Sunrise in Middle-Earth

Alright, so I haven't had time to take many pictures but let me tell you, that sunrise I mentioned earlier was wayyyy worth the 13hr flight from LA to Auckland.  (My plane had a 2hour lay-over in Auckland, New Zealand - yes Monroe, that's near Australia).  If you know anything about me, you know that I am a HUGE nerd fan of the Lord of the Rings so having my first sunrise here be in the land of hobbits and wizards was pretty damn exciting.


Apart from the mind-blowing rising ball of fire in NZ, the flight wasn't that eventful, I watched Pirates of the Caribbean 4, Love and Other Drugs and Super 8.  All were pretty good but I remember being more impressed with Pirates than I was expecting.  After landing at Sydney International, my good friend Ryan picked me up and we made our way back to his place.  Unfortunately he couldn't get today off work and had to go in around noon.  This means we had just enough time to go back and drop off my stuff before heading out again; he really wanted to show me where he works just for future reference and I needed to go shopping, etc.


And now it's time for


FIRST IMPRESSIONS!
(Normally I would make a video blog for this type of thing, but as I am still gathering footage for my intro, I don't want to start any of those yet until it looks über-spiffy)


1. I wasn't quite sure whether to expect a more USA or European feel when I got here but after the few hours of walking around the city I can tell you that it is very much like Canada in that it is exactly like the US, but different.  There's no way really to explain it, it reminds me a lot of where I was just residing in California; it's got palm trees, its a bit dry, we have the beach....but its just different.  Maybe its all the public transportation?


2. They drive on the WRONG left side of the road!  I'm really glad (and OZ should be too) that I don't have a car or have to drive around the city, this whole thing just freaks me out.  And its not just the driving, in my London vlog I explain that this reversal of direction is not just valid for the streets, but also for pedestrians.  When taking the realllllyyyy long escalators up to the streets from the underground (U-bahn/tube/subway/whatever) it is common courtesy and knowledge to stand to the right if you are not in a hurry so that people who need to make transfers can rush along.  Well, a lady in front of me was standing on the left side and a few people had to awkwardly bustle past her, and after shaking my head disapprovingly at her, I glanced behind us down the escalator and noticed that I was the only one standing on the right side!  All those people had to awkwardly bustle past ME not her.  :'( culture fail


3. I saw 3! -  not 1, not 2, but THREE - trash cans that were covered with a sign that said "out of order".....wtf....how does that?...what?


4.  Sydney is super international. and by international I mean I'm pretty much living in China.


5. There is some definite "German residue" in my brain.  I can't help but find it odd that the people on all the trains and subways are speaking English.  It's like two separate phenomenon that were divided by very distinct contexts are suddenly being mashed together: usually I'm either riding trains in Germany or hearing English in the US, rarely did this happen simultaneously.   Also, I almost spoke to the cashier at the grocery store today in German. oops.


6. The birds are freakin' weird! More on this later, I definitely wanna record some of these sounds I'm hearing outside of Ryan's apt windows.  And they all like to sit on his balcony and stare at me.  Whatever, they probably think I'm just as strange.


So those were my first impressions of this lovely city, pictures to be up soon, but will probably post most of them on my Google plus account cuz its way easier and faster and they somehow look better on Google+!


Bis bald!