A Taste of the Bush...

Here are the highlights from week 1 in Sydney (this includes my previous post)
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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
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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!















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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