Welcome to Sydney

(steve)

After long last, we can relax and unpack the bags for more than a night. We have arrived in Sydney. After a crazy drive from the airport to our hostel (our insane driver sent us both looking desparately for non-existent seatbelts in the rickety van), we dropped our bags and looked at each other with a "now what" expression. Used to having a tight schedule with loads of preparation, we were faced with 6 weeks of undefined time. This was a trifle unsettling since we hadn't stayed for more than 4 days in one place since leaving.



First up, place to live. We ended up using a service called Sleeping with the Enemy that provides long-term hostel stays. We pay weekly for our own room and share kitchen and bath facilities with 6 others. The building is in a part of town called Ultimo, which is convenient to the city (~20 min walk) and the Uni (~20 min walk) as well as loads of pubs and restaurants.



After making contact with our University of Sydney counterparts, we found ourselves with places to sit and think (for me) and work on pico-satellite design (for Karen). With the essentials taken care of it was time to hit the town. Wouldn't you know it, two days after we arrived brought us to the Easter holidays, meaning we get a 4 day weekend (since everyone else was off, why not us too!). Might as well use them to get familiar with the city.



We toured around the city, visiting spots like Darling Harbour, Chinatown, the Botanical Gardens, the Rocks, the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, and Glebe. Within the Botanical Gardens we found an unexpected treat, a huge colony of grey-headed flying foxes (to us they were great big hairy bats!). They were hanging in all the treetops, chittering at each other. Every once in a while one would fly around, showing off just how big they really are. Don't want to meet up with one in a dark alley some night. The rest of the Garden was nice, showing good views of the surrounding harbour. We also visited a couple of weekend markets where we found some cheap clothes (Glebe) and a lot of touristy knick-knacks (the Rocks).



On the last day we took the ferry to the beach town of Manly. This is the north bay version of the famous Bondi beach, where we had to do a little body surfing and tan (locals call it sunbaking) with the rest of the crowd. The water was warmer than LA, colder than Florida, but nice and refreshing. Didn't see any evidence of nasty sharks either.



Now that Easter is past, we grudgingly head to the Uni to start our psuedo-work. Our Sydney stay is off to a good start and soon we'll know our way around just like locals.