Over the month that we actually ended up staying here we saw plenty of people come and go - one of them, Chanty (said in an Essex trying to be posh accent!) had us mesmerised by her sheer lack of general knowledge about the world and were stunned when she told us that she'd just climbed kilimanjaro!!! Her best "friend" was, in the nicest possible way, an annoying skanky ho...who didn't put sheets on her bed the whole time she was there and left all her crap all over the floor!

We blame her for the trauma that was.....one morning when Laura was in the shower one of the German girls in our dorm threw herself off her top bunk screaming....Bets turned around to see what can only be described as a saucer sized mother of a spider (think tarantula thick legs) crawling its way around the ceiling above this poor girls bed. Needless to say chaos ensued! Coops was instructed to not look anywhere so as to be able to continue getting dressed whilst Bets kept an eye on its movements. We thought it had gone away to its hiding hole when all of a sudden it moved at lightning speed across the ceiling and then without warning dropped to the floor (who knew spiders would just drop for no apparent reason...little bastard!) and headed straight towards us sending a room full of screaming girls jumping onto anything elevated and Coops dashing out the door to yells of "GO AND GET HELP!!!!!" She returned with the receptionist armed with some killer bug spray and after much moving of bags and beds the poor spider was no more. (Coops does not agree with this last statement - she says "god intended it to die.")

Other characters in the dorm included...the girl who felt the need to sleep naked, the 18 year old private school girl who kept talking about her "gap yaaaa" in india, the annoying dutch girl who literally hated laura after she finished the communal cornflakes at breakfast time and various other annoying travellers (not to stereotype at all, but Germans are really not the best room mates!) So it goes without saying that we were desperate to escape!! Especially considering every time we cooked dinner, we emerged feeling lucky to be alive after the death trap of the kitchen. Literally, pots and pans precariously piled to the ceiling in the sinks, saucepans with no handles full of boiling water being carried around using teatowels and far too many people in one space. Oh and there were no forks. Ever. You will be surprised to hear that there was actually a cleaner, Mark, but he was weird and kept trying to be our friend and cook our meals for us as he thought he was an amazing chef. We think he was a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic!

Glebe however was a really nice area in the studenty part of town (altho there weren't actually any students because of the holidays) filled with lots of cute cafes and charity shops where we discovered the amazing vinnies and stocked up on lots of cheap books!

Job and flat hunting ensued in earnest through the month of January and we probably spent a small fortune on using the internet. It was a weird reality hit to be doing up our CVs and emailing all the agencies around Sydney. Days were then spent going in and out of the city, registering with them and being told "there's not much work available at the moment!" We did not appreciate this advice. Inteviews happened....we were actually placed against each other for more than one position (we hate agencies) but it felt like things kept falling through and we started to get a bit annoyed and down as we watched our savings dwindle away (apparently Sydney is the most expensive place to live in Australia!!! Great!)

And typically, if we had of been working we would of got an extra days holiday as it was their national bank holiday, Australia Day - an excuse for a big piss up!! Do not fear, we made sure we made the most of this and headed to The Rocks where there was a fun music festival happening to cheer ourselves up! It was a scorcher of a day and we enjoyed sitting in the sun and moving between the many different stages and discovering some totally cool new bands! Gemma and her fun new house mates joined us - yay we have friends!

We were so excited to move in and actually be able to unpack. We've made it our own little place with pictures of all you lovely people and our Australian flags on the wall of our bedroom! (Because we now consider ourselves Australian citizens!) With the pillows that we had stolen from the hostel (do you know how expensive household things are here?!?) we made a delightful double bed for the both of us (yes we are sharing!) with a sleeping bag for a doona! We are poor :-( Please send money to address above :-)

Coops on the other hand started off changing the future of contraception, in the most full on temp job she's ever had. When the offer of an actual events job came through she jumped at the chance, even though it was an hours train ride away in South West Sydney! This was to be the best job ever, as she got to meet a home and away hottie whilst organising a community festival day in her new role as Events Officer for Campbelltown City Council! Just an fyi, Campbelltown is slightly less glamorous than Paddington because of the terrifying bogans, tramps and teenage mums who reside there, which makes Peckham look like Notting Hill.

