Well, its been over 3 months since i arrived in sydney and i still dont have much to say other than ive been working! things weren't going so smoothly when we first arrived, flat hunting proved a lot more difficult here than it is at home. after looking at many horrible and expensive flats, we finally found one through the "furnished property group" in the suburb of newtown. its a very cool place, very much like the west end of glasgow with loads of cafes, bars and vintage shops. the flat itself is very small but its great to have the place to ourselves and have our own kitchen and bathroom at last! the only problem is our neighbours upstairs but im not even going to go into it over the internet...!! job hunting wasn't as difficult, ended up with a job at the imax (again) and since ive done it before its been quite straight forward! it has the biggest screen in the world so it was exciting to see the dark knight film on it for free (bonus). th pay is good and its right on darling harbour so the view out the window isnt so bad! i also get to deal with massive groups of school kids again...yipee....
although most of our time has been spent working, we have managed to do a few of the sights etc. ofcourse we have been to bondi but only the once as its full of wanabees and its FREEZING!! actually i seem to have spent more of my time at the shopping centre at bondi junction which is about 10 mins from the beach. manly beach is far nicer, its about 30 mins on a ferry from the city. its not quite as busy and there are a few nice walks arund there too. one of the most excitin things that we've managed to do though is go to a show at the opera house! to see edward scissorhands of all things!! we got the cheapest tickets which apparently would only allow us to see half the stage (!) when we got there the view seemed pretty good but the seats 2 along from us were like triple the price. conveniently there was no one sitting on them so things worked out quite well in the end, once the lights went off. on top of that we've been to taronga zoo, wildlfe world (where colin touched his first snake...), the austraila museum and the botanics where we came across THOUSANDS of fruit bats just hanging in the trees at midday. quite strange.
last month was a little crazy here as it was world youth day/week. ive never heard of it before but turns out like half a million catholics congrugate somewhere and the pope comes too. typcially they had it in sydney while i was here! since i work in the imax right on darling harbour, i got caught up in people singing and trying to convince me that i love god on a daily basis. i was glad when that was over....now that its the olympics thats all that is in the news. are any other countires competing in it? im starting to doubt it judging by the tv coverage we get!
a few weekends ago we managed to take the time to get out of the city for 2 days to the blue mountains. its only about 2 hours on the train and was well worth it. my legs hurt by the end due to all the walking! the scenery was great, i have loads of pics as usual that il put up soon.we rode the worlds steepest railway which only lasted about 30 secs but was stll fun! also walked down the giant stairway which took you right onto one of the 3 sisters. we styed in the local town called katoomba just for 1 night. it was quite quiet and we got a 2 day shuttle bus that took us around the town. they called it a bus but it was more like a converted tram that sounded like it was going to blow up whenever it moved. we managed to get a room in a very nice eco friendly hostel. i think the main reason we were so happy with it was because it had a fire in the living area (did i mention how cold our flat is?)
now, exciting things are on the horizon! we are flying to perth on the 26th august as we found quite cheap flights! i have heard great things about the west coast so am really looking forward to travelling again and going somwhere that i havnt been before. we havnt yet organised much but the rough plan is to travel up the coast and do some fruit picking and farm work (through wwoof-free accom and food in excahnge for work) to keep us going.
watch this space! 
