We don't have the memory card?

There was no way that we were going on campus today if we didn’t have to. Teachers and students were once again striking, for 48 hours this time! At first I thought it was all about getting better paying wages, but students have told me that it was also about the working conditions since apparently some of the lecture halls were old and outdated. This is true though since it is the oldest university in Sydney, but I do not think that is reason enough to strike for 2 days. We were waiting to hear if our Tuesday night class was cancelled so we tried to get internet from the shopping centre down the road. Ten minutes into connecting and un-connecting we realized that we could just text one of our classmates to find out from them. Turns out our professor had emailed saying he was intimidated coming on campus with the huge picket lines so he cancelled class! This was exciting for us since that meant our Spring Break had officially started – 3 days early!  With the rest of the afternoon and day to ourselves we headed back to drop off the laptop and back out to explore the Botanical Gardens! This is something that I have wanted to go see for a while so I was more than excited. We scootered and skated all the way across Sydney it felt like, but really it wasn’t too far at all. We passed through Hyde Park again and stumbled upon a reflection pool that resembles the one in DC. We promised ourselves we would get pictures on the way and ventured off. We finally came across what looked like the Botanical Gardens next to the Harbour and it was way bigger than either of us had thought! The pathways were endless with forks in the road every couple of steps so it seemed nearly impossible to cover the whole park without getting lost. We were super excited with all the wonderful plants and huge trees that we were seeing so we pulled out the camera to start snapping away only to realize that we hadn’t put the memory card back in the camera from uploading pictures the night before. We were a little disappointed that we couldn’t get pictures to capture our first time there but since we were in the beautiful gardens we still made the most of it. We walked around for quite a while and ended up at the exit closest to Hyde Park which was perfect for us. It was also right in front of St. Mary’s Cathedral which Riley had wanted to take me to so that's where we headed next. We walked into the hugest, fanciest church we had ever seen, which really reminded me of the Sisteen Chapel! We also wanted to take pictures of this magnificent sight, but of course our camera was out of commission for the day. Once again we promised ourselves that we’d be back to take pictures! Afterwards we decided to walk down the famous pathway of Hyde park which is also one of the best views and take a seat on a bench to enjoy some people watching. With our tummies grumbling we headed back to Broadway to figure out dinner.   

Jam Packed Timetables

So here is how our schedule is looking for the week:

Monday: classes

Tuesday: Strike Day 1

Wednesday: Strike Day 2

Thursday and Friday: No class – Spring Break!

Saturday: We leave for Fiji!

Because of the upcoming Strike some of our classes have been moved from Tuesday or Wednesday to Monday so that we don’t miss out on class time. Instead of two classes Lauren had three today, which included an overcrowded Creative Arts tutorial. Riley still only had one class, but maybe that’s because his other classes haven’t really been cancelled yet. I know that I didn’t mind having some of my classes moved to Monday because that means I only have one more class on Tuesday (if it doesn’t get cancelled) and then its officially spring break! This week may seem even longer than normal with Fiji is at the end of it! Riley waited for me to eat lunch until I was done with my 2 o’clock class. I think that class gets more boring every time; the class is supposed to be about International Education which I am interested in, but I just feel like half the stuff is over my head. We had a guest speaker leading the lecture today and he repeatedly kept getting phone calls. Finally he amswered it to let the ringer know that he was in class and he’d call back in an hour. He hung up shrugging, “Oh, that was just China” nonchalantly. My jaw almost dropped cause who gets a phone call from China in Australia?! So I guess I was in an International Education class after all, with my professor going to Beijing that night to discuss educational programs with the leaders. Pretty cool! Riley was trying to get the majority of his school work done for the week so he had been cooped up in the library since 11 o’clock that day. That being said we ate lunch outside to get him some sunlight! We went back inside to get some more work done after lunch though and before we knew it 4 o’clock had rolled around and I was off to my last tutorial for the day. Tutorials for the International Education are usually more exciting because each student has been assigned a week to present the topic covered in lecture more in depth. I will present in week 7 on history that has affected United States education. I know, I went with the easy topic, but who better to talk about it than a fellow American! After class it was time for grocery shopping and making dinner. We’re getting better about thinking ahead on what’s for dinner that way we can thaw out beef or chicken throughout the day! Definitely helps making dinner a lot easier.  I had to register for classes at UNCC at midnight so after dinner we headed back to the 24 hour computer lab to get more work done before the clock struck 12. Those that know how excited I get whenever the new course catalog comes out may be surprised to know that I hadn’t even made my schedule yet. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t so excited about the idea of creating a ‘backup’ schedule in case the faculty-led Germany trip got cancelled. I was supposed to not already whether or not the trip had been cancelled but the deadline had gotten moved back. I created a schedule that was good enough for me and by 12:01 AM I had successfully registered!