It was great to be settled down and working, but the reality of the 9-5 was a bit of a shocker!!! This wasn't supposed to be part of "living the dream!!!!!!!" Here's to our new life in Sydney......

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written by  coopsandbets on May 20, 2011 from Sydney, Australia
from the travel blog: We are off to find the wizard!
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Taronga Zoo: pretty much the first thing on our list to do (obvo!) and it definitely didn't disappoint. Seal displays, snoozing koalas, weird and wonderful native creatures (especially the ones in the dark!) and lush views down over the harbour! It was also during this excursion that we saw the wonder that is 'monkey poo dinner.' At first we were amazed to see two chimps hugging, just like real people, but then started to get a little confused as they then proceeded to pick poo out of their own and each other's bums. Well, the rest you can guess. Bets gagged and had to walk away, but Coops stared on in amazement and thought it was hilarious!!!!

Sky tower: After a traumatising simulated information ride where Coops thought she was going to throw up everywhere, we went up like a bejillion floors to check out the views and spent a long time working out where everything was on the streets below saying "they look like ants from up here!!!!" (Said in Russian accent please!) Including looking for our flat and just checking that people wouldn't be able to see us if we were naked!

Markets: So many delights to be found at the super cool vintage weekend markets! Glebe is our fave of course, but also Paddington, Balmain and Rozelle! Good times, but also bad as we had to sadly walk away from things that our backpacker budgets would not allow!

Festivals: All through the summer there was loads of fun free festivals happening in various locations around Sydney, in particular Hyde Park. We enjoyed sitting out on the grass and getting some tasters of new filems, music and comedy. One of the best was Tropfest, a short film festival, where Joseph Fiennes was skyping in to be a judge and Coops pretty much jizzed in her pants!!! There was also the craziness that is Sydney Mardi Gras, with roads closed everywhere and everyone and his wife getting dressed up for the occasion...mental! (Did we mention there are a lot of gays here?!?!)

Good vibrations: Possibly the wettest day in Sydney, ever, so we decided to spend it outside at this music festival. We macked up and got our rave on!

Trots: Some of you maybe thinking this is some kind of stomach condition...it was in fact the chariot racing that we went to watch with Coops' work peeps! It was hilarious, with horses only being allowed to trot (hence the name) to pull along these little flimsy chariots where the jockey is about a centimetre off the ground. We didn't win any of our bets (clearly we're not cut out for this gambling malarky!) but we did have a ruddy marvelous evening and discovered the delights of good seafood, with an enormous platter of tasty things and Coops going "eat the octopus!!!!" Think: smoked salmon, crab, scallops, prawns, octopus and sushi - did we tell you we now like sushi?!?!? (We are officially grown up!)

Beach time: Making the most of the true aussie way of life, enjoying many a day spent roasting on the beaches of Bondi, Coogee and Manly and of course checking out the resident life guards at each of them. Standard. Bondi Rescue is our new found favourite tv show...and we think every beach should have this drama!

Blue mountains: A very spontaneous trip was taken with Letty's friend Hannah on the train to Katoomba, where we went to the lookout point, Echo Point, and Coops' grumpily saying "well they don't bloody look blue." But we were all amazed by the vastness - its like a bushy grand canyon (coops' words fyi!!!!) We also found the weirdest, morman cafe where we ate dinner and took delicious cake, ice cream and coffee for the train ride home. Ahhhhh...

Aquarium: We don't quite understand why Australians feel the need to re-name animals but we saw some really cute 'Dugongs' aka mannatees, loads of fishies (they're all pretty ugly really!), seahorses, jellyfish, sharks, turtles and the biggest stingrays you've ever seen!

Wildlife world: The biggest croc in Australia (Rex) was what lured us into this place, but to be fair he looked dead - Rex is very lazy. He was big though!! Bets had to guide Coops through an entire insect section with her eyes closed to avoid any spider sightings. And this was the first time we got to see a wombat...they are so squidgey!!!!

