I Love a Sunburned Country

... but I don't love that it sunburned me!

I was hoping to make it through Australia without getting sunburned. I figured that if I could spend 10 weeks in Kenya, literally living on the equator, that I could do okay here. I have been even more vigilant than usual here with my sunscreen, reapplying every two hours and everything, which I usually forget to do at home. But on Sunday I came home from the swimming pool (there were shark warnings at the beach this weekend...) with some nice red patchs on my arm. It's pretty clear that it's just a few spots that I happened to miss with the sunscreen, but it still hurts. I just hope that it doesn't peel. Or give me skin cancer.

Fat Saturday

I didn't even realize it was Fat Tuesday last week because Sydneysiders (that's what they call themselves) have decided to wait until the weekend after to celebrate Mardi Gras. Maybe it's a little unorthodox to celebrate after Lent has already started, but their celebration is a little unorthodox in itself--it's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras.

It was pretty incredible how many people turned out for the parade on Saturday evening. While gay pride parades in the US seem to attract very few straight people, Mardi Gras in Sydney is an event for everyone. There were families, tourists, and people of every background that I could imagine. It was hard to ignore the irony that the city so openly welcomes the parade but still won't grant basic civil rights to gays and lesbians, but I'd like to think that the acceptance of the parade is a start.

We got to Oxford Street a little later than we wanted to, meaning we couldn't see very well, but it was well worth the neck strain. The parade itself of course did not rival the fun and excess of Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans, but everything was highly political which made for some great floats. I think my favourite (see, I am starting to write like an Australian) was the "Friends of Dick Cheney," mostly because of the conversation I overheard as it passed by:

Australian 1: Who's Dick Cheney?
Australian 2: He's that guy who shot someone when he was quail hunting.
Australian 1: Oh yeah. Stupid Americans.

Awesome.

College Part 2

Since I have gotten to Australia, I have been struck by how similar this experience is to being back in college. It started with orientation, where they told us a lot of information and then tried to sell us stuff. The hostel was a lot like living in the dorms: a whole floor sharing one bathroom, roommates you didn't know, and everyone trying to be nice to each other because nobody had any friends. And just like in college, the first question you ask someone when you meet them is "Where are you from?"

Now I seem to have moved on to sophomore year by getting out of the dorms and into a house. And man is this house just like one you'd find on U of M's campus, starting with the sketchy (here they'd say "dodgy") landlord and overpriced rent. I am sharing a room with two other girls, and am back to sleeping in a twin bed. The house is pretty unclean, no matter how much you mop or scrub, and worst of all there is only one bathroom for all 11 people. Like any good college house, the main attraction is the great location. I am really close to downtown, within walking distance of pretty much everything (looking at this map, you can find my house in the Ultimo neighborhood at the corner of Harris and MacArthur, right by the Powerhouse Museum).

Also like in college, no matter how gross it is, you make the most of it. I am still showering in flip flops, but at least I have a place to unpack my things. And most importantly, my roommates are all very nice. They are all working travellers themselves, and none of them knew each other before moving into the house. Most are from England, and there are also two kids from Ireland, a German girl, a French Canadian, and a Prince Edward Island Canadian (she said she hated Anne of Green Gables. What?!). All except one British girl have lived there for a couple of months, and they have all become great friends. Fortunately they have welcomed me into the house and I now have a de facto set of friends. The only problem is that I am having a lot of trouble understanding their British accents. Didn't see that one coming. The girl from Prince Edward Island seems to have picked up a bit of an accent herself, so get ready for me to come home speaking a wierd form of Australian/British/American English. Don't worry, I'm trying to hold on to my roots by saying "awesome" a lot and pronouncing it "to-may-to" instead of "to-mah-to."

Real Australians

Similar to in the US, Australians celebrate the end of their work week with Friday drinks after work, and thanks to my new job, I was invited to partake in this Australian experience. After spending all my time so far with other backpackers, it was an interesting change to hang out with a group of locals. From when I first got there, they made fun of me for everything, starting with the kind of beer I was drinking (Tooheys), saying that no Australians actually drink that. Also along the lines of beer, they all think Foster's is disgusting and none could think of a bar that actually serves it. They also teased me for my accent and how I say words like "Melbourne" or "mate". I was pretty impressed with their imitations of American accents.

