Sydney rocks

Which is a good thing considering that I made the decision to work out here about 3 years ago before I'd visited. But the city is living up to expectations, which is...such a relief. We arrived on sunday night, then spent yesterday exploring - it's hot, sunny and lovely (and bear in mind that this is early spring in Australia, which promises good weather for a long time to come!) the sea is everywhere, there's so much parkland: you can walk all the way from our hostel to the harbour (about 2k) through the park.

We got off the coach after a gruelling 13 hour journey (we could have broken it up by stopping at Canberra - but everyone, plus Bill Bryson, plus the guidebooks, write Canberra off as a pretty boring city full of civil servants, so given how I spent the whole of the last year I didn't really feel the need to investigate) and were greeted by a drunken Aussie rules football fan who asked us out for a drink. (We didn't go). Excellent...

We're staying in a hostel in a suburb called Woolloomoolloo. (Australians use the word "suburb" differently from back home - all areas of the city aside from the centre are called suburbs basically: it doesn't mean they're really far out). It's pretty cheap ($125/week) and we're in an 8 bed dorm with a load of guys which is certainly...interesting! Everyone seems nice, apart from the German guy who I haven't really spoken to, but he's hot, so it's all good. The hostel has a big kitchen, 2 TV rooms, 2 computers for internet, all that stuff.

We've got 10 days in total in Sydney, 7 more nights before we head up the coast, so we're trying to plan things to do. (Seeing an opera at the opera house was on the list but has now been scrapped as it would cost us $50 each, minimum).

Yesterday we went round to Rachel's which was wonderful, it was so lovely to see her and her flat. I can't believe she's been living here all year. It was great to catch up, meet the kid next door (that is some confident, outgoing kid; the opposite of my cousin Lottie) and we also got to do some lying around getting our Aussie soaps fix (Vic is rapidly turning me into a Home and Away fan, arrrgh).

Today we managed to drag ourselves out of bed in time for free breakfast (mediocre pancakes) and now we're heading off to explore the city more. I love Sydney...