bye bye hostel

today feels like it was 5 days in one. i was so busy today it was crazy! i woke up and had two bowls of cereal for breakfast, packed an apple and checked out of the hostel. luckily, they had a locked area where i could leave my bags until 6pm, when i was due to walk over to my couchsurfing host's house. that was so so helpful! sundancers is a great hostel, i enjoyed my stay there and met some very nice people :) i think if i were big into partying it would have been more my style, but it was still awesome and i can see why people live there long term!

i was walking around and realized that it was friday aka the markets were on! so i made my way over there and holyyyy what an awesome place! it reminded me of st lawrence market in TO but more spread out i'd say. the smells of all that yummy food cooking was so hard for me to walk away from lmao! there were so many wicked cool stalls with clothes, shoes, knick knacks and anything you could imagine! fresh squeezed juices, handmade candles, fruits and veg, crystals, jewellery, hair wraps, you name it, you could probably find it there. (including pink sparkly cell phone covers mckenzie!) 

the colours of everything were so awesome and just great energy all around! i bought a few things, some new patches for my backpack and a fremantle beanie! i love it, it's like my version of nick's women's confidence trenchcoat on new girl. i feel so legit wearing it and i never want to take it off! 

ps look how weird the aussie money is! the 50 cent coins are seriously massive its so insane!

then walked around a bit more and saw a koala bear! it was from a petting zoo, and you had to pay money to pat him which reeeeeally sucks because i wanted to cuddle it but im so cheap lol what a little cutie. 

then i headed back down to the harbourfront, deciding to go further to find the maritime museum. i walked by bathers beach and into this cool art house gallery thingie, which had some very interesting art with super high price tags. there was also this installation thing where you had to lay down and look up at projections, but i didn't see it because there were people on the benches already and i didn't want to wait around. 

so i headed onwards to victoria quay. and guess what i stumbled upon? MORE MARKETS! haha it was so funny. so i walked through those and it turns out i had already passed the museum. on my way back i stopped in at a dive shop to inquire about padi courses. we chatted about spearfishing as well, which bryanna wants to try when we are in margs, and it seems like an interesting hobby that lost of australian people do on their spare time. they go out on their boats and then do the spearfishing, and then spend the rest of the afternoon cooking up their catch, chowing down and having a few beers. all in all, sounds pretty sweet to me! 

on the way back, i see this huge submarine which made me think of my dad! these photos are for you dad :)

i head over to the museum, but the admission was 10 dollars, and being the cheapo that i am, i decide to pass on it for now. i head back to bathers beach and sit down for a bit and eat my apple. then i head back to town and see what else i can find. on the way in, i see these two tiny bunnies just chilling in the park. i couldn't even believe it! they were so super cute! i tried to get close to them but they just ran away lol so i kept on movin. at this point, ramen noodles weren't sounding too appealing to me, so i went to this takeout place called ali babas and had a falafel and chips. it was seriously good. then i stumbled into the cutest little hippie shop with all these amazing pairs of harem pants aka sophie onesies (they even had ones that were made from a heavier material that would be so so warm! i was tempted). i ended up talking with the shopkeeper for a while. she was watching her adorable little baby girl who had a bindi on her forehead. omg i wanted to scoop her up she was so cute!

this lady had two girls and two boys and they were all going to tasmania in november to rent a campervan for a while and drive around, and then settle in a house in hobart. she was such a nice person to talk to. we talked about my love for vw vans and how she used to  have a 1977 white vw kombi. i showed her the patch i got for my backpack and she loved it! across the way from that store was this store for kids that was all these amazing beautiful fairy and mermaid tutu dress costumes, and little flower crowns, and roses and sparkles and just every beautiful thing you could imagine! they do kids birthday parties and had some pictures of all these little girls dressed up in the outfits. omg i really wanted to wear some of those dresses haha they were awesome! 

