Welcome to Sydney

It is our second day in Sydney, Australia and today we are far more conscious and far less zombie-like. Getting here wasn't really so bad, but we were awake for quite a while. We awoke at 8am on Friday morning to catch our 11:40am flight to Bangkok. Then we had to sit around the airport and consume overpriced things until our flight to Sydney at 5pm, which was delayed 1 hour till 6. The flight was only 8.5 hours which was not too bad but neither of us could sleep. The time difference added 4 hours, so we arrived at 7am. We're staying with Kane's friends (god bless them) and we went around with them yesterday to the mall, grocery store, and hung out around the house. We took a 2 hour nap at 2pm because we couldn't stay awake any longer. The nap was surprisingly helpful and we were able to stay up till midnight.

Today we feel refreshed, though the rain spoiled our plans to go to the beach and downtown Sydney. They don't call downtown "downtown" though, they call it the CBD, I think, for Central Business District or something. Apparently if you call it "downtown" they will laugh at you. Noted. So we went around the mall, which is surprisingly similar to an American mall near Christmas time (extremely crowded, Christmas music playing, Santa in the center of the mall, etc.) except that it has grocery stores in it, which is actually rather nice since we are staying right across the street.

This is a far more ethnically diverse city than I had thought it would be - it is almost exactly like the bay area. It basically feels like home here except for our notable lack of an actual home. Everyone speaks English (sort of), we can read the signs, traffic follows rules (although they drive on the wrong side), nice restaurants and McDonalds' abound, the works. We have noted that: 1. Restaurants are far more expensive - a typical Applebees style dinner for two would probably run you at least $30 or $40 here rather than the $20 in the US; 2) Selected items are ridiculously expensive - groceries are normal while clothing, some electronics, and books are outrageous; and 3) Cell phones don't have the regular monthly plans that provide a certain number of minutes for a certain price. Rather, you buy a cell phone and a sim card and charge up your card with money at the drug store. It's strange, but it may actually end up being cheaper, we'll see. Gotta get a cell phone first, and they are expensive. Also, one American dollar is worth only slightly more than an Australian dollar ($1 US = $1.16 AUS), so they are almost even - boo. This will be good for us when we start working though.

It's nice here (summertime, whoo-hoo!) and we're looking forward to exploring the city more and getting some pics.