We officially started our program internships this week. Tuesday through Thursday, 10-4pm (prime hours, I know) I intern at an online startup that "connects aspirational women to inspirational mentors" - PropellHer. The office (by office of course I mean apartment... startup, remember?) is located in Waterloo, about a 30 minute walk from my building in central city. I'm technically titled the Relationship Management intern, but as we know in startups, titles are very loose - a more accurate title would be: general assistant/social media helper/tea lady/grassroots spokesperson/cat walker. The last one is especially important. Frankie is our office cat, and if I feel like grabbing a coffee during the day, I have to hook him up to his leash and bring him with me - it's fantastic.
Also, you may know that the Blue Mountains near us here in Sydney are in a state of emergency due to massive brush fires. We've had a few days of intensely smoke-filled skies, and I took this picture above walking home from work last week. The sun is the little red circle on the top right. Freaky, huh?
On Saturday, a few of my roommates and I headed over to the outdoor Rocks market before heading accross the harbour to Manly. I indulged in a spinach, mushroom, and cheese gozelme for lunch (like a turkish crepe; see picture on the left) YUM and bought some post cards. At Manly, my roommate Nikita and I spent the afternoon at the annual Cider Festival at Hotel Steyne on the beach. I had 10 taster tickets and couldn't even manage to use them all since they filled the glasses so high! Anyways, it was an adorable fall festival type setup with hay bushels, candy apples, and wooden stands. Besides all of the usual apple and pear ciders, they had some other interesting flavors that I loved like Stassen's Eldenflower and Lime - delicious. I love that cider is so big on this side of the world, because it doesn't seem so popular in the States.
On Sunday, Chelsea and I used our Groupon on a small group wine tour in Hunter Valley. Small is somewhat of an overstatment actually - there were only four of us total, the other two guests being a young Irish couple living in Surry Hills. We went to four wineries of varying sizes, a cheese shop, chocolate shop, and sparking wine shop (aka champagne). The Irish girl Michelle and I tended towards sweeter wines, usually white, while Chelsea and the Irish boyfriend prefered bolder red wines - merlots and shirazs. Hunter Valley is known for its semillon wines and a uniqe type of wine called Verdelho, a white wine made from a Portuguese grape that thrives in the Australian climate.