i continued on, and i stumbled into a vintage store. there are so many in freo its crazy! i was looking for another sweater (a jumper its called here) because i was literally SO freezing cold. i didn't quite find anything i wanted (or that was in my price range) so i went next door to salvation army where everything was 50% off. i found a knit sweater but it looked better on the hanger than on me, so i left it. then i walked over to coles (grocery store) because i wanted to try custard. it looks like pudding but i dont even know what it is, it just looks good. but they don't sell it in individual sizes, so i guess i'd settle for ANOTHER BAG OF TIM TAMS! luckily, they make snack size bags which have 5 cookies in them, so i got that. i got honeycomb flavour. i don't know what the heck that is, but a lot of things here are honeycomb flavour. and for good reason, because it is delicious! so i head back to the hostel with my new treat and hit up gumtree looking for jobs/surfboards etc etc. just to kill time until it was time to walk to my host's house. 

around 6 i pack up all of my bags and hit the road. the walk was supposed to take about 25 minutes, but i took more like 35 because i got a teensy bit lost, and my bag was so heavy. like this was the worst walk of my life. i felt like i was going to throw up thats how much my back and shoulders were hurting. so bad. i ended up walking past the side street i was supposed to turn down. then it started to rain. COOL. eventually i made it, and met john. he is a very nice guy who lives in a cute house with a lemon tree. we went over the formalities, had a cuppa tea, and he went on his way to a concert he is going to tonight. by this time, i was/am so knackered that i just went upstairs and set up my bed. since that time, i've been writing this, talked on the phone with my mama and now i might read a bit and go to bed. i did so much today and am so pooped from carrying that darn bag, who knows what time i will sleep until tomorrow! 

don't know what i'll do tomorrow, maybe go see the markets again, or actually visit the maritime museum. either way, i'm going to bundle up for sure! 

that was my day today! missing everyone lots and thinking of you 

XOXO soph

PS jess they have an elizabeth's second hand bookstore here too!

storm chaser

today was my second full day in australia, and i just wanted to say that tim tams are a gift from the heavens. i already knew how delicious they were because i'm pretty sure i ate one once before, but holy jeeze. i am bringing a backpack full of them home with me, it's already been decided. and there are so many flavours i have to try them all! i just got original to start with haha

 

today i woke up around 9 or 930 i believe. everyone in my room was sleeping, so i felt sort of bad rooting around in my bag to get stuff, but i wasn't going to sleep in too long and waste my day! yesterday i had decided that i wanted to try and find a gym that did three day passes, goodlife style, so i could work out! gaaah been missing it a lot! so i went downstairs and had some cereal and did some investigating. 

i found one, on recommendation of a guy i met from the uk called jett fitness, and i checked out the website and they do three day passes yesss! i also could get there on the free Blue CAT bus (which is actually orange what the heck). i know, i know, a bus called CAT and the logo is a cat. this place is made for me!

so i grab all my gym and shower stuff and make my way to the bus stop. sweet, i get off at my stop and promptly forget where i have to walk, so i just make it up as i go. lo and behold i find that i'm on the right road! now i just have to figure out how to cross a roundabout... cool. looked left then right, AHH almost get hit by a car. oops you have to look right then left here, i forgot lol

ok, made it to the gym, pull the door open. doesn't open. a girl comes up beside me and beeps open the door with her access card. so basically, this gym is like snap fitness at home where there are only staff around for a few hours per day, and i had missed them my half an hour! ugggghhhh so mad. so i begin the 2.9km walk home. at this point, there are black clouds around the city, but i'll be darned if i went all this way and didn't get any excercise, so i take off my fleece jacket, put on my windbreaker and cover up my little backpack with the huge raincover that i randomly brought. and i start joggin'. 

sooner than later, i have to stop because not only do i suck at jogging as you all know, but i'm also carrying a 15 or 20lb bag on my back. this sucks! the wind is blowing seriously so hard, and the ocean (i'm right beside south beach) is looking really stormy. it's quite awesome actually! so i make my way over to the path beside the beach and continue my jog.
earlier in the day, the english guy who i had met and i were discussing the various things in australia that could kill you. apparently, his roommate had found a silvery sort of transparent spider in his bed, yes, his bed, the week earlier. SWEET. so now i had creepy crawlies on my mind, and im running on this path beside all of these wicked cool trees and vegetation, but i'm just picturing scary snakes and stuff jumping out at me... so that was freaky! i continue on until i get to the harbourfront. 

