By popular demand, the blogs are back!! We’re really sorry it’s taken so long to get round to writing this but the long awaited update on Sydney is here…

I guess a good place to start would be to tell you all where we’re living. After a long search on the internet we’ve found ourselves a lovely apartment in Ultimo, a 15 minute walk from the city and not far behind Darling Harbour, which is a lovely area with fancy restaurants and bars. To start with we lived with our landlady, a Korean girl who was nice. There was also another Korean girl who was living in the room next to us with her younger brother. They’ve all moved out now and we’re living with a really nice English couple from Banbury, Aimee and Issy, and a married Indian/Australian couple, Powen and Celina. Our apartment’s really nice and we even have a gym and swimming pool!!

Now onto the work situation! My first job was working for a man called Anthony who owns his own drainage company. I added builders/architects/designers’ details onto a big database and sent them all a brochure of the drains. I then had to make follow up phone calls to check that they received the brochure. The job lasted for about a month as I then took a few weeks off to spend with mum (onto that later). Sam’s first job was door-to-door sales as a water cooler salesman, which he didn’t really enjoy so soon moved onto something else. His second job was for a company called Entertainment, who created a book with hundreds of discount vouchers for many venues/restaurants etc in Sydney. Sam packed boxes of the books to be delivered, and the best thing was that we got a book of the vouchers so we do many things at a discount. After mum’s trip I worked as a receptionist at a big advertising agency, called OMD for a week, which I loved as I enjoyed being back in the media world – I even got to meet a famous Australian chef called Donna Hay! After these jobs, Sam and I both worked at a Parents and Babies exhibition for a few days. Sam worked out the back doing manual work whilst I worked on one of the information desks. So we now reach the jobs that we’re currently in… I’m working for a head hunting agency in the CBD. They recruit people in high end jobs in the media industry and it’s quite handy learning all about the different media agencies that I might one day work in! I do general office admin here and search for candidates on Linkedin (a professional social networking site) and upload their details onto a database. Sam’s currently working for a carpenter helping him to build a roof and will soon be moving on to working for a builder for a few weeks.

In between all our hard work we have had a few visitors! Firstly mum came over for 2 weeks, which was lovely to see her and she treated us to lots of nice days out and yummy dinners. I can’t remember the order we did things but we walked around the botanical gardens, saw the opera house and harbour bridge, went to The Rocks (where the convicts were first dropped off), went up the Sydney Tower, which is very high and gives 360degree panoramic views of Sydney. Mum and I also went to the Blue Mountains for a day which is in a place called Katoomba, 2 hours away from Sydney. We chose the wrong day to go though as it was really foggy and we couldn’t see that much in the morning. However once the fog lifted we got great views, especially on the cable car. We also went on the world’s steepest railway which goes down the mountain at a 45degree angle!! Furthermore, we visited the aquarium, Toronga Zoo (best zoo ever) and of course went to Bondi Beach a couple of times. We also did a 90 minute walk from Bondi to Coogee beach, which was great until it started raining and combined with the water blowing off the sea, we ended up soaked!! One day we also got a ferry to Watsons Bay where we had fish and chips at the famous Doyles restaurant, which was delicious. Whilst mum was here she also treated me to a trip to Cairns and Melbourne. Whilst in Cairns we went to the Great Barrier Reef, which was great and we saw some amazing fish. The only downside was that I was rather sea sick! We went to a beach and just enjoyed being lazy enjoying the sunshine, which was very welcomed after a rainy week in Sydney! When we were in Melbourne mum visited the office whilst I met up with a friend from uni who was living there at the time. Unfortunately it was a flying visit and we returned to Sydney after 24 hours. Mum only had a couple of days left in Sydney after this and by this time we’d seen most of Sydney so there wasn’t much left to do!! We did a tourist red bus tour of the city and on our last night we went to Jordan’s seafood restaurant in Darling Harbour and had an unreal seafood platter. We had a lovely evening and enjoyed watching a spectacular fireworks show – the perfect ending to a perfect couple of weeks!

There’s not too much else to report. We’ve made a few friends here and had a few nights out with them, Adam from uni came to visit for a couple of days which was nice but we’re now just plodding along with work trying to save money for our trip up the east coast. Today we booked our camper van and plan to leave Sydney on 18th August.

Until next time…

Oh and P.S. We’ve finally got round to uploading some photos too!!