Of Goodbyes, Crazy People, and a Lack of Squirrels

So I’m both thrilled and saddened by the fact that my job has extended their ownership of my time for an extra week. Thrilled, because there’s now a heap more money I can take out in cash, spread over my bed, and roll in (I won’t, but I could), and saddened because I was sooooo looking forward to sleeping in till the afternoon everyday. And going to Chinese bakeries and Nandos for lunch. And staying up till 3am just cuz. Past my bedtime, ooooh yeah. Smash regularized sleeping patterns like a Hulk!

Ahem.

But no, I shall sit at a computer for 35 more hours renaming files so that the share drive looks pretty. Yes, that is in fact what I’m doing. 7 hours a day renaming “DS45823-Compass16.jpg” to “110924 Prettyful Event Title (Dreams Are Made Of This High School)”.

IT’S ENDLEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!

Still, the end is in sight and I am compiling a list of things I want to see and do (it is quite extensive - hello budget, how are you today?). I still have things left here in Sydney that I haven't completed. A lot of it is to do with food (isn't it always) but I also have yet to go to the Blue Mountains, or go and see the view from the Central Tower Observatory. I'm saving the zoo for Brisbane, having been completely unable to convince anyone here to go with me. Sometimes I think the surrealism around my actually being in Australia is partly to do with the fact I have yet to see a koala or a kangaroo. I saw a possum! .... but that didn't feel very Australian for some reason. Maybe it was a European exchange student possum trying to learn about it's Australian heritage.

Anyway, I have now said goodbye to a good few housemates who have gone on to bigger and better things (I hope). This time is was Roberta's turn, my Italian housemate, and we had another goodbye party. You have no hope of guessing how many donuts I consumed. They were each cut into 4 pieces to become bitesize party snacks but in the end I gave up pretending and just took the regular sized ones straight from the packets.


It also turns out that I have found people as crazy as me. As seen here:

And here:

And here:

I find these kinds of people wherever I go. I obviously draw them to me.


In other news:

ALL HAIL THE VOUCHER QUEEN

I don't know where it came from or where any more are (must find must find) but Jee Eun found a voucher book in our house for the Harbourside mall in Darling Harbour and it is possible the bestest thing in the world ever. Period. Yesterday I went to Darling Harbour for dinner with Jee Eun and we had chicken noodles in peanut sauce, 2 scoops of gelato and a fudge block all for $10. See? You can do Sydney on a budget, so long as you have vouchers.

When I arrived in the country I was told about various voucher websites like Ouffer and another-one-it'll-come-to-me-no-it-hasn't which you sign up to and they send you offers by email. Now everyday I am inundated with vouchers I hardly ever find useful because it's packed full of Sydney suburb offers (where the money you save actually gets spent on getting you there) and spa memberships for $100. I am not finding them useful at all, but this LITTLE BOOK OF DREAMS holds the key to my dinner over the next few weeks.

If you go to New York you are told you have to get a bus from Manhattan over the Brooklyn Bridge to the other side to see the New York skyline (I did this and I agree, you do have to do this). Well, everyone who visits Sydney needs to have a takeaway meal sitting on a bench in Darling Harbour. What I love about cities is how alive they look after dark. The lights are still on in the skyscrapers where people are at home, or still slogging away at work or have left the lights on and are wasting electricity. And I love it. That there is my favourite part of a city.

Also, a word of warning. Whatever country you are from, if you come to Australia and find something from your native country, don't expect it to be the same. At all. Like fudge, for example. Whatever The Fudge Shop is selling, it's not fudge. Curse them. I have also been told that food in Korean restaurants does not taste as good as food in Korea, even though they are all run by Koreans (so says my Korean roommate, so I'm going to accept her judgement on this one - I said Korea a lot in this sentence....)


As a side note, I have literally just realised from glancing out the window that I haven't seen a squirrel for almost 3 months.....


Just thought I'd share the moment.


TTFN!