From our house, work is a 25 minute walk away, through Surry Hills and through Hyde Park, where the main path is lined with gigantic fig trees. Shockingly, walking to work is a much better way to start the day than being stuck on the 101.

Google Sydney is in Darling Harbor. Just like every Google office in a major metropolitan area, Julia's desk has a great view of the city's most iconic bridge. Likewise, Alex also has a spectacular view from the EnerNOC offices in Sydney's Central Business District directly into the armpit of another brick building.

In our first week, afternoon walks and morning runs took us to various parts of Sydney. It's almost summer, and the weather is beautiful.

*The mouth of the bay, from the other side of Farm Cove*

*A rotating bar at the top of Australia Square tower gives good looks.*

So what's the catch with Australia? Spiders. They are big here. We found our first massive spider in the house - it was the size of a tennis ball and fuzzy. We took our eyes off of it for one second to study all the image search results for "deadly spiders," and...it disappeared, living to haunt Alex's nightmares! Julia was (naturally) unconcerned.

Want more on spiders? Check this out.