Summer time, tennis prime

After a long, tiring bushwalk through the Royal National Park yesterday we weren’t too keen on the idea of doing a lot today. But unfortunately we did have to do a lot…of school work. Never fun on a Sunday, but we both always feel relieved once we get it all done. Today it consisted of doing a reflection from the Indigenous field trip that we went on Friday afternoon, as well as a 1000 word reflection paper with 3 literature references to John Dewey’s learning process in the form of a blog. Sounds easy I know, but putting John Dewey scholarly quotes into a reflection blog isn’t as easy as it sounds that’s for sure! We were also thrown off by the fact that the Fisher library has horrible hours on Sundays – 12 pm to 5 pm. That’s it. Apparently they don’t expect people to study much. Since we had packed our bag for the day and had come straight from Palm Sunday mass we decided to head to the 24 hour computer lab for a few hours instead. This place was a little more populated than usual, but either way we were able to find two computers next to each other and get to work on our papers. Lauren was basically all done with hers while I was only halfway through my Indigenous reflection. We both had a hard time connecting the field trip to the given topic question so we were glad when we both had something down on the word document. With our stomachs grumbling we finally entered the Fisher library and beelined it to the kitchen area to heat up our leftover spaghetti. It was delicious needless to say. With it being past 2:30 in the afternoon we knew we had to buckle down and get down to business since we only had about 2 hours left to get everything done. We kept typing and researching until we were absolutely fed up with reflecting and blogging. Slightly relieved with some of our major school work for the semester behind us we headed to Coles, walking slowly finally enjoy some sunlight. Being stuck in the library on a sunny Sunday afternoon is not what we envision as fun. However, spring break starts this coming week and with another added strike for Tuesday and Wednesday I think we’ll have plenty of time to enjoy some Sydney sunlight and nice weather. With most of the evening still ahead of us we couldn’t help but notice the empty tennis courts that were to our left as we walked down the road to Victoria Park. I think we both had the same idea at the same time – to finally play some tennis tonight. These courts are always full since they seem to be the only free ones within 10 kilometers. First we had to stop by Coles to get ingredients to make Riley’s favorite chicken stuffing casserole. After changing and grabbing our gear we headed back to the university. I don’t know about Riley but I was almost exhausted by the time we got to the courts. Since the evenings get pretty chilly I had decided to wear yoga capris to play tennis but that was a mistake seeing as it wasn’t night time yet. I was burning up within minutes. We casually hit the tennis ball back and forth realizing that we were a little out of practice, more than we care to admit. We think the last time we played was summer though, so cut us some slack. The evening was quickly turning into night and we weren’t sure how to work the tennis lights so we decided to call it for the day. Not without playing one match first though. It was a close one, but of course Riley pulled ahead and beat me, no surprise there! Playing tennis was exactly what we both needed; finally exercising a little besides just walking, as well as getting the feeling of being back home on Thursday nights playing tennis with my mom and Mr. John. With food on both of our minds we made it back to make dinner and relax for the night. Riley was absolutely in love with the way that dinner turned out - exactly how his mom makes it. I think we'll be making that more often now!

The edge of the world

Although it was our Royal National Park field trip today we didn’t have to wake up too early since we had opted to go on the later trip since the size of the group was smaller. We met up with the other fifteen or so exchange students at the Fisher Library and headed about an hour south of Sydney. It seemed as if today was going to be a nice and easy day since we started the ride in an air-conditioned van which was a first. That idea soon went out of the window whenever we stepped out and hit a 95 degree Fahrenheit wall of air! But I don’t think we minded since we were dropped off at a lake with a mini waterfall!

Our first look at Royal National Park

The mini waterfall that Lauren wanted to swim under! Notice the guy climbing up the rock. 

Lauren doing the classic "look of into the distance" pose!

 The view was gorgeous and we were promised even more of these views, if not better, so we were more than ready to hit the bush all they call it. We hopped inside the van once again to go to the start of the trial and split into two smaller groups. We got placed with the tour guide that we wanted and quickly got to know the names of the other five people in the group as well as where they were from. So we had to start with the teacher and go through everyone’s name while repeating the information on the ones that have gone before. Sadly I, Riley, was at the end so I was stuck naming everybody! This was actually a lot easier than I thought it was going to be since we only had about eight people in our group. It seemed we had people from all over the world! Well, mainly the United States. When we were done with that exercise our tour guide, Wayne told us that we were going to start by having solo time looking out over the beautiful coast. It literally looked like we were on the edge of the world! 

Literally the end of the world!

We were supposed to reflect on what we wanted to get from the field trip and the connections that we could make with the nature that surrounded us. That only happened for a little bit until you began to think of other crazy things! I know I thought about cliff divers and that fact that I’m actually in Australia. I’m not sure what Lauren thought, maybe she could tell you. I, Lauren, thought about the other people in the group, where they had come from, what their life experiences could be, along with what the ships were doing along the horizon. Well, that’s obviously a little deeper than my cliff divers! 

Next we were off to start the real journey to walk about 6 miles down the coast line of Australia! Yea, we know, not too hard of a journey! However, with the weather close to that of North Carolina I think it was a bit harder than we had originally expected. I, Riley, volunteered to lead the group first since no one else was stepping up to the plate, so with a map in hand I took off, literally. Lauren kept telling me that I was a trailblazer since I just kept going. It was nice to meet people from all over the world. The first girl that I talked to was born in Singapore, has been to the United States, and goes to school in the U.K., or it was something like that. It seems that everyone here likes to travel before they come to Australia! Lauren met a couple of girls from the States, one from Wisconsin and another from Orange County. They talked more about Spring Break and what their plans were, both were actually heading the Cairnes to go to the Great Barrier Reef but on separate trips. All along the way Wayne kept stopping us to point out trees and plants as well as give us opportunities to take lots of pictures. Whenever someone would want a picture of themselves he would volunteer to take it but turn the camera around and jump in the picture also. Lauren and I found this hilarious considering he kept joking that he would get in trouble because of this. Our first stop for water came when we reached a small stream flowing off of a cliff. It was almost like another mini waterfall! The water was drinkable since it was just rain water from the day before or that’s what Wayne told us. We will let you know how our stomach is handling it. And with it being such a hot day, who couldn’t resist sticking their head under it? Well I knew I couldn’t! 

Waterfall that you could actually drink from!

We kept on bushwalking with our stomachs grumbling. Wayne didn’t seem as hungry since he kept pushing us along. With the easy conversation between the group members and the common goal in mind to get to end to swim in the swimming hole we followed along. We saw many other great views like one that is called cheesecake because of the sharp 90 degree corner that is so rare in a cliff rock.

This place was called Cheesecake rock because of the 90 degree corner that it had which is unusual!
You can see it clearly in the picture below.

