little girl, big cities

57 days.  I moved to a foreign country where I knew no one. Got lost more times than I care to admit on my first day at work. Went on a boat cruise around the Sydney Harbor. Went on the Bondi to Coogee walk and fell in love with the Pacific Ocean. Learned to surf. Fed a kangaroo. Pet a koala. Got a history lesson from an Aboriginal tour guide. Went on a hike through the Blue Mountains. I fell in love with my internship. Drank a ton of coffee. Saw a show at the Sydney Opera House. Went to the Toranga Zoo. Ate some fantastic pancakes at Pancakes on the Rocks. Went scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef. Pet some sea turtles. Went bungy jumping. Went on a hike over Nelson's Bay. Went on a whale watching cruise and saw hunchback whales breaching. Road a camel. Went sand dune boarding. Got my nose pierced. Went to the Hunter Valley wine region. Saw some wild kangaroos. Went skydiving. Ate some (a lot of) delicious gelato. Saw another show at the Sydney Opera House. Went to the A...

Sunday was yet another early wake up, but then again, sleep is for the weak and I can do plenty of sleeping once I touch down on American soil. In fact, I've already planned to sleep for 3 days straight upon returning home.  Morning mass at St. Mary's Cathedral, a stroll through the Royal Botanical Gardens, a few hours at the Aroma Festival and then a day at the beach all comes together to make for a gloriously fabulous Sunday.  *Yep, I'm  just as confused as you are.*  *Bronte Beach is probably the the most beautiful beach I have ever laid eyes on* Plus, the Aroma Festival is a whole festival dedicated to coffee. So many coffee stalls and jittery coffee filled coffee addicts crowding the streets of Circular Quay really brought tears to my eyes because it was so beautiful.  I mean, sipping on wildly delicious coffee with a fantastic view of the Opera House sure sounds like my idea of heaven. ...

I only have one weekend in Sydney left (://////) which meant I had to make the most of every minute and sleep as little as possible. Friday was my last day of work, which meant surpressing the tears for 8.5 hours and bonding with my bosses over stellar South Indian food and our love of books.  *Last morning commute over the glorious Sydney Harbor Bridge* *Since I work for a booked publishing company which deals mainly with lifestyle books and cookbooks, I did my best to find some food related cards. These were the only ones not covered in cakes with 'happy birthday' sprawled across the front, but they're pretty delightful so no complaints here.* After leaving work for the last time, I hurried home for a lovely homecooked rooftop dinner with friends before leaving for a long night out.  The Sydney Opera House was putting on a production called Ghost Stories, and we thought it'd b a fantastic idea to scare the pants off ourselves for a...

See, the thing is, I've wanted to skydive for a while. But I was all talk and never got around to actually making my dreams a reality. So instead of waiting for another year to pass without throwing myself out the door of a plane thousands of feet in the air while attached to a complete stranger, I decided to stop being a chicken and drive out to the coast where I could fling myself out of a plane and  have a stellar view of the Australian coast all the way down at the same time. Sunday morning, we were picked up at 6am, slept the whole hour and a half drive out to Wollongong, and wandered around the beach for a little while watching the sun rise over the ocean while we waited for the facilities to open. *In Australia, seeing a cockatoo flying around isn't weird or uncommon which is definitely weird to get used to. They are, however, the most annoying birds that have ever squawked and they are annoying as hell.*  *A beautiful rainbow over the field...

Or at least that's what my memoir would be called if I ever wrote one after this week. For starters, tim tams are God's gift to earth. Smooth cream sandwiched between two biscuits (cookies for all you Americans playing at home) and coated in milk chocolate. Heaven. On. Earth. To make matters worse, I recently discovered red velvet tim tams which basically means that I'll be eating double my weight in them from now until the day I leave. Besides eating a life's supply of tim tams in less than 2 months, what else have I been doing with my time you ask? Well, since this is for all intents and purposes a food appreciation post, I've been eating. More specifically, I've been consuming a wide variety of gelato, including flavors like Hansel - He's Hot Right Now and Stairway to Heaven.  (No I didn't make those up. Yes they are real flavors. Of course I would have way too much fun if my job title was "Official G...