And time goes on

hello, hello.

Well, after a great 3 weeks of petting koala's (No bear we have been told!!!) and kangaroos, feeding rainbow larakeets, wondering aimlessly around sydney, getting to know the Rollo siblings (David, Gemma and Stuart) and their friends, having wonderful home cooked meals, and generally just chilling out, our two heroes decided the time had come to take a pause in their travelling and launch into the scary and adult world of work and bills!!!!!!! (DA, DA, DAAAMMMMMM)

So we started looking for a suitable apartment. To begin with our standards where pretty modest: A nice clean furnished house in the coolest suburb in sydney, with 4 or 5 very socioable (how si that spellt!?!?!?!?!) people, for about $200 max! ....... as time went by, and we saw a few of these much hoped for apartments, we realised that maybe we were aiming for the heavens, so we accepted that either the apartment would be nice and clean, or it would be furnished,  or it would be in the coolest suburb (etc, etc) and we were getting a bit depressed to be honest (one of the places we saw was about 4m squared with no window but furnished (not too difficult as the bed was the only thing that fit in there), and the kitchen and bathroom (both of which were the same size as our room)were down the corridor, next to the landlords room and were to be shared with him and two other people!!!!!! we later realised that these were the places that asian (here you dont say asian because there are so many people here from different places in asia that most people can tell the difference from japanese and chinese... I still havnt got to that level) students rent when they come over to study and want to be close to campus... not to be racist or anything, but only japanese/chinese people could live in those conditions!!!!!) ummmm, ok, im getting lost in parentisis so let me get back to the story.

Anyway, when we were getting desperate and depressed (and pretty broke) we saw this old sign on a lamp-post. The writing was half washed away and we could only really read the number, but we thought "it cant be any worse then the rest of the stuff we've seen, and anyway, it'll probably be long taken, so why not just try" so we did, and the next day we went over to dear old Tempe ( a suburb right next to the airport, but also surprisingly close to the coolest suburb in sydney, only the distance of the highway that also goes through Tempe) and had a look at the house. It was a big and modern bungalow, with a quaint attic area. The tenants were 2 youngsters, run away from queensland to give life another go... me and pietro fell in love with it... and not only that but no one esle had seen the faded notice on the lamp-post, so the poor tenants (Nat and Adam) had no choice but to give us a try.

And we moved in, after promises of seeing the Rollo's often (and dont worry, we keep hounding the young siblings in our constant attempt of getting to know people).

On the day we moved in we found out that the prior tenant had gone uff in a puff, after a row and had taken with her the stuff that she was going to leave behind: her bed (our bed) the fridge, pots and pans, knives and forks, plates and last but not least Adam's shaving cream! Imagine our horror!!!! No Fridge!!!!!!!!! for me and pietro this was the worst news we had heard in a long time (as you all know, I LOVE to cook!!!!!). But we decided we would get a new fridge the next day, and after a night trip to the local salvation army (only 10 min. walk away) we also claimed and dragged home our new bed (it has actually become our favourite way of shopping). Obviously the fridge did not materialise right away, but me and pietro would start collecting the junk delicately places on the sidewalk and fill up our oh so empty room.

But now the big challenge arose!!! WORK!!!!! (also because now, not only were we broke, but we also had to pay rent!!). Our second search began, and I soon decided the easiest (and best paying) job would be nannying, while pietro decided that he wanted to do gardening or building, not because it payed particularly well, but because he thought he might enjoy that most. Because of my previuose babysitting experience (maybe slightly exaggerated) and because of pure luck, I have now found a wonderful job that I will start this week, looking after 2 boys, 14 and 22 months old, in a beautiful suburb in North Sydney. Pietro is still going to gardening interviews and has got an offer, but as a waiter, and he is not sure whether or not he will take it. But it is a bit hard to become a labourer if you havnt ever done it before, here you need a lot of experience in everything!!!!!!

And wait for it... we got our fridge yesterday!!!!!!! its wonderful, and our room looks like a real room, with lounging chair (or clothes chair as we like to refer to it) and wardrobe!!!  So now we must head out on our next adventure... the quest to fill up the sacred fridge!!!

