Sydney

How does it feel
to be on your own
with no direction home
like a rolling stone...

Whoa, just arrived in Sydney and checked into a hostel in trendy Newtown.

Feeling pretty freaked out, overexcited and culture-shocked. Saying goodbye to Vic this morning was so weird and sad...I hope your 28 hour journey is going ok babe! Damn, you probably haven't even left Fiji yet!!

Australian customs were just as horrible as usual - seriously, they're really mean! This guy YELLED at me "What food do you have??" as I walked up to the "Goods to declare" aisle. (In this part of the world you have to declare EVERYTHING so the days of sailing through "nothing to declare" are gone). I was like "I don't have any food, as I clearly stated on my landing card if you'd bothered to read it." (well I didn't say that, I just thought it). These guys were doing a good cop/bad cop thing, as then the other one told the one who was questioning me to cool it - so weird! They made me unpack my whole bag to see various ridiculous items - I have this stupid seahorse skeleton that customs in most countries don't like very much and which I keep having to declare - I'm always forgetting to throw it away, and now I've declared it so many times it's started to feel like I've worked too hard to give it up now! I had to show them the soles of my trainers so they could check for mud. God.

Anyway, I arrived at my hostel in Newtown and it's very, very nice - ensuite room (though I have a top bunk, damn) big kitchen, lots of cool kids hanging out. I was sitting on my bunk feeling confused and lonely and trying to get some small talk going with one of my roommates, this French girl who had also just arrived, when she burst into tears - god, must be the only person feeling more insecure than me! I feel for her, her english is really not so good, to the point that I had to work really hard to get the gist of what she was saying...must make things veeeeery difficult.

I have so many decisions to make about jobs and flats and so on (I've got my bed in the hostel for a week, but it's $145/week so ideally I'll be able to find somewhere cheaper) and no idea where to start.