Sydney v2 and reflecting on my first weeks here

Returning to Sydney was both a welcoming and new experience. It was nice to return to a place I knew my way around, to have the Work and Travel company's office close by and to see some old faces again (although some of those old faces where just people I had seen the first time here). However this time around I was staying in a new hostel, with a bit different standard than the YHA Central I slept in my first four night in Australia. The cool thing about Sydney is that whenever you pick a new hostel the place and it surroundings feels like a new city. It only took about 25 minutes to walk between the two, but it still felt like I was in a totally new place. Every time I walk into a new hostel I think to myself: How am I going to get to know this place! And every time I leave it is as if I am leaving my home.

As I posted on my facebook profile I was not feeling all that well when I arrived back, probably due to four days in cold water during the surf camp and the change in climate from Melbourne. The Defqon.1 festival did not help ether and the day after I had a bad cold. I had a runny nose and my throat was sore. Therefore the next days where pretty uneventful. I went to the store and bought food, sat in the park (Sydney has an amazing park that is very beautiful),looked at the cathedral located right next to the park and watched movies and TV in the common rooms at the hostel. It was nice to just relax and let my body heal. One day while sitting in the sofa I though about what things come to mind when I think about my first two weeks in Australia, and I though I'd share some of those thought with you.

Music

There are two songs I heard the first two days in Australia while dancing and drinking at "The Gaff" nightclub. One of them is Black Eyed Peas: I Gotta Feeling (I am sure you have all heard it on the radio back home as well) and the other is Guy Sebastian: Like It Like That. Guy Sebastian is an Australian musician and I am not sure if he is popular in Europe or the States. Whenever I hear these songs it reminds me of my first days in Australia!

Food 

Being a backpacker and especially one that knows very little about cooking results in eating out. Since I am also on a budget I try to find cheap food and for some reason I always end up at a fast food place. Fast food is pretty cheap down here (but probably not very healthy). So far I have tried McDonald (which also has something called McCafé), Hungry Jack's (that's Burger King just with another name), Pizza Hut, KFC, Subway and Starbucks Coffee. As soon as I get a job and maybe an apartment I will try and make some real food, but the fast food will always remind me of my first weeks in Australia.

People

Australia is a place filled with different people from all over the world. So far I have met crazy drinking Australians and Englishmen, A couple of very nice people from New Zealand. A ton of Germans and some random Swedish, Dutch and Norwegian people. I have still to meet tons of more people but I will always remember those first ones; Michael, Nick, Tuan and all the others I can't remember the name of.

The 24. I am going up the east cost on a 10 day surf adventure and after that I am going to start looking for work. (Unless I am caught in a new adventure). I will look back on my first two weeks in Australia (Sydney and Melbourne) and think about the music, food and the people that started my adventure.

Defqon.1

Saturday I got up early and took the Sydney subway to Penrith, a suburb in the outskirts of Sydney. In Penrith lies the Sydney International Regatta Centre, which this day was turned into a festival for the Hardstyle music genre. The one day festival started at 11 AM and ended 10 PM with over 15000 people attending.

It is hard to describe the festival in words. The Hardstyle genre attracts a very special kind of people, mostly young adults. There where all sorts of outfits, some very different from anything you will find anywhere else. The music itself is also unique, but something I like more and more.

The Regatta Centre is located on an island in a lake. The festival had 5 stages spread around, each featuring different kinds of music. The stages all had different designs and when the night came, different light, laser and smoke effects.

At these kind of events there tends to be a large amount of drugs. There was an impressive amount of security and police presence, but I still noticed that very many people where doing ecstasy. You could see the ground littered with the small plastic bags and a few people being carried of too the medical tent due too overdoses.

Non the less, the people where very friendly and there where no violence that I could see. I had a great time just walking around from stage to stage, taking pictures and listening to the music. I was thoroughly exhausted when I got back home at midnight, with my ears ringing and my head filled with memories.

I have included some pictures and videos I took, including the lineup for those interested. Sorry for the bad audio, my phone's video recording capability is limited.

