Exploring Sydney - The Grounds

Right after we moved in to our apartment we took the bus to Ikea to get a few little things. We noticed this a few really cool places on the way and tried to remember the names, we didn't. Every weekend we talked about, remember that one place? What was it called? Finally last weekend we decided just to walk along the bus route a see what we found. Two and a half miles later, with a few stops at antique shops, I'm glad we did, we found The Grounds of Alexandria - check out more photos here.

Its a really cool open air outdoor market with a few restaurants, beautiful gardens, a flower shop and a specialty grocery store.

Open seating area if you order food from the market vendors.  

This is a pretty typical bakery spread to see in a coffee shop. I always want everything.  

We snacked on some freshly made donuts from this adorable cart - your choice of filling, jam or chocolate made to order.

My favorite part of the market was the floral shop. The women running this place were also amazing, they made beautiful arrangements. I could have watched them for at least an hour. Is that weird?  

I'm not generally a rose person, but I love the peach and light pink roses here. So pretty.

I also love these larger billy ball looking yellow flowers.

And of course there is a small petting zoo for the kiddos. You can't really see it, but in the back right there is a grayish chicken that has some crazy hair, its like a puff ball. 

Lastly we strolled over to the specialty grocery store. The butchers in Australia are amazing - case in point. This store was awesome, I even found my favorite Herdez salsa!  

They also have 5kg tubs of Nutella - in case you aren't good at the conversion (I am not), that is 11 pounds of Nutella!

The only things that would make The Grounds better is if it were closer to the beach.  

Australian Rules Football > American Football

Australian Rules Football, called AFL, is one of the most exciting games I have ever seen. Its fast paced, high scoring and momentum can change instantly. The crowd is electric - more like a soccer game. The field is round, there is a mix of punch-passing (at least that's what I am calling it) and kicking. The the star players make $1million per year. That's closer to the NFL league minimum than what stars like Aaron Rodgers and Calvin Johnson are making - crazy!

Real fans wear scarves, right Jim?  

Last Friday, we went to the semi-finals at the old olympic stadium. The crowd was just over 40,000. That is one of the big differences to the US, crowd size - there are only 4 million people in Sydney, this was a BIG turnout. Rugby is probably more popular here than AFL.

The game is not hard to pick up, but there are no announcers so if you don't know the rules you can get lost on some of the calls - a lot of the serious/old timer fans have headphones in to listen to the broadcast, kind of remanded me of Nascar in that way. There is also a lot of yelling at the refs/players just like in the NFL, but the insults involve words like wanker, bloody and other assorted curse words that I probably shouldn't list here :)

The ref throwing the ball inbound, even the refs wear shot shorts

I only really took photos in the 1Q when Melbourne was on our side of the field. So this is one of the roos first goals. You can see the yellow ball right above the 1st level of seats, kicked by the red headed roo (in blue/white) in the bottom right corner.

Notice the goal posts - 6 points for a kick though the middle, 1 point for the side goals

Again we were on the wrong side of the field, here are the Melbourne Kangroos warming up. It was a strange mix of stretching/tackling. I do wonder if there is a correlation between toughness and length of shorts. These guys are tough, pretty sure a dude broke his finger/wrist in the last few minutes and showed just a little pain on his face and jogged off the field. We Americans would have had at least one commercial break for something like that.

Who wears short shorts, these dudes

The final score Swanies 136, Kangroos 65. I told you it was fast-paced! The poor roo fans were crushed - especially with the Grand Final this weekend in their home town.

The Grand Final (think Super Bowl) is on Saturday at 2:30 in Melbourne. We will be watching from Sydney, maybe on the jumbo screen from the cricket grounds. Go SWANS! 

The Same But Different.

I have started keeping a running list of the little things that I love or that I think friends and family will find amusing about moving to Australia. As we settle in more and more every day I find myself thinking "its the same, but different." Not in a worse or better type of way, just different.

There are a lot of Subway locations. Same. But the add in the window is for $7 foot longs. Different. It just doesn't have the same ring to it - check out the some of the commercials here. The chest tap move does make me laugh.  

How would you say this phone # 0499 711 199? Just do it in your head. I say zero, four, nine, nine, seven, eleven, one, nine, nine - I assume most of my American friends would say it that way or very similar. In Australia they say zero, four, double nine, seven, double one, one, double nine. It takes a while to get used to, I've said mine the Australian way a few times, but I'm still not used to it.

You can pretty much buy all of the same things here. Like essie nail polish, its just more expensive ($8 v. $18)! But, the cool thing in Australia is the price you see is the price you pay, tax is already included. I think I already said this, there are no pennies, which I love!

To apply for a job you need a resume. Same. I have converted my 1 page US resume into a 2 page Australian CV. Different. I'd like to think its better than Bone Crusher's resume, which you can see here! Job titles can also be deceiving, I find myself reading every job description to try to figure out what the actual job is. Take Marketing Executive - that to me sounds like someone a few levels in. Wrong, that is the equivalent to Marketing Coordinator, or entry level in the states. Same job, different title.

