Travelling: It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A few friends and I (consisting of 4 Irish, 3 Americans, and possibility 2 British (my new roomies)) will be cooking Thanksgiving dinner tonight. We're going to have a feast, however, there will be no Turkey. They don't really have any here right now... we hear rumor they have them out for Christmas but not for this time because they don't actually celebrate Thanksgiving. I learned that they celebrate Boxing Day, however, and that's there big shopping day of the year, like our Black Friday.

T-minus 2 days until Apartment move in! I have never been so excited for a closet in my life... for the last month I have had to live out of a backpack... no, not a suitcase with a big open top where you can view everything easy, but a top-loading backpack that is a blackhole for everything that I own. No matter how often I shower, I feel dirty. Doing laundry in a hostel is a joke (an expensive one, at that). I did a "load of laundry" the other night, and by that I mean I washed all my underwear in the sink with some OxiClean knock off brand. Talk about classy. I didn't want to pay $6 PER LOAD for 10 pairs of underwear. I can't wait to have my own free washer for 2 months to finally feel freshly laundered.

One of my little annoyances about here is about how bad the public transport system is. Sydney has four different types of public transportation: bus, ferry, train, and monorail. They go all over the suburbs and inner city and it's so finely detailed, you think they would have a good schedule down for how to work them. Well, they don't. Buses very rarely ever run on time. I will give them a thumbs up for their train system, as it does have times letting you know when they will arrive and if they will be late. I haven't rode the ferry or monorail yet, however, the bus experience has been enough to turn me away. I ride the bus at least twice a day every day, and I usually spend 30 min, at least, each time just waiting at the bus stop. Bus says it's supposed to arrive at 5:10pm... it will come at 5:35. I left at 8pm last night to catch the 8:05pm bus to Bondi Junction (20 min bus ride) and it came at 8:30, with the 8:35 scheduled bus pulling in right behind it... talk about efficient! ha! Then, I had to wait 35 min at Bondi Junction to catch my next bus into Bondi... the walk from Coogee to Bondi take about 1 hour, one way... I could've walked it in that time! It's a little ridiculous, but it's just something you have to take in stride. "No worries, mate" as the Aussies say.

Eat some good food today, and have some Turkey for me!

Cheers!