 The coast line under this cliff was absolutely gorgeous! When I asked Lauren to take my picture on the view a fly/bee started to bother her, forcing her to try and swat it away but unfortunately one time her hand hit the camera strap and down it went. Wayne joked that he told us to be careful when handing our cameras off to someone else and that’s when he found out we were a couple since I replied that it was half mine. That did not take away the guilt that Lauren felt for dropping it but luckily it didn’t roll far like off the cliff or anything and also didn’t fall on the screen so there’s only a small nick on the side. Lauren was definitely grateful that I wasn’t mad especially when I said at the end of the day it was just a camera. With the day growing, Wayne said it was time to go since lunch time was approaching. Our destination for lunch was approximately 23 minutes away at Manley and Little Manley beach. We both think that his number was 23 because every time we asked him a question it would either be 23 minutes away or 23 yards away. We finally reached Manley beach and saw little blue jelly fish called blue bottles stranded on the beach from high tide. I always felt bad for the little jellyfish that drifted ashore, but Wayne thought otherwise. He seemed proud to mention that when you step on them they make a popping noise. He demonstrated that for us which was cool, but sad at the same time. Finally it time for lunch after a barefoot stroll down Manly beach.

Manly Beach where we had lunch.

The picture of the 'volcano' that Lauren spotted.. Lauren's family, please give her a hard time about this!

We ate on the cliff rocks between Manly beach and Little Manly beach which was a view to take in and capture. Wayne told us that we had to push on in order to make our arrival time at the end point as well as give us enough time to swim in the swimming hole. Right before we left little Manley, Wayne told us to put our arms on the shoulders of the person next to us and stare out into the ocean. He said take a deep breath in and take a mental image after we exhale, so we did, the whole group. It was a new experience to take the mental image with other people because it’s something I have never done, but I must say, I will remember that image forever! 

  

Riley tasting a flower and then wanting to spit it out!

We kept on with the bushwalk finally running into the first swimming hole with a lot of other people from our class. However, we thought it was a little too crowded so we persuaded Wayne to take us to the first swimming hole that had a waterfall! He took off through the bush, literally, sometimes we had to run to keep up with him. We didn’t mind getting sweaty once again to make the swim even more enjoyable. Within a short amount of time we had reached the swimming hole that wasn’t as crowded and much bigger. We had to wait for a few people to change, but gave us about ten minutes in the swimming hole which was long enough for us to swim to the waterfall and get the full experience. 

Our group doing the funny poses!

Our reward for finishing the bushwalk - jumping in freezing cold water, but also
getting to swim to the waterfall that we spotted at the beginning of the day!

We even have a video to hopefully show you guys what it was all about. An ice cream truck had appeared out of nowhere and we were able to share the best ice cream that we’ve had here so far! Our bus driver wanted to get back on the road so we even beat the other group out of the park. It was a very quiet but peaceful ride home since everyone was exhausted. Lauren and I really wanted to fall asleep but we decided to take on the scenery from the window instead. Starving by the time we got back we made our delicious barbeque sandwiches and quickly called it a night.

Random rock photo! But we learned that the rocks slant towards the Sydney Harbor.

Can I embarrass this couple?

With our Sport Learning in Australia class from 11 -2 in the afternoon there’s not much else to do in the morning except take it easy and head to class. We usually get there a little beforehand in order to check our emails and catch up on American time. Today I think we took it a little too casual and left a little later than we had expected which made us rush to campus to try and get to class on time. We arrived only five minutes late, but that didn’t stop the teacher from teasing us (don’t worry, he does this to everyone). Before we could sit down he asked us if he could embarrass us and not thinking he had any hard evidence on us, we said go ahead. He mentioned to the whole class that we had walked back from the Rugby game last Friday night with us and thoroughly enjoyed it. He also went on to say that we got together, giving the idea to the other students that we weren’t already dating. I, Lauren, wasn’t too fond of that comment since we have been dating for almost two years now! Luckily, later on in the class he mentioned we were a couple which gave us some relief. Any-who, we both think that this class is still easy considering we are already half way through with this class! Even class time is a breeze since the professor is so laid back. This particular class we were all stuck having to go in front of the class and have a debate. Our side had to state how sports do not allow equality, or social mobility. It was quite the task to come up with evidence and reasons to support that, but once we got started it got easier. He said that the group that he agreed with the most would receive an ‘extra mark’, but I doubt we will ever see that mark! I don’t think we need to say who won… oh why not, our team won, surprisingly! We also got class cut short because of a field trip that was going to place right afterwards to the National Centre of Aboriginal Excellence. We were supposed to learn how sport and stereotypes are involved in the Aboriginal Australians, but I don’t really know if we ever did. We visited multiple people who told us what their jobs were and how they plan on changing the way aboriginal children are raised, which was pretty interesting. The question we were supposed to answer on this trip was: Does the success of Aboriginal sports such as American Rules football, Rugby, and boxing reject the stereotypes that are put forth on the Aborigines? Yes, Please tell us how we are supposed to answer that with the field trip we went on! Needless to say it was not the best field trip that we have been on so far, but it ended earlier than we expected and that made it fine with us. We had plans to return to IKEA to get more delicious chocolate as well as some more of their great food – chicken parmesan and cheese baked saithe. By the time we headed to IKEA, we were both exhausted from our field trip, but we wanted the food, plain and simple. The trip to IKEA started off great since we had our bike and scooter, but we did not expect what was to come next. A torrential downpour, when there were no clouds in sight whenever we left the uni. Maybe it was my fault because I was burning up after the field trip and said that I wouldn’t mind if it rained on us right then and there. Well that rain came earlier than I expected, just yards from IKEA. It seemed we were so close, yet so far away because when it rains in Sydney, it rains in Sydney! After a ten minute wait under a pavilion, we decided that it didn’t really matter if we got wet since it would probably be raining for a while. Boy, were we wrong. Like usual, the rain stopped right when we arrived at IKEA. We chose to tie our bike up under the carport and headed inside to dry off as well as wring out Riley’s socks. Not exactly hungry yet but completely exhausted we headed up to the restaurant to take a seat by the window. I think we both could have taken a nap right then and there! We had a great view of the city of Sydney that seemed so far away as well as all the planes landing and taking off at Sydney International Airport. After a while of waiting, we decided to order our food so we go ahead and chow down. I think we are addicted to the sauce that they put on the mashed potatoes because they are to die for! After we ate we went downstairs for the real reason for the trip to IKEA – the chocolate, plus the delicious frozen yogurt. We knew that it was time to head back before the night got too dark, or us too exhausted to make the trip back. The ride didn’t take long at all and we thought we were making good progress until Riley called ahead to me carrying the scooter. I knew something must be wrong. The scooter that we just bought was already taking a beating. As Riley was riding it, he had to slow down for the many ‘snails’ that like to walk on the sidewalk and when he did this, a quarter of the back tire broke off. We both agreed to never buy any airwalk product again. Luckily the scooter was still ride-able and we were able to get back to Broadway Street within no time. Exhausted from all the traveling that we had done in one day we took the rest of the night easy. We had to prepare ourselves for our first bushwalking field trip to the Royal National Park which we were both looking forward to. 