i really felt like i was in halifax. all the ships were there, the same smell, and boy was it windy! i was pretty hungry by that time, and honestly, a bowl of cereal was not going to cut it. i really wanted fish and chips. so, being the worst vegetarian everrrrrrr, i caved. i mean, how many times are you going to be in australia eating fish that was caught like 1 hour ago? YOLO. i sent my thanks to mother nature and the beautiful fish i was about to eat for giving me energy and life, and then i dug in. sorry guys, i had to. and omg it was good. like maybe even better than the fish and chips i've had in nova scotia (sorry homeland). i was so full, but i made sure i ate every single fry because that shizz cost me 18 dollars. and i didn't end up having dinner, thats how full i was! 

best garbage can EVER

i wrapped myself back up in all of my layers and was about to trudge home, and i spotted the western australian museum shipwreck galleries. y'all know i cant resist a museum!!! so of course, i head inside. 

this place was seriously SWEET. they had so many artifacts, including a working engine from a ship that had been underwater for over 100 years, called the Xantho. they were working on restoring it, and have been working at it for 20 years, but they were able to restore it, and it even runs! they also had so much cool stuff from ships from the dutch west india trading company who had shipwrecked in western australia in the 1600s! like bits of porcelain, pipes, whole plates, jugs, coins, even some textiles. also, there was a section of the hull of this ship called the Batavia, which was sailing to Indonesia with supplies in the 1600s and was wrecked off the coast of WA. i didn't quite get the whole entire story, but somehow, a lot of the people who survived the wreck ended up being murdered, i'm pretty sure by the captain or something! it was crazy. they had a full skeleton that they found, of one of the very first europeans to land in WA. man, the size of this thing was amazing! it was in it's own separate room, and they had a video playing of the process of salvaging all of the things they found. i must have watched it for 45 minutes and it was still going, but i had to move on because there was so much more to see! in another exhibit, they had some of the native animals that were stuffed to demonstrate what the dutch people would have seen when they landed, including a cutie lil quokka!

that one's for you dad!

part of the recovered hull of the Batavia

some artifacts from a ship from the 1600s

pile of coins and burnt wood

ship's bell. HAHA (billy, nat, chris)

QUOKKA!

all in all, i basically stayed at that museum for at least 3 hours it must have been. i was so happy, i love that kind of stuff! the whole time i was there, i heard the wind and rain howling outside and i wasn't too keen on heading out into that. but i had to get back! so i put on my extra sweater, and tied my hood tight around my head, i obviously looked super cool. it actually wasn't that cold and only rained for a few minutes. the walk back was very quick! by the time i got home, i was so tired i just wanted to sleep, but i didnt because i dont want to mess up my sleeping schedule. i had a shower, because i was pretty sweaty from jogging and wearing all those layers. then i read a lot of my game of thrones book. i attempted to repack my bag, don't know how i'm going to do it without mum! haha tonight is my last night at the hostel, and tomorrow i begin my couchsurfing adventure! check out time is 10am, but i'm not leaving for my host's house until about 6 or 615. luckily they have a room where i can leave my bags locked up until it's time to go. the markets start tomorrow, but i think i'm going to save that and go on saturday. tomorrow i will probably just walk around on the other side of town that i haven't visited yet, maybe go check out the prison tour, who knows? :) also, today i walked past a salvation army, so that made me super stoked for when i have money and can buy clothes! all i need is a value village too and i'd be set haha

so that was my day. i'm pretty boring by hostel standards, but i'm just doin what i do, and i am having a great time! so that was today! and as i time travel forward into friday, while it's still thursday for you guys, just know that i'm thinking about all of you and miss you guys so much! everyone come visit!!! maybe wait until summertime though, it's cold now haha <3

lots of LOVE
soph

first full day in aus!

wednesday i got everything all sorted out. i didn't set my alarm and i didn't need to because i woke up at 1am, 5am, 7am and finally 930am. i ended up going to bed at 745 the night before, so i basically got 14 hours sleep! obviously i needed it!