Cinema tuesdays: We always make sure we have some 'couple time' for our regular date night, good uns have included Barney's version, Thor, Hangover 2, Arthur, Water for Elephants. Bad ones: red riding hood. (It's wank).

Nights out: We have had to truely immerse ourselves in the way of living out here, which has meant a lot of nights in gay bars and befriending hairdressers. In our early days of ignorance, we ended up stumbling across a strip club in Kings Cross - awkward!!! Plenty of fun times have been had in Paddington pubs and bars and a couple of swanky bars in the city. Including going for bevvies in the Shangri-La hotel with Emma (Coops's sister Wendy's friend!)

Booze cruise: We started the Paddy's day weekend with a booze cruise filled with a load of irish football players, drinking yet more goon and clinging on to the ceiling as we struggled to stand on the rocking boat!!! A couple of glimpses outside to check that we were still in the harbour, but we may as well of been in a pub!!!!

Gigs: Even though the music scene isn't great here (and gigs are frigging expensive), we were missing our London gig nights, so indulged in some smaller gigs on Oxford Street. One crazy night involved a chinese girl called Rainbow Chan playing the glochenspiel!! Genius!

Bondi to coogee and Manly to spit walks: Both of these were very nice wanders along the beautiful coastline on lovely sunny days! Once again, we turned up dressed inappropriately when Emma, our tour guide, was dressed in head to toe lycra and trainers and said "this isn't fun, it's exercise!!!!"

Roller derby: This really was a case of having to be seen to be believed. This popular 'girl on girl' sport has randomly taken off in Australia. We watched in amazement as unattractive lesbians circled around a small basketball court and dooshed each other out their way as they went!!! Hilarious!!!

Travel information continued.... Some areas of interest.

Surry hills: So many cafes and restaurants, which are delightful for sunday brunch time and delicious cupcakes. And we finally got to go to the infamous 'Winery', when we were treated by a family friend. Dessert...don't mind if I do!!

Darling Harbour: A place also very close to our hearts is Darling Harbour, as we pretty much live there!! Although the restaurants are a bit pricey for all the tourists, we like walking around and feeling like we're on holiday again with all of the restaurants, street entertainment and shwanky yachts!

Inner West: Lots of cool, quirky suburbs like Glebe, Rozelle, Leichardt which are nice for window shopping, cwaffee and general wanders.

Watson's bay: Beautiful bay on the harbour with lots of houses looking out over the water and a very cute chish and fips place on the wharf (we are yet to sample this) and Coops discovered an amazing icecream with chopped nuts from the ice cream van!

North shore: Neutral bay, Mosman, Cremorne...essentially where 'the other half live.'

Cronulla: Even though it was pissing down and we had to walk through the town with no shoes on due to serious slipping, Bets wanted to take a walk down memory lane as this is where Mummy Barry resided when she lived in Australia. Yummy italian food and vino whilst watching the surfers out in the sea and a quick walk along the beach where Bets collected some pink shells. (Coops isn't sure quite what she is planning on doing with them, but apparently she just needs more!)

Needless to say there has been plenty of food sampling going on all the while. As we have realised the theme to our trip is....food. With some cuddley animals on the side!

Please can we go now? We are still hungover. Over and out xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

written by  coopsandbets on June 3, 2011 from Sydney, Australia
from the travel blog: We are off to find the wizard!
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Laura set the standard, with a lot of 'secret plannings' for Bets b'day weekend, in order to account for all missing family and friends! Due to our new found love of sushi, we had a group outing with Lauren and Gemma to the Ivy (a ridiculously swanky club here) where they have a really cool sushi train restaurant as well. There was a lot of looking and smelling the different dishes to try and figure out what the ingredients were and some were swiftly put back on the conveyor belt!! The dumplings were the favourite, but it was deeelish and we left feeling sushi-stuffed!! This was followed by cheers with bubbly at the Opera bar looking at the harbour bridge and Gemma and Laura saying 'WHEN have you ever had your birthday...." followed by....in australia/looking at the harbour bridge/next to the opera house etc!!

