I had environmental history in the morning, but it didn't have anything approaching my full attention (thankfully, that wasn't necessary). When it was over, we caught a bus to the city and the ferry over to the Zoo. That gave us some great views of the city from the water, all around. We took a gondola/ski-lift type thing from the ferry dock to the zoo entrance, going over a lot of construction and a few sleepy orangutans in the process. We went to the zoo education center, where we got a lecture on conservation programs and community involvement, focusing on the green and golden bell frog. That was pretty informative and useful, but not really what we were after..

Next, we went out into the courtyard of the education building. There were some school kids there, and Dobbo the Emu who pretty much had free run of the place. He was curious about all these people in his territory, and let us pat his back as he walked by... That's one large bird, but apparently he gets beat up by the peacock who lives there every once in a while, so he's just a big sissy. We then walked a short way to a little compound off the courtyard. We were warned about a psycho wallaby who roamed in there, but he never showed up (unfortunately). They showed us some cotton-tufted lion tamarins (little, highly endangered monkeys) in their cage. Next up, they got out a 9 month old baby wombat. She was sooo beautiful. Imagine a decent sized ground hog (full grown, they're over three feet long) but totally grey, with a cartilage plate on her rear end (for squishing stuff like dingos that follow them into their burrows). She was really soft, and seemed to like having her head scratched. A keeper got out one of the echidnas too, but it was close to feeding time so he just let her wander off (she went right back into the cage). Really cool looking critter, crazy long tongue too. Karma the Koala came out next.. She was really sleepy, since that's pretty much all koalas do, but also very soft and tolerant with people. She kinda clung to the keeper, waiting to be allowed to go back to sleep. Off and on during the other animals, we got to play with Cobar the Western Grey Kangaroo, who had free run of the compound. She was very friendly, letting us scratch her chin and chest, pat her back etc... She also put her paws in our handsand liked to sniff at us.. Cooolest critter ever! She's about 7-8 years old (they can live to 15 in zoos) and in great shape.

After that, we had a few hours to just wander the zoo. I saw the platypus, which is really cool and funky looking in person, but adorable. Also saw the tapir (which I hadn't seen in zoos before) a tiger cub (well, year old and half sized already) and the red pandas (which I'd missed since some idjit managed to poison the Washington Zoo ones). Managed to get a picture of a giraffe with the Opera House in the background too.. I also saw a snow leopard, and a beautiful Clouded Leopard (unfortunately, no pictures allowed for him). We got the ferry and then buses back to UNSW, and walked a short way to a hotel that had a 5$ steak dinner if you bought a drink (they didn't mind that my drink was just coke :p). The steak was actually pretty good, so I think that place is going to be my fallback cheap dinner spot now... Walked back to the dorms, checking email at the library on the way, then pretty much read until sleep. Tonight is the Opera, which should be cool, and horse-riding/rugby league/a MUD persons birthday tomorrow.. Should be busy! I'll update as I can, but if I don't get to it tomorrow it might be a while cause of weekend access issues. The Jervis Bay thing isn't working out well since one tour company is booked and the other doesn't have their required minimum of people yet, but hopefully they'll get the minimum and I'll be able to go... we'll see. Class time now though, catcha later.

7/13

Environmental history didn't have much going on this morning, but Wildlife was a bit more interesting. We had a guest speaker who modeled conservation for us in an exercise based on the world ending with an asteroid. We had to decide how many people and who to take with us to Mars on our limited space ship. So, it was an argument between "save cultures or save useful people". We pretty much agreed on useful people, which I think he wasn't shooting for, but the arguing over it was fun anyway. That afternoon, we walked to a nearby suburb (Daceyville) with environmental history, to look at how it was laid out and such as part of the garden city movement of the early twentieth century (studying the "built environment").

Tuesday being the night when all the MUD people come out (apparently every week), I went downtown to hang out with them a bit, since people around Uni were just getting drunk as usual. I missed my bus stop because the driver apparently didn't hear that I rang the bell, but used my great navigating skills (and all the one-way streets in a grid, but don't tell anyone I told you) to check out a mall I hadn't seen before and then get to the meeting spot on time. Met a few new people, then ended up walking to Darling Harbour to eat at Wok-on-in, a nice and cheap noodle place. After that, we wandered to a coffee cart/shop in the mall and sat around there till it closed, then took a walk along the Darling Harbour boardwalk before going back up into the city a bit. As we passed Woolworths, they forced addictive substances on me... chocolate cookies called Tim-Tams. They're addictive and evil, like Burger Cookies, so of course Woolworths had them in the display everyone could see from the street. One person insisted on giving me a box as a "welcome to Sydney" thing, which was really nice of them. After that, we sat in a McDonald's (one of the few places that was open, but talking there was warmer than walking around) and studied the nutrition posters (since we'd talked about that "Super-size Me documentary earlier). After that, they gave me a ride back to school, and I just passed out basically. Zoo tomorrow!