BS - Beans and Snags

No class on Thursdays usually means its our adventure day, but we had decided to take things more casual today. There wasn’t much of a big adventure today because we had a bunch of ground to cover from putting things off throughout the week. We did venture off to Hyde Park first thing in the morning, something that Lauren has wanted to do for a while. However, we did forget the camera to capture the reflection pool and Anzac Memorial but I know we’ll be back there soon. One of the highlights about Hyde Park was feeding the pigeons our leftover chips, one of them decided to be brave and eat a piece off my shoe. I had wisely put a piece next to Lauren on the bench in hopes that a pigeon would jump up there and scare her, that didn’t happen. We also witnessed a runner trying to get some water out of a water fountain and seriously getting sprayed in the face like Lauren almost did at Maroubra Beach! This was hilarious, and we even managed to stifle our laughs before he walked away. We knew that we had to get a move on since the afternoon was slipping away and we still had to make a trip to Kings Cross to pick up a bolt for the scooter that Lauren lost on the first day that we had it. I have no comment on that one. In the hardware store we basically dissembled our scooter right there in the middle of the aisle in order to find the right size bolt and washer. We were successful and I feel a lot better about us riding it now. Spring Break is starting to creep up on us quickly and we still hadn’t finalized our plans yet so it was off to a different traveling agency to see if they could quote us a better price. First we wanted to stop at the apartment to reheat some spaghetti from yesterday but when we arrived everyone was outside the building informing us that there was a fire inside. At first we were worried that it might be our converter/charger since we accidentally left it in the wall and it tends to smell burnt after a while. However, we didn’t see any of the roommates outside yelling at us so we figured we were safe. Once the fire trucks got there we figured we might as well head out since it might be a while, considering the firemen weren’t even in a hurry but were actually asking the residents if they had seen smoke. I thought it was their job to find out where the fire was… Lauren says sorry to her dad for that comment. Although we didn’t want to leave since we were right next to this adorable chocolate poodle named Teacup, or so Lauren thinks. I think that the lady said his name was nincom-poodle. Either way it reminded me of how cute and small Hershey used to be. So we were off to the university area again to stop at student flights. We met with a nice girl named Marilyn who told us about the same Fiji package that the other travel agent had told us about. She also quoted us for an airline ticket that was way more expensive than we cared to buy but they have to make money somehow. We left, reassuring her that we’d be back in about an hour with our decision. We bee lined it to the library to buy our own plane tickets for about half the price. That was when Lauren remembered that we were supposed to be downtown at 6 PM for a soccer referee information session. This meant that we had to rush back to Marilyn in hopes that she could hold our booking for tomorrow. Unfortunately she couldn’t but she didn’t see it filling up overnight so once again we reassured her that we’d be back. We made it downtown just in the nick of time and actually ended up waiting for the presenter to get there. We were supposed to meet at Pie Face which is a restaurant here so we thought that was a little weird, but turns out the guy actually works right across the street so it made sense. The information session itself was only about 20 minutes long and then immediately the guy went into interviewing us since there were only three people. The other guy was able to go first which we were thankful for since we wanted to talk to each other about the opportunity beforehand. In the end we decided that it wasn’t going to work in our best interest for a few reasons. 1. It goes all the way to October, meaning we’d only be there half the season. 2. We’d have to purchase uniforms which amounted to $110 dollars. 3. All the games are on Saturdays and that would really hinder our travelling once our 8 week classes are done. It would have been a really cool experience though and the pay wasn’t too bad but we wouldn’t see that money until October so it just didn’t seem like a good use of our time and money right now. We thanked the guy anyways for the opportunity. It was around 7 PM which meant dinner time so we sped down George Street on our scooter and bike en route to Coles. Our dinner menu consisted of baked beans and snags (sausages) which I have been wanting to eat for quite some time now. I was actually surprised that Lauren agreed to this dinner since she doesn’t eat hot dogs, but I think she likes snags a little bit better. We both ate more than our bellies wanted us to, but they were very delicious. It may be the first time that we have stuffed ourselves since we’ve been here.

 

Will I be cherry picked?

