Australia Week 1 – WEDNESDAY 15th OF JUNE 2016 TILL TUESDAY 21st OF JUNE 2016
One year of travelling in Australia. That’s my intention for the next 12 months. My visa is valid until June 2017, so I’ll see where it will take me.
Will I stay in Australia for one year? Only time can tell.
I promised people at home that I would keep a blog whilst travelling. The Dutch version was posted earlier this week. A lot of my new friends are also curious about my stories. So I decided to write an English version. You are reading it now ;-)
I started my adventure on Wednesday the 15th of June. My plane left the airport of Brussels at 3PM. And because it always rains in Belgium, obviously it was also raining when I left.
A photo posted by Natalie Van Parijs (@natalievanparijs) on Jun 15, 2016 at 5:21am PDT
After travelling for almost 24 hours to the other side of the world, I arrived in Sydney at 10PM (and 8 hour difference with Belgium). After my passport and visa were checked, I finally found my shuttle driver (whom I couldn’t find for more than half an hour) and checked into my hostel room, I finally went to sleep at 11:45PM, knackered.
Obviously I slept very well on the first night :-)
On Friday morning I had a meeting with the ‘Work & Travel Company Australia’. They are helping me with all the practical (and sometimes boring, but necessary) stuff. Without them, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy Sydney immediately because I’d be worrying about a lot of things.
Like writing a resume. Without their help I’d still be writing it ;-) And I wouldn’t have know that I could do some sign writing, a hobby of mine.
I’ve been doing this at home already for a couple of years, but the last year I spent more time designing them rather than focusing on the text. If you’re curious about them: www.fb.com/VPNatalie
I’m quiet proud of them. I even designed a little business card for promoting my work here in Australia.
I was just one day in Sydney, and I already met two people from Belgium also speaking Dutch (For those who don’t know, Belgium has three official languages: French, Dutch and German. The language ‘Belgian’ doesn’t exist). They’ve been travelling in Australia since February, and after 17 days in New Zealand, they will be going back to Belgium.
In the evening I went to the Vivid festival. A lot of the famous building here in Sydney where lighted so artistically. I was very impressed with it. And because it’s indescribable, I took as many pictures as possible. https://1drv.ms/f/s!Au5S_LjPMAcZnECrWG4-TVFJOJR8
On Saturday I couldn’t sleep for as long as I wanted to. At 9 o’clock I was expected for a RSA course. This certificate is necessary if you want to work anywhere where they serve alcohol (RSA stands for Responsible Service of Alcohol). When you want to work in hospitality it should help in finding a job. Here I met a nice girl from Taiwan, Kayla. During lunch break we got sushi together and planned to meet again. Which we did on Tuesday. Getting the certificate was easier then I thought. After one day of lectured by a guy called Greg White, whom proclaimed everything to be ‘cool bananas’, we had to do a test. With the answers only one click away on our camera or phone ;-)
Sunday it was raining. So I nestled in a little café, with free wifi, ordered a coffee and contacted some people back at home. Afterwards I went to a movie with Emmy and Steven (the two Dutch speaking Belgians). Steven really wanted to see ‘Finding Dory’. It was a very good movie, and the theatre was filled with twenty-something year olds reliving their childhood. I haven’t seen ‘Finding Nemo’ yet, but now it’s on my list of movies to watch.
On Monday I had to take care of some practical stuff, but in the evening I went for a run in Darling Harbour together with my roommate Lena. Still trying to do some exercise ;-)
Tuesday I met with Kayla in Newtown. She wanted to introduce me to the best cake of Sydney. It’s the ‘Strawberry Watermelon Cake’ from Black Star Pastry. And it was delicious. Two layers of cream, one layer of watermelon, one layer of strawberries, finished with some pistachio and rose leaves. If you’re in the neighbourhood, you should definitely try it. http://www.blackstarpastry.com.au/strawberry-watermelon-cake
A photo posted by Natalie Van Parijs (@natalievanparijs) on Jun 21, 2016 at 6:28am PDT
After this delicious cake, we wanted some coffee. So we walked to a vey popular café, ‘Campos Coffee’. Everyone who loves coffee should think of visiting Australia. They really love their coffee over here, and being a barista is serious business.
Newtown isn’t very far from the University, which we also visited. Next we went to ‘St Mary’s Cathedral’ near Hyde Park. Here my camera took over, resulting in a lot of photos. https://1drv.ms/f/s!Au5S_LjPMAcZnEQhCpQ1D3Ro1xZp
After this Kayla and I were hungry so we went for some noodles at Tenkomori. A nice ending for a beautiful day.
This concluded an active first week in Sydney, with a lot of new friends.