Work and funny trials
As you might remember from the previous post, we had just found a very nice apartment nearby Bondi Junction. I would say that really was the starting point of my life in Sydney. We were sharing a room Cyprien, Gorka and your humble servant. But we were still looking for one more person to get the double room. In the meantime, I had also worked some more hours in the Mexican restaurant. I also kept on doing trials at some other venues, just to be sure. In some of them I said I already had experience making coffee but when I tried to make it… let’s say the result was not as great as I promised.
I want to make emphasis in one of the trials I had. It was in a bar/restaurant not very crowded and a little bit sloppy. The name of the restaurant was “Bert & Roy’s Cafe”. The venue was on Bondi Road, so a walkable distance from home. I got there at 09:00 and met one of the chefs. He was Chinese and told me I could call him “Panda”. He said the restaurant was a little bit neglected and they needed to make a lot of changes. Thus, as they were trying to get the restaurant back on track, he told me we could use that gap to be creative and cook some of our own dishes. I liked the sound of that and I told him I could cook paella, risotto, Spanish omelette, etc.
He showed me the cold room (the fridge for big kitchens) and the rest of the kitchen area. In the cold room we saw some beers and he asked me: “¿do you like beer?”, to which I answered “yes”. He told me that unfortunately the restaurant was not very busy at that time. But, if I wanted, I could try to cook some sort of garlic-with-shrimps pasta they had on the menu so he could check my cooking skills.
I cooked the dish and he was OK with the result. So, at 09:30 he told me I could go home and come back at 15:00. At that time I would meet another chef (an Asian lady who was way less nicer and who eventually was key in not hiring me). Before I left, he told me I could get one of the beers from the cold room and drink it. So, at 09:30 I drunk the beer and I went home 🙂
Apart from the trials, as I said, I started to get more hours in the Mexican restaurant. The name of the restaurant was (and still is) “Fonda”. I liked the environment and the kitchen setup. I started washing dishes, like pretty much everyone else who comes new. However, after my first 2 days, I started to work more on kitchen preparation as well as on the grill area.
On the grill I cooked different types of meat and I got their dressings ready. I also learnt how to work with some sort of a metal sheet that was used to cook tortillas and/or tacos. Basically, you put your piece of dough over the bottom sheet and with the upper one you press it until you reach the desired size. A subtle detail is that the metal sheets reaches a temperature of 150 Celsius degrees. That means that when you are in a hurry and you forget for a second where you have your arms… you could go home with some nice tattoos at the end of the day 🙂
Most of the people working at the restaurant were having the Work & Holiday visa (just like me) or the Student visa. There were people from Spain, Italy, Chile, Argentina, Israel, France, etc. I met a couple from Spain (Carlos & Cristina) and we became very good friends 🙂
Visiting Manly Beach
Work apart, on November the 10th, Friday, 2017, taking advantage of the only day off I had that week, I went with Cyprien to see another famous beach in Sydney: “Manly”. Many people “complain” about Manly being a “little bit” isolated from the rest of Sydney, and it’s kind of true. To get there you need to take a ferry from Circular Quay, which takes around 30 minutes. You can also go there by bus or car but I would say it takes even longer. And, unlike while going by ferry, you don’t get to see views as nice.
So, we left home at like 14:30 and we arrived at Circular Quay to take the ferry which should takes us to Manly. My life in Sydney started to feel pretty good 🙂
I had already mentioned the feeling of hugeness I got when I saw the area occupied by the city of Sydney, and I just wanted to emphasize it again. Just thinking that after spending 20+ minutes in a ferry to get to one beach and you are still within the same city… Crazy, isn’t?
While we were getting closer to Manly, Cyprien told me that something was not right. All of a sudden he told me he was leaving us within 1-2 days to go do the farm. For those of you who don’t know what “doing the farm” means I will give you a short explanation now.
People who come to Australia with a Work (or Working) Holiday visa (462 or 417), like me, are legally allowed to stay in the country for up to one year. However, if you get to work up to 3 months in some specific areas of Australia (rural ones), you can extend your visa for yet another year. You don’t necessarily have to work as a farmer. Yet, you have to work within certain areas and, in those areas, most of the jobs available are either in farms with animals or in farms picking fruits. If you are lucky, depending on your visa, you can also work in hospitality. For further information on this topic, please check my “Farm work in Australia” post 🙂
Back to reality, I was a little bit surprised with what Cyprien had just told me. Yet, I knew when I came to Australia that I would have to face quite a few situations like that one. After all, most of the people who come to Australia don’t come to stay in one place. They normally come to travel and/or try different things so, no surprise that people are changing city/region now and then.