Surf Camp

On Monday 07:15 AM a group of people including me, left Sydney in 3 minibuses and headed for Surf Camp Australia. Surf Camp is located about 2.5 hours south of Sydney in a small town called Gerroa The place is filled with summer homes and has a very relaxed atmosphere. The beach is called Seven Mile Beach and is part of Seven Mile Beach National Park.

As soon as we had put our luggage in our rooms, we where given wetsuits and surfboards and where heading down to the beach. Each day consisted of 2x2 hour lessons, and every lesson we learned something new. It started of with how to get up on the surfboard, then different techniques to gain speed and balance, and ended with learning how to do turns.

Even after the first 2 hours I realized that surfing is a sport that requires strength. My arms where hurting from all the paddling, and after 4 days my whole body was aching. I had a fantastic time though, the food was great, the instructors where super friendly and the surfing thrilling.

The only downside to surfing is putting on a wet and cold wetsuit 6:00 AM in the morning to go down to the beach and surf as the sun came up. The water was not very warm ether, but because of all the exercising I was not freezing much. I made some new friends as well, and 5 of us signed up for the extended 10 day surf trip up the Australian east cost. This takes place next Thursday and I will get back to that after it is finished.

I realized that surfing takes a ton of practice and although I now know the basics, the only way to progress is to surf as much as possible. Especially doing turns or surfing along the waves at an angle is hard and something I have to work with.

After the 4 days of surf camp the whole group headed back to Sydney for a farewell party at a bar called Scubar. I had a great time there as well and didn't get to bed until 2:00 AM

Melbourne

I have spent the last week in the city of Melbourne. Melbourne is very different from Sydney in many ways, it has more of an urban feel with lots of tall buildings and a layout similar to Manhattan. The plane down only took about 1.5 hours and then a shuttle buss to the hostel which took about 30 minutes. The hostel that I stayed at is located right in the center of the city with easy access to most attractions.

I spent the first day just wandering around looking at buildings and getting to know the town. That evening I checked out the local pub that was in the same building as the hostel, the elevator actually opened up right into the place. The pub had 5 dollar dinners every evening except weekends, and the food was very good considering the price range. I ate dinner there 3 times and also beer to go with it. 5-7PM was "happy hour" with beers starting from $3.10.

On the third day I went down to St. Kilda, a suburb of Melbourne located by the ocean. There was a beautiful beach there, but it was very windy so it was close to impossible to go swimming. Melbourne has an amazing tram system that gets you almost everywhere. In fact I think Melbourne has the best public transport system in the country.

On Friday night I went on a pub crawl with one of my roommates. He was from Adelaide, but had previously lived in Melbourne. He took me to some very unique places. One was located down 2 allies that I would never have gone down alone, but once at the bottom there was an old factory that had been changed into a nightclub. They played hip-hop and Drum 'n base with live DJ's. We also went to an Irish pub with some crazy drunk Irish backpackers, one which we randomly met on the street looking for the place.

On Saturday I went to the Melbourne Zoo to relax and get my strength back. It was peaceful just walking alone looking at the different animals and taking pictures. They had everything from Kangaroos to Snow Leopards and anything in between. That evening I went to a casino with my other roommate. We didn't gamble, but bought cheap food and a beer and watched the "footy" final on a big screen. "Footy" as they call it down here, is a hybrid between American football and rugby.

Now I am sitting on the buss back to Sydney. It is a 14 hour drive, but I get to see more of the Australian countryside. It reminded me of America. The highway has "exits" with food courts just like in the states. We also drove past a section where the forest fires (the ones earlier this year that where all over the media) had burned all the trees. I tried to take a picture from the buss, but it's kind of hard to see. Tomorrow morning I am going on a 4 day surf camp to learn all the basics of surfing. I will do another update after that. -Audun

Sydney

After only a few hours in Sydney I realized the city is very different from what I had expected. There are very few tall buildings, although there are some, but the majority of the city has low buildings giving the impression that it is not that big. Sydney is big however, with over 5 million people living here. It is the biggest city in Australia.