Had environmental history in the morning. Before class, several of the people were talking about their surfing lessons and when they were going. The prof walked in, and the first thing he said was "did you see the news where that surfer was eaten by sharks over the weekend?". It was a sad story, but kinda funny to watch the prospective surfers getting pale/slightly green at hearing that... (by the by, it was in West Australia by Perth, 'bout 5000 miles from where we'll be playing on the Reef..) After two hours of class, we wildlife folks went into the city for an excursion to the Royal Botanic Gardens.

I paid attention to the plants pointed out to us because I had to for class, but I really don't care much about them so I'll just stick to the things I did enjoy seeing... There was one tree with huge pine cones, much bigger than a football. Too bad that touching them is apparently a good way to get poisoned, really.... Saw some more sulphur-crested cockatoos, flying around and making an unholy racket. Also a few species of ducks and water birds around a pond. The main highlight was the huge colony of grey-headed flying foxes. There were (according to park estimates) about 6-8 thousand of them hanging out in trees in an area smaller than my backyard at home... they were everywhere. Chattering at each other, occasionally stretching, mostly just hanging there sleeping. Saw two or three flying branch to branch, which was cool (I'd seen them around at night, but a much better view now).

The gardens also had a good long walkway that went beside the harbour, so I managed to get some good shots of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge together (and with me too :p) from that viewpoint. It was a really pretty place. To get there, we walked through Hyde Park (the biggest in Sydney). On the way back through Hyde park, I checked out this giant fountain with all sorts of mythological sculptures on it and such... Also a chess game played with two foot high pieces on a giant board. It was pretty cool, but I didn't have time to stay around and see who won (I wanted to get back to type to y'all before the office with the computers closed for the day :p). Apologies for taking so long to update, but access over the weekends here is not very good, given that some labs are closed and the library is only open a few hours on Saturday with everyone on campus fighting for the computers... So, both classes and a fieldtrip to Daceyville (suburb within walking distance) tomorrow, then probably hanging out with some more MUD people (apparently Tuesday is a night when they meet up pretty regularly). Anyhow, since I've already filled in everything from Monday, I probably won't update again for two days (till my Wednesday, I forget what it'll be at home :p) See y'all then..

This was the first time I'd seen the bridge and opera house in good light. We went down in a group that gradually split off as different people went to things that caught their attention. Starting off, we went to the Opera House market, which was kinda small but had some cool stuff. We also saw the place up close, and a funky bit of "art" out front... basically a large rock with a smiley face painted on it that had been dropped on a red sports car... waste of a perfectly good car. We tried to hit the Aroma Fest coffee festival in the Rocks, but it was raining and nasty, and it was a totally outdoor festival. So, we walked down to Darling Harbour and went through the shops (only four of us left of the original dozen or so at this point). After going through the shops and eating in Cockle Bay Wharf, we went to the Aquarium.

The Aquarium was an awesome place. The salt water croc was a real big one, but not terribly active. I was happy that I got a picture that included the croc himself and the sign that said "If the fall doesn't kill you, the crocodile will" (since we were looking down from above). The seal sanctuary was amazing. There were four different breeds of seal and sea lion, all that were taken in after being found injured or retired from show careers. It's the first natural seal tank in the world, with salt water being pumped in as opposed to the normal treated stuff. Various species of kelp, snails, sea stars etc. have been introduced, and as they grow and the habitat matures, more are being added. I walked through the tunnels under the water, watching the seals play right above our heads... one kept swimming along the tunnel doing a slow roll in the water the whole time. Another was hanging head-down watching us, occasionally bobbing back up to check out something on the surface. It was great. The sharks had pretty much the same treatment, a big tank with tunnels. There were a lot of them, some pretty good sized nurse sharks in there too. They also had a few sea turtles, and one enormous sting ray (at least five or six feet across, with the sign saying they could grow 12 feet long). The Great Barrier Reef exhibit was cool too, including one point where we walked wholly through the tank (I have a picture of a shark swimming under my foot). There were also some other random cool things through the place, like the fairy penguins and a gi-normous (giant and enormous) Tasmanian crab over a foot or two across with huge claws. The banana-peel eel was pretty funky too, a bright yellow color.