Keep safe, kisses to you all!!!

Yvonne

P.S. we are not actually paying for internet, so its too slow to download pics at the moment, but will get to that as soon as possible

P.S.S. pietro just came back from a hard day of lawn mowing and has been offered a job!!!! he obviously still isnt sure (when is he ever) but the horizon seems oh so much brighter. 

Australia Day

(1 month later: Australia day is the 25th of january)
For those who don't know, the basic features of Australia Day are: sing the anthem, eat the food, meet the family. In this particular circumstance, playing cricket is also involved.
For those who don't know, the basic features of cricket are: throw the ball, hit the ball, run (like in baseball, but for some unknown reason australians think that baseball and cricket are completely different sports), while the rest of the team (indefinite amount of people, based on the amount of people in the family) talks, gets tan, drinks, eats, comment the game, spread through the field. Occasionally they are required to catch the ball, but they rarely do.

Sing the anthem:



Meet the family:


Eat food:


Play cricket:


Così la Simona sta buona per un po'.
Soon more exclusive pictures will arrive: us taking pictures of ourelves in front of the famous landmarks, the natural beauty of sydney, handfeeding the strange animals, our beautiful hosts, and much much more.
Coming soon, to a cinema near you. (hopefully not for christmas)

Mello Yello days

The lazy boy and the lazy girl you know didn't become hyperactive people just because they crossed the equator. That's maybe why after 2 and a half weeks in Australia we didn't post anything about here as well as about the week we've spent in the Fiji.

And being us very tidy, we don't want to break the indispensible chronological order of the pictures posted, and that means that until we don't show you what we looked like when we were in the hot damp tropics after a few hours of flight from the cold san francisco winter (all the readers in scandinavia laugh please), we can't possibly show pics of Sydney.
That's why I'm going to post this brief guide to our holiday in Fiji.

Through couchsurfing.org we met this wonderful family from Suva, the capital of Fiji and most rainy city of the country, that hosted us for a few days, and showed us the beauty that was hidden between the rain drops, and took such a good care of us that we now feel like we have a family there. They were (from left to right) the small loving Joy, Simon also said Moni, Joe also said Mani, Nana Lei the caring matriarch, great cook and wonderful hostess, and the future rugby star Joe. Yeah, I know, they're all called the same, and yeah, that was confusing.

(market by the canal in Suva+walk in the rainforest park, Colo-i-Suva)

Avoiding direct exposition to solar beams through only walking around under a safe shelter made of clouds (rainy ones eventually) didn't work at all as an anti sun burn technique, and we painfully found out that in fiji white skin gets burned just by being exposed to the open air. When I say 'painfully' maybe I should point out how after these red coloring days in Suva we went to the north side of the main island, and that implied putting 20ish kilos heavy backpacks on our sore shoulders. But believe me, it was worth it. We caught this bus ride through the island, that by the way made me think that sita drivers down the sant'andrea are careful drivers, and it was beautiful: we drove thru rainforestish bush, incredibly green hills, lost in the mountains villages, small wooden bridges as wide as the bus and breathtaking shores (sorry for the excessively pathetic rethoric, but it's hard to find so many different adjectives).

(tropical version of a city park in Suva - just a lovely house)

And the destinations was kinda of what everyone pictures when thinking of the world 'tropical paradise island': we spent 3 more days in a bungalow with mosquito net instead of glass on the windows just over the beach on this little island (that you can walk around in 6-7 hours of beach stroll--thank you for asking, no, we didn't do the whole circle) with no shops no village no cars whatsoever. All that was there were 3 resorts and (we found out) a lot of rich white people's holiday houses hidden in the trees along the beach. Our bungalow wasn't really a resort, it was just rented out empty with electricity until 10 pm, but it was sweet (about 7 people could have slept in there, and it was the only building on the island with a mosquito netted balcony, which I tell you was an amazing thing), and we met lovely fellow travellers having meals in a small resort run by a f**ing relaxed and smiling australian guy (everyone would be if living there, I say). The sun was really hot there, and the sea really wonderful, so our days were quite lazish.

