New Home, New Job, and Familiar Faces

Fireworks at Darling Harbor

High School Reunion with Devon

       On our return to the big city, we had two goals: find a house, and a job. For the meantime we settled in at Easy Go Backpackers right downtown on George Street, in the heart of the city. We instantly loved the hostel as we met so many friendly people from all over the world. We spent a lot of time getting to know our new roommates, and exploring the city together.
    Our days were spent searching on Gumtree.com for jobs and apartments. We toured a couple of apartments in the city, but were not happy with the price or quality of the homes. We remembered how much we loved our visit to Bondi, and decided to focus our search there. Finally we toured a beautiful apartment half way between Bondi Beach and Bondi Junction (shops and the bus terminal), that suited our price point and lifestyle. After only living in the hostel for a week, we moved out and into our new home for a few months! We now have four very friendly roommates from the Philippines, and a room to ourselves.
    Dave was called back for many job interviews in the city, but eventually chose the opportunity to work close to home in the Westfield mall selling cellphone accessories full-time at Platinum Communications. I also found full-time work a short bus ride away serving breakfast and lunch at Centennial Parklands Dining. We hope to work as much as we can over the next few months to boost our income before we continue to travel the rest of Australia.
    The past few weeks haven’t only be work though, as we have met up with many familiar faces along the way. One evening Dave and I were in a bottle shop, and as I was looking at the refrigerated section of goon, I hear a man ask Dave, “excuse me, do you know Becki Charles?”, I turn around and see my friend Devon from high school who I haven’t seen for six years! He recognized Dave through my photos online, and we couldn’t believe we ran into each other so randomly in the biggest city in Australia. We went out together that night, and met up the next day at Bondi Beach to have more time to catch up. It is amazing to think of how small the world really is, and we promised that it wouldn’t be another six years before we see each other again.

Byron Holiday Village Family

Nathalie and I

    Now that we have been on the road for more than five months,

Becki, Alanna, Noel, and Dave

Fran and Helen

we keep running into people we have met along the way. We were able to meet up with many members of our Byron Holiday Village family this past week. Our good German friend Nathalie came to visit Sydney, so we naturally went to Bondi Beach and chilled on the cliffs overlooking the water. We later all went out together to meet up with more Byron friends Morgan, Roman, and Carla (who just returned to Australia from her home in Chile)! It was so good to spend a night out with our Byron family in Sydney. Nathalie has since moved on to Melbourne, and the trio has gone North to Noosa. We can only hope to run into them again in the next six and a half months!
    A couple of days ago we were lucky enough to meet up with an Irish couple Alanna and Noel, we met in Surfers Paradise our second week we came to Australia. They spent a couple of days in Sydney, after spending four months working on a cotton farm in Northern inland Queensland, and looked us up during their visit! We met up with them on a night out, and again at Bondi Beach the next day. Dave and I both were silly enough to get our first true Australian sunburn on this visit to the beach, and have learned our lesson to apply sunscreen before hitting the beach! It was fun to meet up with friends that we met months before, and only knew for a few days. When you travel you make friends very quickly, and tend to keep in touch well.
    Another friend came to town that Dave worked with at Wicked Travel in Byron Bay, our British friend Fran. We spent the night out at the Darling Harbor watching the Saturday night weekly fireworks, with her friends from home. We went out that night and visited some amazing bars, and tried to convince her to move from Byron to Sydney. It seemed to have worked! The other day she arrived back in Sydney to work at the chain of Wicked Travel here. We met up once again to have drinks by the harbor with her friend Helen, and spent the rest of our night acting like kids climbing on the jungle gym. We are so happy to have more friends that have moved to the city that we get to spend more time with!

Mardi Gras

Easy Go Backpackers at Mardi Gars

    Last weekend was the very famous Gay Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney! The streets filled with millions of people all dressed up in costumes, or dressed down, to watch the parade. The energy in the city was very high, as everyone was celebrating, and being who they wanted to be that day. The parade was very well done and finished with a choreographed dance routine to Lady Gaga and some fireworks! We went out that night with friends we met back at our Sydney hostel, and all the men embraced their feminine side, cross-dressing for the evening.
    We have the best of both worlds, as we are a short train or bus ride away from the heart of the city, and a fifteen minute walk from the famous Bondi Beach. The last few weeks have been great introduction to the city, and we are excited to spend the next few months living in Bondi.

Our GIANT friend that lives outside our apartment!!