I was a little bit sad because I had a very nice relationship with him but that’s just another part of the game. Anyway, we arrived to Manly beach and I felt somehow the same way as when I first saw Bondi Beach. The beach itself was OK, but nothing espectacular. I would say people give that beach such a high reputation not for the beach itself, but for the area and the vibes (and, of course, the waves).
I find the beaches in Sydney (at least the ones I’ve seen so far) a little bit overrated. They are not bad but they are far from being ones of the best beaches in the world. At least that’s my humble opinion. Rating apart, we met a friend of Cyprien who happen to be “the pot” (“mate” in French) who was going to do the farm with him. We spent a couple of hours on the beach and had some food and some beers. Eventually, we took the ferry back home.
But, in between:
The same way I say that beaches are not that nice in Sydney, I have to say that the views on the way back from Manly to Circular Quay are spectacular. In the beginning, as you set sail from Manly Wharf, you see nothing but water. Little by little you start to see other ferrys and then some sailboats. You then see some pieces of land (or small islands) and then, all of a sudden, you get to see one of the best views ever of a city’s skyline.
You see all the buildings like if they had just been drawn on a painting and as you get closer, you start to distinguish some as amazing as the Harbour Bridge or the Opera House. Up till today these views have been one of the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in Australia. So, if you happen to be going to Sydney, check them out!
Back in the apartment we gave Gorka the news about Cyprien. Like me, he felt a little bit sad but he also understood that it was his choice and that was life, specially in Australia. We called some friends and we organized a nice farewell party, with paella as the key “ingredient”.
P.S: On the picture above you can see us with smiley faces. That was in Darling Harbour, before we got into a club. Back in Halloween we also ended up in Darling Harbour but they didn’t let us in in any of the clubs we tried. I think bouncers in Australia don’t like horses 🙁
The night of the photo (the four of us with smiley faces), they didn’t let Gorka in one club because the tattoo (tiny one) he has on his neck. The bouncers literally told us: “It doesn’t matter if you have a tattoo in your arms or in your legs, like me, but you can’t come inside if you have it on your neck”. I’ve heard better excuses in my life lol. Finally, we made it into a shitty club where we paid 25 AUD just to get in, no drinks included. Welcome to Sydney 🙂
Kangaroos at Morisset Hospital (CLOSED FOR SECURITY REASONS)
So, after being kind of settled down in Sydney, there was still something that we needed to get done with asap: finding the 4th roommate. Thus, after some “inspections” (like they like to call it here), we finally got our puzzle-missing piece: Hannah, a girl from South Africa. At that point, I had a job, a full apartment and I already had some friends, so, my life in Sydney was kind of all set! Regarding the people in the apartment, as we speak, so far so good. I’m happy with the environment we have in the apartment as well as with the multicultural background. Among different things, it allow us to speak a minimum of 3 languages in our day-to-day routine 🙂
Like 2-3 days after she moved in, she was becoming older. Yes, so am I while I write down this piece but I meant she was adding another cipher to her age. So, as we are a very kind crew, we decided to arrange dinner for her. It was Spanish dinner or, better said, dinner cooked by Spaniards, because one of the dishes was French.
As we were cooking, we realized that neither we had a present for her nor candles for the cake (and neither we had a cake). So, we dit it the Spanish way: we broke down a couple of spaghetti, we joint them with tape to form the magic number Hannah was turning and we set them on fire on top of the Spanish omelette. It was a nice welcome-birthday night 🙂
The birthday dinner took place on Friday the 24th of November, 2017. On Sunday the 26th (two months after I turned 28), we finally went on a trip to cross a very important item off the bucket list: seeing kangaroos. So, taking advantage of my Sunday off, Thomas, myself and 3 more friends that we met at the hostel (Ludovica, Leo and Arnau) agreed upon meeting at 08:30 in Bondi Junction to get to Morisset Park.
In order to get to Morisset Park by public transport, you need to get to Central Station. This is something like Plaça Catalunya in Barcelona (from the logistic point of view, not from the beauty one). We met in Bondi Junction and after 20 minutes we got to Central Station. From there, we took the CCN train which, after a little over 2 hours, left us in Morisset.
The trip was nice and we could enjoy some beautiful views:
Once in Morisset, you have two options (without taking into account private vehicles and hijacking): take a 3 AUD and 20-minute bus that takes you to Morisset Park or walk the 2,5 km that you have until there. Since it was 11:15 in the morning and it was a sunny and hot day, we chose the second one.
A little bit further halfway, we saw the first sign confirming we were on the “right” track:
As we were getting closer to Morisset Park we started to see more traces of mankind, houses and roads included. But, wait a minute, weren’t we going to some sort of national park to get to see kangaroos in the wild? Well, we got the answer from a nice Aussie couple when we were like 5 minutes away from our Google Maps destination: -“Are you guys here to see kangaroos?” -“Yes, we are”. -“Well, you may want to know that if you go to Morisset Park you are not going to see any kangaroo. It’s better if you go to Morisset Hospital“.
