[Russian girl’s first impressions of Australia _ Moscow ➞ Sydney

Australia always seemed so hard for me to reach financially, and it's just so far away from everywhere, but here I am! But let's start from the beginning. My starting point is Moscow's airport, and my goal is to reach Sydney. Let's go! We did put some olive oil spread on there. Okay, smell that! In Sydney I'm gonna stay with Matthew, couch surfer, who was kind enough to offer to host me. Okay, you asked me what is common or standard or only Australian type food, and this would be like in the top three. Vegemite! My first Australian breakfast! Vegemite on toast! It smells really good! Yeah! I like it! It's salty, kind of sour. Folate is extremely useful for your body, that's in there. I have energy for the day now! Would you compare Australia to some other countries? Well, you can compare it for their differences, but I wouldn't say that there are anything I've been to that's equal. We're detached from the rest of the world, we don't have an open channel where there is just like a turnstile of international people constantly coming. It takes a lot of effort and a lot of money for people to get here, and whereas decades ago the gates were open and they wanted anyone to come here so they could populate the country, get people working, make things happen, and they reached the point where they were like, nah, we should close the gate now, and it's kind of, well, you're only allowed in if your name is on the list. It's all about buy, buy, buy, consume, having all of the best things and the biggest TV and the newest car and all of that, and it's a mirror of America, but just a lot smaller, without the crime and without the guns. What comes to your mind when someone says Australia? The sun, surfing, the ocean, of course. So, it would be a violent crime not to go to the beach. Bondi beach is considered to be one of the best beaches of Australia, and it's also famous because of its lifeguards. They even have a TV show named Bondi Rescue, which is super popular here. There is a camera crew here all the time because they know that every day someone will be drowning, but it's just because of the high density of people here. There can be about 30,000 people here daily, and lifeguards can save about 5,000 people per year, but it's crazy how they have a TV show filming how people are drowning here every day in this ocean. When there's a big swell and it's pushing in there, it's very dangerous. The swell today is three stories high, and the rift is in overdrive. What else is Australia known for? It's wildlife. More than 80% of Australia's plants and animals are found nowhere else in the world but here. The first thing I expected to see was kangaroos jumping everywhere in Sydney, but it turns out you don't see that in cities, mates. In cities, the only kangaroos that you will see are in supermarkets or in souvenir shops. I saw all the parts of kangaroo including this, but I haven't seen any normal kangaroo. After this, I will not be surprised to see anything. Talking about wildlife, they say everything wants to kill you in Australia. True. Australia is home to one of the deadliest animals for humans, like box jellyfish, the most toxic animal on earth. The sting is said to be unbelievably painful, and a large dose of venom can cause death within minutes. The taipan snake, the most venomous snake in the world. Even with good travel insurance, you probably don't want to encounter it. The brown snake, the second most venomous snake in the world. And I got an opportunity to meet this cutie. I will share this lovely encounter in one of my next videos. This list is quite long. There is also a saltwater crocodile, blue-ringed octopus, stonefish, sharks, redback spider aka Australian black widow, a sydney funnel web spider. You do have poisonous spiders, yes. You do have some other lizards, yes. And that girl is sitting there just chilling. Yeah, it's just on the grass, it's okay. Yeah, they can be on the grass. Yeah, but just not there. If you see a hole with a spider with its head inside, you don't sit there. If they see a person, they're not going to come over to you. That's what the animals say. Phew, now I feel less stressed about venomous animals, so let's explore Sydney, the biggest and most populated city of Australia. One of the most famous landmarks is the Sydney Harbour Bridge, or as the locals call it, the hangar. It's the largest steel arch bridge in the world and it serves as the primary transportation link between Sydney and its suburbs on the northern side of the harbour. But it seems like not only the bridge is famous in Sydney, but me too. Small world, just under the harbour bridge I met a girl who watched one of my videos, and she also speaks Russian. You can climb the bridge which costs about $300, but there is another way to get up there too. The bridge has two pylons and there is a way to go to the top of the southeast pylon. Go to the bridge stairs, walk to the pylon, and you will see a pylon lookout and a museum sign. The museum tells about the construction of the bridge and its engineering challenges. Then you climb up 200 steps to the very top of the pylon and voila! There are definitely several advantages of coming here instead of doing the bridge climb. I'm basically alone here right now, and the price of course. And I also think like from the bridge you can't see the bridge, and from here you have the view of the bridge. I'm about to go to the opera house, but is it even safe to go outside? Another symbol of Sydney, and dare I say a symbol of Australia, is the Sydney Opera House. It looks indeed remarkable when you see it in real life. A Danish architect Utzon designed the building with a series of arched white roofs shaped like the sails of boats. But we've already seen this building so many times on postcards, and I wanted to see it from the inside. When the Sydney Symphony Orchestra is on stage in the concert hall, the temperature must be strictly 22.5 degrees to ensure the instruments stay in tune. So it was quite cool inside. By the way, it's cooled using seawater taken directly from the harbour. A very special feeling to be inside of a building which I always saw only in postcards about Australia or geography classes, and watching a performance here, it was Don Giovanni. I understood like 20 percent. Subtitles helped to understand everything, Mozart's music, and it's Sydney Opera House, so it was cool. By the way, I have a tradition on my channel to hide Russian matryoshka dolls in places that I go to. There is also a note from me and 10 Aussie dollars this time. In Sydney, I left it with my couchsurfing host Matthew. Couchsurfing is a platform to find a free couch for a few nights all over the world, and to meet local people of course. I will leave the link for Matthew's couchsurfing page in the description, and the first person who he hosts from my channel will get my souvenir. I decided to explore outside of Sydney too. It's a two-hour drive, and I'm very lucky because a subscriber from my channel takes me there, but he doesn't want to be seen in the video. We came to a small town named Katoomba. From an aboriginal word, it means waterfalls because of the nearby high falls. The town was formerly a coal mining center, but mining gave way to tourist development based on the picturesque blue mountains. I had no idea how green Australia is. The first thought when I thought about Australia was beaches and the ocean, but it's also this. There are lots of hiking trails in the blue mountains where you can go. Lots of climbing. I usually prefer to stay in the nature and not cities, but as most population of Australia lives in big cities, let's go back to exploring Sydney. We came to the new town, and Matthew said that... Wait, it's not the new town, it's just new town. Nerd. Just trying to help. Matthew said that new town is an area of weird people, so let's see. I don't see weird people so far. Okay, well, lucky for them. Maybe I don't find anyone weird because I'm myself weird too. No, not weird. Being weird is normal, so it means that everyone is weird and normal. Everyone's normal. But even though it's another part of the world, I don't actually feel that I can't belong here. When I saw the waves of the ocean, when I saw green cities which felt more like being in a forest, when I saw the mountains and went up to see these great views, I wasn't astonished or surprised. Not because I wasn't impressed, because it felt like being home. It was so pleasant just to be there. Home isn't a place of residence in your documents, but it's a place where you feel completely in peace. And in places like this, I feel that I belong here.