Wow, I haven't written on this for a long, long tim, partly coz I'm lazy and partly coz it takes forever to upload my pics to Facebook and then there's no time left! I'm going to try to update the last 3 weeks now...

So, when I got here, I was missing New Zealand quite a bit, and it was pretty rainy and cold here, and I was semi-regretting being here for 8 weeks. Now, it's all changed, and I want to live here forever! More of that to come.

So, Saturday night 30th Aug, Cheng and I went to Mama's Kitchen and had pizza and then walked over to Darling Harbour, which is amazing - lots of restaurants surrouding the harbour, great atmosphere - and that night there were amazing fireworks, which I presumed was to welcome me ;)

On Sunday morning we met Pooja, and then headed out to Pancakes on the Rocks - a pancake place that does amazing pancakes! (surprise) I had really random ones though - with pineapple and bacon and butter and maple syrup and bananas!? Then we all walked up to the Opera House - Pooja decided to brave through the jetlag, v impressed! The Opera House wasn't how I imagined it - it seemed a lot smaller and not white or ivory like I imagined, it's a little yellowy! I thought the ivory roof would be glistening in the sunlight, but none of that. Also no sunlight sadly. I was impressed with the Harbour Bridge though, that is one of my personal faves here, it's nicknamed the Coathanger coz it looks like one, and it connects the central bit of sydney to the north. I get the train over it everyday to and from hospital, and even now I still love looking out at the OPera House and the rest of the harbour. It's gorge! We went for a coffee at the Opera Bar, which was very swish, with a view of the Opera House and a posh band playing next to us. V sophisticated, innit ;)

Our hostel is pretty nice, even though living in a hostel sounds gross. It's pretty big, and the best one in Oceania apparently. 4 of us - me cheng pooja and anna (a bris medic) are all living in the same room, which is pretty good. It's right in the centre of everything, next door to the central train station & means I can roll out of bed a little later (6.30!!) On Monday we started at hospital, which I was pretty excited about seeing. Getting the train with the commuters and going over the Harbour Bridge was so exciting! I really felt like a proper Sydney chick. At St Leonards, where the hosp is, there is a big Forum, where there are about 15 different food places surrounding a big fountain - we sat there for a good 3 hours on the first day and I got a massive heat rash - also checked out the local gym there and saw all the mummies going to spin class and dropping their kids at the creche. The hospital itself is really nice, the Emergency Dept is big and full of British doctors (I wanted bonza aussies not brits!!) and the cafeteria has a Gloria Jeans (Aussie Starbucks) and Subway and organic food section - v swish!

Usually electives are just a big holiday and the supervisors are pretty relaxed - mine is a total nutter though. He's about 50, with a metal mouth/tin grin/ silver smile aka BRACES! and he has just taken over the supervisor role and tole me how the last guy didn't make anyone do much work but how he wnated to change all that and get us really involved, and do we want to do an 8-4 shift, a 4-11 shift or an all-nighter? I was mildly horrified, lol. And then he told me to hang on a sec while he just took the elastics off his braces so he could talk better. Hmm... The doctors in Emergency are all really nice, there are just so many English and Irish doctors though, it's so weird! Apparently it costs to see a GP over here, so lots of random rubbish comes in to A&E, coz it is free. Haven't seen too much exciting stuff - bit of respiratory distress, pneumonias, tonsillitis, open forehead (that was gross).

That first week we just tried to orientate ourself, and met up with some other Bristol medics, and went out to our organised elective drinks, where it was us 4 Brits and a massive bunch of Germans (there's Germans EVERYWHERE OVER HERE!!) That first weekend was really lovely - Friday was a total washout so we literally sat inside all day and planned our weekend trips away, Saturday was also a total washout, but Cheng and I went to the Blue Mountains, which is a national park just outside of Sydney.

Our tour guide was a total nutter. We stopped off and saw some kangaroos first, which were ugly, coz they were Eastern Greys ie. grey and minging, not red and lovely. We did lots of nice walks in the mountains, the rain was horrendous but I was glad to finally have a use for my ugly hiking boots and splashed around in the mud, v fun! The view was pretty crap though because all we could see was mist and cloud, but it picked up in the afternoon and the waterfalls were massive, coz of the rain, which was sweet. At the end we got the Scenic Railway back up to the top, the steepest railway in the world - gotta be seen to be believed! It was practically vertical!!! It's at a 62 degree angle, but felt like a good 110!

As soon as we got back from there, Emily, Pooja, Cheng and I went to the Olympic Stadium for an Aussie Rules footie game - Sydney Swans v Melbourne Kangaroos quarter final. I really wanted to eat a meat pie before the game just like Harold from neighbours, but they were all beefy so I didnt. I didnt understand the game at all at first, it just looks like one big mess, which it is - apparently you cant get sent off, so the players hit and kick and chuck each other about - v vicious - I sort of got the game after a while though and it was really exciting - and we won!! It was pretty amazing. After that I went to meet some friends in Kings Cross, hectic day - spent the rest of Sunday in bed!