Finally

Two of the six girls we shared a room with left today. One was an Asian girl I had never spoken a word with who took hours to fit everything in her suitcase. The other was the Dutch girl that talked in her sleep (little did I know then that she would be replaced by a girl that snores).

It was very hard to get out of bed, something I guess means my jet lag is over. After breakfast Lisianne and I went straight to the internet café, having our minds set on something in Surry Hills. We found a suitable house to share, so I called and arranged a viewing for that evening. After that she had to leave to her Uni to register, so Annelotte and I had a relaxed afternoon.

When Lisianne got back we went to the viewing, and contrary to the other house, this felt good. It is in an old school part of town and we would share the house with about 9 other internationals who were either studying or on an internship. There was a little living room, three bathrooms and a small kitchen, all cleaned on a weekly basis by a cleaner. The place is walking distance to the city, next to a park and close to bus lines that run pretty much until midnight or later. We left with the message that we would let the landlord know as soon as possible and then got horribly lost. We took the bus to the centre of the city, or so we thought. We were in a huge traffic jam and didn’t recognize anything in the dark. Finally we spotted a train station, which was way further than where we had to go. We got out quickly and luckily a kind man pointed us in the right direction. We walked back to the city laughing, using the opportunity to see new bits of the city and explore a new grocery store.

Once back we cooked with Annelotte and started talking about the game we would watch at 4.30. After sleeping a rough four hours, my alarm indicated it was time to dress up in orange and go downstairs. This time we didn’t go to the fifa screen, as it seemed too cold outside. In the cinema room filled with fatboys we were already shivering. In Australia they haven’t heard of double glass and it feels like the airco is on continuously. We watched the game with excitement, with only a few other people that were crazy enough to get out of bed. The first goal was a beauty, but our stress levels shot up when Uruguay made the equalizer. Once again we watched the game shouting with enthusiasm, happy that we scored two and stressed again when we got to 2-3. We were very confused by the end of the game when we thought it was all over, but instead van Bommel got a card and the match continued. When finally the last whistle blew, we were happy, but I certainly regretted not being in the Netherlands to witness the orange madness. Finally we made it to the final and we have a shot at winning, and I’m on the other side of the planet. We will certainly watch the final on the big screen, with extra sweaters and everything, hoping to throw a little orange party down under when that final whistle blows as well.

Busy day

The campus of Sydney University is simply random. Beautiful Sandstone buildings stand next to modern glass and steel structures. Today Annelotte and I visited only a small part of the campus, but already we realized it was far larger than our own Erasmus University. We went for an information session where we met other international students, ranging from another Dutch girl studying law to Americans studying history and chemistry. An enthusiastic Australian with a heavy accent introduced us to several topics. He sometimes started laughing about something so much that it made him incapable of explaining us properly what he was laughing about. He had one of the hardest accents to understand so far, although the guy at the night reception in our hostel is breathing down his neck. Australians have the annoying habit to swallow the ends of their words. All in all we got info on accommodation, a very esthetically pleasing sheet on skin diseases, which foods make up a healthy diet, a safety guide on biking and much more.

That same evening Lisianne and I went to our first viewing of a house in Alexandria, which was situated in something that looked like a holiday park with a big gate and a little pool. The house was fine, but the location was optimal. Buses to the house only run until eight in the evening, so we decided to look a bit further. We have until Thursday to accept or decline. In the mean time we ended up being too late for the hostel BBQ we planned to attend, so we went to the McDonalds, as they have free wireless there. Unfortunately the speed of that internet is as fast as a stoned snail, meaning we are still dependant on the internet café.

Luckily we found out later that not all buses stop running at eight, which made us more hopeful. Tomorrow we will start searching again for a place we can call home.

Zoo

Today I saw kangaroos and koalas! We decided to go Taronga zoo, which can only be reached by ferry. This ferry boat brought us a magnificent view over de harbour bridge and a lovely breeze. My mood became even better when I received a call from a landlord I had left a message the day before, saying we could call anytime to come check out the place, which we will do tomorrow.

Once we arrived there we felt like little kids in jungle paradise. We started off with the penguins, and when we walked further we met three care takers, taking one of the penguins for a walk! There were many koala bears, who indeed looked stoned (they become so because of what they eat), Tasmanian devils and all sorts of monkeys. There was also an Australian walk-about, in which you would walk a trail between kangaroos, walibis and more. There were no fences, so we actually got to pet them.


We saw tiny little mice and frogs and enormous komodo dragons and Pythons. The giraffes were naturally present, but also a little baby elephant and a three-legged fisher cat. One of the most impressive animals still is the snow leopard. The way that animal walks like a royal and looks at you as if you are nothing but an unworthy lowlife. All in all it was an amazing day, but also very tiring as the entire zoo is on a hill, but worth it every bit of muscle ache.

phone

On the third of July, I got really pissed off. As the jet lag is still there, we slept in and it was later before we went into town. We walked to the mall in order to get Australian phone so we could start calling landlords soon. We got a Vodafone prepaid, which when we really looked at the rates turned out to be ridiculously expensive. This pissed me off bad, as we were recommended Vodafone, and the Global Gossip service, also by Vodafone, was a lot cheaper! Also our own stupid fault of course, but that didn’t make our mood any better. We decided to get the Global Gossip simcard as well. This means we now first have a temporary number while we use up our initially bought credit and then switch to our new number. After eating pasta again we went to the café to look up adds for landlords and also to skype with Pedro (which cheered me up again). We ended the night with playing cards, tea and lots of laughter. We turned in at a reasonable time as we planned to finally get up early and go to the zoo. However, this was ruined a bit by our fellow roommate, who has the tendency to talk in her sleep, loudly.

