An Ozzy Christmas

It's getting closer and closer to December 25th now and also getting hotter and hotter outside, a strange concept to us. Even though I have spent a couple Christmas' in Australia I could never get used to the fact that it occurs right in the middle of Summer! In order to create some Christmas spirit in our humble abode we took a trip to the budget store where we got a variety of Christmas decorations. The center piece is the $6 tree which has been decorated with many small Koala bears and Kangaroos.

And here is the jolly old man himself (an impulse purchase at the checkout)

It has been almost a month here in Oz now and we are yet to have any guests at our house yet. This is soon to change as Jordan's family will be with us in just under two weeks now followed very closely by Laura who arrives on December 30th. Then near the end of January my brother Jonathan will also be coming to Australia for a working holiday of his own, I assume he will eventually meet us in Surfers Paradise. We are both very excited to see our friends and family.

Aside from all the holiday hoopla everything is business as usual in the Southern Hemisphere. Jordan is working long hard nights at Melbas nightclub and I am still working at Universal Store, a clothing company. Our apartment has worked out very well so far aside from our inability to get an Internet connection.

Anyway, time to go grocery shopping...Yay!

G'day, our flat is huge as!

We have a flat now! It’s a large two bedroom on the Gold Coast Highway, about 2 minutes from the beach and a 10-15 minute walk into town. It’s starting to feel like home, but we need a few more decorations. We finally have our own washer and dryer, although the dryer steams up Ryan's bathroom like a sauna and it’s missing a dishwasher. On our first night here we decided to flip a coin (best of 19) to decide who gets the big bedroom. Luckily, I won.


This is our kitchen and dining room.


Our “living room” with a little touch of home. The TV picks up about 7 channels over the air, so we get some decent TV here. Most of it is delayed by a few weeks but House seems to be on time, as are a few others...


This is the rest of our living room, including the den which we constructed. We still don’t have Internet access, although it has been ordered and we hope to have it soon. Australian Internet access is very expensive and restrictive…


This is Ryan’s bedroom. He’s very ashamed of the broken lamp that came with the flat and hopes to replace it soon. Both bedrooms have sliding doors to the “patio”.


And this is my bedroom. We have two bathrooms, one as an en-suite to my room and the other near the kitchen.


This is our patio with access to both of our bedrooms.


And this is the view from our patio towards the center of town. You can kind of see the Q1 tower in this picture – it looks better in person.

After we settled in to our apartment we began job hunting. Ryan was the most successful on the first day, landing a trial shift at “Seafood Mania” as a cashier, and setting up an interview at a clothing store. He’s not very happy at Seafood Mania, and now that he’s started at the clothing store as well (which has better benefits, people and pay), he’s planning on quitting. Seems easy to find two jobs!

It took me a few days to find work, but when I did, it came in waves. I had an interview at Nandos, and after getting the job there as a cook, got a call from a night club to come in that night and work as a glasser (busser). I've been juggling both jobs for a while now with some 2-3 hours of sleep most nights, coming home at 5:30 or 6am and starting at 10am at Nandos. Both jobs have ups and downs, so I’m weighing my options and will probably quit one in the next few days.

We plan on taking a couple of pictures of the places we work at, and posting them on here soon. Shortly we’ll update you on how the jobs are working out, and any side trips we may take. For now, we need to find the time to take some surf lessons.

Surfers Paradise - home sweet home?

It's been a while since our last blog entry and I am sure all you avid Eurostralia fans must be eager for another one, so here is our last two weeks...

We had an excellent stay in Melbourne with my family; everyone was very accommodating to us. We went back into Melbourne city again to see some of the things we missed on our first visit. This time around the weather was much better so we decided it would be a good idea to go to the top of the Eureka tower (supposedly the world’s tallest residential building) and get a good view of the city. We did our best to take some good pictures but as Jordan mentioned before he broke the screen on his camera so it wasn’t easy.


The Eureka tower


A view of Melbourne city from the Eureka Skydeck, 88 floors up.

During our stay in Warrendyte Richard also invited us over to his place for a good ‘ol fashioned Ozzy barbie and we attended Vicky’s 21st birthday party, both of which were heaps of fun. Vicky’s party was quite the event with more than 60 people in attendance and more beer, wine, and champagne than we could possibly consume. It was a lot of fun meeting everyone at the party and we are really glad that we were able to attend.

Ben, Amy, DJ Teesh, Myself and Jarrod

On the day of our departure from Melbourne my Aunt Rosalind was kind enough to drive us to Healesville animal sanctuary where we were able to get up close with all of Australia’s unique native animals.


Sitting in the middle of this tree is a Koala, they sleep for 20 hours a day so it’s not easy to get a good picture of them. A few days previous we actually did see one run across the road, Jordan thought it was a dog.


