BONDI (pronounced like Bonzai but with a D)

Beach Day! I woke up at about 9:30 to get an early start to the day so I could spend as much time at Bondi as possible. Now, Bondi Beach is probably the most famous Sydney beach and it's supposed to be simultaneously awesome and jam-packed with people. I got everything ready for a long day at the beach and I even applied sunscreen before I left the apartment (amazing, I know). In order to get to Bondi I needed to take the underground train and then walk about 4km to the beach. Technically, I could have taken a bus instead of walking, but firstly where's the fun in that - and secondly that's more expensive! When I got the the Town Hall train station I was able to navigate it no problem. I bought my ticket for the way there and for the return and boarded the train. The ride only took about 10 minutes total and I found myself at Bondi Junction. I walked out the station to find a huge mall to my right and a bunch of small tents manned by individual vendors. I figured I could stop by and look at things on my way back so I began the trek to the beach. Luckily, my sense of direction didn't fail me. I had only really looked at the google map once before leaving the apartment and there was about 4km of walking to do in order to get to the beach. However, I was able to find my way just fine and after about 45 minutes of walking I arrived at Bondi! There were a bunch of shops lining the beach so I walked up and down those first. I ended up buying a 5 dollar pair of sandals because my current ones are about dead, and then grabbed some lunch at 'Bondi Fresh.' I got a schnitzel sandwich which is basically a chicken parm sandwich and followed it up with a coffee boba from Tea Works. Both were delicious and after they were finished I walked down to the beach.

The sand was great! Its the really small sand that's all powdery and awesome. I walked down to the water and although it was maybe a little chilly it felt great as a contrast to the super hot weather. I walked the length of the beach with my legs submerged, but since I had all my stuff with me and no one to really leave it with I decided I would leave full out swimming for another day. On one end of the beach there was actually a huge professional surfing event going on. I walked over in time to see the open segment, semi-finals, and the final round. It was really cool seeing what all the surfers could do and how talented they are. There were apparently a bunch of world famous surfers that I was watching, but seeing as I don't follow the surfing world none of the names rung a bell. So I just sat and watched and thoroughly enjoyed. By the time the competition ended it was about 4:30 so I decided to get my legs into the ocean once again and then settle onto the beach to read for a little while longer. After another hour or so I decided the sun had really taken it out of me so I should probably walk back. Unfortunately the walk there was all downhill so I knew the walk back would be a little rougher on me. Surprisingly the walk back seemed much faster than the walk there. Have you ever noticed that when you go places? The return trip is always a snap compared to the way there. I think it's something about the uncertainty on the way there - you don't know how far it is or when you'll get there so it seems longer cause you're thinking about it.

When I got back I decided to walk the mall a bit. Before I got inside the mall I passed this gorgeous flower shop, and guess what? I found my new favorite flower! Now, generally I'm not a huge flower girl and little known fact that I doubt anyone but like two of my friends could tell you is that my favorite flower is honeysuckle followed loosely by lilies. However, honeysuckle, which has been my favorite flower since I was about 9 has finally been overtaken by something called Narines. They're beautiful, and I don't know why but I just really really like them. When I finally entered the mall I found a Borders and even though I have a kindle I just had to go inside! And, yet, here was another place that is WAY more expensive in AU. Thank goodness I bought a kindle because there is NO WAY I could afford to buy those books! After, I wandered around the mall a little more and found a target and then a pet store. Now, I literally almost bought a cat today. Like, I seriously lost my mind for probably 10 minutes after seeing the cute kittens because I got all the way to talking to the owner about the the price and started bartering with them before I snapped out of it and realized there is no way in hell I could have a cat here. If I showed up with a kitten my flatmates would flip and what would I do in 5 months? So, luckily when I realized what I was doing I promptly left the store before I could start bartering for deals if I got both a puppy and a kitten. After I left I walked down to the food court where I found Max Brenner's Chocolate restaurant. For some reason it was calling to me, so I decided I had found my dinner joint. I ordered a waffle and a Mexican hot chocolate. My dear goodness the waffle was DELICIOUS. It was served with strawberries, bananas, ice cream, and a chocolate drizzle and I can say with 100% confidence that that is the best waffle I have ever eaten in my entire life. The hot cocoa wasn't as great unfortunately.... It was okay, but not exactly the good 'ol spiced cinnamon Mexican hot chocolate that I'm used too. I think there was like too much spice or something? Either way, overall I give the restaurant a thumbs up and would definitely go back.

