Sydney - now for reals :) (part 1)

Wake Up - the place I’m staying at

 So, how about Sydney, HUH?? :) Everybody has a lot of questions, so I will start to introduce you to the most important places that I have already visited, and as I go tell you a few facts and feelings I have about the place.

So honestly I don’t know much about how I got here, and when did I sleep and for how long and when did I not sleep, but the point is, that after Charlie’s I’ve decided to stay at a hostel for the next four days until I could move into my dorm.

Charlie suggested wake up, I wanted something close to central, and I could not find anything that would have been any cheaper, so I’ve decided to stay at the Wake Up hostel which is just opposite to the central railway station of Sydney. I don’t really want to talk much about it, just the basics:

            - it’s a nice international crowd, always in rotation with people coming and going

            - the place itself is like a better dorm in Hungary, but not like Schönherz though…

            - there is a bar, and all the entertainment and programs you could need for the day

            - it’s 40 bucks a night if you are staying in a mixed 4bed bedroom

Just a few pictures for you so that you would know what I’m talking about:

So, this is a room inside, perfect for sleeping, and what else would you need it for?

 The view from the window: Sydney Central Station - cool, huh? :)

 Bathrooms side 1.

 Bathrooms side 2.

Sydney and your money - or should I say the money you have had once

Well let’s see the dirty business of money first. So that I would not start with anything bad, let’s see the money itself. Australia’s currency is the Australian Dollar. One dollar breaks into 100 cents.

They have silver coins of 5, 10, 20, 50 cents and gold coins of 1 and 2 dollars. The money itself keeps it value quite good, since I have quite a few coins from the 1960s and ‘70s. The back side is easy, because it’s always a portrait of Elizabeth the II. You know, the English queen, since, Australia was “invaded” by the British, when they decided to send here prisoners and of course guards to keep an eye on them. I will talk about Australia’s history in another time, mainly because I don’t know much about it yet either. So back to the coins: as I said the back is easy, but how about the front? Well that’s a completely different question… I have already seen 4 types of the 50 cent coin, and I currently have two types of the one dollar bill, and I’m sure that that’s not even all.

If we are talking banknotes, the situation is much better there: they all look the same, and they are all printed on some plastic based material, so you can’t wash them away or brake them or anything. That I like very much. There is a 5, 10, 20 and 50 dollar bill for sure and I have not seen anything higher yet.

You can see a few of them down here, on these pictures:

 The Coins, sorry for the flash light, but there is not enough light today to do it any other way.

And the notes.

As for how fast you can spend it here? Well, the short answer is very fast. One dollar is about 230 forints nowadays. And the first few prices that I have found were the following:

            - train ride from the airport to the city center: 16 dollars

            - bottle of water (1,5l) at a deli: 5 dollars

            - bottle of water at another deli (0,6l): 1 dollar

            - the same as the last one colled down: 2 dollars

            - one night at a chep hostel in a 4bed room: 40 dollars

            - one cheap meal for dinner/lunch: 10-20 dollars

            - one meal at a more popular place: 30-90 dollars

            - tickets for walking through the harbour bridge: 160 dollars

And I could continue… So I knew that this will be expensive, but that it would be this expensive would hit even me… I mean come on… 1000 Forints for a liter of water? Or 230 for cooling?? Come on…

Fortunately the second day I did manage to find the supermarkets and the fresh food markets as well, so now the situation got much better - even though much better does not mean anything got cheap, but now I can be happy for prices like the following:

• certain fruits and veggies can be bought for a dollar on a kg, so that’s not bad… but you can get almost anything in season between 1-2 dollars, at least at the freshfood market (there are supposed to be bigger markets as well, until now I have only been to paddy market in inner Sydney)
• you can get a liter of water, and just as well a liter of orange juice of milk in one of the inner Sydney supermarkets for 1 bucks, so that’s not so bad (and by the way, even though it has a little bit too much chlorine in it, Sydney tap water can be drank and it’s not bed either Sydney tap water is not so bad, and you can drink it.)
• you can get 700 grams of sliced toast bread (there is basically no other type of bread around here…) for 2,50 which is not that outrageous… and also something that I like really much: you don’t have to choose between breads based on the money that you have because every vendor makes white bread, brown bread, full of seeds bread, etc, etc, and they all cost the same… so living healthy is not that hard around here - even though living itself might be :)
• and one more important thing, at least this is important for me: a BigMac Meal can be bought for 7,85 and for another 50 cents they will upgrade it for you to a large Meal, and you get a surprise glass to that as well. So that is a not so bad deal, given how much everything else costs around here, and that you even get a glass which surely will have a good place in your dorm’s kitchen once you move in

So that’s about it. Once I will know more about the prices, and find out what is there to eat around here, and how much clothing or transports, or electronic goodies cost, I will make another entry about that.

For now I’m scraping by, and yes I’m eating well, now that I have found the supermarkets and fresh markets, and yes I’m OK, but yes I do take donations from anyone :D Anyway, it will be better if I manage to get a job, or just when they will be able to transfer my scholarship, hence that won’t happen until my classes commence.

