Three weeks and settling!

Has it really been a week since I last posted?

I have been trying to find time to get on here, but it just keeps getting pushed aside. Last night I was going to go to the internet café, but I fell asleep reading Moby Dick at 21:30! I have had quite a few late nights and some long runs so my body was asking to take a break. I almost did not post tonight either, but I fortunately made it down.

Queen Mary II is in Sydney. She arrived today. For those of you not in the know (as I had no idea), she is the world’s largest cruise ship on her maiden round the world voyage. She arrived early this morning to thousands of cheering people and bottles of champagne (seriously). Her sister, Queen Elizabeth arrived later this evening, again to the same reception. Thousands of boats are filling the harbor looking at them. Tonight they had a massive display of fireworks welcoming them. I did not know about this until my Czech roommate told me and five minutes later they were going off. I dropped my dinner and started walking down the road (in about 20 steps I could already see them). I walked for about 10 minutes, all the while watching the fireworks go off and finally reached a bridge where I could see the Queen herself. She is massive!!!! Full of lights and all!! Let me tell you of the tailback (traffic jam) I saw. My entire 10 minute walk, traffic did not move. All of Sydney was out to see the ships and fireworks. I smiled to myself because I felt like it was the time of the Titanic and Sydney had stopped to come see this ship.

You would think Sydney is under some sort of t@rr@r*st attack because there have been military helicopters flying everywhere all day. In my office we were constantly (maybe 10 times) ducking for cover because the choppers were flying so low. They must be on some alerted level due to the cruise ships. Or the fact that Dick Cheney is coming into town on Thursday (how exciting, everyone can take an extra minute to tell me how much our current administration is ruining the world).

Today I tried a bit of a new routine. I normally walk home from work, throw on the running shoes and head for the park for an invigorating run. I altered this a bit by exchanging running shoes for thongs and my trunks. I hopped on the bus and by 18:20 was riding the waves of Bondi Beach. After a 30 minute swim, I took to running the beach!!!! ALL AFTER WORK! I am going to try and do this at least once and hopefully twice a week. I am in Sydney for crying out loud, why not get to the beach while the sun is still cooking my skin.

The house is treating me pretty well. I have a French roommate (guy), two Italian (girls), an English (girl), a Czech (guy), a Belgian (guy), and a Finnish (girl) house mates. The house stays mostly clean and we get a $20 allowance from our landlord every two weeks for tp and cleaning supplies, which is pretty unheard of.

Work is alright. I will be there all this week and all of next week for sure. It is a bit boring, but I find ways to keep myself entertained. I have sheets of statistical data about my calls and the number I make each hour…Next week I believe I will have an assignment that has commission attached to it. Pretty exciting.