G'day folks, how ya goin? As you can see we have already picked up the lingo and are blending in nicely with the beach bum locals on Bondi now - yay. Am sitting here covered in sand at this moment as have just dragged ourselves away from the beach to come and write this and make all u folks jealous :o)

So, it's been 3 weeks since we arrived in Oz and it has been all go. The first step was to find somewhere to live so we got straight on the case and went to view a few places. The first one looked so hidious and minging from the outside, with dirty rags in the window for curtains and the front door practically hanging off it's hinges, that we took one look and legged it without even waiting to see inside. The second place was not much better and we turned up to find a giant dude with dreds and some girl rotting on a sofa who kind of grunted 'hello'. We were shown a grubby matress on the floor in a room and thought if this is what we are gonna get for our money we'd rather sleep on the beach. However within 3 days we struck gold and were all set up and looking out of our new bedroom window onto Bondi Beach! It is a wicked place, kind of like a big bungalow which we are sharing with an English couple, a Brazilian couple and a French couple - very international eh. They are all great and so far we have not had any house wars (although if I find out who keeps using the loo and not flushing it there may well be). We have an enormous room with bed, sofa, huge TV, loads of storage and a view of the beach - hurrah. It felt so amazing to empty our backpacks and hang stuff in a wardrobe... funny how much you can miss things like coat hangers. When we came to view the house the landlord said he wasn't even sure he was gonna let that room out but we chucked our backpacks on the floor and literally said 'we're taking it and are not leaving!' so the deal was done and we practically cried with happiness. The place is literally opposite the beach and we can be out our front door and on the sand within 20 seconds! We also have a huge patio garden, perfect for barbies, and even a hot tub... although it is not working at the mo but praying that can be rectified! Bondi itself is a great place, young trendy backpacker vibe with lots of bars and restaurants. The beach itself is gorgeous, lovely soft powdery sand, although the sea is the coldest water we have been in, like ever. The waves are awesome tho and there are hundreds of people braving it and just bobbing in the sea waiting to jump the huge waves as they come crashing down. We are def gonna book some surf lessons soon, so hopefully the next lot of snaps will have us looking sexy in wetsuits once more.

Once settled we decided to do a bit of sightseeing so did the 'must do' trip down to the harbour to check out some big white house everyone keeps talking about. It is actually pretty small up close and is not actually white, but more of a dirty cream colour. It is still pretty amazing to look at it from afar however and we just kept thinking 'wow, we are definately in Sydney mate!' We had a tour outside and inside the Opera House, given by 'Steven' our incredibly camp guide who minced it up even more than Jelly can you believe (... just a joke babes!) We saw the huge concert halls where they have classical concerts, plays and sometimes rock bands etc and learnt all about the history of the building which was pretty interesting I have to say. We then had a wander around the harbour and took many many pictures of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge from every angle imaginable (Grant was overjoyed at all this snap happy action obviously) We took a wander in the Botanical Gardens next which are just next to the Opera House. Now, we had heard there were these bats that like in the trees there so we were pretty intruiged and hoping we might catch a glimpse of a few.... A FEW.... bloody hell mate, there are literally thousands and thousands of them and they are the size of dogs! They are called flying grey foxes and the screeching noise they make is unbelievable. Their wing span is about 1 metre and they fly above your head and swoop through the trees, then land and just hang precariously from tiny skinny branches - bizarre.

Darling Harbour was next on our sightseeing list so we took an open top bus from there then spent some time wandering round and checking out the lovely views of the Sydney skyline and most importantly, the bars. It is all very contemporary round there with quite a young, funky vibe so we got stuck in with a VB for Grant and a wine for me... first wine I'd had since coming away and it tasted amazing after all the bucket fun we have had over the past few months! Headed out that night in Bondi with our housemates and drank quite a lot more of the good stuff. As most nights out with the Wolfe and the Thomp go, we ended up getting everyone involved in some games of the drinking variety and we were soon shouting 'down it' at the tops of our voices - love it.

On the drinking theme, we did quite a lot more of that over the week that was to come also, and kind of ended up on a bit of a 6 day bender. This involved Gill and Mick for the most part who were friends we had met on the Perhentian Islands in Malaysia. They had a week in Sydney so we met up and got stuck in to the lager and cider (the latter for me... not sure what I was thinking). The Irish bar we were in was absolutely mad and is literally where the whole of Ireland is hiding out. There was live music from the gorgeous Nicky, who looked like a spotty, geeky teenager, and muchos dancing on tables, slinging pints over the crowd and general merriment. The gorgeous Nicky, also being Irish, then broke into anti-English songs which the whole crowd went mad for and I think we actually feared for our lives after about an hour of this! Grant has absolutely no memory of anything after this point, and I have to say mine is pretty hazy, but we rolled on to another bar for a bit more dancing to some music that was not quite so sadistic, and cracked on with some shots of I'm not sure what. All in all a wicked night but the next morning we were both rough as hell and panicking as Gill and Mick were coming over to ours for another drinking session that night... these guys are literally proper fine drinkers. However, after chewing the first drink that night we got on it yet again and managed to push on through till 3am which we were pretty proud of... although I was sick in the bath at about 2pm... oops.

So, after much fun and games and sightseeing etc we came to the realisation that we'd soon be on a plane back to London if we didn't start working soon so we started the dreaded job hunt. It was a bit of a slog to have to think about using our brains again but I can report that we are both now earning some dollar - Grant in an underwriting department at QBE and me as an HR Assistant at UBS Investmant Bank... I know what you're thinking, why the bloody hell have we come 30,000 miles to get the exact same jobs we had in England!! We kind of just came to the conclusion that any bar or shop work would be crappy hours and crappy pay, and we wanted our weekends dammit! We are both on pretty good money so hopefully it means not working for too long anyway - yay - and both our offices are right by the harbour so Opera House and Bridge views every lunch time thankyou very much.

Anyway, gonna head now as there is the whole of Sydney out there right now and we wanna get involved! We will be living here for the next 4 months or so but will be back with more journal entries and photos soon to keep all you folks at home in grey old England going. Can't believe it is nearly Christmas... so doesn't seem like it here as it is 30 degrees - hurrah!!!!!

Until next time... big love

Linz x