So here I am, a week later, settled into Sydney life. It took me quite a few days to feel normal but I finally feel comfortable in my apartment, at work, and in the city. My manager found me on my first day in the office (she is awesome, by the way) and took me over to meet my new team. They are all really friendly and made me feel so welcomed. I quickly became really close with a few of the girls who are so similar to me and so much fun, including a girl visiting from the Dublin office who is also here for a short while. It's been so nice having girls to hang out with and gossip with. It's like we've known each other for ages.
So yeah, work has been really good and I'm learning so much. A few days after I started, my manager asked me if I'd like to go to Tokyo to help train a new Media Manager (yes, please!) so I'll be heading to Tokyo this Friday and staying a bit over a week. It's going to be such an amazing experience and I've been dying to see the city since I first went to Kyoto about 5 years ago. My friends Cass (an American expat Googler) and Yuriko (a Googler who I become friends with during my admin days and who took me around Kyoto and then later came to visit me in the States) are there so it will be a lot of fun hanging out with them.
Some of the things I've been doing outside of work...a few of us went out for Japanese food one night after work where you order your food from a touch screen menu and I tried fried crocodile in chili sauce which was actually pretty darn tasty. After dinner we met up with a few other girls and went to go see Glee 3D. We were singing and dancing in our seats, it was such cheesy fun. The next night I had dinner with my friend Disha who I met when we were both on rotation in Sao Paulo in February but left soon after I arrived. We went for a nice Thai dinner and she sent me home with an amazing bottle of Australian Shiraz which I am finishing as I type.
The next night I met up with two friends that I knew back when I was an exchange student in Canberra in 1998, Nigel (aka Nasty but apparently nobody calls him that anymore) and Jim. Nigel actually works at Google so it's been nice having him there (though I never see him because he's on the engineer floor and apparently nobody ever sees the engineers). The three of us went out for Malaysian food at this new hip place called Mamak that specializes in roti and satays. It was amazing. We caught up and laughed like lunatics all night. We wanted to get a coffee after dinner but instead ended up on a restaurant boat docked in Darling Harbour and ordered a bottle of wine and laughed for a few more hours. It was so nice reuniting with the both of them and I'm so glad we've kept in touch all of these years.
This past weekend Zarina and I took the train after work to visit our friend Lisa and see her little apartment and eat pizza which was a ton of fun. Saturday our friend Robyn from work took us to the Blue Mountains where we had a great breakfast, then went to see the famous Three Sisters rock formation, went hiking, saw waterfalls (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvLrmYA_LAk), rode the steepest railroad in the world (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMhKe5lyhhE), and for high tea. It was so crazy, we were sitting in the dining room eating shoving scones into our faces when two guys and a girl from the UK asked if they could share the sofas with us. It turned out Zarina knew the guy from University back in Lancaster. Small world!
Today Zarina and I waked to Circular Quay to catch a bus to Bondi Beach, the area where I lived back in 2001 and for half of 2003. It was so crazy seeing my old apartment that I lived in back in 2001, ten years ago exactly. It brought back so many memories of my crazy days living with Ashley (another American) and all of the fun that we had. We walked down to the beach from my apartment and met up with Robyn, a coworker of Zarina's also from Dublin, and Jim and did the Bondi to Coogee walk, a famous cliff side walk that goes through about 7 gorgeous beach towns (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EuUNNzMNho). I got a little bit emotional when we walked by the Waverly Cemetery because I was suddenly flooded with memories of being taken there by my friend James from Uni who passed away a few years ago. It really made me realize how life short is and to just enjoy every moment and not try to look so far ahead in the future. I think this trip is really teaching me that life is crazy and you never know who you might meet or where you might go.
It's going to be a busy week at work giving some trainings and preparing for my Japan trip so I'm going to go finish a bottle of wine and relax. G'day to those of you just waking up and G'night to the rest of you. Over and out.
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