Time flies...

I can't believe it's been a month since I left Chicago...it's been a busy few weeks since my last post. I've moved, been out with my work "pod", met an ex-Prime Minister, driven a cargo van on the "wrong" side of the road and seen the largest group of people in Sydney's history take over the city - even larger than the Olympics. It's been a great month. It's pretty amazing how quickly I've started to feel at home, especially in my group at work. I think I totally lucked out and am part of the best pod in Sydney. My boss, Mel, is the perfect kind of boss. She's wicked smart and very experienced in the Financial industry, but she also knows how to have a good time. As seen below . We had our pod offsite two Wednesdays ago, which consisted of a well-run meeting and business review from 8:30 - 3:30, followed by bowling, pool, karaoke,


The highlight of the night was a run in with Bob Hawke, the ex-Prime Minister who is perhaps best known for holding a world record for the fastest consumption of beer: a yard glass (approximately 3 imperial pints or 1.7 litres) in eleven seconds.

Me and the guys with Bob

Here's a pic from the end of the night, right before I had my first proper pie (an Aussie delicacy) at the world-famous Harry's Cafe de Wheels

Thankfully we were all "working" from home the next day because of World Youth Day, which had basically made getting around the Central Business District (CBD) a nightmare.

World Youth Day (WYD) is the largest youth event in the world and was held in Sydney from Tuesday 15 to Sunday 20 July 2008.

WYD is a week-long series of events attended by the Pope and hundreds of thousands of young people from all over the globe. It has become the largest single mobilisation of young people in the world.

The WYD "Pilgrims were EVERYWHERE. Here they are marching down the street near my hotel/apartment


I was in rough shape on Thursday. It took until 3pm for me to be able to sit up. Just like old times :) I had to pull myself together because we went to see The Dark Knight at the IMAX on Thursday night. I had to dodge thousands of pilgrims to get to the IMAX. Personal favorites were the American pilgrims chanting "U!S!A! U!S!A!". Classy bunch we are :) You can kind of see them here.

It was worth dodging the madness to see the lovely Windy City as the backdrop for The Dark Knight. I kept pointing out all of my old spots to my friends. "There's Starcom!" "You can kind of see Google Chicago there". So cool.


Anyway, work is great and I finally feel like I'm able to contribute something. It's been kind of cool getting to know all of the Aussie banks. The office feels a lot like the Chicago office, with a few differences. Besides the accents, I've also adjusted to making myself flat whites and toast with avocado and tom-ah-to for brekkie instead of the Starbucks and Special K diet I had in Chicago.

I've learned how to properly steam milk and make espresso to make my flat whites (1/3 espresso 2/3 steamed milk). I'm quite the little barista :)


Here's the view of Darling Harbour from my office:


My team and everyone in the office are laid back and really welcoming. My first week of work I went to happy hour on Friday (shocking, I know), where I met a few guys from other teams. Jasper was having a barbie at his place near Manly Beach on Saturday and invited me to come along, so I decided apartment hunting could wait until Sunday. I have my priorities straight.

I took the ferry with Dave and David, two guys on exchange trips from the San Francisco and Dublin offices.

Me on the ferry to Manly

The ferry building Manly Beach

David from Dublin taking pics at Manly Beach

The view from Jasper's balconyJasper

It was a fun day of grub, wine and then some footy watching at the local pub. Not bad for the first week.


Things just keep getting better. Yesterday we had going away lunch for Bailsy (Chris Bayley), who was one of the first Googlers in Sydney. He's leaving to start his own business, which seems to be one of the only good options for leaving this la-la-land.

The day started out at Hurricane's in Darling Harbour, which is a well known restaurant famous for their pork ribs.

View from Hurricane's (the white building to left of the palm tree is where Google's offices are)Bailsy showing off his biceps

Mel, me & Pete enjoying some liquid lunch Pete prepping for his Flintstones-esque rack of ribs Team Finance Mel, me (Mauza), Pete (Poo Brown), Barney (Barn-dog), Chris (Bailsy), Ben (BJ/Emo), Elaine (Lainey), Darren (Dazza), and Belinda (Cinnamon Rolls)

We started lunch at 1:30 with drinks and TONS of food, followed by more drinks.

It was very heart-warming because in Bailsy's farewell "speech" he said he was so glad he got to work with me, if only for a few weeks and that I fit into the team so seemlessly and considers me like his little sister. They told me they were a little worried about an American joining the team, because I might not be able to "take the piss", aka take shit from people and give it back. Their worries were calmed right away. I can take the piss with the best of them! I think my humor plays a little better here...

The lunch would have been well and good, but we had to go to an event at 6 that was being put on for OMD (an advertising agency, for those not in the bizz). Needless to say, we were in good shape for schmoozing clients. After that we went to The Argyle, which is a really cool club in The Rocks.