So, if any of you is reading this and want to go see kangaroos in Morisset, follow the Aussie couple’s advice, as we eventually did. I told them that as we were so close to Morisset Park, I wanted to take a look at the area. They told us we could do that and then go back and take a shortcut to get to Morisset Hospital. We kept on walking but the more we walked, the less likely it seemed we were going to see kangaroos. As it turned out, Morisset Park was nothing but a kids playground (which we didn’t get to see).
20 meters away from what Google Maps suggested to be Morisset Park, another kind Aussie old man from Perth (everyone says Perth is nice, even though it is the most isolated place on Earth) told us the same: “if you want to see kangaroos at this time of the day, you have to go to Morisset Hospital. This is just a residential area, and, you do can see kangaroos, but later at night, when they come to eat our food’s leftovers from the bins.” After saying that, he got into his car and he started up the engine.
I saw Leo coming closer to him and I thought he was going to thank him once again but then I realised he was from Napoli… So, one minute later, the old man kindly told all five of us we could jump into his car as he was going to give us a ride to Morisset Hospital 🙂
On the way to Morisset Hospital, apart from having the typical conversation about our place of origin and why we were in Australia, he told us that, in fact, the hospital we were going to was a mental one. Back in the day it was used quite a lot but nowadays it had just a couple of functional buildings. While we were getting into the Hospital area, we could see plenty of nature, with its trees, lakes and rivers. So, finally, it looked like the national park we were after was there, in a Hospital.
The old man was so kind that he didn’t stop the car until we saw the first kangaroo. If you ever get to read this entry, thanks again :).
So, there it was, the first kangaroo, in the middle of the road, jumping as we were opening our mouth in an unmistakable sign of astonishment. Once we saw it, the old man pulled over and, after thanking him again, we left his car.
P.S: While we were driving, I saw three people who had been walking behind us while we were going to Morisset park. Probably they were tourist just like us. So, I told the old man that and, surprisingly enough, later we met them at the Hospital. They told us the old man gave them a ride after he told them that he was just coming back from giving a ride to five other people. This is the real Aussie’s trait that I read and heard before coming here, which, unfortunately, in Sydney, I haven’t experienced yet.
For the next hour or so, we proved the world we were real developed human beings and took hundreds of pictures while we fed the kangaroos. Since there were people already there with them, it was kind of easy to approach them. We fed them with carrots mainly, and some other people did the same with bananas. There were explicit signs that mention the fact that people shouldn’t feed kangaroos… To be fair, I did some research before going there and I read that bananas and carrots were OK, unlike burgers and similar stuff. Nevertheless, as time went by, I realised that regardless of what you feed them with, the simple act of feeding them is wrong, because it changes their routine and behavior. So, if you see some kangaroos or other animals, please, do not feed them!
After touching them, taking pictures of and with them, seeing them jumping, etc., we decided it was time for lunch. As we were getting closer to the lake to sit down, Ludovica, Leo and Arnau told us they hadn’t brought anything to eat. They thought there would be some bars or grocery shops nearby (which wasn’t the case). Eventually, we said good bye to them and Thomas and I stayed there to enjoy our food and the views.
At around 15:00, we decided to get going so we wouldn’t get back to Sydney too late. Again, we could take a bus but we decided to go by foot. Before leaving the area were we saw the first kangaroos, we saw plenty more of them. It was a very nice feeling, seeing all of them together in groups and, unfortunately, getting away from us lol.
Trip to Palm Beach
On Sunday, December the 10th, 2017, I finally crossed Palm Beach off my bucket list. It’s a nice beach 2,5 hours away from home. Again, thinking that after spending 2,5 hours in public transport and you are still within the same city… Sydney is huge!
So, at 07:00 Gorka and I woke up, prepared some food for the day and headed to the train station in Bondi Junction. From there, we took line T4 to get to Martin Place and, once there, after walking around to buy some more food, we got to Wynyard Station. From that station, at stand C, we took bus L90, which took us all the way from Sydney’s downtown to Palm Beach.
