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| The view from my window |
My first day in Australia was a marathon of feeling ok after not really sleeping for a day, but also skipping a day (Saturday) through time zones and direction of plane flight. Basically, I slept a bit on the plane, but I probably only slept 4/5 hours. I landed in Sydney local time at 8 AM-ish and then went through customs and got settled into my apartment, which I was surprised by how nice it is. I walked through my neighborhood- Haymarket- and also through the bordering neighborhood of Chinatown. The weather is nice and the air is really clean. It is interesting how similar and different the other side of the world is- driving on the other side of the road to still having almost all of the same things as America.
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| My cute little room! |
I picked up some produce for cheap from an open fruit and veggie market called Paddy's that is in a mall called Market City. It is dirt cheap. Australian dollars are almost equivalent to US dollars, so that is a bonus considering everything is Sydney is way more expensive than in NYC. I think part of the reason is because their minimum wage is about 25 AUD(!), whereas we get more like $7/8 USD as minimum wage. I got a dozen eggs for $2, 2 pints of strawberries for $3, $1/kg Granny smith apples, and a whole bunch of other stuff. I also got rice from an Asian grocery store. I don't want to go to crazy buying food this week because I am doing a lot of activities out and about with my school for my orientation. Anyways, I love the area that I am living in because it is so centrally located and really young. Plus, I have a few friends who came to Sydney as well with my school program, so it is nice to have that security blanket, but I also want to meets lots of Aussies as well.
Something I found funny is that all of the supermarkets are inside of malls, which I read on the internet, but didn't exactly trust 100%, but the little markets are their own things (like Nen Yen Yen Market down the street from me). Also, there are so many cheap asian places to eat- I am so excited to try everything! The chain places I have been seeing are pie face (they make mini pies and quiches with emoticon-like faces- such a cute idea!), Easy Way (bubble tea), and Chatime (bubble tea). I also love the names of all of the places- they are hilarious. I think one place we passed by was called Chubby Suzy's Hot Buns and then another place was Happy Lemon with oreo cappuccinos and cute-ified lemon-themed cartoon things inside. I also spotted a bejeweled hello kitty- shaped calculator (thought it was worth mentioning in line with the cute-things conversation).
After walking around, we had an outdoor barbecue and I had a beef burger. However, I did try kangaroo in the form of sharing a bite of my friend's burger. It was actually pretty good. It had a spicy (?) flavor to it more than beef. I also tried a Tim Tam for the first time, which is a cookie lightly covered in chocolate- so good! After eating, 2 musicians sang and played guitar for us, which was really nice, but everyone just wanted to go to sleep after so much traveling. I went to sleep around 7:30/8 PM Sydney time (5:30/ 6 AM NYC time) and woke up at 2 AM my time unable to sleep and wanting to write. Hence this post.
A domani!
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