Taronga Zoo and Manly Beach

My friends and I travelled to the Taronga Zoo last weekend and it was such a blast! We took a beautiful ferry ride there which passed by the bridge and opera house. Unfortunately we are not considered "real students" so we couldn't get all the great zoo and ferry discounts. I felt bad for the man selling tickets because almost every one of us was sassy with him in frustration. Regardless, the full price tickets were still worth it.

Once we got to the zoo we were like kids in a candy store, squealing at every animal we saw. I won't list them all but here are some pictures of the memorable moments and I will describe them in order.

The huge pelicans were one of the first things we saw. They were so big that I am pretty sure they could swallow me whole if they really wanted to. Nothing eventful happened with the birds but it was one of my favorite exhibits so I figured I would put it in.

Next was the lemur. It came right up to the glass an was cooing right in our faces. Another one of my favorites.

The next three pictures are located in the children's petting zoo which held sheep, pigs, and chickens (very Australian, I know). My friends and I pretty much stampeded over the small children to get our hands on sheep pellets. The zoo worker rolled his eyes at us but still gave us each a handful of food! Once the worker had left, one sheep decided to try and escape by jumping the fence into the standing area. It obviously didn't think things through because I ran at it full force, hands streched outward to pet it. It got so scared that it aborted the mission and jumped right back into the pen, but not nearly as gracefully as it had lept out (as you can see in the picture).

Next we saw an emu which was just roaming around the zoo without a care in the world. After this picture was taken I tried to get close enough to touch it but right as I was an arms length away it fluffed its feathers and made a very low noise from inside its throat threateningly. Obviously I turned and ran as fast as I could. It reminded me of the time I was almost attacked by that mother swan in Karlsruhe, Germany as a child.

Last but not least is the kangaroo. All of his kangaroo mates were laying lazily on the ground sleeping, but this one bounded right up to the side of the pit. Someone threw in a map which was eaten and demolished within 30 seconds.

We ended the day watching fireworks from the Darling Harbour bridge.

That same weekend we went to Manly Beach - another ferry ride away. We sun bathed in the middle of winter and watched the surfers. We also walked around the downtown area a bit which was very cool and sporty. We bought ice cream which was deliciousss. Unfortunately it did me no favors as I got a huge wad of chocolate stuck between my two front teeth right as we ran into people we knew. I was laughed at for five minutes.

Beach Walk, Campus, Harbour Cruise

Sorry I haven't posted in a while! I've been very busy. The rain finally stopped sometime last week so my friends and I were free to wander around campus and soak in its beautiful buildings and landscape. Our Quad is absolutely gorgeous, and it's what you see in all of the University of Sydney brochures. We also found some other hidden gems around campus, like these bizarre levitating chairs (at least that's what we like to call them). They make me very nervous because they only touch the ground at the foot of the chair. We also found a grafitti tunnel hidden below a building, which was very cool.

There are also these giant birds that walk around campus which are seriously terrifying. I havent gotten a picture of them yet, but they have black feathers, long necks, a scaly scalp, and a huge curved beak. I swear they can sense fear because they have attacked my friends and I on the green three times now, and I've never seen them attack any Australians. We make a scene about it everytime which is very embarrassing but seemingly unavoidable.

Arcadia, the program I used to study abroad, organized a beach walk from Bondi to Coogee. The walk took two hours and was absolutely breathtaking. The weather was gorgrous too, but the course was extremely hilly. I find myself fairly athletic and I was struggling to keep up with the guide near the end. I have plans to go back and run the course a couple times before the semester is over.

Some interesting stories were told on the walk, like about one beach that we passes that our guide told us was strictly for the beautiful people of Sydney. Mostly models beach there and if you are not a beautiful person, you are shunned off the beach. Needless to say we are going back when it gets warmer to see how fast we are shunned.

Once the walk was over we BBQed kangaroo hotdogs! They tasted like sausage and were very good. Another fun fact: I have yet to see a hot dog bun in Australia. They use two pieces of bread and eat it like a sandwich instead.

After the walk I had my first look at Sydney Harbour! (I am aware that it is spelled 'harbor' in America but the correct spelling here is 'harbour') I went with my friend Maggie and roommate Alyssa. We walked around the opera house and the bridge and ate at a pancake house in The Rocks - a section of the city. The pancakes were SO good. I will definitely be back.

I went on a Harbour Cruise last Wednesday with more people from the University. We left from Darling Harbour and the boat toured us around the opera house and bridge for three hours. There were drinks, pizza, and dancing. What more could you ask for? I have also successfully requested Justin Bieber at almost every outing my friends and I have been on. The boys want to kill me, but the DJs take pitty on the 20 year old who loves JBiebs so they play it for me. At one club I requested JB with my friend and the DJ called out in the microphone "And now, Justin Bieber for the lesbians up front who look like they're ten". We're obviously highly respected for our music choice.