We watched a “birds of prey” show as well which was very exciting. The bird trainers brought out several birds and had them fly just over our heads. In this picture is a huge Wedge Tailed Eagle.


And here is one of the bird trainers holding a Barn Owl.


We got to see Wombats, Platypus, Tasmanian Devils, Echidnas, Koalas, Kangaroos, Kookaburras, Emus, Dingos, and this cuddly Wallaby.


I had already seen a few Kangaroos on the roadside in Warrendyte but Jordan missed them all. He was very excited to finally lay eyes on this little roo…and not only that but he was able to feed and pet it too.

When we first arrived at Melbourne airport and Rosalind picked us up she greeted myself and “Jarrod”. We corrected her by explaining that his name was actually Jordan but she never really got the hang of it. For some reason she had the name Jarrod stuck in her head and for virtually our whole stay with she referred to Jordan as Jarrod. It became quite the ongoing joke so everyone just started to refer to him as Jarrod; he was even introduced at Vicky’s party as Jarrod. To top things off she had even written on the calendar “Ryan & Jarrod Arrives” which was corrected and then changed back to Jarrod after he was officially renamed. However, in my Aunts defense I think she did finally learn Jordan’s name in the end.


Jordan had to get a picture of the calendar before we left.

We had gotten very comfortable in Warrendyte and we were not looking forward to hostels and backpacks again. We arrived in Sydney and found our hostel fairly easily; however, it was probably the worst accommodation we have had all trip. It was in a very seedy part of town, the room was smelly and the four other guys in our room were actually living there so it was a complete mess...We were REALLY missing Warrendyte now. We made the most of our time in Sydney though and did a harbor cruise where we got to see all the famous sights and learn some interesting facts.


The Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbor Bridge


Jordan and downtown Sydney


A little look at the boat we were on.


The Sydney Opera house again but pictured from on land this time.


And the Opera House yet again.

Day two in Sydney was not a good one as far as the weather goes but we went to Bondi beach anyway. We packed towels and board shorts but the water was far to cold to swim in. Instead we just laid on the beach for few minutes before it started to rain and we hurried back to the bus stop. Much like we did in London when the weather turned on us we went to a show to stay dry that night. This time we went to see an American guy by the name of Arj Barker do stand-up comedy which was very entertaining.


Bondi beach and the overcast sky

After a short but productive stay in Sydney we caught a Qantas flight to Brisbane. From Brisbane it was about an hour on the train and we were in our new home of Surfers Paradise! Since being here we haven’t done much but look for an apartment to rent. At first we were finding it quite difficult to find somewhere that would rent to us for a short period of time but we have found one that is promising. It is a two bedroom, two bathroom, fully furnished apartment just a stones through from the beach. We have put an application in to rent it but the realtor that has the listing for it is not being very helpful. We will keep hounding them for it though and hopefully get it. We are also going to go job hunting very soon. There are plenty of places in town advertising for summer and Christmas job openings so we are optimistic that it won’t be hard to find employment.


This is the Q1 tower here in Surfers, also one of the tallest residential buildings in the world…a little out of our price range though.


This is a picture taken from the beach; the place we are trying to rent is in the background and just to the left of the tall building...It is also only about a 15min walk to the town center so a pretty good location if we are successful in getting it.

We are now just staying in a hostel until we get word on the apartment. We are very eager to finally move into our own place, have some privacy, and settle down for a while. We will keep you all posted on how that and our job hunt turn out.

A post from down under

Well, we've made our way to Australia now. Before I get to that, we've developed the pictures from Monaco so here they are:


Ryan is sad about his broken digital camera.


A view of Monaco from on top of a large hill.


Ryan driving a car from the Monaco Grand Prix.


Me with a Ferrari.


Ryan poses with some nice cars.


Ryan in front of the Monte Carlo casino.


The Monte Carlo casino can be seen in the reflection on that sphere.

Our flight from Singapore was quite nice, with a couple of included meals, although it was a bit harder to sleep. We arrived in Melbourne around 9am, and after surprisingly breezing through customs and quarantine without any questions, we were on the road to Warrendyte to stay with Ryans family. The first night here we relaxed (and had a much needed nap). In the morning we headed out to a couple of shopping malls to buy some new clothes - after 2 months with the same few t-shirts we felt like we needed something else! We're all set for a little while now, that's for sure.

Saturday night we went into Melbourne with Ryans cousin Vicky and her friend to go to a couple of bars.


Ryan and I with our Australian lager.


Ryan, Vicky and Amanda.

While at this particular bar, Ryan had the idea that we should try a couple of shots of "something Australian". What this actually got us was 3 shots - Aussie Rum, Aussie Beer, and Aussie Bourbon, which you shoot in a row. I realize this sounds tasty, but trust me, it's not.

All of this liquor ended up incapacitating us for all of Sunday, where we basically did nothing.

