Tuesday 13 January 2009

Sun in Sydney

Well, my new years resolution didn't last long. Apologises to my readers, after my last comment about not having any I now have 3 followers. A proud day indeed (FYI Emma, love the screen name).

I blame the vast majority of this lack of writing to the fact I have now moved on from Brisbane (and the jigsaw- I was defeated, Maggie finished two days after my departure) and am now in Sydney where my hostel doesn't have free internet. Imagine having to pay to use a service!

I am loving Sydney. Maggie very wisely told me to geta hostel out of the centre and it's a great place. Most of you know I am not adverse to the odd tipple, but a lot of the inner city hostels, that is all they do. I went to the Blue Mountains on Monday (more on that later) and on asking two English girls who have been here for a month what they most liked about Sydney, they said the pubs. Then I asked what they has been doing for the last month and they said the pubs. So as much as I like a drink, I actually want to remember some of Australia.

I've not been terribly exciting since my arrival in the social capital of Oz, but you dear readers should know that after the park extravanganza that was Tokyo. My hostel is in Glebe and had a masssive outside courtyard which is great. Every night for the last ten days I've eaten under the stars and there had been surprisingly few mossies.

On my first full day here I was surpirised to bump into two girls I went to uni with (Susan Dickson and Caroline something for those of you who care). It was quite surreal. Then the next day I met up with a lovely girl I had orginally met in Barcelona. Erin is a smashing girl, so so kind. I wasn't sure she would even remember me, but she welcomed me like an old friend and took me for breakfast and a wee tour of the eastern beaches. The poor thing is having a rather terrible time with a flatmate situation so it was so ncie of her to take the time. Hopefully, once that is resolved we'll catch up again.

So the rest of the this last week, I've done a lot of city investigating, book shop finding and botanical garden sitting,as you can imagine. Also to great surprise and joy the Sydney festival is on so they're are lots of plays and music around every corner. I went to go to sit in the park and have lunhc and suddenly I was surrounded by a thousand children and a juggler. That wasn't a highlight actually...

I have also made friends with the two girls in my room. One is an Aussie, living in the hostel while she sorts out a plcae to live and has similiar novelisitc tastes as I (we have made a date to go book shopping on saturday) and the other is a German woman who is very interesting. She is a tantra teacher (google it) and is hoping later in the month to go to a retreat to not speak for 10 days and find her inner peace. Cool eh? She believes in herbal remedies and the like and thinks she was a man in a past life. I think I was a cat.

Tonight we are going to see Run Lola Run, a very popular cult German film, in a open air floating cinema and have a picnic with her friend Hong Kong boy. I haven't met him yet, but I'd be surprised if that is in fact his name.

Oh I forgot, I did do something interesting. I went on a day trip to see the Blue Mountains. The Blue Mountains are a famous range and they are most well known for the three sisters which are bascially 3 big rocks on top of a hill. The story behind it is that a Aborginal king changed his three daughters to stone to protect them from a magical predector, but then lost his magic wand sothey are stuck forever in stone. The tour was great bature wise. Saw big mountains, pretty gullys and tested out my new walking shoes. the people in the tour were so funny though. The guide was niceguy but the rest of the people were so funny. They without exception (and they weren't all one group or anything) had been out drinking till about 2 in the morning and were hung over. Most didn't wear anything suitable for trekking up mountains (one girl was wearing gladiator sandals and a sun dress) and almosty all of them moaned and complained about walking. It was a walking tour! People are strange. I think the poor guide was a bit baffled too. IT was a good day though and I took pretty pictures to bore you with once I work out how to put pictures online.

So finally, just to rub it it in. The weather here is so lovely. A medium 29 degrees the last few days. You know when the rain comes, it such a relief from the heat. I have to put sun cream on everu day in case I burn, it is so relentless. Poor, poor me, eh?!

3 comments:

Nev 360 said...

That tantra teacher sounds like the sort of person I want to punch.

Morag said...

Yes you would.

Lorry said...

Morag! Kim and Tom told me about this blog, good to hear you're getting on well. Look forward to seeing you when you're next back in the cold, unforgiving Highlands. I have my own blog on blogspot as well, prob not up your street though! Take care. Lawrie (not girl Lorry, despite my ID)