Riley had to head into school early again for his Asian cultures class, so I thought I would be a good girlfriend and walk with him to school. Well, plus I had to do a little bit of catching up on my Facebook and emails. Sometimes it seems we get sucked into the computer, but it is our only mode of communication! We stayed on the computer right up until 9:45, which was 15 minutes before our classes started. We left the computer lab and had a nice stroll across campus together before we had to split ways. Man, sometimes I miss that boy when he leaves! We both sat through our classes and were ready for lunch and  ‘eager’ to eat our PB and J’s. I think by the time we get back to America PB and J’s will not be on our menu for a while! As we met up and searched for a place to sit, a piece of grass with a little bit of shade caught our eyes. We sat down and I was in the shade while Riley was in the sunny part. He was sunburnt from Maroubra Beach last Sunday, so his legs were on fire and turned even redder. Riley thinks I set him up making him sit in the sun, but he will never know if I did or not ;) We finished up lunch and Riley had to head to his lab for his Asian cultures class. I on the other hand had to head back to the library to look up a couple directions and print my resume because I had landed my first interview in Australia! It was for a frozen yogurt place called Cherry Picks that was about a 20 minute walk from the apartment. I had the interview time set for 3 PM, but I wanted to get there early to make sure that I found the place and get a chance to try out the yogurt and experience beforehand. The walk to Oxford street where the shop was located was not hard at all since it is about halfway back to where Riley and I used to live during the hostel days – not something I want to be reminded of. I made it to the shopping centre where Cherry Picks was located rather quickly but in my uneasiness of trying to find the shop I actually passed right by it. Therefore it took me a while to realize that it was located right outside the shopping centre, not inside. Sydney has different shopping centres (malls), instead of having huge buildings that are separate structures, their malls here blend in very well with all the other buildings. You simply walk into a small door or ride a small escalator into a shopping centre and the whole mall is right before your eyes, never realizing that from the street. Anyways, once I found the shop I stepped inside to order some yogurt. I decided to go with a mini cup of chocolate yogurt with oreos and cookie pieces. At this shop the workers actually put on the toppings for you, unless you paid two extra dollars to get unlimited toppings. Seems like a good deal to me! I took the yogurt and stepped outside to find a bench. I was more than ready to enjoy my first frozen yogurt over here but after the first bite I was more than disappointed. It tasted nothing like I was expected! I think this company actually tries to make healthy yogurt which is just wrong! I scarfed down as much as I could, mainly eating the toppings and then had to regretfully get rid of the rest. That also meant that I had about 20 minutes to kill before the interview. I wisely spent my time people watching on this very busy street and before I knew it 2:55 had arrived. I made the short walk across the street to enter the shop for the second time. I met one of the owners right around 3:00 and handed her my resume. She asked if I wanted to introduce myself which is something I’m used to in interviews. However, after my little spill we just started a simple conversation about my past experience and what I would do in certain scenarios in the shop. With my experience at Coldstone Creamery I am used to dealing with customers and ice cream/yogurt products so I think she was impressed. I especially liked how laid back the interview was since we mainly just talked and had a couple of laughs. She asked me how America was and how I was adjusting, as well as where I wanted to travel and explore (she gave me a couple tips). She also didn’t seem too concerned that I would only be here til July which is what I was worried about. Before we departed our ways she told me that she would talk it over with the other manager and call me in for a trial run next week. I don’t know where that leaves me now, job or no job, but I’m willing to wait. With the whole rest of the afternoon to myself since Riley was in class I casually walked back to the apartment to change. I then headed back to the library to do research for our Spring Break plans. Riley was actually presenting in his tutorial class for Anthropology. At first he thought he was going to have to do the presentation himself since his girl partner hadn't arrived, even though the class had already started. He had to actually ask the tutorial leader to wait a couple of minutes for his partner to arrive before they started. Five minutes later they started their presentation on cattle by handing their board games that they had created with various questions about cattle in the shape of games like Candy Land. His partner had actually gone out and gotten animal pieces and dyes for everyone to play the game with. Like average college students, the classmates hadn’t done the required reading but they were actually excited about the game and started flipping through their readings to find the answers to their questions on the board. Riley walked around the classroom to answer any questions that people had and he actually said it felt nice to act like a teacher, looking over the students’ shoulders to check on their progress. I think I’m rubbing off on him! After the game was over they conducted a mini discussion to review the material that was covered in the reading. The tutorial teacher asked for a copy of the board game so that she could show it to the Anthropology teacher, so I assured Riley that he would get a good grade on that project! Since Riley’s tutorial was from 5-6 PM I had told him that I would go grocery shopping and prepare dinner in the meantime. We had agreed during breakfast that we could have a simple meal of spaghetti so it wasn’t too hard at all. I actually finished making it right as Riley came back from his class. We chatted about our day and after dinner decided to head back to the library to do some more internet surfing about Spring Break as well as jobs for Riley.

Fiji or New Zealand?

Either we are finally getting settled and adjusted to the University of Sydney life or we are just taking a couple days off from extensive activities. I think it might be both actually. The last couple of days have been spent either planning/researching for Spring Break or spent in the classroom. We had our Outdoor Education class first thing in the morning and the oldest lecture hall at the University of Sydney was packed! There was only supposed to be 90 students enrolled in the unit but there was a mishap in the administration and somehow 115 students were able to enrol. Riley thinks it’s just another way for the school to get more money since every student has to pay an extra $100 for all the excursions that we go on throughout the class. But, instead of turning people away they decided to just create another class lecture and tutorial for the unit. This new class would be on Tuesday night from 5-7 with only about 30 people instead of the 90 people that we are currently dealing with. That would also mean that we would have all of Tuesday and explore to do whatever we wanted. So we volunteered to change our class time to free up our spots for someone else! We both like the idea of a smaller class size since it meant we could form better friendships with the people in the class. Our first field trip for that class will be on Saturday when we go to the Royal National Park, which is actually the first park to ever become a National Park! After class we went to enjoy our packed lunch on the lawns since it was a nice, sunny day. We had plans to devote the remainder of the day to figuring out what we wanted to do for Spring Break. We had briefly talked about what we wanted to do: I wanted to go to New Zealand since it would still be warm weather there, Riley had his hopes set on Fiji. We stepped into STA travel mainly looking at New Zealand but it didn’t take us long to realize that was probably one of the most expensive options out there since everyone wanted to go there. We then started looking through a pamphlet that showed all the Fiji group trips. The prices were a lot more reasonable and seemed to be more flexible with what you could and couldn’t do verses the New Zealand trips. There were days when we could decide to swim with the mana rays or go a tribe visit. The lady quoted us a total price of $1645 including air fare (which was $560). We then went to the computer lab knowing that we could find a better price on the airfare. Riley with his great skills of internet surfing was able to find tickets for $365 which was a lot more in our price range. With that being such a high amount of money we decided to think about it for the reminder of the night and come back tomorrow to decide. We made our way back to heat up leftovers from the night before and then made plans to return to Kings Cross to hopefully pick up a bike light, zip ties for our basket, and bolt for the scooter. The trip was a lot shorter on a shooter and bike. However, when we got to the hardware store at 5:59 the guy was shutting his door so we weren’t able to get the bolt for the scooter. That unfortunately means another trip back to Kings Cross at some point. We made it back to this cheap souvenir shop to pick up the zip ties and light though! We made it back in enough time that we were able to hit up the library again and complete some of our reflections about the Nippers Competition that we weren’t able to see as well as the Rugby Union game that we were able to see! A 400 word reflection with two quotes from outside resources is actually a lot harder than you thought. But we’re not complaining, still not as bad as our home university assignments.

