Chillaxin' at Bondi Beach!

I went to Bondi Beach with 3 of my roomates, the Swiss girl and 2 Koreans. We walked up to Hyde Park to catch the bus. We spent 15 min. looking around to buy bus tickets but couldn't find any since the express bus requires pre-paid. So we ended up catching the local bus and paid the bus driver $4. It took about 40 min to get to Bondi. This beach is well-known around the world but to the Aussies, it's" just another city beach". The sands were very pale yellow and clean. There were heaps of surfers riding the waves. We didn't go swimming because it was very windy and the water was quite cold. I hear that the water at Manly Beach is warmer (no, the guys there aren't more "manly"...there really is a place named Manly!).

On our way back, we managed to buy a bus ticket from 2 public transportation guys standing on the street. This time it was only $3. I'm glad I got to see Bondi Beach...it was quite nice. The water starts out greenish and turns blue as it goes out farther.

Socializing and Bank Stuff

Last night I went on an outing with the IEP group. We went to the Glenmore Hotel for some drinks and food. I had 2 beers and fries...hmmm, very healthy. I met more Germans (a couple) and finally some other North Americans. I met 2 girls from Florida, 1 from Texas, and 1 from Toronto. The Americans I've met are here on the 4-month visa because they can use as many of those as they want whereas, the 1 year visa can only be used once. One girl from FL is working at a high end Italian restaurant at Hyde Park. The pay isn't the best but she gets to eat yummy food and watch people play the huge chess game in the park. She told us that we can get ice cream cones from McD's for only 30 cents! All the McD's here look like high end restaurants with nice decor and beautiful displays of pastries. Apparently, McD's in Europe are similar.  On our way back to the hostel, we dropped into the McD's for an ice cream on a windy cold night.

This morning, I woke up to find none of the bathrooms had toilet paper. Ugh. But alas, I went into the guy's bathroom and stole their only roll. Hahaha. Sorry guys. I can't wait to go to my WWOOF thing next week and do medieval crafts! Yay!

I'm going to visit Hyde Park today to see the huge chess game and the Botanic Gardens to see the large bats in the trees.  Tomorrow, I will be going to the famous Bondi Beach with 2 of my roomates (a Korean, and a Swiss). I turns out that girl who didn't really talk is Swiss. I got to talk to her last night and she's very friendly. I think a lot of people want to talk but are too shy because english isn't their first language.

I picked up my bank card today! Yay! Now I can leave Sydney! This city is too chaotic like NYC...I need peace. I heard that Melbourne is really cool. Apparently, Sydney is like Toronto (busy city), Melbourne is like Montreal (cobblestones, beautiful, cool, amazing.....biased, am I?), and Canberra is like Ottawa (BORING). I will see and let you know if this is true!

By the way, if you guys need to wire transfer money it can be a pain if you don't know what to do (because the bank people don't know either). I called the general number and I was told to either do it automatically on the phone with my phone code OR call my branch during their hours. Since I don't have my code on me, I decided to call my branch between 12:30am-9am Sydney time (9:30am-5pm EST). I got up early to call and my branch tells me I cannot do it through them. I had to fax a request. Arrrgh. So I faxed it and now hopefully everything works out.