Friday 20/08/10

Friday morning, we started our day by slowly getting ready. I felt pretty good waking up around 8 AM with 10 hours of sleep. The window had been open all night, and it was a bit chilly outside. I ended up wearing a long sleeve shirt, putting a cardigan over it, and then trading the cardigan for my coat. As we left, we talked to Forrest who pointed us in the right direction for some free internet at the Kings Cross Library and we then walked to Coles, the supermarket.
At Coles, we learned a lot of things about Australian food and pricing in the grocery store. I knew that things would naturally be more expensive because of being in a city, but I did not imagine how expensive it all would be. For example, a small personal sized bag of chips was around 2.50 a bag. We also found that beef is not the most expensive meat over here, it is actually close to the cheapest. Chicken is the most expensive. I am guessing that is because they do not have chicken farms here and have to import them over. Coffee is really expensive too. A bag of normal sized coffee is around 15-20 bucks, not the normal in the USA around 6-8. Goodbye coffee addiction. The other thing we noticed and it was just especially about bread is that fresh is much cheaper. A foot long sub roll was probably .75 cents to a dollar as compared to a loaf of imported bread at $5. Things are also in kg which is, at some point, confusing the shit out of me. I know kg is a little less than half of a pound, but then equating that into what prices would be in the US is crazy. 1 kg of apples were 4.50, so I’m thinking a pound of apples in the USA would be 9 bucks? Anyone want to help me with that math?
In the grocery store, David and I were so hungry we left and went to find some breakfast. At this time it was around 11 AM. We found that most places don’t serve breakfast, and if they do it is just pastries, not real eggs, bacon, the works. We ended up stumbling upon a place called Una. I’m pretty sure they were German for the fact that the menu had an array of meat schnitzels and one dish had Spatzle. Going into and sitting down, the menus were on the table. No one came to help us until we looked ready. David ordered the big breakfast and I ordered a chicken schnitzel sandwich so we could share breakfast and lunch. We asked for glasses of water, and were told that there is a water jug in the middle of the place and that’s where it comes from. I was sitting closer to the doors, and they were open and a breeze was coming in.
Seeing that, I noticed that most establishments are built open (open windows) or they keep their doors open during business hours. It is more welcoming indeed, but when it’s 10 at night and like 10 degrees C it can be a little too cold for that in my opinion. We were also warned about the American sized portions vs. the Australian sized portions which were much much smaller. I have not run into that yet. David’s big breakfast came and we realized we didn’t even need to buy the lunch sandwich but ate it anyway. It was two eggs, two pieces of bacon, two huge pieces of sausage, hash browns, and two pieces of toast. That was not a small portion. The sandwich, while it didn’t come with chips or fries, was a normal sized sandwich.
We then left to go to the library. The library does have free internet, but it is restricted so we could not check out email or facebook. I pulled out my laptop to post my first day on my blog and found that I could get wireless internet from the McDonalds. So at the library, since we only brought my computer with us, I checked email and all of that while David looked for jobs, and then we switched until the computer died.
The book bag was getting heavy, so we came back just around the corner to Brado’s and talked to Lawrence about fruit picking. Yes, you heard it right. We found out that in order to renew your work visa for a second year you have to spend at least 3 months on a farm picking fruits and vegetables. Obviously, this is very different from the population in the United States that does fruit picking.. =). We actually had him call up a contact about an hour outside of Brisbane and we are calling him on Saturday to see if he has work for us for sure. From what Lawrence told us it is $800 a week, which means we could bank at minimum 400 a week. Sounds like a sweet deal to me. More to come about that.
We walked outside to look for phones. But I want to take more time to elaborate on the town of Kings Cross. We were told by Forrest that there is technically no Kings Cross anymore because it used to be the slimiest town and the city has pushed three other towns into it, destroying the Cross. Well, there is still one street of the cross still intact. Coming out of our hostel, turning to the left, and the street in front of us is pretty awesome. There are about 10 titty bars, 5 adult video stores, different clubs and right across from the windows of the library is the adult risqué boutique which has about six mannequins wearing bondage like assless chaps. All in all though, it is very very clean.