I'm not so sure I like and/or understand their perception of Americans--they wanted to know if I had ever been on spring break, and were very disappointed when I told them how much I disliked Cancun. They also wanted to know if I'd been to band camp. Sigh.

On the other hand, I would guess that Americans' perceptions of Australians are not much more accurate. They had all been to the US a number of times, and all said that their conversations with Americans consisted of the Americans yelling "G'day mate!" and "Put another shrimp on the barbie!" Sadly, I'm not too surprised. I just hope that I didn't come off as being quite as ignorant. They did invite me to come out with them again, so either they are really enjoying making fun of me, or I am actually a decent representative of my country.


Your Australian Fun Fact for the Day: Burger King in Australia is called "Hungry Jacks" because there was already a Burger King restaurant in Australia when Burger King began franchising here.

Down in the Garden

A lot going on, as usual, but I'll start with my new favorite place in Sydney, the Royal Botanic Gardens (obviously, having been in Sydney for a whole week I have seen/done everything and am therefore in a good place to judge the best place in the city).

I went to the Gardens for the first time on Friday, and walked from the Opera House all around the perimeter along the harbour. It turned out to be a way longer walk than I expected, but it was beautiful. If you check out this map you'll see why. The gardens are just amazing. Plants from all over the world, lawns stretching in every direction and--my favorite part--signs everywhere encouraging you to walk on the grass and enjoy the park. There are people everywhere picnicking, running, and just lying around reading. Sorry Central Park, but the Botanic Gardens win.

Although I am trying to see something new everyday, I went back again today. I first tried to go over to the observatory, but couldn't find it, so I thought I'd go read for awhile in the Botanic Gardens. I took a new path this time and went to some of the interior gardens. First I visited an herb garden and then moved on the the mini-rainforest. As I was walking, I heard a rustle and saw something dart across the path. I assumed it was a kangaroo rat, because I saw one the other day. Okay, I actually have no idea if the animal I saw the other day was a kangaroo rat, but it was a rodent (hence "rat") and I am in Australia (hence "kangaroo"). Flawless logic, no?

Anyway, the animal I saw today was definitely not a kangaroo rat, or any kind of rat, but a lizard, and it was a good 3-5 inches long. It ran away, but about a foot away from me I saw another lizard, this one about 8 inches long. It was not bothered by me at all and just stood there. I wish I could upload my pictures because it was pretty cool. A nice gentleman noticed me taking a picture and pointed me around the pond, where there was a gigantic lizard. I'm sure it wasn't an iguana, but it was about the size of one--at least two feet from head to tail. Again, just chilling, not worried about anyone.

I kept walking through the mini-rainforest and came across a sign that said "Want to see a bat? Look up." I did and wow, the sign was not kidding. The trees were literally filled with giant bats hanging upsidedown. To give you an idea of how many, it is comparable to the winter/spring on the U of M campus when those giant crows line the trees. It's a little scary. These suckers are huge! PBS.org says their wingspan is up to 79 inches, and I don't doubt it. The picture doesn't really do them justice, but you'll have to deal with it. Or just Google them and see if you can find a better picture.

If the wildlife in a downtown city park is this awesome, I can't wait to get out into the national parks.

