When you have to post about your experience and life in a blog, which you update once per month, it is very hard to pick up key events and try to show the big picture. It is especially difficult when you are in the 4th year in AIESEC, have taken a leadership opportunity in a different country and your daily life is rarely monotonic. Here is a brief overview of my work + leisure time and what I have been able to learn. P.S. Those who know me are aware that I like bullets :)
Pic 1.: Together with Peter and Julian (presidents of AIESEC local chapters in Queensland) in Gold Coast. Though it was still 'winter' soon after making this pic we went swimming. Waves were much bigger than in Smiltyne. And water is much more salty than in Baltic sea.
MORE OR LESS A REGULAR DAY:
- 
All the team lives in a nice apartment (a well maintained 3 bedroom (+ a lounge room, 2 balconies (view to a park), 2 bathrooms, a nice kitchen (with a dishwasher :)) apartment a bit overcrowded with our belongings (some stuff is carried on from our predecessors since hm…2004) which is 20-25 min. on foot away from where we work.
Pic 2.: most of us still affected by the flue, but managed to have a moving-in dinner together. Most of the dishes were still in the old house. Thanks to Jen's mum for pizzas :)
- St. Leonards (where the office is) and Waverton + Crows Nest + Wollstonecraft (where the McHouse2.0 is) areas are full of small shops, cozy cafes, some parks and accesses to public transport. It is just 10-15 min. by train to get to the City (the centre of Sydney).
- I remember myself being just on time or 5 minutes late to lectures I used to have in my university. And I expected that it will be very similar right here. However, I found a new habit: coming to the office 20-30 min. earlier, making some green tea, checking personal emails, facebook, catching up with some Lithuanians that are still not sleeping. We don’t have internet at home, and I am sooo happy about that. This ensures that you are relaxing at home!
- A regular working day starts at 9 am in our cozy office and ends at 5pm, 6pm or later… J It’s up to you!
- I ‘go to Spain’ every working day at 1 o’clock (well, sometimes earlier)… If you ever hear us saying this, it means we are having our lunch break and pleeeease, don’t call to the office at that time, we are gone (if not physically, than mentally for sure) :) Thanks!
- I personally focus a lot on market researches, approaching new accounts and delivering currents at my work. Besides that, my functional role also includes brand, website management, product development, etc. However, at least half of the time I spend working with development of our organisation (educating and coaching local committees, contributing to creation of organizational sustainability strategies, communicating with other members though out the country) and taking other team responsibilities (contributing to making decisions in numerous meetings or online, following them up afterwards, e.g. agenda and facilitation in national conferences).
- Going to networking events or business meetings is what happens at least couple of times per week too. I love this part mainly because of 3 reasons: an opportunity to sell, an opportunity to get to know much more about the sector or other topics you might raise with a person whom you meet and an opportunity to get to the City, cross the Harbour Bridge, enjoy a mix of skyscrapers, old buildings, some parks and of course the harbour itself.
- Evenings are for doing whatever you like. Cooking new dishes or even creating some, watching movies (not TV programs, they are awful, well OK, I should be culturally sensitive: they just don’t match my taste and in general I am not a fan of TV), reading a book, chilling with your friends, etc.
- When it comes to weekends, the first expectation that pops to my mind is exploring something new. Harbour bridge area including a Luna Park, Opera House and Opera Bar (this was the first place we went during the first night out and we keep coming back from time to time), The Rocks (have tried some bars and enjoyed a sunny day in a coffee festival), Darling harbour with some more nice scenery (Sydney is like a huge harbour and to my mind this is the main factor that makes this city really attractive), the City (enjoying diverse architecture, parks, pubs and clubs), China town (nice dumplings and a market with nice and cheap vegetables are there), Paddington with its nice boutiques and cafes (visited during a fashion festival), etc. 
If you want to get out of the noisy centre, you should definitely consider Bondi or Manly beaches (OMG, water is light blue, waves are quite high, surfing and surfers look awesome, rocks on the side are available to climb and enjoy the view from a higher position), Wildlife Park to meet local animals, 
Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park to spend an amazing afternoon in the park full of interesting plants, hills, some animals and of course the view to the sea, ocean and cute islands further. 
Sydney aquarium is really good and worth visiting to chill out among sharks. The list of where I have been to is still kind of small, but I am keen on continuing exploring new places… ‘We live in Sydney’ – this is what my colleague and friend Georgia and me keep repeating and reminding ourselves that we can’t afford ourselves seeing nothing while we are here.
Pic 3.: Bondi beach in late July afternoon.
Pic 4.: one of the beaches in the National Park
Pic 5.: Robbie and Brianna in Sydney aquarium. Bri, thanks for inviting us :)
- Jogging is what I have started doing more regularly on weekends too. When the motivation is boosted not only of a wish to feel healthy, but also of an opportunity of sightseeing, I just can’t miss this. Within 5 minutes of running you can actually reach a harbour (imagine a sunny winter’s day of +25, a rippling water, beautiful small and big yachts, city and parks in the horizon – I love this), you can keep on going to various parks and reserves, there are nice cosy buildings around - after seeing this you start loving the place more and more.
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Chilling with friends and colleagues :) pubs, clubs, house, dorm parties :) I love that! Though still much to try, I feel that I am quite on track on meeting people out of working hours. Australians love drinking, predrinking and postdrinking :) Thanks to them for inviting me to new pubs/clubs, it is never boring there. This is what I need to keep the balance.
Pic 6.: team chilling out in the city before Blanca had to leave back to her country.
Myth time.
In my last post I was trying to answer a question about parrots: are parrots as common as regular pigeons? Definitely not, BUT honestly I got confused when I was on a business trip in Canberra…
I saw beautiful, colourful birds every day. And then I started noticing them even in Sydney. Locals were laughing from me when I was calling them parrots. That was the time when they explained me that these birds are called Rosellas and they are quite usual in Australia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosella). Check some pictures to compare: Rosella, one of various birds in Wildlife Park in Sydney. Gosh, I have just googled more and it seems that it is also very similar to Lorikeets (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lories_and_lorikeets). I am confused! You can see a variety of birds and other creatures is amazing in Australia.
In addition to the topic about birds, I just have to mention one more regular species. If you hate pigeons, I am sure these ones won’t be adored either. If you are somewhere outside enjoying your lunch and you see them around, your meal might become their target. It doesn’t mean anything for them to jump on your table, grab your $5 sushi, fly away and leave you shocked. Be aware of Ibises (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibis).
It seems that the list of interesting and unusual animals for Lithuania is endless and I could continue talking about them non-stop. So this time I will introduce you Skippies or kangaroos a bit.
Did you know that Australia is the only country that has animals (a kangaroo and an emu) on its coat of arms? Well this is what I heard, a good research should proof or disproof this myth :)
It is easy to delude yourself by thinking that all furry animals that has a lap, a long tail, likes jumping and is shaped like a pear is a kangaroo. NOP, that’s not right. 
You can more often meet a wallaby, which is a sort of a kangaroo, but much smaller. By more often I mean that through out 3 months I have been in Australia, most of the time spending in a city (Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane), I saw wallabies more than kangaroos (1:0). It happened in a national park in the north of Sydney.
Pic 7.: touching wallabies.
Pic 8.: kangaroo love :) and one of them had a baby in its thing :)
If you ever visit Sydney, 
I would recommend going to a Featherdale Wildlife park, which is in a far west of the city. I was happy like a child when I could touch wallabies, feed kangaroos and enjoy many other creatures of Australia.
Pic 9.: lovely lazy koala.