The Australian Wallabies

A bunch of Sydney students went to a national rugby game last night. It was the Australian Wallabies vs. the South African Springboks. We were all trying to sport the Australian colors - green and gold. I bought my sweatshirt that day from a cool underground marketplace called Paddy's Market. Anyway, Australia won by a landslide and it was so fun to watch the players get pummelled to the ground! Despite the fact that I played rugby for one semester at school, I still had almost no idea what was going on.

While waiting for a train back home, an Australian man told us the story of how American football was created. According to him, the US played rugby until too many players from Harvard, Yale, and Princeton started getting hurt. To fix the problem they came up with a game in which the players wore padding and helmets, and could throw the ball forward to avoid so much direct contact.. and poof. American football was born. Leave it to us wimpy Americans to revise rugby into a "safer" game. But take this fun fact with a grain of salt because the man was definitely not completely sober.

Karaoke

My friends and I went out to karaoke tonight at a local bar. It was a blast! And I learned a couple of things:

1. The people of Australia absolutely LOVE Americans. Who would have thought that a nation could love the US more than the US loves itself?

2. Australian boys can dance.. like ACTUALLY dance. I can't dance for my life but I was being led all over the dance floor in a very impressive way. Watch out American boys, these Aussies have definitely got something on you!

3. Goon, the extremely cheap "wine" bags that we've been drinking all week, is not actually wine at all. There are no grapes in it! Instead, goon consists of milk, eggs, nuts, fish products, and sugar. Mmmm.

Goon Bag

In other news, I straightened out my class schedule finally! I was having major issues with finding classes that would count for credit back home. When I emailed my country specific Bryant advisor I recieved an error message telling me that the email no longer existed. Evidently she left Bryant and no one told me! Ridiculous. Then when I tried to email my regular Bryant advisor, I recieved a message saying that she would not be in the office until August 30th. It was all very frustrating. But I have found classes that work out anyway. They are..

Cross Cultural Management
Myths, Legends, and Heroes - an english class
Renaissance and Reformation - sounds awful, I know.
Sport and Learning in Australian Culture - I hear that this class consists of taking field trips to sporting events and writing papers about it

Classes start Monday so you'll hear more from me then!

Welcome to Aussie

Hey everyone! I'm happy to say that I've landed safely in Australia.

This is the first time I've had enough time and internet connection to write, but I promise I will write more frequently in the future! That being said, sorry that this post is so long, but a lot has happened since I landed.

The flights were long and painful but I was on the isle seat for the long flight from LA to Melbourne, thank goodness! About half way through the flight the entire plane was sleeping and I woke up to an overhead light shining down in my face. I was thouroughly annoyed at the passenger in my row who had turned it on and thought "well that's pretty inconsiderate". It took me 45 minutes to realize that it was actually me who had accidentily hit my light switch while I was asleep. How embarassing!

There were some good parts of the plane trip as well: I saw Audrina from the Hills at LAX, and then Lil Jon was standing right behind me in customs! At first I was concerned about an old homeless man standing behind me, but then I realized that it was just good ol' lil Jon! Haha. The sighting was confirmed later when we passed a concert hall featuring him Saturday night.

Once we landed in Melbourne, my whole Arcadia program traveled to a bed and breakfast in Sorrento - right outside of Melbourne. Its a beach town so we got some fantastic pictures of the beachy cliffs. It was soo beautiful, but freezing cold! On our bus ride there, we got stuck in a sand ditch while turing a tight rest stop corner and couldnt turn around. To get out of our tight spot we had to drive along a narrow walking path right next to a river and physically remove obstructing street signs in order to get back to a road. It was pretty terrifying.

A couple of us went to a bar the second night in Sorrento. It was pretty empty except for one group of older men who we became friends with. They were all "pissed" (as Australians call someone who is piss ass drunk) and falling all over the place. At one point, two of the men fell to the ground together, accidentally splashing their full glasses of beer on each others' faces. One of the men showed us that he only had his two last toes on his right foot - his other toes were amputated when he dropped a steel rod on them. I was thouroughly disgusted.



Bob in center



Toeless man

The next day we saw wild kangaroos in a reservation. They were hard to get a good picture of, but I snapped one of a mama kangaroo and her little joey!

Next we walked the streets of Melbourne, which is such a cool city! It is known for its artsy inhabitants. Lots of alleyways are filled with graffiti which reminded me of my cousins Max, Alex, and Zack. I'm sure all of them could contribute to the streets of Melbourne!

I've been at the University of Sydney now for three days and the campus is absolutely beautiful. The buildings resemble Hogwarts, but it became uncanny when a huge group of people were walking around campus dressed as the Harry Potter cast. Every character you could think of was represented!

In other news, I have become absolutely obsessed with Tim Tams - a chocolate covered Australian cookie/biscuit. I've eaten a box and a half in the three days I've been in Sydney. I have also tried vegemite which is absolutely disgusting. I won a tube in a trivia contest (yes, it comes in a tube). I also participated in a vegimite eating contest in which a team had to eat slices of bread spread with vegemite the fastest. We did not win.

More stories to come!