First day of doing nothing

Well except class. But really that’s just about it. Riley was supposed to go to class at 10 AM, but when he was too tired to get out of bed he realized that he could just go to the 4 PM lecture which is just a repeat of the morning lecture. I have a tutorial at that time anyways, so we figured that was the better option. We each took our time getting ready for the day and packing lunch as well as our school bags. We made it to the university a little early and checked our emails before class, not much going on in the US today. Of course Riley and I have some down time while waiting for class, but we always talk through it, or rather sing today. We decided to re-make Knee Deep by Zach Brown Band, but in our own beach experience in Australia. We only did the chorus, but it goes:

“Knee deep in the water somewhere,
got the hurricane winds blowing in my hair,
only worry in the world is a shark gonna reach my chair”

We know this may be a multi-platinum hit soon, so we can’t let you hear the whole song yet ;)

Just a couple classes and tutorials to sit through - mine being especially boring, but Riley was able to finish a tutorial teaching project with a partner which they will teach on Wednesday. The topic was cattle, his favorite thing, not! He even had to read 20 pages about cattle, let’s just say he didn’t get through it easily or quickly. He’s deathly afraid of cows, no joke. After class we did some slightly major grocery shopping and made it back to make some stir fry. After dinner we had to do some school work which only consisted of writing a 400 word reflection on our field trip to the Rugby game. We finished in 30 minutes! But other than becoming professional music stars, that was the extent to our day.

Monday – “Trash Day”

Well for starter, Happy St. Patricks Day! Ok, now we can tell you about our day. It all started with a trip to Maroubra Beach for a class field trip to see the Nipper’s lifesaving competition. For all those who are wondering who the Nippers are, they are a group of young children who want to grow up and be professional life savers. So adorable. But enough about that, we headed out at around 8:13 am trying to catch a bus that was departing at 8:15 and the stop was a little over 5 minutes away.  I know all of you are on the edge of your seats wondering if we made it, but we didn’t. Sorry to break the news so harshly. It actually wasn’t even the bus that we wanted even though the directory said “Bus 395 à Maroubra Beach” We even asked the bus driver if he was going to Maroubra Beach but he just pointed to the other side of the road we guess referring to the other bus stops that we could be standing at. We waited for the next bus to come and had decided to just ask every bus driver if he was going to Maroubra Beach. The third time around, when Lauren asked, the driver was a little friendlier but still said he wasn’t going there. Frustrated Lauren insisted that we just go try and catch a train down there since it was already 8:45 at this point and we were supposed to be there at 9 AM. We arrived at the train ticket booth which is really a computer that you type in where you are going. We typed in Maroubra but it did not see a corresponding destination. This added another bar to Laurens frustration meter. Now it was time to ask an actual ticket salesman who we thought knew where we had to go to find this train. We asked him if any trains go to Maroubra beach, but he said only busses go and that we should go back to where we were first standing. I don’t think I need to mention Laurens meter. As we made it back to the stop, I looked up and heard the music of the gods when I saw a bus that said “Maroubra Beach” was stopped taking in passengers. With no time to waste we ran across the street and climbed on board. Finally being able to relax and sit back we gazed out the window to observe the scenery while Lauren kept her eye on my watch. The ride didn’t take long, only about 30 minutes and we were let off exactly in front of the lifesaving club where we were supposed to meet our class. We thought we saw a group of people gathered, but as we approached we didn’t recognize anyone, nor did we see any competitions taking place. We once again asked someone for help, this time being a lifeguard and where the Nippers competition was. She regretfully informed us that Nippers ended last weekend and we didn’t know what to do. Well, we did have plans to spend the day at the beach so that’s what we did. First we went to find a water fountain which led us to a skate park. The skate park brought me back to the days when I used to skate. Those were some good days. Skate parks must be different from the ones back in the US since most of the kids here were riding scooters. Must be the new fad here. Nonetheless, there was a couple of good little kids who were flying in the air like pros. There were also a couple babies that pushed their little training scooters around which was pretty funny to watch. Off to the right Lauren finally spotted a water fountain and headed over to push the lever, but this wasn’t a normal water fountain. Good thing she didn’t put her head down to sip yet because the water squirted straight up in the air! I had to go over and assist her before we figured out that you just had to gentle push the lever to get a nice arch of water. We knew it was time to really hit the beach and sit down by the water. I will mention that we have not have good luck with beach weather since we’ve been here. First time it was too windy, the second time we thought about coming it looked like it was going to storm, and then this time we once again had hurricane force winds. We could barely stand it any longer until we spotted an oversized rubric’s cube down the coastline.

We headed in that direction in hopes that we could sit on the other side of it and have the wind be blocked. It worked enough for us to get a little bit of heat allowing us to finally sunbath a little and work on that tan! We later found out that we would get more than we bargained for. Once we felt like we had enough of the sun and wind we headed back up to the boardwalk to enjoy our packed lunch. I insisted on feeding the seagulls because they look so helpless, like they haven’t had food in days. There were probably about 50 seagulls in the patch of grass, but we noticed that there was an obvious alpha male and female. Every time one of the other birds tried to sneak his way to the food, the alpha male would squawk at the ground and lower his head into a charge. Lauren and I both found this very amusing. We eventually gave it a couple pieces of bread, but the other little boy who was throwing bread got annihilated by seagulls. P.S. Every time I see seagulls in Australia I think of the seagulls in finding Nemo, all of them saying MINE! MINE! Lauren said that was enough with the seagulls and we hit the shops. She had spotted a Snoball place from the shoreline, so you know that was one of our first stops. We walked in where an Australian guy greeted us. Right whenever we said hey he immediately asked us where we were from. He continued to tell us that he had brought this business straight from New Orleans; there were even American dollar bills on the wall which didn’t phase us at first. Leah you’ll be impressed – we had Tiger’s blood, and it was delicious!