After the Aquarium, we came straight home. All the walking was pretty tiring. I finished my two papers and took a shower, then went in search of dinner. Ended up walking to an Italian place run by Chinese folks... kinda weird, but the ravioli was good so no complaints here...

Got up for breakfast Saturday, and then went to get another Travel-Ten buspass since mine was up to 8 trips taken out of (surprise) 10 on the card. After that, I ended up at the library doing some research since I had two field reports due today (Monday). After getting some notes, I headed back to my room to work on the reports and read/nap again. In the afternoon around 5, I headed out to meet the group for the AFL game at the Sydney Cricket Ground. Aussie (pronounced ozzy) rules football is basically a kicking game. You kick, and if someone can catch it they get a free kick (no tackling them) and so on. The object is to kick it through the two tallest (middle two) of four posts, which is worth 6 points. Kicking through a tall post and one of the short ones is worth 1 point. If the guy kicks and it's not caught, it's a free-for-all for the ball, tackling the carrier is allowed until another kick/catch. It was a pretty cool game... the 60th anniversary of some important part of WW II for Aussie vets (I'm not sure what involved them in 1944) so some guys parachuted into the stadium pregame, then a Seahawk helicopter showed up and four more folks rappelled down to bring in the game ball. It wasn't as rowdy an atmosphere as I'd thought it would, given how serious people here are about their sports. It didn't help that it was really tough to follow the action at the other end of the field. It was also a bit too long for me, having four 30 minute quarters. I left with 20 minutes left in the fourth (beat the rush) with the Sydney Swans beating the Adelaide Crows 56-31. I watched the rest of the game on the TV in the basement of the dorm (big screen in a room with leather couches... pretty nice) and the Swans won 58-45

After the last entry, I went downtown with our TA leading the wildlife crew. They pointed out some sights in the Rocks, and then went to a pub/hotel for food to start off. It was a bit pricey, so I wandered up to the Pancake place I'd gone with Mike and Jen and ate there for half the price of the first place... After that, I didn't really want to just stand around while other folks drank, and another guy in the group was sleepy so we left and found a bus back to the uni.

The next day, I had environmental history in the morning. We watched a documentary about the cane toad that, rather than informing me about cane toads, just convinced me that Queenslanders have some serious issues.... We're talking big, ugly, poisonous toads and there was this old guy saying how much he liked to see them breeding on his lawn, and a girl who dressed one up and played with it like a dolly... it was hilarious, but sooo very wrong... After that, I went to Coles (the local version of Metro) to get soap and laundry detergent, and an umbrella... It's been four straight days of rain, after we'd heard nothing except "Sydney's in a horrible drought" for the whole trip... grrrr.

Anyway, following that, I sat around and read/napped until around 4:30. I then headed downtown, wandering the Queen Victoria Building a bit (some cool shops and architecture in there) and then meetingthe first of the MUD folks, Esther, on the steps of Town Hall. She walked with me to the restaurant where the others were meeting (she had other plans, but wanted to stop by to say hello) and there I met David, Ben and Cynthia. The four of us had some good Chinese food. There was great calamari (crispy/slightly seasoned outside, not too chewy inside) chicken, rice with mushrooms/pork/shrimp (which I never eat, but wasn't too bad) and a dish with noodles that looked like big oval water chestnuts, but were kinda chewy and spicy. David and I paid for more of the meal than the other two (by chance of what bills we were carrying), so they bought us gelato (ice cream that's different somehow, not sure as yet.. apparently healthier than the normal) later on. We wandered around through Darling Harbour, seeing some of the various park type things (sculptures from the Olympics and so forth) and along Cockle Bay Wharf restaurants. We went through Harbourside Shops (which is kinda like Harbor place in Baltimore, except nicer... cause everything here is nicer than B-more, sadly) and then sat around a coffee shop for a while. The filtered coffee machine was shut down for the day, so I ended up with a really strong espresso (which I'd never had before, but had a great kick to it.. I think I saw a spoon dissolving in it). After the coffee shop, we split up (since I knew my way back to my favorite bus stop for getting back to Uni) and I came home and slept. They were great folks, very welcoming/outgoing. It helped that I knew at least David pretty well from the MUD, but I'd barely ever spoken to Esther and she explained all about how the local MUD folks host visitors around the town and such... very cool people, and not even a hint of the axe murdering.

