Have been here in Sydney for over a week now, and it seems like SO much longer than that! In a good way, though, I think simply because I have been so busy and have done so much and every day has been so long and filled. I get home in the evening and I am shattered! ('Home' is now applied to any place where I have been staying for more than about two nights, funny how quickly you slip into that).

Spent several days CV-updating and job seeking online, and a whole day going googly-eyed after reading a million and one accomodation ad's.

After a manic and hectic week the weekend was a welcome break, I finally got round to doing some touristy stuff, walked up to the Harbour and saw Harbour Bridge (amazing) and the Opera House- was funny, as I looked at it, I couldn't remember what it was supposed to look like, having had that iconic image in my head for so long! Then through the Botanical Gardens, which are gorgeous… sat down on a bench to eat my peanut-butter and jam sandwich for lunch, looking out over the water to the opera house and the bridge across the bay.. money can't buy that view! And a cockatoo landed on the back of the bench, a massive one! It started sidling along the back of the bench towards me, eyeing my sandwich, then as I got up to walk away it tried to land on my sholdour.. freaked me out! Not sure if they are wild here.. the parks are full of big Glossy Ibis', with big long curved beaks, apparently they started coming into urban areas only about four years ago with the droughts and now they are common all through the city, they are remarkable for being really BIG for an urban wild bird, and such a distinctive curved beak.

Then Sunday, I awoke to torrential rain! Nooo! That's the worst start to a touristically-planned day, especially without a waterproof coat. It eased, though, and I left later to go to the Museum of Contemporary Art, saw a great exhibition on drawing, and another on a Japanese lady artist from the 1960's, Yayoi something. Then to the observatory but ran out of steam and had to leave.. will re-visit because it looked really interesting! Sunday evening, we went out to Newtown to a Thai restaurant called DoyTao, was SO good, excellent and not too pricey food and bring-your-own alcohol, yay! The cheapest Rose was $10.49 a bottle and vile, that's not right!

Monday I moved to Surrey Hills, in with Grace and Sophie (and one other girl). The room is small for four of us, has a double bed and a bunk beds and not much room besides, but it's so nice sharing with them, we cooked dinner at the same time, ate together then watched a film in the evening, I am relishing the company now.. the YHA hostel could be a bit lonely, because it's really luck of the draw who your roommates are whether you get on with them or not and stuff like that, also people weren't as friendly as I expected them to be. So here I have company, we get on well and it's good!

Oh, and I did my RSA Monday, too so hopefully more job-getting potential. Haven't had chance to distribute many CV's yet but will do a 'run' on the way home tomorrow.

First uni fieldwork day today, was good fun! We went down to the rocky shore at Cape Banks, south of Sydney, part of Botany Bay national park.. the experiment was basically to test limpet preference for certain patches of rock.. We marked off (drill holes in rock then screw in screws with markers) 20 quadrats at each of two sites. At each we left ten as controls then removed limpets from the other then by prising them off the rock and chucking them into the sea.. Ross will go back tomorrow and Fri to photograph the sections again, then compare to see if there are patterns in where limpets chose to be on the rocks. Was hard work but fun! Nice to be by the sea in all that fresh air.

A little hard though, when I came home and compared days with S&G.. they had been working all day (at a warehouse doing a s*** job) but they earnt $108 for the day, whilst I earnt nothing and took no steps towards getting paid employment, because I was out with the prof. I know it's good experience but a little difficult to be not earning for my hard work, particularly when I feel I've been doing badly with money and really need to start earning soon. I can't seem to avoid spending it.. I don't buy clothes or any stuff, there are just simply EXPENSES round every corner. Boo. I know it won't feel so bad once I can actually see some money go into my account, because at the moment it is just going down and down, very disheartening and makes me feel bad so I think "f*** it" and spend more to make myself feel better.. bad cycle!

That's about it, apart from the fact that I make DELISH curried pumpkin stew, with onions, tomatoes and sugar snap peas in it. It is SO GOOD. Nom nom nom.