Finally at about 7 I figured I should be heading home. It had been a long day and I could feel a burn start to appear on my legs. By the time I got to my apartment I saw the definite signs of red on the front of my legs and realized I might have spent a bit too much time reading on the beach. Luckily for me the only part of me that got burned was my legs and I can deal with that. I finally put on that laundry that I'd been planning to do all week and drank a ton of water. I also watched the second half of 27 dresses, the second half of Alice in Wonderland, and planned a bit of my Sunday. When my roomie got home she mentioned that she went to visit Jonathan (the missing flatmate) and that he was in a place with immigration about 2 hours from here. He's currently figuring paperwork out and trying to apply for the proper papers to stay here. At this point no one knows if it'll get approved, so he's kind of in Limbo. Hopefully he gets to stay. He was such a nice guy the few days I was here with him.

Day 20: Meet-Ups

No A.M. today. Why? Cause I was supposed to conference call with a potential advising professor for Ohio State! After a long time of trying to set up a date (made more difficult by me being on another continent) we had finally settled on Thursday 8pm EST which mean Friday at noon for me. I adequately prepared myself for the skype call by reading his 5 or so most recent papers, his online blog, the lab page he maintains, reading up on his current graduate students, Ohio State, the program in general, and rereading my Ohio application (yes, I needed to brush up on myself). hahaa. I was nervous, but prepared, but nervous. Before I left LA I had one phone call with a potential professor and that had gone smoothly, but really with these things you don't know what they're going to throw at you - if they're going to ask you for your 2 year plan, your best case scenario research topic, your goals 10 years from now, or what your favorite ninja turtle is. You never know!! And they have ALL the power... Well, most of the power, they want you to like them too I think. After some stress of being unable to find him on skype I finally was able to connect and as it turns out he was putting his kid to sleep which resulted in a bit of a later sign-on than expected. The call went really well though. I liked him a lot and he mentioned he thought I could be a good fit in his lab which was exciting. But, only time will tell what happens. I'm just glad everything went smoothly and I didn't make a crazy fool of myself by saying something stupid, or making a weird face into the camera. haha.

After the call I spent some time unwinding in my apartment and surfing the web for possible groups to join in Sydney. I've been loving it thus far, and surprisingly am not very lonely, but I figured I should find some groups and meet some people *before* I start to feel that way. ahhaa. I actually really lucked out and found an awesome site that has a bunch of different groups that do meet-ups. The groups range from anything, business, social, environmental, new in town, artsy, workout, ect and you can basically join a group that interests you and people in that group organize meet-ups. I joined a couple social, a couple outdoorsy, and an environmental one and actually saw that the girls group I joined was having a drinks outing that night. So, I clicked the "I'm attending" button and got ready for the night. The outing was actually really cool. The bar, which was luckily literally 1/2 block from my apartment, was really cool. It was called Oscars and the vibe was really chill. There were a bunch of couches and I found the group sitting on a circle of them. There were 9 girls that were attending and I got to chat and meet them all. They were really great and it was just a fun girls night out. There were people that were foreigners like me, a few that had lived in Sydney their whole life, and a few that landed somewhere in between that spectrum. I'm pretty sure I was the youngest there, and the ladies ranged in age probably from about 25-50. I ordered an Oscar Rascal, which was basically a raspberry vodka drink that was to die for (crushed raspberries and everything). We sat and talked for about 2 hours and then a few of the girls ducked out for the night and the rest of us went to grab a late dinner at the harbor. The six of us went to an awesome Italian place right on the harbor and I ordered some yummy 4-cheese gnocchi. We ate and talked for probably another solid hour or two and decided it was time to head home. As a mini-group we decided that we'd go clubbing together next Friday, which should be fun and we all exchanged numbers and such to plan the outing. I also talked to two of the girls about doing a beach day which will probably happen within the next couple weeks.