First off, apologies for the formatting. I swear I'm putting in paragraphs, but these stupid MACs that I'm forced to use interpret it as one huge block of text... I'm going to work on fixing that in this post, so it might look kinda wonky.

Today started off with happy-fun Environmental History, which was really more towards the boring-snoozy ide of the spectrum rather than happy or fun. I had that class 9-12:30 or so, then got lunch at the campus dining hall. This place has some good stuff on buffet, and our lunches/breakfasts (brekkie, around here) are taken care of by the program. After that, our class hopped on busses at 1:30 to go to a museum near Botany Bay, dedicated to the French explorer La Perouse. He apparently got here *just* after some Brits beat him to it, then just disappeared on a later expedition. Some wrecks were found, and everyone just assumes he saw a coral reef coming and surrendered to it, as you might expect from the French.

I saw the site where James Cook landed and made first contact from across the bay, and also a fort built to keep the Tsarist Russians out (which was crappily built and later abandoned), so that was interesting. After that, we grabbed the bus home and here I sit typing to y'all. Plans for the next few days include going out tonight in a group led by our TA Amanda and her guy Paul (she's local, he's a Brit who's been transplanted) and exploring downtown some more. Tomorrow is mostly class, but I might be able to meet up with some Discworld MUD people in the evening (don't worry mom, I won't be axe murdered... if I was going to be, the ones in DC woulda gotten me at Cherry Blossom). And then there's the footy on Saturday night, and a free day Sunday which I intend to use checking out Darling Harbour and the massive Sydney Aquarium, which I hear is quite awesome. So anyway... till tomorrow! (or whenever, but likely tomorrow cause I want to write a paper and get it outta the way, so I'll be on the library computers a good bit).

After yesterdays entry, I sorta wandered and then went to orientation where some guys from a local travel service talked to us about all the things we could do nearby. Lots of daytrip options and weekends... interesting stuff. They recommended the Jervis Bay trip, so I think I'm definitely going to have to do that. Afterwards, I hopped a ride with the guys who'd done the talk to the Randwick Rugby Club(about 20 minutes walk from UNSW). There was a major rugby game last night, the third in a best of three series called State of Origin. It's kinda like our All-Star games, except that players play for the team where they were born, not where their professional team is based. New South Wales (my team, since I'm a UNSW student) whupped up on Queensland pretty badly, 36-14. Queensland was leading 8-6. then NSW scored two tries in five minutes and was up 18-8 at the half. It went downhill from there, as QLD lost an important player to a broken jaw and then just generally stunk up the place... The Rugby club was a really nice building, two bars, a restaurant and a "games room" which was basically video gambling, or so I saw. It was interesting to learn the rules of the game as it went along... it was played by Rugby League rules, with 13 men on each side and they get 6 tackles. 6th tackle is like 4th down, if you get hit you lose possession. So, they tend to kick away on 5th tackle to avoid giving it up. Rugby Union has 15 men on a side, and you lose possession whenever they can rip the ball outta your hands. Hence, Union tends to be more violent with more serious injuries. (In League, you can only strip the ball one-on-one, more than one person in a tackle and it's a penalty to strip). After the game, I walked home. I almost got dragged to a club by some folks from Wildlife that I ran into, but was rescued by some others heading towards campus. (I like the wildlife folks, but some of them I have no desire to see drinking 2$ beers... drunk people get on my nerves). I read for a class, then passed out to be ready for class this morning.