The rest of the weekend was a mixed bag of joyful activities, including a sunny day spent at the Surry Hills festival listening to music and chomping down on tasty foods with Hannah and (her sister) Olivia and the evening was spent at Mags and Ross's warehouse/caravan park of a house. This can't really be explained, but think at least 5 caravans inside a warehouse with Ross sleeping in a harry potter style room under the stairs and Mags in the loft with a ladder for a staircase. It's mental, but somehow for them, it works. We had a hilarious eve drinking, dancing and general tomfoolery with all the random articles they have accumulated (ahem...stolen) around the place, including kermit the frog!!! The move onto the nightclub/bar wasn't quite so successful, when we found ourselves in a slightly terrifying, hardcore gay bar!!!!

On the actual day, (which was a Monday) Bets awoke to find balloons all over the flat, including next to her on the pillow, and hundreds of post it notes hidden in every possible hiding place, including the one later found in her lunch box!!! Sadly to say, the day was spent at work as usual (we are responsible adults now of course) but they did provide a $50 birthday cake, which gave Coops food envy!! A very exciting evening was to come, when Coops met her date from work for an amazing 'love supreme' pizza and present time!!! Then Coops had to hail a taxi while Bets covered her ears as the destination was given to the driver....it was only as we started to pull up outside the Opera House that Bets worked out where we were going! At the top of the stairs, Coops revealed the big birthday surprise was...going to see Madame Butterfly, the ballet!!! AMAZING. It was definitely a birthday never to be forgotten and we both left wanting to be ballet dancers. The night wasn't over though, as then Coops sat Bets down for a singsong and a birthday cupcake looking out over the harbour - deelightful!!!

The next day, we very excitedly had a holiday to go on!!!! We packed up a ridiculously large amount of stuff and met each other at the check in desks of Sydney domestic airport!!! We were going to Noosa - where we had been kindly invited to the beachside wedding of Alain and Kerry!

Noosa is a gorgeous holiday spot in Queesland and we were delighted to find that it was still super warm up there! Day one was spent being boys for the day on Alain's stag do!!! This involved a hilarious surf lesson with all the guys and needless to say lots of messing around, but it was much fun and we both managed to "catch a few waves man!!!!" whilst swallowing copious amounts of sea water and exposing far too much of ourselves as we clambered over those damn boards!!! Despite being provided with the 'rashy' vests (to protect you from rub-bage from the board) Coops' delicate thighs definitely suffered the brunt of her exercions and returned home with red raw scabbiness!!! Bleurrrghh!!

The evening was where it all really kicked off. It started with a nice sophisticated dinner, as Alain insisted it was going to be low key evening. But he was soon told to man up and strap on a pair - "its your bloody stag do!!!" This resulted in a lot of abuse written on his 'STAG' t-shirt and soon followed with tequila shots that we may have provided him (just as someone goes, "whatever you do, don't get him tequila!") The rest is a blur of very silly antics....including the decision to draw on peoples faces instead of just the boring t-shirt, and Coops unfortunately ending up with an expletive all over her back, jaegerbombs, running man on the dance floor, be-friending the dj, Letty getting lost for at least an hour, people falling asleep on club sofas and sadly at the end of the night there may have been some puking! We can only blame ourselves for trying to be boys and get the stag wasted (we succeeded) but also took ourselves down in the mean time!!!

Day two: Hangover from hell circa October 2010, Isla Mujeres. We made it out of bed to venture to the local chicken shop at around 7pm. It was a dark day for both of us.

The rest of the trip was spent with days on the beach and enjoying lush coastal rainforest walks. The town is really cute and we kept bumping into our new found wedding friends for iced coffees, breakfasts and lunches! Spiffing. We also ventured to the nearby ridonculously huge Eumundi markets!

