I know, I know. You are probably thinking: “Stan where is that vacation vlog you said you were going to make?”. To be honest, I am still working on it. Editing vlogs are taking much more time than I previously thought. And with finite time to explore Sydney, editing has taken a back seat. At least for now. But don’t worry, I will try to fill you in with blogs instead! With at least weekly blog updates, maybe even a blog every few days. Isn’t that a great deal? I thought so.
So where shall I begin? The pub crawl story? The green beer story? Or celebrate carnival with Dutch music in Sydney? It is difficult too chose one….. So why not start at the beginning! At the day that this journey began. 43 days ago.
The journey started on the 30th of January 2019. The day of departure. It was partially cloudy, with a local chance of some snow in the afternoon. The last one is important because that meant when I was leaving the Netherlands it was freezing and would arrive in Sydney where it was 35 degrees warmer. But as always, when it start snowing in the Netherlands, there is a big chance of delays. Luckily for me, there didn’t fall a lot of snow, so my flight still departed on time (At 12:30 pm). Some KLM flight where delay, but not mine. Not that I was flying with KLM. But now, I am skipping forward to much in the story, let go back a little bit, back to the point where I arrived at the airport. We arrived early at the airport and at the airport, I change my winter jacket for my summer jacket. I removed the two suitcases from the car (one suitcases had a weight of 21 kg and one had a weight of 12 kg) and followed the signs to the suitcase check-in. The last time I flew was approximately 15 years, so I was intrigued to see that suitcase check-in was automated. After I check my suitcases in by KLM, we got some drinks at a local bar. And when I had an hour before my flight was scheduled to depart, I said goodbye to my parents and my brother (Max) and his girlfriend and moved myself to border security. Here again, i was taken back in how the installation has changed since the last time I flew. A big set up x-ray setup that make an image of your body, that is a little bit different than a device that detects if you are wearing any material. After I was though border security, I move towards self-check-in. Again I was taken back by this new technology. The last time I flew, they didn’t have this technology, that scans your passport and makes a picture to see if the two pictures match. I still can remember back in the day that a border security agent would check your passport, and would total mispronounce my name. And I would then get totally irritated because my name wasn’t pronounced in English, it was “Stan” in Dutch. But now I just let the machine scan the passport and make a picture of my face and it was done. After that, I was in the international section of the airport. I still had 45 min before my flight was scheduled to depart, so I decided to explore this international section. A lot of shops, but nothing I need. So I moved slowly to the terminal. At the terminal, I waited for the people to call that the gate was open, so I could check in and find my seat in the airplane.
My seat was located almost at the back of the airplane, next to a window. My seat was part of a duo seat and the person next to my seat was an older Dutch person, who was on his way to the Phillippians, which provide decent company during the 12 hours flight to Guangzhou. At this moment you are probably asking: “Stan where is that! Because I only know of flights that are flying through Dubai and Singapore to get to Sydney”. Now, Guangzhou is an airport in China. And now you are probably asking. “Why would you fly through China” . Good question, reader. The reason was mostly that I could fly back with my father back to the Netherlands.
I landed at 6:30 am(local time) in Guangzhou, after a good flight. Yes, there aren’t any good 12 hours flight. It is difficult to get sleep in your seat and there are always loud noises. But in airplane standard, it was good. Again, not that I have flown a lot in my lifetime to make a good judgment. But the food was decent, the stewardesses were friendly and I had a nice few of the cloud during the trip (which gave me some awesome clips for the vlog) So nothing that was a deal breaker. Yes, it was weird that dinner was served an hour after I departed from Schiphol and got breakfast when I was supposed to eat my dinner. But what would you expect? You need to change your time schedule at some point. So as I was saying I landed at 6:30 am local time. This was 30 min later than were suppose to land. So this left me with only one hour to arrive at my next gate to check in. So I ask the steward, to seat me at the front of the airplane, so I got more time to find the right gate. What I didn’t know then, what I know now, is that when you leave an airplane, and you are transferring, you still need to go through border security of that country. This border security had the machines I knew from 15 years ago. The most memorable moment during border security was that I needed to show my passport seven times and my flight ticket was stamped six times. But after that weird experience, I was in the international area of the airport. It was a really nice section, you could see that it was newer than Schiphol. It had a great view of the departing airplanes, while you wait at your gate to check in for your flight. So I quickly looked around, to let the blood move through my legs again, before I was forced again to sit in a seat for 12 hour.