It turned into a pretty late night, but it was worth it. Today has been a bit of a struggle, but I've only got 15 minutes until the weekend, so I'm going to bid you adieu for now. Stay tuned for apartment pics.

Hope all is well with all of you. Definitely keep me updated on what's going on. I miss you! Come visit!

A Taste of the Bush...

Here are the highlights from week 1 in Sydney (this includes my previous post)
__________________________________________________________________________
Aussie Lesson #1: Internet connections are not as reliable as in the states

My posts will not be as frequent as I would like, but they'll keep coming
__________________________________________________________________

The Arrival

date | 2 July 2008 (July 1st in Chicago)

time | 7am (3pm in Chicago)

place | Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport




It was quite the uneventful trip -- Business Class is worth every penny (or every upgrade mile, in my case)

I arrived in Sydney and made it through customs without any troubles

Some things never change...I was told to meet my driver in front of the "McDonald's Cafe"








After a few detours (drivers and taxis are notorious for not knowing where they're going) I made it to my home for the next month ... The Medina Grand Harbourside















view from outside (near Darling Harbour)

















view of my apartment's living room from the balcony
















view of Darling Harbour from my balcony




After getting to my hotel I walked around a bit and found Google's offices at 201 Sussex Street














p.s. "hotel" means bar here, so I guess it's paradise :)



I had lunch with John and Paige Shelbourne (Ashley's friend Scott's cousin & his wife). They are officially my first friends in Sydney.
You can all rest your minds, I know you thought I was going to be friendless


Paige walked me down through The Rocks to Circular Quay, where I got my first views of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Absolutely SPECTACULAR!















__________________________________________________________________

On my second day I walked across the bridge from Darling Harbour to Pyrmont, which is the suburb (aka neighborhood) that our office will be moving to early next year.

It's a beautiful area that's recently been gentrified and has great new apartment buildings with the occasional nature preserve sprinkled in. It's the home of Sydney's TV stations.

check out my personal Sydney map here

I stumbled upon the ANZAC Bridge, which was quite impressive, so I decided to walk acrossEntrance to the ANZAC Bridge

View of the Harbour Bridge from the ANZAC Bridge

As I walked across the bridge, hundreds of meters above the water below -- I'm switching to the metric system ;) -- I think it hit me for the first time how far away from home I am. A tear came to my eye and then I quickly pulled myself together and made it to the other side of the bridge, where I found my friend, Mr. ANZAC Bridge Guy

Mr. ANZAC Bridge Guy

(For those of you who care, ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps)

On a lighter note, and one you'll probably find more interesting, I tracked down the Real World Sydney house, which is only about a 7 minute walk from my hotel.
I never really watched much of this season, but the house looks a little less glamourous than it did on tv


On Saturday morning John, Paige and I went out on a whale watching cruise. There are no guarantees that you'll actually see a whale on one of these cruises since the humpbacks are migrating at this time of the year, but we thought we'd give it a shot anyway.

As we boarded the speed boat we noticed that our guide had seemed to have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed. He was in a definitely foul mood...

...until we not only saw multiple humpbacks, but saw a (very rare) breach -- which is basically it jumping almost all of the way out of the water. At this point our guide went insane and started dropping some f-bombs, saying it was a "day changing" occurrence. I didn't catch the actual breach on film, but I did catch the splash the whale made. It was pretty amazing.

Paige & me waiting for some more whale action

After seeing all of that seafood we were quite hungry and headed over to the foodcourt at Darling Harbour. It's an open-air foodcourt (complete with Mickey D's and KFC, phew), so it attracts a lot of tourists, including our friend the Isis...

No one else seemed to think it was odd that this guy was just roaming around

Sunday we (John, Paige and I) went to one of the most amazing inventions EVER -- The Aroma Festival
When I found out about this festival "for lovers of coffee, chocolate, tea & spice" I knew I'd moved to the right place

Among the spice tents was my favorite...



After the Aroma Festival we headed to one of the oldest pubs in Sydney, "The Hero of Waterloo", which along with brewing it's own delicious beer is home to some of Sydney's finest jewelry...

Paige and I posed to try to catch the bling on the gentleman behind us, to no avail, but then...

Bam! We got it. This pic doesn't do it justice, but believe me, this guy shelled out some pretty (Aussie) pennies for that beauty...at least $39.95


Here's a final photo to say thanks to my new insta-friends, Paige and John Shelbourne! They've kept me entertained during my first week here and I think there will be many more good times to come.

We make quite the trio (you can't tell in this photo but Paige is about 5'11" and John is 6'6")

Stay tuned for more Sydney Meaux Chronicles! I'll fill you in on my first week of work soon.

Cheers!
Maureen