People here have boyfriends, girlfriends, fiancés, husbands, etc. Same. But they refer to them as their "partner." Different. In the states, generally, partner is used for same-sex couples. From what I understand "girlfriend" is considered a very high school term, partner is the grown up version. The first time it happened to me it was actually an American calling her Aussie BF her partner which throughly confused me. **And just to make sure I am being completely clear, I love and fully support partners of any kind!**

We have electricity here (this one is a stretch). Same. I can't figure out the damn light switches in our apartment. It's maddening. Up is off, down is on, but every light switch has 2-3 buttons and some are on shared switches, I never know which one goes to which light. We are constantly turning the wrong lights on and off, or turing the light on when we want off, grrrrr. I keep trying to get it right, so I pause, look at the light switches, up is on, down is off, which one, which one, and without fail I pick the wrong damn one. And as I finish typing this all I can think of is how silly I sound, #firstworldproblems. But my Mom says she wants to know what is happening in my life, and well this is it.

We also have both plugged something in to charge only to find in the morning it hasn't....you must turn the plug on! See the little orange dot near where the modem is plugged in? Also that is our modem - so stylish!

Internet is connected though the phone, not cable. Different. You also pay by the GB, its not unlimited. Different. We just got internet yesterday and I  I have some stories about setting it up. Australia has way, way better customer service than Comcast (and for most things), an actual human answers the phone within 2 minutes of calling!

It took us about 3 1/2 weeks to actually get internet. First the telephone company comes out. Since I used to help recruit field technicians in the states and I asked to follow him around, he obliged. He put a frequency in the phone line in our apartment and then we went into this tiny room in the basement and there as a circuit board of 500+ phone line connections and thousands of wires. He inserted a little tool into every hole until around the 300th hole there was a buzzing noise, bingo that is our phone line. It is a mess of wires and cords, he added 3 more, wrapped them around all the other cords and boom we have a phone line.

Now comes my favorite part. I asked how long until we get wireless internet (which they call naked DSL, tee-hee). His response was, well there is a warehouse in Redfern where this guy Eugene works - Eugene will get the order and then has to find your phone lines and add them to the ADSL service. Wait, like the actual phone lines?!?!?! Yes, the actual lines. Oh and there are too many orders for one person to handle so it will take at least 5 business days. What?!?!?! How about we just hire Eugene 2.0 or 4 of him? I am fully expecting this to not be reliable internet. I kind of want to go find Eugene one day and see this warehouse in Redfern.

Anyway, those are just a few of the things that I've come across this week. Since this post is kind of boring I'll include a photo of the display at Bed, Bath & Table - so colorful.

I love all these little trinkets! 

Bourke Street Bakery

Ask any Australian "where should I go in Sydney" and they will all include Bourke Street Bakery (pronounced Burk). Lucky us, it is less than 1k (1.6k = 1 mile) from our apartment in Surry Hills.

The line is out the door and people spill over to sitting in the park across the street (like we did)

I can never decide what to order, it all looked amazing, so I just asked the girl at the counter what she recommended for savory and sweet. I wound up with a sausage roll and mini ginger creme brûlée.

I had no idea what to expect with the sausage roll and if I'm being honest, when I saw it I was a little disappointed/scared/wanted what Chris had. Well, I was wrong, it was AMAZING. So tasty, it was definitely a tad on the heavier side for breakfast, but no different than a egg, ham and cheese sandwich in the states.

This little treat was so good, I saved some for dinner

Chris had a ham and swiss croissant and a mixed berry and chocolate muffin. I know people hate this word, but the muffin was so moist. It was the fluffiest most delicious muffin I have ever had!

On another note, if you know Chris, you know he hates sharing food. I kind of can't believe he has been sharing everything with me here - I know this won't last much longer :) But since I also know he isn't reading this blog, I think my secret is safe for at least a little longer.  

Exploring - Coogee to Bondi Walk

On Sunday we took advantage of the warm, sunny weather and went on the Coogee to Bondi. Coogee = Ku-G, I'm sure there is a better way to do that! It was amazing and well worth it! You can visit this website to check this and other walks. Next up is Spit Bridge to Manly.  

I'll let the photos speak for themselves. This is a must if you visit - if the full distance is too long for you, Bronte to Bondi is 4K and really the best part.

These are some of the Coogee Baths - where you can swim in this semi-protected area. We were right at sea level with the waves crushing in, really cool!

From the Coogee baths, looking toward Bronte.

The view looking back where we came from.

The bowling courts - it looks like bocce ball, but not sure. Apparently there are American cornhole tournaments here! Not a bad view!

In between Bronte and Bondi is a massive cemetery...I had no idea. Talk about prime real estate!

Made it to Bondi Beach! The pool is a salt water pool, the wave crash in on the far side. Can you see all the tiny surfers out there?

This is an older picture of Bondi Beach - the day we got the keys to our apartment. Pinch me, we live here!