Other quick highlights:

• Today was my first (and not last) day at a job! I went to a temp agency yesterday and they found me a six-day assignment at the New South Wales Department of Corrections, starting today. It was pretty boring, but it will make me enough money to put a security deposit and some rent on an apartment. And hopefully this means that temp assignments are easy to come across.
• The other night I was at a club and some techno/Europop song came on that sounded strangely familiar, but I couldn't place it. Everyone got excited and knew all the words by heart. Then the chorus came on and I realized that it was, no joke, a techno/Europop remix of "Take Me Home, West Virginia." Everyone loved it and had clearly heard it before. I couldn't stop laughing. I wonder what kinds of foreign songs I am listening to that have strange roots.
• The beach was awesome on Sunday. I was tanning when it was 7 degrees (that's Fahrenheit, not Celsius) in Michigan. Can't go wrong with that.
• It is amazing who I am meeting. The other day in my hostel room we were all sitting around talking and I realized that I was the only native speaker of English, but that was also the only common language for everyone. Very interesting!
• Now that I've found a job (sort of), I'm working on finding an apartment. Got a few leads, we'll see what happens. I have been spoiled by having my own room since sophomore year of college, and I'm not ready to share with someone else, so this may be a challenge.

Your Australian fun fact for the day: 1 in 3 Australians has skin cancer. Time to reapply my sunscreen!

First and Last Day on the Job

On Saturday I set out to get this job search fully underway. I put on my nice clothes, grabbed 30 copies of my resume, and headed out to pound the pavement. I didn't know what I was looking for, but I figured I'd go into every shop and cafe I could find until I ran out of resumes.

Soon after leaving the second place I went into, the manager I had talked to came running after me. "I just had someone call in sick," he said. "Would you like to take that shift and I can see how I like you?" Sure! If he was willing to test me out for a shift, I figured I could probably get the job pretty easily. To find a job within the first 10 minutes of looking sounded pretty good to me.

The store was an Italian imports store selling lots of designer label clothes, accessories, and perfume. I was "trained" by a Finnish girl who basically showed me around the store and told me that all I needed to do was talk to customers enough to keep the manager happy. She was on working holiday also and had been at the store for three weeks. I asked her if she liked the job and she said no, it was the most boring job in the world, but she could come in hungover, so she didn't care that much. There was another girl working who was from Korea, and she barely spoke any English. She said it was her first day working at the store, and she seemed bored out of her mind as well. Hmmm... Not boding well for the employment situation.

My job was to greet customers and try to sell stuff to them. Selling stuff is not my forte. I am great with customer service when someone comes to me with a question (thanks, CIC!), but I'm just not good at trying to convince people to buy something that they don't need. I also got the feeling that a lot of the designer label clothes were actually fakes; makes it a little harder to sell something you don't trust. Everyone who came in of course said they were just browsing, and knowing how much I dislike hovering salespeople, I just left them alone. Then the manager would tell me to talk to them more. The Finnish girl who I was working with was really nice, but we got yelled at for talking to each other. So I did a lot of refolding clothes and standing around.

Man, this was the most boring job in the world. I don't think I have ever been more bored in my entire life. I have had pretty interesting jobs up to this point in my life, but having worked a lot of 6-hour summer shifts at the Pierpont Commons front desk, I figured I could handle boring. But at least at Pierpont I was sitting down. This was a lot of standing around pretending to be busy. The Finnish girl said she worked 7-hour shifts, 5 days a week. No thank you!

Finally the manager asked me what I thought and if I thought I could sell clothes. I said no. He said he wanted to hire me, but the thought of standing around in that store for even another 10 minutes made me want to kill myself. I said I'd "think about it," and left with the intention of never ever returning.

Although it would have been nice to already have a job all secured, I think the boredom of working there would have killed me. I also figure that if it's that easy to find a job, I can be a little more selective in what kind of work I take. I already have a couple of interviews set up over the next few days, so hopefully I will have something by the end of this week. And if all else fails, I can go crawling back to that horrible store.

On Sunday I went to the beach.

That's More Like It

Well, the new hostel is definitely an improvement. Much more what I was thinking when I thought "hostel." When I came back to the room at the end of day, all my roommates who were there introduced themselves and then we all discussed our plans for the night. They are all solo travelers like me, and we all went out with a group from the hostel. I felt so international--in the large group I was the only American. There was one Canadian, and her accent made me feel at home. Others were from Japan, Denmark, Finland, Argentina, England, and a large group from Sweden. There were even two Aussie brothers who were down from Cairns for a concert, but they had both been born in and lived in Fiji for the early part of their childhood. They promised that if I went to Fiji I could stay with their grandparents and get a real taste of local island life. Not a bad offer.