Internet

I have noticed how this current age of technology has spoiled me. I expect there to be ‘free’ wireless internet continuously and the fact that I don’t makes me agitated. In the hostel you have to pay dollar for fifteen minutes of wireless, or go to some random internet café to get it elsewhere. As the price for the hostel wasn’t exactly low, I thought it would be included, but now I find myself logging in once a day, annoyed by the fact I have to pay a lot and I am dependant on the closing hours of the café, which is when the Dutch side of the world is awake. I am unable to check e-mails from possible landlords all the time, have been out of touch with the late news, football occurrences, family updates etc. It also makes Skyping a lot harder, but when it actually works out and I get to see Pedro, it makes me very happy. My parent’s I haven’t been able to talk to through skype yet unfortunately (although I wonder if my dad managed to install it, as he didn’t have the foggiest when I said we would skype). Luckily we found that the McDonald’s offers free internet and perhaps the university will have it.

2-1

The First real day in Sydney was one of exploration. Traffic lights here turn green with a ‘pew’ worthy of a video game and I still have to get used to the fact that every walks on the left, except for the tourists/backpackers, so collisions on the street are hard to avoid.

We also made the first trip to the supermarket, which already tells a lot about the Australian way of eating. Almost all the packages are big. Large meat containers, large juice bottles, large packs of sprinkle cheese and many more large packages which are not suitable for carrying for a distance over 5 minutes. However, vegetables are packed in halves or even quarters, so half a cabbage is possible. The peanut butter jars are also very tiny, since as proper Dutch money saving students, Lisianne and I got a bread (or something that has to pass for bread) and peanut butter for our breakfast. There is also no vegetarian meat replacement product in sight and the cheapest product in the store appears to be Asian Noodles. Hardly any juice is without bubbles.

After that we went back and cooked our very first meal, which took longer than normal as we tried to find the proper pans in the big hostel kitchen. In the end we ended up with enough food for three days, and as there were only community fridges and no freezers, we have actually eaten the same pasta with some other side dishes for the two days after as well. Afterwards we were discussing to watch the Brazil-The Netherlands game in the bar that is a part of the hostel. This plan was changed by our new roommate, who had just arrived from the Netherlands as well. She convinced us to go with her to Darling Harbour to watch it with other Dutch people. Since she had just flown thirty hours without much sleep, our excuse of ‘we’re tired’ wasn’t valid, so we decided to join. Expecting to end up at someone’s house, we were surprised to end up in front of an enormous screen hoisted up by Fifa. We watched the game with hundreds of people, including a lot of enthusiastic Dutch and Brazilian fans. It was cold, but we loved every minute. After ten minutes I thought it would be over, so I was shouting in Portuguese, English and Dutch, hoping for our team to score. Imagine three girls shouting that van Persie should be taken out and jumping up and down. We got more and more excited as the first goal was scored (such a beauty by Sneijder) and the second got us even more crazy and we were counting down the seconds. All the way back to the hostel we were in a party mood, but secretly I also looked at the little Brazilian bracelet hidden under my sweater, wishing I could have watched it with him and also that it would be a pity if we would finally win a world cup while being away from home. Still, my sleepshirt proclaiming that Brazil would be a six time world champion made me fall asleep with a smile on my face.

Flying

I have never liked long distance flying. 13 hours it took to get from Dubai to Sydney. 13 very long hours. It already went wrong before we entered the plan, as I got a different seat than I had on my ticket, meaning I would be separated from the rest. Once on the plane it appeared Lisianne’s seat was also double booked and she ended up next to me after all. The personal entertainment system helped to kill time, but the apparently better food of emirates I wasn’t able to enjoy as I appeared to be incapable of keeping my food inside and even the smell made me nauseous.

Luckily I had Lisianne and Annelotte to comfort me and also the crew was very nice. An unknown lady offered me her travel pills (unfortunately I couldn’t keep those in either). This confused the stewardess though; she first asked if the woman was my mother. This was not the case, so she then asked if I traveled alone, I said now and pointed to Lisianne and Annelotte, who was sitting two rows back. She then thought Annelotte was my mother, as this was also not the case, she asked us if we were over sixteen. Oh well, it is not like this hasn’t happened to me before.

Once we arrived at the airport we had to search for the arrival desk, where we would pick up our welcome package from the university. Unfortunately the desk was closed and so was the information desk we had to go to in case the arrival desk was closed. Tired and a bit pissed off, we managed to get to the hostel we booked for the beginning of our trip where we will stay while we look for a permanent place. A good night’s sleep did me well, but I am glad I don’t have to make that trip again for a while.