A couple things I learned from the night:
*Circular Quay is pronounced Circular Key
*Cairns is pronounces Cannes, like the film festival - they kind of do wierd things with adding and dropping r's as they please
*I've begun to say "yeah" like a true Aussie
*I'm sure I noticed before, but I've never written it: no pennies in Australian currency, they don't exist)
*US medical insurance SUCKS compared to the Aussie universal health care, and most Aussies are dumbfounded by how complicated ours is
*The Netherlands are a MUST visit sometime in my lifetime
*No tax is, once again, crazy baller (no figuring out how much tax and tip to put in on the bill cause there's no tax, and you only really tip if it's crazy awesome service)
*Kissing on one cheek is the general way to say goodbye, not handshakes or hugs.
*Aussie women are seriously hilarious!

Day 19: Solo Gel Pipetting (So Science-y I can hardly hold in my excitement!)

I have officially given in. I could no longer resist. The urge was too great and my self control too low. So Thursday, the tenth of March two thousand and eleven, the third Thursday I have experienced in Sydney: I had Starbucks. In case you're wondering Sydney Starbucks is (surprise surprise) more expensive than Starbucks in the states. But, the craziest thing - they don't have iced coffee. Yes, I repeat, there is no such thing as an iced coffee. When I ordered a grande hazelnut iced coffee the barista looked at me as though I'd gone insane. He asked me if I meant a hazelnut coffee, and I said, 'no, a hazelnut iced coffee' to which he replied only by gesturing to the hot coffee pots and giving me a confused look. I then looked on the board and found an iced latte option (i guess that's the way to get your iced coffee) and ordered a hazelnut iced latte. Also, after getting my drink I went to grab one of the coffee sleeves. Yes, I understand that they're supposed to be used for hot drinks so you don't burn your hands, but I have also found they do wonders for not freezing your hand off with cold beverages. Second weird thing about Sydney starbucks: the sleeves DON'T FIT the cold drink cups. Ridiculous. I know that they're not what they're primarily used for, but I was so sad when I went to slip it on and it didn't fit (awkward that's what she said joke inserted here? nOOO thank you, this is a family blog people!) Anyway, after getting over my shock and sadness I walked the rest of the way to the museum. Luckily, I arrived to a very pleasant surprise. It was to be another day of working in the lab doing PCRs and Gels (ie. more pipeting and working with cool lab equiptment for Sarah) - WOOT! This time we ran two PCRs simultaneously and worked with a few different primers to try and produce the best barcoding result. After the PCRs are done we run a gel to check and see that we actually got dna material from the samples. This time, Andrew let me do pipeting onto the gel which is actually really difficult. Basically you pipet the sample into a really small well that has been created on the gel. It's difficult to get the sample into the well and even more difficult to stick the pipet in far enough, but not so far as to get it stuck. After a few kind of failed attempts I got into a groove and sailed through the rest of the samples. The result of the gel? We got useful DNA material!! YAY! Operation PCR: Success :) After the PCR and gel I organized old samples in the office and did a little more photo editing work. I wasn't going to come into the office on Friday so I tried to get everything as complete as possible for when I next come in. Thursday night and guess what?! More thinking about laundry but not doing it, more surfing the web, and more relaxing. I made some delicious egg, red pepper, and soy sauce rice dish that perfectly hit the spot, watched a TV movie with my flatmate (bonding time! hahaa) and called it a night.