I have been staying at a 5 star hostel, in a 4 dorm room, it has a high standard for being a hostel, but the price is of course reflected by that. I have made friends with most of the Norwegian's that traveled with me from Norway and they are all very nice people.

The first night we all went out to a pub/disco called "The Gaff". It was a very nice place with decent prices (5 dollar beers which is about 25NOK). I went to bed fairly early since my body had no clue what time is really was and I was very tired.

The next day I joined a few other Norwegian's on a walk trough Sydney to explore the city and go see the Opera house. It was a bit different than I expected, but non the less cool to watch, close to it is also the famous Sydney harbour bridge which we also checked out. A group of us went back to "The Gaff" including a local that was in my dorm room that had just got back from 3 month in France. He was a really nice guy, although a bit crazy. We didn't get back to the hostel until 5 AM, but I had a really great time!

I have never really experienced real Jetlag until now, and it is a weird feeling, I have been sleeping a lot at all times of day, for instance on Sunday, I slept at least 15 hours throughout the day and night. At times it also feels like my head is shrouded in a mist or something like that and at one point it felt as though I was on a boat, when I was really on firm ground. I have been told it takes up to a week to get over it.

There has been a lot going on these last few days, and it is impossible to write about everything here. However, on Monday we had a 4 hour presentation about Australia at the Work and Travel Company headquarters and we also got a lot of information about working, bank accounts, tax file numbers and health care. It is all slowly falling into place, but it will take some time before I am fully set up.

I have decided to travel with a group of 4 Norwegian's down to Melbourne for 5 days, and my next post will be about that. I hope you all are doing okay!

P.S. Australians swear a lot, it's pretty interesting to hear how they talk :P

Safely arrived

I have arrived safely in Sydney. More to come!

Bangkok

So it turns out the technical stop was in reality a real stop. Half the passengers where only going to Bangkok, and we are getting new ones from here as well. Anyways, we had to leave the plane and go trough security 2 more times, one with a normal scanning machine, and then with people checking the baggage by hand.

I have to wait in Bangkok for 3 hours before we are allowed to board the same plane again, so I figured I would post a small update to tell you all I got this far. I have met 5 others who are also from Norway and going to Sydney with the Work & Travel Company. I watched Star Trek on the plane (check my movie blog for a review later) and then I slept for the rest of the trip. Now I am preparing for another 9 hours before I land in Sydney!

Preparation

After some hectic days I am finally finished with all the stuff I had to do that I was to lazy to do earlier. It's typical for me to always wait until the last minute before doing anything, but as always I did manage to do almost everything.

Friday and Saturday I packed all my stuff from my apartment into cardboard boxes and plastic bags. Then on Sunday my father helped me move everything to my mom's place, it all fit on one trip! Monday I washed my apartment with help from my polish friend and his wife and I also said most of the goodbyes to my friends. Tuesday I finished up my resume or C.V. as we know it in Norway (I think the whole thing took 4 hours!), and I also finished up saying goodbye. It feels kind of strange knowing I won't be seeing you all for a whole year although I don't think I have fully realized it yet.

I took a picture of everything I am bringing. This is my life the next year except for anything I buy in Australia of course. Magically it all fit into my backpack.

Since this is the first post in my travel blog I'll update you all with some information.

I leave Gardermoen 16:55 with flight BA 767 and arrive in London (Heathrow) 18:15. After 4 hours of waiting I leave London 22:00 (flight BA 009) and arrive in Sydney 06:05. During that time I have a technical stop where the plane refuels (I believe in Bangkok), but we are not allowed to leave the plane. Now you might think that isn't such a long flight, but in reality it takes 23 hours! + a 9 hour time difference. I leave on the 2. sept and arrive on the 4. sept!

If anyone wants to send me something during my stay, which is always nice :D, please use the following address.

Audun Michael Knudsen
Work & Travel Company
Locked Bag A 4035
Sydney South
NSW 1235
Australia

I will be using this address during the whole stay. As for my mobile number. I am not sure yet how much I will use my Norwegian number. The prices are fairly steep. I will however be using an Australian number most of the time. Which is:

(+61) 451072299

My next post will be from Australia. I am going to miss you all!