Sydney By Night

About a week ago Stefan had work and when my plans for the night fell through I decided to take a walk around the city with my camera.  This is something I've been meaning to do for awhile, but with the addition of all the lovely Christmas lights, this seemed like the best time to do it.  I went through Glebe past Black Wattle Bay, and then through Darling Harbour into CBD, taking George St up to the Rocks, then crossing over Circular Quay and going through the Opera House.  

Sydney Tower (taken from Darling Harbour)

Sydney Harbour Bridge

View from Black Wattle Bay

View from the Opera House

And there you have it!  We are due for some belated Birthday and Christmas posts, both of which were amazing.  But for now, we just leave you with those images from around the city.
Cheers,
Edith

Free Rice: A scary housing trend

So after introducing you to our lovely home we have some news... we've decided to move.  There are far too many people in the house and it's becoming a bit of an issue.  We still really enjoy our nice big room, and most of the flatmates are really nice people whose company we enjoy.  But the fact that there is never any room to cook in the kitchen at dinner time, you can't leave things out, and I'm never sure if I invited people over if we would even have room to hang out without shutting ourselves in our room like we're freshman in the dorms or something is a huge downside.  

Well we aren't moving just yet, but we do keep scouring ads online, and I've gone and looked at 2 places already.  The first one was absolutely foul and the whole building smelled like cigarettes and what I assume sleazy Vegas motels smell like.  The 2nd one was actually pretty nice but didn't feel just right, and they would have wanted us to stay for about 6 months, which I wasn't sure I wanted to commit to just yet. But we're still looking!

During our little search we've noticed a rather odd trend on many postings in the CBD/Ultimo/Haymarket area: FREE RICE.  And the proof is below:

I'm not quite sure why in the listing rice was listed under bills... but interesting none the less.  Please keep in mind that these are not just a few ads that have this, if you search "free rice" on Gumtree (it's Australia's version of Craigslist.  Yes, Craigslist has an Australia section, but no one uses it) there are 4 pages of listings with that phrase included!

Odd housing situations are nothing newsworthy in Sydney.  Our friend Kelley went to at least 30 houses looking for good accommodations when he got here, and could probably write a book on the odd living arrangements/situations he encountered during his search.  (Actual example: His own ROOM! Although he would have to step over the 2 people who live in the living room and sleep on an air mattress to get to his room.)  But the idea of including free rice in a housing arrangement is just too weird to me.  

Aside from looking for a new place to live we've both been busy with lots of work (Stefan is in the middle of 16 days straight without a day off), and getting Christmas presents ready to ship off.  We still need to do a post about what we did for my birthday (Stefan planned a really fantastic night that deserves it's own post, and I got lots of lovely presents from the family), but that's for another time!  And Stefan fully intends to write a post soon, which will probably be much more funny than anything I write, and possibly contain Simpsons references.  

But here is a picture of Darling Harbour taken last week to leave you with. :)

Introductions

This is the first post!  I don't know how religiously we'll update this, but we both felt like this would be a great way to really share our experiences here with our friends and family. Not just words but images too! (Be excited...). We would both like to give a lot of credit to James Garritson, who gave us the idea for this blog (Thanks man).  Now is a rather odd time to start doing this as we've been here for quite awhile (over 5 months for Edith and 3 for Stefan), but better late than never right?  Nonetheless this does mean we have some catching up to do, so this will be a bit of an introduction to our life here.

We both go to the University of Sydney, I (Edith) am halfway done with my Masters of International Studies, and Stefan will start his Masters of Mechanical Engineering in February.  A lot of people expressed confusion over why I got here 5 months ago, had school, and now have summer break, but I'm not done yet....  So just to clarify I started at Sydney Uni for what was their Semester 2.  Because we're in the Southern Hemisphere summer break is still in summer, but this translates to mid November to mid February. So I had one semester of classes, now we're on summer break, and then I will finish my second semester for my program next July!  My first semester was really great, the professors for the most part were very engaging, and the topics covered were very interesting.  I definitely was lacking on my knowledge of Australian politics compared to many of the other students, but Sydney Uni is an extremely international school so I wasn't alone in this deficit.  The international factor also hugely benefited the discussions we would have in class because you could get first hand perspectives of views held around the world.  It was a bit like being in a selective UN meeting where we were just discussing ideas and concepts.  There is also a very strong emphasis placed on the Asian-Pacific region, as that is Australia's nearest region, which I enjoy as I focused on the Pacific Rim in my undergraduate studies.

Sydney Uni! We call this building "Hogwarts" for obvious reasons

But much more needs to be introduced and I will stop droning on about my studies!  We live in Glebe, which is a short bus ride from CBD (stands for Central Business District, aka downtown), or you can walk in 20-30 minutes! (That's 20 if you're Stefan and 30 if you're Edith.)  We're a 10 minute walk to Sydney Uni campus, and 10 minutes from about 20 cafes and a few book shops.  We're definitely in the right place! We even have a thai place on our street where you can get Pad See Ew or Pad Thai for $5!  There is also a great market on Saturdays on the main road with lots of vendors who sell old books, handmade jewelry, screen printed T-shirts, vintage clothes and bags, pictures, really all sorts of things!

The Study

Our House! 

We live in a share house which has 6 other bedrooms, most of which are inhabited by couples, so it's definitely a full house.  (The Tanner Family really had it easy in comparison.)  But we have a nice big room that even has a separate small room for the bureau and dresser and a desk, so it's like a separate walk-in closet/study!  None of our roommates are Australian, but we've developed quite a strong French contingent,  as well as some Italians, a kiwi, and some Irish folks!

The Room

We both have jobs, and because it's summer we're definitely in the busiest time of year for our places of employment. Stefan works at a super fancy seafood restaurant in Glebe which has a spectacular view.  He is one of the two bartenders so he makes all sorts of fancy drinks and has even learned to make coffee drinks!  It's a fantastic restaurant and he absolutely loves it, even though he works almost 60 hours a week right now.  I work at a moving company, although they don't usually call them movers, they call them "removalists".  This is not a real word as any spell checker will tell you, and I think it sounds rather ominous.  (I always think of Leon: The Professional for some reason....)  But it's a good job, my co-workers are nice, and it's only 1 bus ride away, so I get a lot of time in to read! (I've turned the BBC Big Read list into my reading list until school starts again if that gives you an idea of how long this bus ride is.)

Stefan's restaurant

But when we both have time off we try to explore the city and visit new places.  Sydney has a big beach culture, so a few times when the weather is pleasant we head to Bondi Beach, and we've been to Manly Beach once.  But there are still many beaches to explore, along with neighborhoods of the city we've never even been to!  

I don't quite know what else to introduce... we've been through where we live and what we do...

So guess what... today was STEFAN'S BIRTHDAY!! He had to work tonight starting at 3pm, so we had a morning celebration consisting of sleeping in, presents and a birthday brunch with milkshakes at the cafe behind our house.  Here's the birthday boy enjoying his day and our breakfasts (I am truly my father's daughter...):















So that's all for now!  Keep checking back for new posts, or if you want to receive new posts via email just click that button on the left that says "by email" under the word Subscribe, or Follow us or add us to your blog Reader, or something if you like.