Day 18: 95 tubes of legs on the table (to be sung to the tune of 100 bottles of beer on the wall)

Okay, so for as much as I was on time on Monday I was LATE on Wednesday. I was meaning to get there at 10am, the usual, and instead arrived at about 10:45. Woops! But it was okay, as usual. I started off the day editing the tons of photos I took with the tripod the day before and worked to make them the best they could be :) The morning went by quickly and soon it was lunchtime. I haven't mentioned it, but lunch has now turned into PBJ, rice cakes, and water - without fail, everyday. Surprisingly I have yet to get bored of it, so since its easy and cheap I'll keep going with it till I do. I normally just eat in his office (and when I say his office I mean the entire upper floor of the building, so no, it's not a bit cramped. I eat and read and generally get right back to work. Once the editing was done Andrew decided it would be a good idea to start compiling plates of specimen to be sent in large quantities to the Canadian lab. So, I commenced on that project. Basically I have a plate that has 96 small tubes. Each tube is filled with a few drops of ethanol and one by one I take the specimen (who are all pinned ie. dead), and with tweezers pluck a leg from them and place it into the corresponding tube. Once all 95 tubes are filled and closed (the last one is left blank) the plate is complete and ready to be sent off. Its a very meticulous process because you can't lose your place on the plate nor on which specimen you are on. Additionally, you have to be very careful of preventing cross-contamination because if the dna from one gets into the other tube the dna coding is worthless. So between every specimen I put ethanol on the tweezers and burn it off, destroying any hint of the previous moth. After completing about a plate and a half I looked up and realized it was 5pm - time to go! So I packed up and skidaddled right out of there. What did I do in the evening, you ask.... NADA, Zilch, Nufin', Zero. I chilled, thought about doing laundry but didn't actually do it, thought about going to rent a movie but watched one on TV instead, considered walking to the harbor but decided that the couch was too comfy and the pjs were too awesome. Wednesday night - relaxin and chillaxin.

Day 17: Late Morning

Andrew had told me on Monday that he would be in meetings from about 10am till about noon, so I should just come in anytime I wanted before noon. So, ladies and gentlemen, what time does that mean Sarah Young will show up? 11:30! Still earlier than noon, but no earlier than need-be. I was able to enjoy a nice leisurely breakfast that I made with boiled eggs, toast, and a really yummy chai latte and even surf the web a bit before coming in. When I got in I went back to photographing specimen and waiting for Andrew to return from all the meetings. Soon after he arrived he decided to go buy a tripod he'd been meaning to get for all the pictures I'd been taking so he dashed away to do that leaving me to basically just read in his office, which was fine by me! I got a lot farther in my book by the time he'd gotten back. Once he did we set up the tripod, the extra flashes for the camera, and the display apparatus and I was off, once again taking specimen photos. All I gotta say, is THANK GOODNESS for that tripod. The photos had been taking me painstakingly long because they have to be perfectly in focus on a very specific part of the wing and when you're holding the camera, adjusting the focus, and trying not to shake or move it can be slightly difficult. So, the tripod assisted in much faster photography and a much happier Sarah. In the second half of the afternoon I had been able to photograph the same number of specimens that I photographed on Friday, Monday, and Tuesday combined! Tuesday night ended up almost identical to Monday night. Grabbed some milk on the way home, crashed, and surfed the web in the evening. I even watched a movie or two before succumbing to sleep for the evening.

Day 16: Officially Lab Certified :)

Monday morning started off nice and morning-like. Now, I am someone who prides herself on her promptness. I try very hard to be early to almost everything and very rarely end up late. However, the last week or so at the Museum the lack of official time I am required to come in has led to late mornings. Generally I shoot for 10am, and generally I make it in by 10:15 but there are occasional slip ups. Monday, however, I had a meeting scheduled with the guy in charge of all the labs in the museum at 10am so I really had to get up, get going, and arrive at the museum on time. I was happy to see that given the requirement of 10am I was back to my usual self, showing up at 9:45 and waiting outside his office for 15 minutes. haha. The walkthrough itself took about 45 minutes. He took me through all the different lab areas, pointing out important features as we went and informing me of any and all potential health hazards. Luckily, it seems as though there aren't too many terribly hazardous chemicals in the lab, so there's really only so much damage I could do if something went wrong. He did inform me however, that a specific fume hood was where they do testing on various birds that are sent to them from the government and sometimes other countries that they test for various very deadly viruses and diseases. Sooooo, lets just say I will be staying as far away from that fume hood as possible. No dead bird infections for me, please :)