We started to look for phones. We were told to go to the post office, which had them for $50 but we didn’t feel comfortable just buying a phone with a prepaid package. We wanted someone to set everything up for us. Then we went to Woolworths grocery store which we were told has cell phones as well. We also wanted to compare prices from Woolworths to Coles. Looking at it, there aren’t as many home brands (like Giant has their own brand) as the states do, but in Woolworths the home brand is half the price of the cheapest anything else. While in Woolworths, I found Vegemite which the ingredients say it is like a yeast base, no vegetables, and I also found a kangaroo steak. AMAZING. I want to eat Kangaroo, but I think I want it prepared in a restaurant for me, I don’t want to get food poisoning from my own undercooked Kangaroo. We purchased breakfast in Woolworths, we got Muesli (which I believe is kind of like oatmeal that you don’t have to cook) and yogurt. David picked up two fruits we’ve never heard of too, a Persimmon and another one that is currently slipping my mind but I feel like if you wanted to you could find it in the US. It’s greenish and spiky. It starts with a k. kiwano fruit or something of this nature. We brought that all back to the hostel where we have a fridge in our room that we can store it, and we still don’t have any roommates yet.
We left and got ourselves cell phones. I’ll be putting that up on facebook, not here because of the openness of anyone who can look at it. I’ll also be asking everyone who wants to talk on the cell phone to call me, simply because of price. I can’t imagine I will use this phone half as much as I use my cell phone at home, and I don’t want to. Using the cell at home, I know everything and I’ve seen everything. I don’t want to miss one second of this city because of texting so both David and I got the most minimal plan as possible. When I get phone calls and text messages it does not count against the $30 dollars I put on. From what she said, $30 is about 30 minutes of calling, and sending a text is .30 cents a text. So I can recharge 30 dollars however much I want, but I’m hoping to spend as little money on that as possible. The woman who helped us at Optis (that is the name of the store) had the most awesome fingernails ever. She was Asian with really long fake fingernails that were barbie pink and had gems and beads all over them. It was incredible.
David and I then went and got dinner at a Japanese place. Walking the streets, I’ve noticed a few things about the diversity. While there are a lot of Asians, and that makes sense to be considering location, there are a lot of Spanish restaurants. Mad Mex being one of them (I guess it isn’t only in Philly!) I have also not run into or by ONE black person. Every other ethnicity, even a few latinos, but NO black people. It is pretty insane, and I don’t know why. There are also rainbow flags all around and stores for gay boys. The store I think is called hot aussie boys. Wonderful. There are also zebra stripes which are crosswalks in the case that you HAVE to stop if there is a pedestrian waiting to cross, different than the united states to where only the nice person stops.
After cell phones we had our Japanese dinner. We got a bento box with 4 pieces of sushi, white rice and chicken chili. We also got seafood Udon soup which was really good but the flavors started to blend together. I did however eat my first tiny octopus from that soup. And the biggest muscles alive. They were honestly like 4 or 5 inches long.
Then we walked back to the hostel and it was freezing but a lot of people dress in an array of clothing layers. As I type the rest of this blog in a mcdonalds with free wifi, I am here with a sweatshirt winter jacket and a long sleeve shirt, jeans, and sneakers. There is a boy across from me on his mini is wearing a t shirt. I’ve seen people here wearing t shirts and shorts when it was around 75 degrees F and people wearing coats. It is a variable city.
Coming back to the hostel, I wrote a lot of this, but around 8:45 pm I was finished. I’m hoping that getting to bed around that time will ensure that I am finished being jetlagged. I haven’t yet experienced nightlife in Sydney and I want to do that tonight. I have noticed everything revolves around drinking, even more so than the USA. Tomorrow I will explore night life!