Monday morning we headed into town, and after taking the train the wrong direction for a while, finally ended up in Melbourne at the department of immigration. Here, we picked up our paper working visas and are now one step closer to getting a job (sigh). With some time to kill during the day we headed over to the Crown Entertainment Complex, which is a large casino, movie theatre, shopping center and restaurant area. After lunch, we tried our hand at some gambling. Ryan said goodbye to $20 at Casino War faster than he sat down, but I managed to win a bit at Blackjack. My luck ran out when I was leaving the bathroom and walked into the door, breaking my digital camera screen. Fortunately it still takes photos, so we should be okay until Ryan's camera is repaired. We have not had good luck with our cameras so far!


The Melbourne skyline outside of the Crown Casino.

With my broken camera in hand, we wandered the streets of downtown Melbourne. We eventually came across a Vodafone store - where we each picked up a new cell phone. It's something we'll need when we settle down, but also feels kind of nice to have now. We didn't realize how much we missed having phones (even if they are mostly useless right now).

It's now 5:30pm on Tuesday (12:30am Vancouver time), and we're about to watch some missed TV from home before going to a BBQ. We're in the Melbourne area until the 29th before heading to Sydney. Both of us are really enjoying Australia so far.

Cheers!

A pit stop in Singapore

We've now both added a new country to our list of places visited, Singapore! We luckily arrived at London Heathrow airport with plenty of time to spare before our flight because the airport is a completely disorganized zoo of people. We finally managed to make it through security after having to cram the contents of 4 carry on bags into 2 (the maximum allowable through this airport). The flight was a long one (approx. 12 hours) but Singapore Airlines did a good job of helping us pass the time. We were served two meals, had a snack, personal TV's with new release moves on demand and video games. We also slept for a few hours so the time passed rather quickly...then again once you've been on a 40 hour ferry trip that goes no where anything seems like a short voyage. We weren't really sure what to expect in Singapore as it was the first time either of us had been to Asia.


We were given a warm welcoming with this message printed in red on our immigration papers. I knew the laws were strict here but WOW!

Day one in Singapore we took it fairly easy and found some dinner, played on the computer for a while and then watched some TV. Singapore doesn't really seem to have its own identity, instead it seems to be a mix of many Asian and Arab cultures. This means the a lot of the food here is strange and uncooked, this makes eating a little weird for me and very strange for Jordan. After a good nights sleep in our hostel we awoke for a day of adventure. Without our trusty "Europe on a Budget" or "Europe on a Shoestring" books to guide us along we explored the city fairly aimlessly. Singapore doesn't have all that much to offer in the way of tourist attractions or activities so we mainly just admired the city for it's beauty and architecture.


Jordan and I posed for pictures in front of the downtown district. In the foreground is the famous Merlion (Mermaid Lion) statue that sprays water into the ocean.


We weren't at the statue long before the sun dropped and the city lights came on.


This is the view looking in the other direction. The strange bubble shaped building in the center is an opera house, similar to the Sydney Opera House that we will be seeing soon.

After our day of fun we decided to check out some of the Singapore nightlife and have a couple drinks. The hostel we are at recommended a bar called the Ministry of Sound. We hung out at the bar for a couple hours, had some extremely overpriced drinks (nothing new there), and watched a bunch of Asian (primarily Chinese) people dance to retro beats...it was quite amusing. Today we have spent much of the day strolling the streets around our hostel and doing our best to kill some time before heading to the airport for our flight to Oz...we'll just have to remember to leave the drugs at the hostel :)

Goodbye Europe

Day three in Tunbridge wells we headed south to Hastings with Ryan's parents for lunch. Here we were treated to a view of the English coast line. After walking around for a while we stopped for lunch - Fish & Chips.


A hill in Hastings.

Following lunch, we found an arcade/games place on the pier where we all gambled away some change at one of those games where you try to knock pennies off a ledge. At least it was an entertaining way to lose some money, but keep in mind that bumping the machine sets off an alarm!


The pier that bankrupted us. Most of it is closed because they are worried about it collapsing.

That night we headed to Tonbridge for a dinner with a large group of Ryan's family. They are definitely an entertaining group of people, and it was great to meet all of you. Afterwards we parted ways and Ryan and I took a cab back to our hotel for our last night in Tonbridge wells.

In the morning Ryan's parents picked us up from our hotel and took us to the train station where we would head back to London (and they would fly home). It was good to see some familiar faces and we both are very grateful for all of the hospitality! Thank you!

In London we checked into our hotel which was quite nice and in a great location, and then headed out for the day. We had still not seen Picadilly Circus (which had been compared to Times Square), so that was our destination for the day.


Some of the advertising at the Circus.

It's not quite as tall as Times Square, but is a busy area with lots to do. There are theatre & comedy show promoters everywhere, lots of shops, and lots of restaurants. We had lunch here, and afterwards tried a "99" ice cream cone which was pretty good.