Let’s move on to Sydney itself

My first impressions were very good. Sydney is a real metropolitan, so it’ huge. I was just thinking whether I ever was somewhere similar, but I have to tell no. Budapest is a small little village compared to the size of Sydney, and so are most of the European cities that I have visited. Only two places crossed my mind, Barcelona, and Mockba (or as you know it Moscow :)) I think that these great cities - Moscow for sure - could take the challenge against Sydney, but somehow they don’t. If you walk in the inner Moscow territories, everything is quite close to the next thing, there are not so many really great skyscrapers… And mainly there is the tourist attraction center, and there are the other parts of town, and the two don’t really mix. So somehow I don’t feel like I’ve ever really have been in a big city like Sydney.

The place is great and spacious. Everything is huge, you always find yourself in a big ass and super green super nice parks in the middle of the city. It’s completely multicultural, but instead of mashing everything together like it’s usual in most of the places, here everyone just lives next to the others. I think the best word would be, that everything mixes here. If you go down any street, you will find yourself walking next to Asian, American, Europian, African, and Aboriginal Australian people. All skin colors, hair colors, and all kinds of everything. There is nothing that you would not find here. Everything is full with small restaurants and shops, and boutiques, run by all kinds of nations. Another thing that shows how everything is mixed instead of mashed, that all the old buildings - you should not think European old, just Australian old, so 50-100-150 years old - are standing next to or at the feet of the brand new skyscrapers. It is certainly a strange view, but I liked it right from the beginnings. Most of the people speak English, even though there are so many different English languages around here that you better be on your feet if you want to understand everything. It’s rare that people start talking on their native tongues and they only do it, when there is no chance for anyone else to be interested in the conversation - and no by that I don’t mean eavesdropping, because everybody gives to the others their space. :)

So as I said everything mixes… migrant girls holding up the slow and stop sign at roadblocks, businessman and woman of all nationalities, tourist, schoolchildren, students, artists, street performers, the Southern Slavic butcher, the Chinese restaurant owners, or shopkeepers, Arabic deli runners, everyone really: basically if you go into a McDonalds and you can’t count workers from at least three planets than you are probably not in Sydney :)

As I said, the spaces are big, whether we talking the size of roads, the inside of buildings, space for parks, or whatever. I don’t think that I have been anywhere where I felt claustrophobic yet. Although it was strange to be a pedestrian at the beginnings. So imagine a bunch of people using the sidewalk, mixed as they are here. Quarter of them not knowing which side should they be walking, another quarter of them not caring, the third quarter just trying to go on the right side, and the last of them constantly just gazing around hence they are tourists. So imagine walking in that environment. It did not take me long to realize, that it does not matter which side I’m going there are always going to be people right in front of me, so what matters is confidence that also shows on the way you walk, so that people would decide to get out of your way instead of just you having to change the course of your walking all the time. So that’s that.

Another strange thing is as you probably know, that Australians still drive on the left side. That’s nothing major, it’s just a matter of getting used to it, but it is still strange for me, and I never know what side should I look to when crossing a road, so it’s a good thing that:

a.)    I always look both sides because you can never be certain enough.

b.)    Most of the pedestrian crosswalks have big subtitles on the pavement LOOK LEFT or LOOK RIGHT depending on which side are you coming from.

Ok, as long we are here: crosswalks. These are strange things here in Australia. If you only see the lines on the pavement as you see in Hungary, so basically a good old “zebra” then there is no traffic light, so the cars have to give way to you which means “elsőbbségadás kötelező. If there are two lines and nothing in between them than that in between is the place where you can get through once you have a green light. You can find out whether there is a green light from the star wars like voices made by the big megaphones - I’m guessing that’s the thing helping blind people move around. And what’s interesting, at least it was interesting for me, that sometimes there are crosswalks in the middle of the road. No intersection, nothing, sometimes not even a plaza entry - because yes, I did manage to notice, how at every plaza entry there has to be a crosswalk. One more strange thing is that whenever you are trying to get into a car you will probably get it wrong… I did it many times :) And after a while you will start getting used to it, and the automatic correction - that you started to do, so that you would end up on the right place - will be the problem :)

Ok, so we had basics, traffic, money, and some of people, but let’s see more of people: here as at many other places people are really-really open and nice to each other. Not because they want something, but because it is much easier and healthier to be in a good mood and like others than it is to always just growl around :) So you can talk to whomever, even at an intersection - of course after they had their adjusting period, because everyone is coming from somewhere, and they arte carrying their baggage with them. They will always ask you how are you, and if you ask them the same they will tell you how good they are. Nobody complains much around here, and there are generally more smiling people. The Australians also like to call everyone Mate :) but that’s just how they are.

Ok, what else… Honestly I’m a little bit out of things to say, but it’s my fifth page, so I think that’s kind of OK. But I did not do what I promised, I told all about the way of life and the things that came to mind, and nothing about the places, so let’s see the places.