We thought that we would stick around for a little bit longer, but I think the wind picked up its speed and we were struggling to walk up the road. We quickly decided we had enough and headed back to the bus stop. On the way there we kept seeing all this ‘trash’ sitting on the curb outside the houses. We kept walking until we noticed four suitcases lying outside one apartment complex. I was curious so I opened it up a little to see only trash in there. Lauren wasn’t too keen on the idea of us taking it without asking the owner if it was trash first. We searched for a door to knock on, but figured it was impossible to know who owned them since it was an apartment complex. So we rounded the corner of the street and saw even more trash on the side of the road. Riley’s eye caught a plastic crate that he had been wanting for the back of our bike. This time there was a door to knock on and the nice Australian lady informed us that Monday was trash day in Maboubra and anything that was left on the curb would be tossed in a trash truck so we could have whatever we wanted! This was music to our eyes and we grabbed the crate along with some pretty paintings. Then we headed back up the street and felt better about emptying the other suitcase and adding it to our collection! There were a couple of other vintage suitcases that didn’t have any wheels, just an oversized briefcase. Very cool, just not practical in our day and age. With our newly found treasures we boarded the bus knowing we had to get back to get ready for the rest of our Saint Patrick’s Day. We were planning to meet up with our two friends to see how Sydney celebrated the holiday. Walking down George Street we were slightly disappointed that nobody seemed to be in the Irish spirit. In fact, only about a third of the people were wearing green, which made us wonder if the oriental people even knew about the holiday. When we stopped at a stop light though, we saw an Irish pub called Scruffy Murphy’s that was definitely in the spirit. We walked in to see if we couldn’t get the whole effect. With a guy playing a fiddle it was the typical Saint Patrick’s Day scene in a pub that you often see in the movies – packed and a sticky floor. The upstairs was a lot calmer and more low key which we liked. We didn’t stay for long before we were off to wander the streets again. We came across a few more pubs, but nothing really caught our eye. On the way back to the original pub we found another Irish pub that was just as entertaining and full of Irish people. This one had a real Irish band playing all the classic Irish songs. It was nice to see the crowd really get into the songs and a couple of people even tried out their ‘jigging’ shoes. We were all supposed to attend a surprise 21^st birthday party for one of our friends, but the time kept getting pushed back. We casually walked back up George and Broadway Street to wait out the surprise party. The hour flew by and we made it to the apartment where we gathered with about 10 other exchange students. We didn’t have to wait long until the birthday girl walked through the door, slightly surprised. We enjoyed some made from scratch brownies from a Spanish exchange student, but we left shortly after that. We still had to make dinner and I still had some school reading to do. And this is a contender for the longest blog post!  

Here are a few other pictures of the beach:

Its a pie face kinda day

We had only one mission today since it was a Saturday after all and that was to finally play tennis. First we decided to sleep in and take it easy for the day. We know we started the day off right by not taking showers and heading straight for the tennis courts instead. Well first we had to pick up tennis balls, which Riley was amazed how high they bounced since we don’t usually buy brand new tennis balls but rather keep the ones that we find on the tennis courts. Then we had to make a quick stop at the library to see if we got a response from the applications that we put in for a new frozen yogurt place called Mooberry! No word yet. Now the real adventure began – finding an open tennis court. The ones by the library were already taken so we started our walk to the Square where there were supposedly lawn tennis courts. We were both excited because we had never played on lawn tennis courts before. That dream did not come true because all those courts were taken as well by intense older gentlemen who grunted like wild beasts (Riley’s choice of words). There was only one more spot on campus where we could possibly play tennis except it was all the way across campus – about half a mile hike. The walk didn’t take long since we are familiar with that area but had never seen the courts before since they were tucked away. The courts were next to the uni aquatic centre and all the gates at all the locations were locked. We decided to go into the aquatic centre to ask someone how to get access to the courts. We walked in to see a water polo game taking place which was pretty fascinating and reminded Lauren of watching Noelle play water polo with noodles at UNCC! We walked toward the information desk to ask if we had to be members in order to play tennis on the courts – and of course the answer was yes. A membership is only about 300 dollars a semester, I mean no biggie. Obviously they don’t want you to exercise here or they want you to pay an arm and a leg plus half a yearly salary for it. So we headed to the fisher library courts to see if people were done playing yet and we were determined to sit and wait until they were. However, when we got there a bunch of little kids were having lessons and one of the instructors told us that there would be no courts available until 6 pm and at the time it was only 2:30. Disappointed and depressed we started the ‘long’ walk home, it only felt long because we didn’t complete our one mission. To help our depression we turned to the only thing that could fix it – food! Plus it was lunchtime anyways. Lauren was able to finish her savored Domino’s pizza and Riley couldn’t help but create a pizza concoction of his own. Lauren was jealous and stole a couple of bites. Once our bellies were full we decided to head down to George Street to further explore what the shops had to offer as well as catch the Saturday Vigil mass at a different church. This time it was actually an Australian priest with an ear piercing which was something new to Lauren. After church we roamed some more shops, finally making it to Riley’s store which wasn’t exactly what he expected. There were a few good things that he liked just not in his price range, except for maybe a pair of shorts. We had decided earlier in the day that we were going to try the famous Australian meat pies at a restaurant called Pie Face. At the restaurant we could have our pick of ten different pies, some with steak, others with chicken and a couple vegetarian. We noticed that all of the pies had faces drawn on them with what might be chocolate or barbeque sauce, thus the name of the restaurant. We decided on the chicken and mushroom for Lauren and the steak and cheese for Riley, with an extra Australian minced beef with onions, peas and carrots. Needless to say they were all delicious, a place that we will probably come back to! After that we made our way down one block to World Square Shopping Centre where most the shops were closed except for Dollar King. That store was huge and had a lot to offer, but nothing that we really needed. We headed back before the Saturday night crowd came out! For the first time we decided to go for a swim but when we got downstairs we dipped our feet into below freezing water and had second thoughts. That was going to be the extent of our swim!