The big day soon rolled around and we were excited to get ourselves spruced up. But, just as we were leaving, it started to spit with rain!! At the spot on the beach, guests like us huddled under the trees to try and stay dry and there was a bit of frantic decision making going on whether to change to the indoor venue!! But Kerry was determined and someone was obviously smiling down on them because, just as she arrived, the rain stopped and stayed off for the whole of the lovely, intimate ceremony! It was gorgeous and the pictures will definitely look even better with the stormy clouds in the distance! We then all made our way down the beach to the bistro overlooking the water for lots of delicious canapes, free-flowing champagne and pimms and a deelish 3 course meal! And the piece de resistance was a cheese wedding cake - think 3 tiers of the finest australian brie, blue cheese and one hard cheese! Bets nearly jizzed in her pants and got cheese drunk! Speeches were funny, company was great and dancing was hilarious (including a really weird version of bohemian rhapsody!!)

We love Noosa and hope Alain and Kerry have many a happy year together. Looking forward to Melbs times!!

Just the other weekend (yes people we're up to date) it was the little ones turn for an Australian birthday too! The birthday weekend commenced with drinks and a yummy meal at the winery (again) with Emma.

Coops was then woken at 7am on the actual day with Bets dancing to Stevie Wonders' Happy birthday in her pjs and hoodie and balloons flailing around in her hands....for the entire 3:50 mins of the song! The big reveal came when an orange spaceship (campervan) named Max, covered in balloons, sat in the carpark that our flat overlooks! After a lot of unexpected confusion "what...I don't understand!?!?" Bets spelt out to Coops that she had hired the campervan for a road trip around New South Wales!!

Setting off out of Sydney, with Coops donning her birthday tiara and eating the chocolates sent by special delivery from Wenners, Bets had to swiftly cut the balloons off the aerial whilst leaning out the window when stopped at traffic lights (yes, she was the one driving!) We headed South and quickly made our way out of the city, stopping for a picnic lunch (Bets had secretly packed a lot of foodly goods for the weekend) sat overlooking a beautiful lake within the Royal National Park.

Then the day was spent with lots of nice views looking out over the sea (we tried but didn't spot any whales!) and stopped off in cute bays and some pretty little spots (like Garie beach!) We arrived into our home for the night - the National Park at Jervis Bay - just as it was dark and we started to feel a little concerned that we would essentially be in the middle of nowhere! We quickly changed pre-dinner into some sexy (NOT) warm attire so that we didn't freeze our balls off but then just as we ventured out, we were greeted by a guy from the nearby roaring fire who invited us over. We swiftly then scrapped the unattractive warm clothes and donned something a bit more presentable! We joined the 4 lovely guys (think Dads on a boys kayaking weekend) in their ridiculsouly huge "area" where they had set up everything including an actual kitchen sink! They fed us spag bol and red wine and we had a delightul evening around the fire playing word association games! Coops was even treated to a cupcake with a lit match for a candle and a beautiful rendition of happy birthday from our new happy camper friends! We also went for a little night time safari with the David Attenborough of the group and found Kangaroos and wallabies just a short distance away from us! It was a completely random way for Coops to spend her 25th birthday, but was so fun and won't be forgotten!

The next morning after our coco pops and chocolate milk and a sighting of about 4 kookaburras that had been lured in by bacon, we went for a walk along the beach which had the whitest sand in the world! We couldn't believe it! We couldn't stay there forever though as we headed off to see more amazing landscapes, like Kangaroo Valley, with lunch spent looking out over some oldies playing bowls with a dramatic, hilly backdrop. We're not going to lie, some wrong turns were taken, but this was all part of the adventure of course! Including one diversion into a National Park that time had forgotten!

Our second night was spent in Kiama - a very cute seaside town with its star attraction, a blowhole! We slept pretty much on the beach so breakfast was spent watching some boogey boarders in our pjs on some beachside grass! The nearby area of Jamberoo randomly has a rainforest, so we went for a walk amongst the seriously huge trees!

We were very sad when we had to return to Sydney and give Max back, as the beautiful countryside of New South Wales had given us itchy feet for more adventures..........

Luckily, we are planning our next phase of travels!! We are leaving Sydney in t- minus 5 days to venture up the East coast!!! Woooooo!!!

So long Sydney, it's been emotional!!!!! We'll be writing again from warmer Northern climes.....(We bloody hope, Sydneys turned arctic!!!!)

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written by  coopsandbets on June 10, 2011 from Sydney, Australia
from the travel blog: We are off to find the wizard!
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