This Is Some Hot Stuff!

Hello from sunny Sydney! We've finally arrived. Yesterday was pretty laid back, once we go into Sydney after about a three-ish hour flight, we got dropped off at UniLodge to settle into our rooms.  Thankfully it is nowhere near how bad the bad reviews described it online.  Its actually pretty decent.  My room is a corner room, so it's TINY in comparison to the other guys studio layouts. But I'm alright with it, its homey. I never had my own dorm room, so its sort of like that. And I still have my own bathroom, or ensuite as they like to call it.  The roof of the building is awesome, and there are bbq's up there all the time apparently. We're right in the center of everything in the city. Such a great location, five minute walk to campus, five minute walk to U of Syd as well. Literally across the street is Broadway shopping centre, which is a mall, but has a Target (not quite the same as in America), Kmart, a Coles which is a grocery store, and on the bottom level is a market with fresh fruits and veggies. Can't wait to go get some fresh passionfruit! Speaking of, there is an ice cream shop right next to us as well, and right after we got settled the six of us staying in UniLodge went and got a scoop of pasisonfruit ice cream, so good! 

Sidenote for anyone who cares, my bottom lip is about to fall off. And that facial sunburn I'd mentioned, turned into a full body sunburn. So I'm enduring that pain right now and hoping it turns brown soon. 

Ok back to yesterday, once we got settled we went over to Gumal, which is the apartments the other six are staying in, which are literally a block and a half from UniLodge. They're all in separate shared apartments, some have roommates from all over; Oz, New Zealand, France, etc. Pretty cool, but I'm actually kind of happy with  my living situation. Need to go buy some storage compartments since there is absolutely zero space for storage in here, actually really absolutely zero space for anything, but I'll make do! I figure why complain like I normally would, I'm in Australia! 

We all went shopping at Kmart and got our essentials; bedding, towels, pillows, TP, kitchenware, that sort of stuff. Then we got out sim cards for our phones. Mine still is not working, not sure what the deal is with that. Going to go to Vodafone later today and get that straightened out. But I believe it is free incoming calls for me, and texts, so if anyone wishes to spend lots of money to talk to me, I won't complain. :) Kidding, But seriously, if you do wanna talk, feel free to call. Or skype. I'll post my number later today once I know the phone is working. And I've also got my internet working, but its slower than anything, so I'm gonna try and call the company and change to the next plan up, because it seems I could fly home and back before some pages load. 

Since we were all trying to get our internet and phones in check, and were unpacking trying to get our rooms livable, we didn't even realize how much time had passed, and by the time we headed over to Gumal to meet up with the other group it was 10:30, and we hadn't eaten. But we found a place called Broadway Cafe right across from UniLodge that was still serving dinner at 11, but just pizza. This would be my third night in a row of eating pizza, but I didn't care, this place has gourmet pizza. I had canadian bacon, avacado, chicken and roma tomatoes on mine. Yum! Only the UniLodge kids went since the Gumal people had the common sense to eat before 11pm...but when we got the bill it was something like $130AU, which worked out to be about $80US, between 6 of us was about $14 each. There is no tipping in Australia, which I LOVE! I mean sometimes it's weird and I want to because when you have good service you want to tip, but it is not something they do, since their base pay is something like $18/hr. Hopefully I can find a job in that shopping center and work a few hours a week just for some extra spending cash. Anyways, everyone got their own pizza and a drink (girls got sex on the beach, boys beers) and it was only $13 each American. I'm starting to like this exchange rate. 

So here's an interesting story.  According to news temperatures  today (Saturday) and tomorrow are supposed to be tipping the mercury at 44 and 46 degrees.  Thats between 111 and 116 degrees in Fahrenheit.  They're really worried about fires throughout the state of New South Wales.  They're also slowing down trains to prevent bending the steel tracks. In other words, this is intense. We had planned to go exploring today, but we're thinking maybe it's just safer to stay inside for the day until it cools off. Thank God I've got A/C or as they call it here, Air Con, in my room. Apparently a lot of the rooms don't have it, which probably will suck today. All the AustraLearn kids have it though, so we're straight on that front. But on the agenda for today is getting the phone fixed and going grocery shopping, exciting! More tomorrow, I'm I haven't died of the heat. Hope everyone at home isn't too cold...  :)

Cheers