i decided to set up my bank account and cell phone today. i headed over to commonwealth bank, and a super nice gal helped me get my accounts figured out. then i went to telstra, picked up a mobile SIM card from the convenience store right next door. it's pretty weird how the pay as you go plans work here. i got a $30 card which gives you $250 in credit to use for phone calls and texts. and 400 mb of data which really isnt a lot at all! i've been trying to use the wifi i found in this park and i pretty much sat there for a long time today figuring stuff out on the phone and posting my blog from yesterday! 

i went back to the hostel to have some lunch (ramen noodles lol) and to charge my phone and laptop. i got some reading in, and then this guy came over and started talking to me. he was from morocco, and then his friend from france came over and my two italian friends joined as well. it was super interesting, they were talking about the different political situations and stuff and how it was in their countries. i felt sort of dumb because i am so out of the loop with all that stuff! 

then i decided to walk to the beach. it is about a half an hour walk but i wanted to go anyway! the walk was really nice, it was cool to see all of the different styles of houses, they all looked so different! i'm pretty sure it was the rich area of town, and there were a lot of yacht clubs and things along the way. the trees and plants are all really cool too. two houses i passed along the way had lemon trees! and one had a little orange tree :) so cute! 

the beach was lovely! white sand, seaweed on the shore, it looked and smelled pretty much like nova scotia haha and the water was cold enough to be nova scotia almost! definitely not swimming time for me. the weather was very cold and cloudy today, but it actually got warmer in the evening and the sun came out. this made my walk home very enjoyable! i got pretty warm so i took off my sweatshirt and just had a tshirt and scarf. the looks people were giving me were so funny! here they were in puffy down jackets looking at this girl walking around in a tie dyed tshirt LOL! it must have been 16 or 17 degrees out in the sun and they were all bundled up.

at this point, all i had eaten was a cliff bar and a cup a soup, so i was really starting to get hungry. all i wanted was pizza... i couldnt find it anywhere! it seems like there are a ton of sit down type restaurants here, but no fast food. all i wanted was pizza pizza lmao! i ended up getting subway nooooo!!! here i am halfway around the world, and i end up getting something i could have eaten at home?! ugh. i went with my classic veggie (although they had no pickles, which was a cryin' shame!) so i scarfed that down and headed back to my hostel. i met up with julia and chiara, who were about to head to the grocery store to get something for dinner. i went with them and shopped at coles for the first time (last time i went to woolworth's) i'm super happy i went, because julia ended up finding hello kitty pasta! i got really excited and explained to her my love of hello kitty and all of my hk things i have at home :) i also bought some pasta sauce and some tim tams! can't believe i have been in australia for a whole day and hadn't bought them yet! 

then we sat outside with a bunch of people in the back patio area just chatting, most people were smoking and drinking, which is the standard (it is a hostel here! haha) everyone was really confused when i told them i don't drink much. i got the whole "you're canadian though, you guys love drinking!" too funny. met some cool guys from the uk, and julia and chiara met some more italians, so they were chatting it up. what a beautiful language. i told julia to say something really mean to me, or to swear at me, and even that sounded so lovely! lol
then i went back in the hostel to check out some wall postings of cars for sale. i found one good one, but its from june so i doubt it's still there. i might text them tomorrow to double check. then i was looking on gumtree and found a few options. i sent some links to my mum to show wayne, so hopefully he will be able to point me in the right direction :) 

now im just sitting on my bed writing this, and was talking to another girl who lives in this room. she's from belgium and has been living in this hostel for one year! this whole lifestyle is just so new to me, it is crazy and overwhelming and intriguing! i've been here for one day and i've already met people from italy, morocco, france, the uk and belgium! that would never happen at home! i feel like i've learned so much already :) she was saying that this place is like a trap, once you stay here you never want to leave and a lot of people don't! there are a lot of long term residents here it seems, so everyone knows everyone which is cool. i think it would definitely take me a while to get used to this lifestyle, especially because i don't party a lot so i feel like i don't fit in as well as most people. it's still very neat, but i am looking forward to having a room to myself and putting my clothes into drawers in margaret river :) 

as for right now, i think i'm going to get ready for bed, eat some tim tams and read a bit, like the nonna i am haha (i practised some italian today!) 
xoxo soph