(beach walk - outside our window;P)

On the last day we got this great deal with the australian guy: free lift to the airport in exchange for us taking a box of brochure heavier than my backpack to Sydney with us. It's always nice to be on an international flight carrying a strange orange box packed by someone else, we thought.
The last night we had the lucky chance to see Nadi, the backpacker capital of Fiji, and shared with 6 other people the luck to sleep until 4:30 am (yes, the hostel does provide free shuttle to the airport, but only at 5 am and at 2 pm, and our flight was at 10:30 am so...) in a tiny room in the dampest hottest weather I could think of without any fan, breeze, or airconditioning.
And the night after we were in Sydney...
And by the next weekend we were already introduced to the noble and tough sport that's cricket, and we led our team to defeat (we have a video, don't worry), we petted koalas ("isn't it exciting" I'd say, quoting the Niagara Falls video) and hand fed small kangaroos, had to deal with parrots (kockatoos) trying to take Yvonne out for a drink, took pictures of the Opera House, went to the beach and tried not to be in the rich number of dumb foreigners that took there their last swim, learnt to tell good spiders from bad spiders, and all that kind of stuff you do in Australia.
Peter

And now a little game: who can spot Yvonne in this little video clip?

Self punishment on the beach

Once, I taught myself not to mess with giant seaweed.
But lessons in life are always hard to get... It takes a while, but I'm pretty sure this time I got it. Pretty pretty sure I tell you.

For Sarawalk and the other slow internet users, we have pictures of the outcome. I'm sorry but as I was being smart, Yvonne was randomly filming the landscape, and the others where hoolahooping, we don't have pictures of the accident itself.

These ones provide clear evidence of how much the others couldn't understand the physical suffering I was going through, not to mention my self-esteem.

(I'm sure you now think I was hurting myself with sea flora all the time and we only have filmed evidence of these two, but I swear I only did it twice.)

Pieter

San Francisco Hoola Hoop Madness

One day three little San Francisco girls introduced us to the wonders and sorrows of hoola hooping...it was love at first sight




After the first thrill however we got used to it, and it just became part of our daily routine



Eventually we would become world hoola hoop ambassadors, and ventured outside the four walls of home.



as we reminesce of the good old days in S.F. you girls are great!!!! miss you all!

goodday mate

hello sweet people.
Well, i've decided that if we wait to write about fiji before writing about whats happening now, we will ever write ever again... so, when we do get around to fiji I think it will just be some photo's and commentry.
We are in Sydney, city of villages, as they call it (because it is huge and sprawling, but every suburb is like a village on its own accord). We have started looking for jobs, mostly on cruis ships for now ( we thought it might be interesting, and pay well) and are strating to keep an eye out for apartments too (in Newtown, the university suburb... I guess we will never become real grown ups!!!) Pietro comments: "yvonne you dweeb, you havnt even been to university yet, what are you on about!!!"
For now we are just hanging around in jenny and tony's house, we go to sydney in the afternoon, get baked in the sun, see somw more interesting things, and the usually go out with either jemma or stewart... they kinda take turns entertaining us ;oP
We are having a great time, and the thought of work is actually quite distressing, but we have promised ourselves (and jenny) that we will find a job before the end of this week (although jenny continues to insist that there is no rush... i think its best we get a move on or we might just get too comfortable!!!)

Dad, well done, you must have got all the people you know to check out the blog... or you just dont have enough to do... anyway, i now definatly know where my competitiveness comes from!!! So Denmark wins the January race with a stunning 51.9% with Italy comeing up second with 22,7 and thrid is the USA with 12.07%. Iceland Im afraid is in fourth place with only 5%, sorry mum.

anyway, love you all... dad, my stomach is now getting quite big, leti dont be too jealous, these things happen, pietro has told me that he doesnt care, he still wont marry me, so you can still do that first ;o)

think of us as we search for jobs and an apartment

P.S. they have a lot of british food here, like marmite, baked beans and lots of tea!!!!! I feel very much at home (they also have the queen on their very plastic like money, which by the way you can wash in the washingmachine and it doesnt get ruined!!!!!!!)

Yvonne