Couchsurfing Begins

In my last post I said I didn't know if this would ever feel "real," and I was given the answer to that rather quickly. On day four reality hit me like a sack of bricks to the face, and I was overcome with negative feelings about being alone in a foreign country with no "real" plan. However, the upside of the emotional rollercoaster that is living abroad is that positive feelings are never too far away. After a day of feeling completely overwhelmed, I was soon back to being on top and absolutely stoked to be here.

I started couchsurfing on Saturday and have had the best experiences. My first hosts Kim, Nick and Chris live in Annandale, which is in Sydney's Inner West. They were incredibly welcoming, took me out to a variety of bars around the city, and overall showed me a great time. On the 4th of July I made them sloppy joes, and although there was no sloppy joe sauce or mix at the supermarket, they turned out quite well. I was surprised and pleased. After three nights there I came to the people I am currently staying with. Em, Jonah, Sam and Tommy, two of them are Australia natives, while one is from Scotland and another from Ireland. Again, I am having a great time and they are incredibly welcoming. I have also met up with several couchsurfers just to hang out, all positive experiences. I am a huge fan of couchsurfing!

I've done most of the typical Sydney tourist activities, at least the ones that don't cost a bunch of money. I took the (free) ferry to Cockatoo Island the other day for an art exhibit, that was pretty cool. Yesterday I tried to do the 6km coastal walk from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach but a little over halfway it started raining and I got drenched. A bit of a downer, but it was still fun.

Today the weather was crappy again so I went to the Powerhouse Museum. It was awesome. I learned a lot of random things, like what it's like to be an astronaut in space. Some fun facts... Food has to be "glued" to eating utensils with sticky sauces, and drinks are sucked from valved plastic bag-like containers. Chairs aren't needed, but there are restraints to stop astronauts from floating away. Being 350 km (about 215 miles) above Earth, they can catch 16 sunsets and sunrises in 24 hours. Astronauts grow taller in space, because weightlessness allows the spine to relax and stretch. However, more blood flows to their heads, which creates "moon faces" and chicken legs. I'm fascinated by what day to day life is like in space... They have to exercise for two hours a day because muscles deteriorate quickly without having to work against gravity, and afterwards perspiration is vacuumed off because it sticks to skin. They don't take showers, but use wet towels, sponges, and non-rise dry shampoo. There are toilets (bizarre ones), but during liftoff, landing and spacewalks they wear disposable "nappies" (haha).

I've been eager to try some Australian foods and got to try vegemite yesterday. As expected, I didn't like it. Very salty and a taste I'm not used to. Haven't gotten the chance to try kangaroo or anything else typical Ozzie yet, but will defnitely be doing so at some point.

Overall, having a great time in Australia so far. On Sunday I'm heading off on a six hour train ride to Tamworth for Jillaroo School. I'm quite excited for it, should be something completely different and I'll definitely be learning lots. If you'd like to check out the itinerary and website you can do so here: http://www.leconfield.com/itinerary.html.

Note the slight address change on the last post, turns out I've been giving out the wrong locked bag number for a while... Damn.

Going to post some pictures on Facebook in the next couple days, which I'll give a link to on here. Hope everyone is doing well overseas.