Life on the Penal Colony: August 2010

Intro

Introduction
Our family has moved halfway around the world to Sydney Australia for me to crunch numbers in another hemisphere. This blog will document our travels and provide enough number crunching to satisfy your wildest dreams. It may even give you a feel for the authentic Aussie life, which consists of drinking Fosters all day and eat blooming onions at every meal (I have already offended my mates here with that comment). I named this blog Life on the penal colony because Australia was where convicts of the British Empire were sent during the late 18th and 19th centuries (History). They were critical in building up Sydney to what it is today (cheap labor). As you can see Sydney is a far cry from any remnant of colonial life, in 2009 Sydney was ranked as the 2nd most expense as well as rich city in the world ($$), it reminds me of Randolph County, NC in so many ways (now I have offended my mates at home). If there is anything you would like to see more of or any questions please let me know.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Aroma Festival

A few weekends ago we went to the annual Aroma Festival. Basically it is a huge coffee expo with 50-100 local coffee shops peddling their brews. I learned a lot about Australian coffee, which is different from American coffee. Australians do not drink our typical brewed coffee (no Starbucks Sumatra) at coffee shops. The closest thing they have to our brewed coffee is a "long black" which is two shots of express with water. It definitely tastes different. Most people here get lattes and cappuccinos (same as in US). When you order a coffee there is one price for each size, regardless of which kind of coffee you are drinking. My favorite coffee is still Cuban coffee from Miami, though I don't know if I could handle that drug all year around. The festival was in an area called the Rocks, which is an older portion of the city. It is a great place to get some pictures of the Opera House. The Rocks is the art district of Sydney, so there are plenty of good restaurants, art galleries and other things to check out.

Aroma Festival in the Rocks

Monday, August 2, 2010

Fancy Dress

Last Friday was the annual "End of Financial Year" party for William Buck. The concept is as follows: fancy dress (which means costume in Australian), free alcohol, free cab ride home, and a bunch of accountants who don't get out much. As one can imagine the ensuing festivities were quite interesting. I must admit, I didn't know what fancy was, so I was very under prepared. My fancy dress was quite lame as you can see here. I went to the equivalent of the dollar store here in Sydney which they call the two dollar store (after which they say "You can't get anything for $2 anymore!") and picked up as much junk as I could to piece together something that may pass as a try. Not long after Lydia saw me she started crying uncontrollably until Brooke picked her up, I am sure she was just sad to see me go.