This time, the quality of the airplane was less than the previous airplane. The seats were less comfortable. There were more Chinese, so I felt more out of place. I was also seated next to a Chinese couple. So I was isolated for the next 12 hours. Just like the previous airplane, I had another seat next to the window, which gave me a new view of the clouds. Almost the same events unfolded during this flight as the previous flight. But sadly, this time, the flight ended with a delay of 3 hours. The reason for the delay was that there was a windstorm in Sydney, what cause for a backstop in flights at the airport. So our flight was forced to fly to Canberra, to refuel and then fly back. So we landed in Sydney a little before midnight. But now I still needed to go to border security. But the ideas I had about Australian border security beforehand was the same what I experience. They just look at my filled in person card (Just a card you fill in with general information, like what are you going to do in Sydney, are you bring forbidden food with you, e.g), ask me what I will be doing in Sydney, and looked at my passport. I don’t know if the border security agent was also tired, and just didn’t wanted to ask any more question on this Dutchman, or if that Australian border security is as tough as they show on television. After I spoke to the border security agent, I picked up my two suitcases. Both arrived, whereby one of them was looked through in China because there was a power bank inside of it. With my two suitcases, I moved myself to the part of border security where they check your bag. Again, I don’t know if the agent was tired, but the agent decided that I could move to the exit, without looking through my bags. So I step through the door and found myself, officially being in Sydney. I quickly pinned some Australian money and took a taxi to the hostel. I arrived a the hostel at like 2 pm. And after quickly connecting to the wifi and WhatsApp the family that I landed, I fall asleep with my clothes on at 2:30 pm.
Side note: I was supposed to have internet for a day from Vodafone Nederland, but for some weird reason, Vodafone Australia didn’t want to activate the package.
So over the next few weeks, I slowly got adjusted to living in Sydney. To be honest, It was hard in the beginning but with each day it became more and more normal to live in a city on the other side of the world. I became custom to the local money they use or how the public transportation works and which bus or train I can best take to get to my home.
Fun fact: money in Australia is made from plastic so you can swim with it without breaking it.
Australian money
So during my spare time, when I am not at the University of Sydney, I am mostly exploring Sydney. And what I have found out is that even on the other side of the world, in a city like Sydney, I still will run into Dutch people a lot. If that was something you would have said to me before I came to Sydney, I probably wouldn’t believe you. But it is true. If you just listen to your surrounding, the chance of encountering dutchies isn’t that difficult. So I encounter a Dutch person in the shopping mall, Dutch person on the bus and two dutchies on the train. The latter ones were the people I would do activities with during the next couple of weeks(Kim and Marije). During the conversation with Kim and Marije, they invite me to come play volleybal in the park, which would be held every Sunday. So for the last few Sundays, when i have spare time, after exploring Sydney, I will go to Sydney Park and will join other local for some volleyball games
But Kim and Marije aren’t the only Dutch people I have encounter during my time in Sydney. I joined a Whats app group with 33 dutch interns in Sydney. So with that group, we went out for some dinner and found by accented a great Japanese restaurant (the planning was to picnicking in Hyde Park, but that evening it suddenly started raining a lot). We also did go to the movie together, did some pub crawls together, celebrated Dutch canaval. (But those stories are for another time)
The first few weeks I mostly visited the center of Sydney for exploration. I went to the botanic gardens, the Oprah house, Watson Bay, Manly beach, harbor bridge, Centennial Park, Hyde Park, and Darling Harbor. Just to call some places, but each of the above places has their own stories. Besides, I played some pokemon go in The Royal Botanic garden, with a lot of people. In Centennial Park, I encounter black swans. In Watson bay, I found the best view of Sydney. And I can go on and on and on. But at some point, this blog needs to end. That that is this point.
Note: I will add more to this post when I have time, but it cost just to much time to write about 7 weeks, but if you have question, let me know and i will try to answer them.
With that I sign this post off.
THE JOURNEY BEGINS 