Our First Week

Hope we don't run into one of these


We have been in Australia for a week now and started working this week. Here are just a few items from our week:

Friday night we wanted to keep it a bit low key on the dinner plans given how fast you blow through money here. We were going through Chinatown (imagine every building and restaurant in a language you can't even begin to understand unless you are fluent in Mandarin - much like Koreatown in LA very different from Chinatown (Inn) in Pittsburgh), and stopped at a bar called Scruffy Murphy's for a pint and some fish and chips. As we walked into the bar, we noticed a sign on the wall advertising some boxing matches that they were sponsoring that night... the kicker being that the fighters were little people. At this point, Jared was in heaven... Irish bar, Irish music, and little people boxing... Unfortunately, we weren't able to get tickets on such short notice, so we had to watch them on closed circuit TV, but it was without a doubt funnier than the Midgets riding Ostriches race that we tried to bet on in Vegas.

We also had a traditional australian meal in the Rocks this week...bbq steak, barramundi, potato salad, and cantelope. (I know this is really stretching us out of our comfort zone, haha) It was good but not as good as Kansas City bbq. The barramundi is Australia's prize food fish and is very good. They also served some sort of salad which we thought was horrible but aren't quite sure what it is called. This meal was served smorgasboard style and we even cooked our own meat in the cookhouse on the barbie.

They have quite a variety of food (including pizza hut, KFC, and Tony Roma's) but you can definitely tell the English background. There is a lot of Fish and Chips and meat pies and everything is served with tomato sauce (ketchup), a tomato slice, and chips (french fries). One thing that takes some getting used to is the hours they eat. Lunch is usually eaten between 1-3pm and dinner after 730. We are always starving by noon and they are still serving breakfast. Something else that is very different is that most restaurants don't have table service and you have to order all your food from the bar and grab an open table. At least you don't have the added cost of tipping but we still miss the service.

We decided to get some groceries this week too so we weren't eating every meal out. There were a lot of brands that we recognized. We didnt get much but the one thing we noticed was that milk here is very expensive - $5 for a half gallon. We also did some shopping for our cell phones. It is so nice to be connected again. We weren't able to get a contract because we don't have any credit here, so we bought really basic phones (they don't even have cameras) and prepay each month. It actually is a good prepay plan though and calling the US is cheaper than making a local call! We went shopping in the queen victoria building which is beautiful. It was all decorated for Christmas....just like the US but given that they don't have Thanksgiving it makes a little more sense. It is just really hard to get over not having snow and cold weather for the holidays. Jared's department is having their Christmas party on a boat cruise with a Hawaiian luau theme.

We spent the weekend visiting the Sydney aquarium and wildlife world, which was a lot of fun. We saw a lot of the local deadly animals including the blue ring octopus, stone fish, salt water crocodile, sharks, snakes and spiders...ugh. We also got to see the koalas, wombat, and kangaroos up close. We also visited one of the local markets in the Rocks on Sunday in which they sell all kinds of things from food, clothes, artwork, souveniers, and household items. The Rocks area is definitely Katie's favorite part of the city.

We have justed started work and everyone seems very nice. We started with a few other people and have training for most of the week. The first few days have been spent trying to figure out logistics...it is sort of overwhelming to be back at your first day of work but what is worse is that you know everything that you don't know yet.

Apartment shopping last weekend was less than fruitful, so wish us luck as we are checking out a place today. It will be back to the drawing board if we don't like it. The demand is so high here for places and they only open for viewing 15 minutes out of the week (most are on Saturdays, but a few are sprinkled in throughout the week), so if you like a place after you look at it... you have to immediately apply and offer to put your deposit down at that point.

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