P.S. We have over 1000 views on our blog! That is exciting!

We could have walked that 10 dollars worth!

We were off to our first field trip of our Sport Learning in Australian Culture class; a rugby game! We met our professor and a few other classmates at the Royal Hotel. Believe it or not this was actually a pub that our professor had wanted to eat dinner at before the game since they had 9 dollar steaks. We haven’t decided it that’s weird or cool to meet your professor at a pub, but we weren’t there for long. (I think it goes to show how cool and laid back our professor is actually) We started our walk to the Allianz stadium, with our professor giving us a little tour with tidbits of information about certain spots in Sydney. Halfway there the professor told us that we were actually going to be taking a taxi the rest of the way there. Riley and I weren’t too happy about this idea since taxis are of course expensive! But with four people in the taxi he said it would be about 4-5 dollars each. We finally hailed a cab and sure enough our professor was right. It cost us 4 dollars each to go just about 2 miles. The fare meter does not stop here whenever the car stops; in fact I think it goes at a rate of 5 cents per second. That adds up quickly okay, especially when the taxi driver refuses to get out of the bus line. Needless to say, Riley and I weren’t too happy after that. Might be our one and only taxi experience in Sydney. We met up with everyone in front of the stadium to get our tickets as well as a fans flag for the Waratahs. Our seats were pretty awesome since they were close to the field and the game started within two minutes of us sitting down.



The game started off with the Waratahs (our team) kicking the ball to the
 Cheetahs (South Africa) similar to that of football.

Then the falling began.

It wasn’t long until the Cheetahs succeeded in a try – getting it over the goal line scoring 5 points. I think the Waratahs (in the blue jerseys) were a little shocked and disoriented so they had to regroup.

This is a good picture to show about the throwing behind rugby. You actually cannot throw the ball backwards or overhand. The ball has to always be tossed backwards or else it is a turnover.

 

Once the ball is tossed the player has to try to run forward without getting tackled. If they do hit the ground then they have roughly one second to release the ball before a penalty is called and the ball is overturned. It order to remain with possession of the ball they crouch and shove the ball between their knees so it ends up behind them and one of their teammates can pick up the ball and toss it to another player.

 

If there is a time penalty (when a player hit the ground and didn’t release the ball in time) then teams form this structure called a ‘scum’ where they basically play tug a war with their bodies to force the other team back a couple of steps; whichever team succeeds in pushing the hardest gets possession of the ball.

 

Whenever the ball goes out of play then the two teams both put 5 players in parallel lines called a ‘line out.’ A player from the team with possession of the ball throws the ball down the middle of the line out to hopefully one of their players. The teams actually lift players in the air to get possession of the ball.

This is the Waratahs mascot!

 

Us at the game!

Here’s a panorama of the stadium!

 

We learned so much about rugby and enjoyed the fast pace of the game. Time does not stop for anything so it’s guaranteed to be over in about two hours. Tickets were reasonable priced, only 15 dollars for students so we’re hoping to bring our international friends along next time for a night out.

Tempe, not Homebush this time

Thursday has been designated our adventure day so we made it a point to be out the door at a reasonable time and on our way to make another big purchase: a scooter. We wanted to have a bike and a scooter along with our skateboards so that we have multiple ways of traveling if we get tired of one way.

When we got to Target to purchase the scooter we were excited to see that they were having a buy one get one half off all toys meaning that we could get the scooter we wanted and save half off of a helmet that we needed! We were off to the library to get quick directions before we headed to the IKEA that we had intended to go to the first time around. This time we had a bike and a scooter to get us there though! The trip went by fairly fast, it was probably 3 mile ride, but with the narrow sidewalks and people that I swear are purposely blocking the way we had to slow our pace down quite a few times. We stepped into the biggest IKEA I have been in so far and headed straight to the restaurant. Guess what Breindel family I, Lauren Breindel, tried something new. Shocker I know, or maybe I was just getting tired of hearing you guys rag on me. But yes, I tried the cheese baked saithe and it was delicious!

 

Riley went with the chicken parmigana which was equally as delicious. We didn’t really explore this IKEA as much since we were on a mission to get more bins for organization of our clothes. We also knew that we had to get back in time for our free trial short class of hip-hop dancing and music choreography. I was supposed to be at the uni sports centre at 5:10 for my hip-hop class but we didn’t get back until 5:00 and I still had to change. Running behind as usual I took advantage of the newly bought scooter and zoomed down Broadway St. getting to the centre only 10 minutes late only to find out the class was in another building. By the time I finally found the class I was probably 15 minutes late, but I wasn’t the only one. I took a place in the back on the dance studio and tried to follow along with what the instructor was demonstrating. However, it was a little hard to see with all the other people in the way so I and the girl next to me, Katie (who I had met in my Outdoor Education class) kinda just pretended we knew what we were doing. The instructor was of course Australian but I did not expect that accent to come out of her mouth since she was dressed to fit in at Brooklyn which the baggy sweatpants, long oversized shirt and Air Jordans. I learned that it really is a talent to move like the hip-hop dancers do, a talent that I do not have! I waited after class to meet up with Riley so that he could join me for the music choreography class. This class was actually led by the same instructor and was a build off the other class since it was basically all the same moves I had just learned but put to a song. I think we learned a total of twenty moves, but putting those moves together to a fast paced song was quite the challenge and we barely succeeded. We had a great time trying though, although Riley wasn’t too keen on being the only guy in the class. Halfway through the class we realized that a soccer team in jerseys had gathered on the soccer field. We kept checking to see if another team was going to join them and sure enough they did. So our adventure day continued with an impromptu soccer game! Well us watching one anyways.

We left at halftime only because we hadn’t eaten dinner yet and it was already past 7:00! He rushed to Coles to get pasta sauce since that was the only thing needed for chicken parmesan sandwiches which we had envisioned. Probably one of the best meals that we have eaten so far!