The Uluru airport is literally the smallest I've ever seen or been in. It has two "departure gates" which are really nothing but doors to the tarmac, that you walk across before climbing into your plane... The flight was uneventful and not that long, comparatively (only 3.5 hours or so). We got into Sydney around 6 PM local time. Bussed to UNSW, and settled in. I wandered a short ways and by 7:30 was on a bus to get downtown. The driver let me off three blocks from where I wanted to be, with directions that were clear and easy to follow. I got to the Queen Victoria Building around 8ish. It's pretty impressive, basically a big mall open at each end, few stories high.. didn't see much, cause Jen almost killed me right after I got to the center dome. Luckily, she's tiny enough that I could just spin her around instead of getting bowled over :-p The three of us wandered around, past the harbor (saw the Opera house and Harbour Bridge, very nice) before going to a 24hour restaurant in The Rocks. Good pancakes, and we BS'd for a while about home, UMEC and suchlike. Things we'd gotten to that the others wouldn't (like I went to Darwin etc). After that, we went back to the QVB so they could catch the bus home, since they had to fly out this morning. We got a random tourist to take a picture of us under the dome, so that was good. Only got to hang out for two hours or so, but it was great to see them and totally worth it. After they left, I wandered back to a likely looking bus stop (with a stopover in Woolworths for a travel alarm clock) and caught one back to UNSW. My room is small, and pretty dimly lit but has a nice balcony.. the dorms are sorta rundown/messy, not like UMD at all comparatively. I talked with a few people from the group after taking a shower... Apparently I was the only one who had a successful night. The rest had been planning to go out and get drunk, but seemed to have failed (pretty sad, when you think about it :-p) Today, the first full one in Sydney, we got our uni ID cards and a short orientation to the campus. I've basically just wandered a bit, sat down and wrote out my whole Sydney schedule... I have 4 free days to fill. I'm thinking the Jervis Bay thing will do for one of those, perhaps climb the Harbour Bridge on another... I'm also looking forward to just exploring the city. Our first event type thing is Saturday, Aussie Rules Football with the Sydney Swans vs. Adelaide. I'll have to get some Swans gear, barrack for the home team... maybe some Wallabies rugby league stuff too. Kinda strange to think about it, a violent game like Rugby with a wallaby as a mascot... all the ones I've met were cute and generally inoffensive. Later on we're getting a more thorough orientation, where I'll collect more info on things to do. I want to try and get to the Blue Mountains as well on one of the free days. One of them is this Sunday approaching (it's Wednesday here) so I have to get a move on for that one... anyhow, internet is free here and access all over, so hopefully I'll get regular postings and such. Just now, my Yahoo account seems broken so email isn't in the cards... maybe soon. Catcha later!

After Alice, we drove a looong way to get to Uluru. (it's also called Ayers Rock, but that's just cause some asshat explorer thought he could rename something that Aboriginals have had a name for for 50 thousand years or so). On the drive, we did some cool stuff though. I saw a wedge tailed eagle swoop close to the ground, which was excellent. We also stopped at a camel farm where I took a short ride (don't worry, there ARE pictures). We also got to play with the tame Dingo that lived there. She was pretty friendly and tried to eat my giant chocolate chip cookie. Besides the dingo and camels, there were also some alpacas and one extremely lost-looking cow.. We ate lunch at Ebenezer Roadhouse, which pretty much defined middle-of-nowhere for me.. As such, there's nothing more to say about it :-p Uluru was impressive even in the distance at first site. We were staying in small cells at a local resort (you open the door and there are two sets of bunkbeds and literally nothing else and not much room for anything more, like clothes..). We caught sunset over Uluru, which was apparently not as good as usual because it was pretty cloudy. There were also some drunken idiots from the MSU program wandering about, which sorta detracted from the moment. Kata Tjuta was pretty cool looking in the distance (it's 36 rock domes, the largest of which is taller than Uluru). After that, we hit the hotel again. Walked over to the "Town Centre" of about three shops, but the walk under the stars was really nice, in the middle of a whole lot of nothing as it was. After that, I sat in the bar/restaurant area in the hotel, writing and watching people play cards. It was basically like a pavilion, but a large one. Sheet metal ceiling/some walls, with heaters and bodies keeping the area warm. There was a one man band there with a guitar and didgeridoo (interesting combo) that kept us entertained. It was a pretty quiet night in general. The next day, we left the hotel around 10:15and went off to do the "Mala walk". Basically, we took a short path around part of the base of Uluru that it's said the Mala creation beings took back in the dreamtime. One of the Aboriginal custodians, Ezekiel, and an interpreter told us the stories of each place we came to. We couldn't take pictures of some of the more sacred sites, but still got some good shots anyway. After walking around the Rock, we headed back to the hotel again. Geoff the teacher cooked up some good lamb stew and noodles, and we had a great cookout/hangout. I learned Spades, and immediately got into a close/tight game that my team lost 524-520 on a crazy last draw. We taught the Aussies, Geoff and TA Amanda, how to play BS and got some good games out of that. Then, they taught us Switch, which is like Uno with a regular deck of cards. That was a ball too. We also sang along to the guitar/didge guy, who was back... "Time of your life" seems to be a favorite, appropriate too.. The next day, we woke up for sunrise at Kata Tjuta. Again, the clouds sorta obscured what we were told was normally a great site.. rather irritating, really. So after the sun failed us again, we went on a gorge walk, which was really pretty. Also got a great view of the Western Desert from where we ended up. Back to the hotel after that, for cards/reading till it was time to fly out.