat the ghost guys when its time for you to cross the street.

neosporin (or bacetracin or triple anibiotic ointment) is a prescription here in australia. thats a pain because i was going to buy some. but noooo. whoever comes here first needs to bring some neosporin.

After i returned home from Coogee beach i had lunch and then walked to the Shops at the Spot. It was really more like Food at the Spot with a beauty salon, used book store and movie theater. i think i counted 5 Thai restaurants, all with names like Thai-rific! Always a clever play on words.

well, i am off to choose one of the 7 pairs of khakis to wear tomorrow. thank goodness its 815 pm.

i will leave you with this picture of pods. There is some vegetation in the small courtyard on the side of the lodge. The pods are on a vine that happens to be wrapped around a bush. The lady at reception did not know what vine this was, or if the pods are flowers or seeds.


xo S*