Welcome to beautiful Sydney

How funny it is to be back in the Western world and how quickly I seem to fit straight back in.  But it's also strange to now see our world from a different perspective - to know that so many in the world don't live like this.  How funny it now seems all the things we caught up in here, and the totally superficiality of it all.  

I am living in Sydney now and it is really lovely to have unpacked my stuff properly for the first time in months.  I am living in a flat in Newtown, which is a really cool but slightly grungy part of Sydney (kinda like Camden).  The flat is clean (apart from a few cockroaches which appear in the kitchen at night) and light and my flatmates are really friendly.  My room is unfurnished, but I have managed to acquire a double blowup mattress, a small bedside table and a small set of drawers - all through good fortune and other peoples kindness, and now my room looks great!  I think that if I had arrived here straight from home I wouldn't have been happy with this for three months, but for me right now it is absolutely perfect - I really don't feel like I want or need anything else in my little room.  

Sydney is a fun city.  And all the better for having two of my old London flatmates here at the moment, Marisa and Anne.  It's great being shown around by locals, you see so much that you wouldn't have the chance to see as a tourist.  

The best thing about Sydney is that it is on the water - everything focuses on the sea.  The beaches are lovely, not beautiful like the ones in Western Australia, but really pretty with reddish sand and (cold) clear water with great waves.  I have seen my first surfers and it looks like so much fun but I'm not going to brave the freezing cold water and I'm happy to watch!  Bondi beach is where all the backpackers and the rich, bronzed and beautiful live, (all reasons I am not living there!) and there is a stunning walk along the coast from Bondi to Coogee beach.  It goes along the coast, along some cliffs past several cute little beaches and through one of the nicest cemeteries I have ever been to, the names on the graves caught my eye - so many very Scottish, Irish and English names.  The waves crashing on the rocks, the sun blinding in the sky and the strong wind straight off the sea - it is the most perfect way to clear your mind.  It really doesn't feel real to me that this is part of a city.  

I went out with some friends in Manly, which is north from where I live and to get there I have to take a ferry!  The ferry pulls out of the harbour right next to the Opera House and the bridge.  It couldn't be more tourist friendly if it tried and the postcard will never look as good as the real thing.  It is odd seeing the Opera house for the first time, it is an image i have seen a thousand times and this makes seeing it, and standing beside it very surreal.  But standing at the back of the boat as it pulls out of the harbour and looking back at the bridge, the opera house and the city is something I know I will not get tired of.  It is just beautiful.  And what a fabulous way to come home from the pub at midnight on a friday night - the city all lit up and the seagulls flying along beside the boat.  

And from the boat you can see what a green city Sydney is.  Beaches line the shores, the houses come down to the water but there are trees among all the houses, and there are no skyscrapers outside of the CBD.  The botanical gardens run from the opera house along the coast and on the opposite shore the zoo keeps a large area green.  

I wasn't planning on making Sydney home when I first arrived in Australia, but having friends here pulled me in and I'm glad.  It is a nice place to live for a few months.