Thursday so far

Well today was interesting. My sister's two friends and I went to Bondi Beach. This beach is quite amazing. The sand is this crazy yellow colour, and so soft and smooth. Pretty much all I did was watch the surfers and sift my hands through the sand over and over. I also listened to some of the girls' stories and it was interesting. We had to take a half-hour bus ride there, and I still can't get over how everything drives on the other side of the road. I hope I don't accidentally look the wrong way some day and get hit by someone. I didn't go in the water because my sister said it was cold, but I figure there will be plenty of time to go again. Also I didn't have any sunscreen so I pretty much curled up into a ball the whole time avoiding the sun as best as possible.

The next half of the day was also pretty cool. We met up with a Scottish guy Ian, and he showed us two possible apartments we could live in. One was $160/week and the other was $120/week. Of course the more expensive one was much nicer, sort of like a dorm room in university. The other one was a bit more quaint, in fact some rooms are separated by the open sky, the whole apartment doesn't even have a roof over the whole of it! But apparently Aussies don't care about this sort of details. In fact I might just want to live there, since it's available. I might do the 4-day surf camp next week, but not 100% sure about it.

After this, around 4:30pm I finally went down to the 'GoodGames' store, take a few steps and you miss it. It is wedged between some Asian store and a McDonalds. I took the long steps up and lo-and-behold, it was a typical gaming store. Kids were playing MAGIC and other card games and just being nerdy, cool stuff. The arcade machines there were Japanese style, so you sit down to play and your opponent is on the other side. I asked the clerk for change for $5 and started to play Street Fighter IV for the first time! I was so excited. But my excitement dulled over time as I realized it didn't really have the same feel of the classic 2D games. It's an OK game but nowhere near as good as I imagined it would be. Graphics are fantastic but that's about it. I miss the 3rd Strike characters and the good feel of the game, it's just missing now.

After that I went to McDonalds for supper. They have a pretty good selection, in fact there are two different panels, one for beef-based burgers and the other one for chicken-based burgers. The important thing is that they had an equivalent of the long-lost Big Xtra burger from back home, called the McFeast Deluxe! I was in heaven! Unfortunately, they have this strange option for ordering: namely, you have to select if you want the regular, medium, or large size menu. Their large is our medium! I guess it's no wonder people are getting fat in North America when they have different concepts of what is medium and what is large. Also, Burger King is called Hungry Jacks here, but I haven't tried any yet. Oh yeah, and Coca Cola tastes terrrrrrrrrrrrrrribbbbbbbb

bbbble here! It's the worst stuff ever! Tastes fake or something. My favourite drink of Coke on the Rocks™ has been desecrated. Oh well, it'll be something to look forward to when I get home.

So now I am headed to a bar for the first time to try some Aussie-beer. Should be heaps interesting.

Outtie.

_Joram