That night, England was playing France in the Rugby World Cup in a game that would decide who went to the finals. We went to an English pub for dinner & beers and watched this game. Neither of us know anything about Rugby but it was still entertaining, especially since England won!

The next day we decided it was time to get a decent aerial view of the city of London, so we made the short tube trip over to the London Eye. It's quite expensive, but you do get a 30 minute journey with great views of the city in all directions (even though it was a bit smoggy).


Some of the city in the background...


A view from the top where you can see one of the capsules we were in.


Ryan shows us The London Eye from the ground.

At night we went back down to the Picadilly Circus area for dinner, and then found a night club to go to (since it was our last night in London, AND Europe). Cover was a bit pricey, and after we were there for maybe 20 minutes they announced that the bar was closing soon. Apparently on Sunday nights they stop serving alcohol at 12:30am, but stay open until 3am - what a joke!

Today we left our bags at one of the train stations and went to Oxford Street to do some shopping (or "Window Shopping" given our budget). Since we have my laptop now, we decided it would be good to find somewhere to kill some time before our flight. Since Starbucks charges for wireless Internet, we stopped at McDonald's where it is free (this is where we are now). We're just killing another hour before hopping on the train to Heathrow for our 10pm flight to Singapore.

We're both a bit surprised at how fast the last 2 months have gone, but know we have seen a ton of sights in such a short time on this trip. We're now ready to move on, and are both excited about seeing a bit of Asia on our way to Australia. The most disappointing thing is that it's not long before we have to find jobs again!

Anyways - good bye from Europe, the next time you hear from us will be from Singapore.

A jolly good time in England!

After a couple days taking in the sights of Amsterdam we headed towards the coast of Holland. We were actually kind of forced to do this because there was little accommodation left in Amsterdam and the flights to London were too expensive over the weekend. The coastal city, Noordwijk, we went to was about 1hr outside of Amsterdam but well situated to the airport for our pending flight to London. There wasn't a whole lot to see or do in this city which was actually a nice break for us. During our couple days here I also celebrated my 24th birthday. In typical fashion we purchased a cheap bottle of Vodka and drank it in our hostel room. Once we were sufficiently inebriated we walked down the street to a group of local pubs and bars. We met a few local guys on the street who guided us to the best one. We spent the majority of the night here having a couple more brews and talking to the local Dutch population (who speak remarkably good English!).


Jordan and I having a drink on the day of my birf (inside joke)

After this short stint in Noordwijk we boarded our flight to London. Once arriving we took a train to our new accommodation. The Hostel was little more than a few bed rooms over top of a pub, but it had a good location in the heart of London. We spent our first day walking the streets seeing as much as we could. Unfortunately for us the weather was terrible and we got soaked despite the cheap umbrellas we purchased. Before we were rained out we were able to see the exterior of Buckingham Palace, St. James park, the Parliament, Big Ben, Westminster Abby, and the London Eye.



Jordan modeling his £3 umbrella in front of Buckingham Palace. Normally this is where the famous 'changing of the guards' would take place but due to the weather it was cancelled this day.


I teased the swans in St. James park, they thought I had bread...suckers!


The Big Ben clock tower and a well timed drive by of a double decked bus.


After our day in the rain we were looking for something dry and relaxing to do. So, we headed to the theater district of London were we were able to see The Lion King. We purchased the cheapest seats available (which happened to be 'limited view') but they actually turned out to be great. The show was very entertaining and we are very glad we went.

Day two in London Jordan and I set out to see The Tower of London and Tower Bridge. At The Tower of London we paid the £16 entry fee (the exchange rate on the pound is killing us!) and spent the next few hours touring it. Inside we learnt a lot about it's medieval history, stories of torture, and viewed the famous 'Crown Jewels'.


Jordan stands in front of The White Tower, within the Tower of London.


Legend has it that if the Ravens are to leave The Tower of London the kingdom will fall. So, they clip the wings of the birds to prevent this...which is cheating in my opinion! Obviously this raven didn't read the sign.


Just opposite The Tower of London is the appropriately named Tower Bridge

After our second day in London we caught a train out to Tunbridge Wells to meet my parents and grandparents. Unfortunately we didn't get in until late because our train had electrical problems and we were delayed, which is becoming a regular occurrence as of late! We are now on day two in Tunbridge Wells where it has been very nice to see my family that I have not seen in some time. We have also been treated to a couple great meals which we are very thankful for!


We have been seeing a lot of the beautiful English country side in the past couple days. We stopped at this 15th century pub for lunch with my Aunt Julia and Uncle Tom.

We have one more night here in Tunbridge Wells before we move on to somewhere else, which as of now is not determined. Then Monday we catch our flight to Singapore which marks the end of our Europe trip :(