Here are a few things I learned from this social experience:

• Club music in Sydney is pretty much the same as club music in Michigan. The only difference is that here they play Europop instead of Reggaeton.
• It is very much true that Scandinavian people are ridiculously beautiful. How can they stand to travel abroad and be around all these non-beautiful people?
• Fosters may be Australian for beer in the USA (and also in Finland because my Finnish roommate knew that commercial too), but not so much in Australia. I still have yet to see Fosters being sold anywhere.

So many new things to take in!

New Digs

This morning I decided to move out of the hostel I was staying in, the Sydney Central YHA (part of the Hostelling International group, if anyone is familiar). I was warned before I left the US that "the people who stay in YHAs just want to do tourist stuff during the day and then write in their journals and go to bed." I wish it was that fun at the one I stayed at.

As one would imagine, it's the people who make or break a living arrangement. While the facilities at the YHA were excellent (they even had a swimming pool and sauna!), the people were not what I was looking for. First of all, there was a wide age range, everyone from small children to people old enough to be my granparents. While I do love small children and grandparents, they don't exactly create the kind of social atmosphere I was looking for.

Worst, however, was one of the roommates I had. I only time I know of that she left the room the entire time I was there was once to use the bathroom. Not that I was in the room a lot, but I was in and out a good amount and there everytime, just reading or sleeping. This also meant that I had to be super-quiet (she glared at me when I was just trying to get some stuff out of my bag). She said she was from Tasmania, so maybe it is not as exciting for her to be in Sydney, but I still can't imagine wanting to just sit inside a hostel all day and do nothing. Maybe that's just me.

So now I am checked in at a new hostel and it already looks like a younger, livelier crowd. Hopefully I will not have to spend too long there either because at some point soon I would like to move into an apartment. Guess that means I should be job searching instead of writing a blog entry.

Oh, a lot of people asked where they could send letters. Here is my mailing address:

C/- Locked Bag 21
Royal Exchange
Sydney, NSW 1225

That is the address for the program and they will forward my mail anywhere in Australia for me. Pretty nifty, no? But don't send me any plants, animals, fruit, veggies, or dirt, because I know you were going to. I got a brochure in my orientation package from the customs people warning me that they take quarantine very seriously.

I am in Australia

I am writing this post from "Global Gossip," an internet cafe in Sydney. Not the same as my laptop at home, but it'll do.

Everything went as planned on the 26-hour trip over here. Pretty uneventful overall, but there were a few highlights:

• Meeting another backpacker, who was also traveling to Australia, while waiting in line at the LA airport--looks like they're not lying when they say other people do this!
• Celebrating with a glass of champagne on the flight to New Zealand
• Landing in New Zealand: an amazing view of the sunrise over the lush greenery of the North Island as the waves crashed against the shore. Breathtaking. I can't believe that I will actually be living there.
• The nice ladies on the flight to Australia who gave me the name and phone number for their friend who runs a jackaroo/jillaroo school in Tamworth.

I made it from the plane to my hostel very easily. As an American, it looks like it will take some time to get used to how nice everyone is. At the airport, some man approached me and I immediately got nervous, but he was just trying to help me find my shuttle. On the shuttle, some guy was giving his business card to a couple he had just met and told them to call him up if they were ever in the area. I am still very much in the American mode of ignoring anyone who tries to talk to me. But being friendly to strangers seems like a good change to undertake.

After I got settled at the hostel, I walked around downtown Sydney for a bit. Did some window shopping, sat in Hyde Park, and visited the ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) memorial. The signs around the memorial said "Let silent contemplation be your offering." I like a country that encourages introspection. I also like a country where most of the people wear flip flops, as seems to be the case here.

I have my orientation tomorrow, and I will get to start all the fun stuff like buying a phone, opening a bank account, and finding a job and a place to live. Pretty exciting, no?