After walking through the labs (which luckily I was already fairly familiar with since I had already worked with Andrew in them) we just sat and went over additional safety information and logistical stuff. The guy was extremely nice and I actually really enjoyed the 45-minute run-through. After, I ventured back to the 'old infants school' (the name of the building that Andrew's office is in.... weird, I know, but I guess that's what it used to be wayyyy back when!) The rest of the day I worked in his office taking more photos of specimen and organizing some display boxes to determine which specimen would be used for our next collection. In the afternoon Andrew mentioned that next week we will be discussing and deciding what specimen and project I will be heading during my time here for a paper for me to co-publish with him! He seems very excited about the idea and very determined to make sure I get to have something published, so that's exciting. At the end of the day I packed up and headed out after my tasks were complete. I stopped on my way home to grab a few groceries and once I got home I totally crashed. For some reason I was wholly exhausted and I ended up spending most of the night just chillin'. At the end of the night though I decided to give myself a mani/pedi and it turned out super successfully. I put flowers on them and everything!

Day 15: Lal Qila

Sunday Sunday Sunday! My original plan for Sunday was to attend Toybox, the Mardi after party that is help in Luna Park from about noon till 8. However, because they were sold out and the tickets were scalping for about 200 I figured I'd venture elsewhere. Soo, I decided that it was a perfect day to seek out some delish Pakistani food. That's right ladies and gentleman I only held out on pakistani food for two weeks before I gave in. haha. Unfortunately, Sydney is definitely not swimming in Pakistani cuisine so I basically had two to choose from, and one of those was within walking distance, so I easily found the winner. It took me about an hour to walk all the way there, and it was nice because I was able to explore part of Sydney I hadn't seen before. The restaurant was in Surry Hills and on the walk I saw a lot of Lebanese places and little ma' and pop shops. I arrived at Lal Qila (which was on Cleveland and YOUNG ST!!) to find a really homey cute restaurant. When I got there it was just me and one family that was finishing up their lunch, so it was nice and quiet and the waiter was quick to help me out. I was looking specifically for nihari, but though it was on their website it wasn't on their menu. So I enquired with the waiter and he got all excited that I knew something that was off menu (I guess I don't look like someone who would know a lot about pakistani food, how surprising!) haha. I ended up ordering nihari, 2 naan, and samosas. The food was delicious. The samosas were especially good and the ambiance was nice. I talked for a while with the waiter who was interested to know how I knew about Pakistani food and was curious as to where I was from. He was a really nice guy and the short talk was really refreshing. At the end of the meal he kept asking if I wanted dessert and I kept saying I would pass and went with chai tea instead. When he came out with me tea he also brought out Gulab Jamun and said it was on the house for me. Like I said, he was really really nice. By the end of the meal I was STUFFED and was happy for the hour walk back to the apartment. On the way back I stopped at an International Student Festival which had live music and when I finally got back to my apartment I only had about 45 minutes before I had to head out again to meet my roomates at their church. They had invited me to the 5:30 service in the morning and I told them I'd give it a go. The church, Trinity Lutheran, was in Chinatown and the entire service was given in Bahasa Indonesian. They luckily had headphones that translated the entire service. The sermon was really great. It was all about helping to increase and propagate each others faith as a community. How helping each other to expand and solidify our faith will help each of us grow and become stronger as people and as a community. Yalin, my roomie, has been attending the church for about 10 years so she has a really strong group there and she introduced me to everyone. They were all extremely nice and all said they hoped to see me next week. I was impressed by how welcoming everyone was and I do think I'll be going back. Afterward, the church hosts dinner for everyone but because I was so full from lunch I took a rain-check and went home. On the way back I grabbed some boba mostly because it looked too good to pass up and stopped a few times before I got back to watch some street performers and a salsa dance class. In the evening I watched some TV, did my nails, and got ready for work the next day. Woo, here comes Monday...