Since the trip was not going to be a short one, we brought something to read with us. I had lent Gorka “Los 7 poderes”. It’s a nice book which talks about things that we kind of know already but yet we don’t apply to our day-to-day lives. As he started to read it, he was amazed by some of the stuff discussed there. If you want to find out more about it, you shall give it a try. From my side, I’m reading 西遊記, which in English would be something like “Journey to the West”. I bought the Spanish version but you can also give a try to the English one. It’s one of the Chinese four classics, some sort of a Chinese version of Don Quixote. I brought it with me to Australia because I felt that since I was going on a long trip, I might as well read a long book 🙂
After a couple of stops, two Italians (male and female) got onto the bus. As they were speaking, I asked Gorka (who speaks Italian after having spent a couple of years in Italy) if he could guess where they were from. He said “Rome” but I proved him wrong after interrupting their conversation and asking in Italian about there whereabouts. It’s amazing how sometimes we are too shy or afraid to ask someone something and we miss great opportunities to get to know new people. At that particular time, just a whereabouts question made us meet two new nice people.
We found out our new Italian friends were from Bologna. That’s a city I know kind of well after having visited it twice, having Andrea Melossi as my super host :). Like me, they were also on a Work & Holiday visa. Veronica had already been in Sydney for like a year, but with the Student visa. She was going back home for Christmas and then she would return to Sydney. Lorenzo, on the other hand, had arrived in Sydney just a few days ago. We spent sometime asking the typical questions about where we were from, when we arrived in Sydney, what we were doing back home, etc., and, by the time we realize, it was finally time to get off the bus and step on the nice reddish-looking sand of Palm Beach.
Surprisingly enough, the beach was almost empty. Surprisingly becase the beach is kind of famous. In fact, it is so famous that “Home and Away” has been recorded there. Home and what? Home and away! Never heard about it? Neither I did, but apparently in Australia, or at least in Sydney, it’s like a big deal. The beach reminded me a little bit of Manly, because of the color of the sand and because of the height of the waves. I think it is a good beach to start learning surf.
As we were walking, we found out that Veronica worked as a freelance photographer and Lorenzo was learning photography. Gorka was also interested in photography, after having taken a course some time ago. So, I found myself surrounded by people who turned a short walkable distance of like 15 minutes, into a 60-minute one. On their defense, I’d say that the photos they took were nice :).
As we were leaving the beach to walk up to the “Barrenjoey Lighthouse”, we met yet another professional photographer, Erik. Erik was raised in OZ but spent some time of his life in Canada. He was very kind to us and was always interested in sharing information back and forth. So, among other stuff, we got to learn that no, we shouldn’t be afraid about crocodiles around because they are mainly in the Northern Territory but yes, we should be afraid about sharks because there are some packs around Palm Beach.
Apart from talking about the nature of Palm Beach, we got ourselves involved in conversations regarding Aboriginal people, Europe and Australia. He told us that there were some aborigines camps worth visiting and, when I asked him about how he felt about the darkness surrounding aborigen stories, his face gave me the answer: he was very sad and pissed off about the way Aboriginal people were treated in Australia. I’d like to get to know more locals with whom I could have these discussions. It would be nice to get to learn more about such an special people and, if I manage to do it, so you will ;).
After leaving the beach, we started to walk the trail up to the lighthouse. There were two different ways to get there but, following Erik’s advice, we took the oddest one. As we were walking, we found some tourists, but not as many as I was expecting. Little by little, we started to have some glimpses of what we would be able to see from the top: breathtaking views of two different beaches divided by a piece of rainforest.
Once at the top, we saw some interesting panels illustrating the whales migration cycles. Apparently we had just missed the chance to see them (they started their migration in November). As Gorka and I sat down to eat the lunch we prepared at home, Lorenzo and Veronica started to wander around (two trips we’ve made with Italian, two trips where we were the only ones bringing food lol) and Erik left. If you run into this blog by any chance, Erik, I want to thank you for the advice, stories and the fun walk up to the lighthouse :).
After finishing lunch, we started to walk downhill to get to the beach on the right side, the calm one. Of course, that took us more than an hour because we were taking plenty of photos. Some nicer than others but all of them worth trying :).
I was so happy with the views from up there that I decided to jump!
Once on the beach, we found some sort of restaurant/bar where we could by some water and take a rest. The Italians kept on shooting photos while I took a nap. Eventually, after realizing that it was getting late and we were not gonna go to the wild beach (the one where we arrived in the morning) for a swim, I decided to take a swim in the calm one, which was full of sailing boats.
Finally, “we set sail” and, after taking some more pictures (come on guys!) we got to the bus stop. From there, after catching yet another bus, we went back home. Grazie mille per le foto ragazzi! 🙂
So, as you can see, my life in Sydney, after just a couple of months, is going great. I’m learning new stuff everyday (words in new languages, skills at the workplace, skills in my day-to-day life, etc.,), meeting tons of people from everywhere in the world and visiting beautiful places. However, as you might remember from the previous post, finding a place to live was not easy. The job is alright but I’m not getting many hours. Thus, like always, there are ups and downs in life, but it’s on us to decide how to react to what we get.
