First impressions of Australia

Greetings from Sydney!

This is my third day here - packed days! My colleague Deepa and I stayed in Bondi beach until last night. Australia is really growing on me - I can see why you all who have been here rave about it. It's not actually foreign - it's very familiar but with extra charm. So far Australia is fulfilling all the stereotypes about beer drinking, backpacking, rugby-loving, funny accented, beef lovers. But it's really cosmopolitan - in a sort of European way (sidewalk cafes, etc). What's really struck me is how friendly people are - I don't know why American's aren't as friendly. I haven't noticed if the toilet flushes backwards but the locks on doors are opposite - you don't turn the handles towards the lock but away from it. Weird aussies. And it's really expensive here (although that might be just in comparison with Delhi).

It's actually been really interesting to see Sydney through the eyes of an Indian. She's been to Singapore and Thailand, but never anywhere like this. Her observations so far:
-"The public buses are so wonderful - they're clean and efficient"
-"The malls don't have sand in them!"
-"There's only one lock on the door?"
-"The waves are so violent!"
-"Australians are so tall!"
-"Is this pure veg?"


So on Friday we walked around Bondi, great cafes and shops and obviously a beautiful beach (although it's too cold to spend much time by). On Saturday we decided to do a one day tour up to the blue mountains - it's a great time because as it's winter they do Christmas in July up there. I was hesitant to do the tour as I usually find organized tours annoying but this one was actually wonderful. (Oz Trails if anyone is heading here). The mountains were beautiful (the eucalyptus trees create a blue looking haze - hence the name). Waterfalls (pictured), rock formations, aboriginal drawings of kangaroos, actual roos in the wild (hee hee), a cute little town with great chocolate, the steepest inclining train in the world (how come everywhere I go they have something with a similar label to this?). Deepa was really hesitant about the sky train thing but loved it! She said the best part was the train though. And the roos were so crazy - I had a nice one on one talk with the roo in the picture with me. And two of them actually did a little boxing (see the very fuzzy picture)! The tour ended with a cruise into Darling Harbour (where the Opera House is).

We then transfered into our conference hotel (which is amazing - much better than the bunk beds at the backpacker's lodge in bondi). So last night Deepa was tired and I decided to go find beef and beer (mmmm...). Everything along the harbour seemed really swanky and way more fancy than I was looking for. Someone finally pointed me to an Irish pub and Australia was playing Japan in soccer asia world cup. I grabbed a table and these really nice guy and his wife totally included me in their evening and we had a great evening. Australia lost in free kicks but it was such a fun time.

Next onto the conference!