St. John's, Aquarium, Botanical Gardens, and Footy game

This weekend was packed with adventure and fun! Wednesday night my friends and I attended a St. John's College party: Grooves on a Grassy Knoll. A "college" in Australia just means a dorm (Uni means college). It was pretty much a high end frat party. It was located in a fenced area outside (on a grassy knoll, imagine that) and there was food, beer, live music/DJs, and dancing. It had been raining that day so they put up tents but the ground was still wet. Unfortunately for me, my shoes broke within five minutes of being there. I had to walk around barefoot in the muddy grass for the rest of the night. There were porta potties outside for the girls (my friends generously let me borrow their shoes to go in), but the boys bathroom was simply a roped off corner where they peed on the tarp fence. When walking home, I had no choice but to walk right past the "bathroom" tarp fence (which was located on a downward sloping hill) where the grass was muddy with pee water. Yes, I was still barefoot. Disgusting. But overall, it was a fun night.

We went to the aquarium on Saturday located in Darling Harbour. It was very fun and we saw a ton of cool animals. My favorites are below.


Fountain that we passed on the way to the aquarium



Glowing Coral

We ended this trip by taking a bus to the Botanic Gardens near Sydney Harbour. We figured it would be a perfect end to the day; it was beautiful outside, the garden was free, and it was only a short bus ride away. Unfortunately, we neglected to realize that it's still winter! We got to the garden and everything was dead. Bummer. We will have to come back in the spring when the flowers are actually in bloom!

Today I attended an AFL (Australian Football League) game, otherwise known as Footy. We were in the 10th row, and practically being spit on. The game was completely bizarre but a blast nonetheless. It is played on a round field with a rugby ball, but the ball is kicked, punched, or dribbled down the field. Points are scored by kicking the ball between four tall posts; a kick through the middle posts is 6 points, through the side posts is 1 point, and hitting one of the posts is also 1 point if the ball does not go in. It is currently the AFL world cup, so at half time all of the international teams walked around the field. When the United States team came around to our side (who knew we had a footy team), my group started a "USA" chant. I'm sure the Australians around were annoyed but the team was very appreciative as I'm sure they were not expecting so much support in Australia.