Of course it would be foldable!

Riley and I completed our first project ever together and presented it to one of our classes today. We had grouped up with another exchange student, Natalie, to prepare a presentation on ‘how to prepare to go bushwalking.’ That’s what they call hiking here. We purposely picked the second week to present because we would get it out of the way and basically get to relax the rest of the tutorial class time. With that out of the way we have successfully completed one third of the class requirements! Now we just have two reflections to complete once we go to the Royal National Park and Blue Mountains again for a three day weekend. After class we headed to Eastern Avenue which is the main road on campus to enjoy a couple of snags from a society BBQ that we had joined. Riley loves his snags (sausages on a piece of white bread) The snags were delicious as always and even had grilled onions on them. However, their choice of drink – raspberry juice was nothing close to juice and completely disgusting. We swear it was just straight cough medicine. I know that I had trouble drinking it since I can barely get down cough syrup anyways, but Riley came to the rescue and finished mine off! He struggled just as much though getting it down. Before we left campus for the day we went to the library to catch our emails. Riley found out that one of the bikes he’s been looking at on gumtree (craiglist) was still available and we could go check it out later tonight if we wanted because we had a International Welcome by the Lord Mayor to attend to at 6:00 in the Town Hall. We had planned on going down to George Street early on in the afternoon to check out the shops and statues that we were close to Town Hall. However, the lady with the bike did not get back to us in time for us to get directions to her house before we left the campus. That meant that we had to rely on McDonald’s internet which is never a good thing! That quickly sucked away an hour of our time and left us with little time to explore the Town Hall area before the event. Nonetheless, I was still able to check out two of the stores that I had hoped to, while Riley was left disappointed that we didn’t get to his. I know that I am glad I brought enough clothes for the semester because their clothing sizes are not like America’s at all. The lowest size I have ever found is a 6, which may be close to my size back home, but it still never fits just right. Their fashion sense is a little different than what I’m used to anyways, nobody cares if their bra shows or even their butt checks. That is seriously the newest fad here, cutting your jeans so short that it comes above the butt. I don’t even want to be reminded of how many butts I’ve seen since I’ve been here. But enough about the bum. With time fasting approaching for our International Welcome event we headed across the street to enter the Town Hall. There were security everywhere, but that’s to be expected. We checked in with our university and were escorted into the main hall. There were already tons of students, some of which we recognized. We met some guys from Ethiopia and Kenya before the Lord Mayor took the stage. We had to sit through a couple of speeches but with the free food and drinks we didn’t mind. We actually got to taste our first meat pie!

Once the Lord Mayor was done speaking she introduced an Aboriginal drum line that would be performing the entertainment for the night. They were definitely entertaining and quite good at what they do.

Real Aboriginal person - Native Australian

The event wrapped up pretty quickly and we headed out just a tad early to start our journey towards getting a bike. We had told the seller that we would be at her place around 9 o’clock and that’s exactly when we got there. The bike was exactly what we had hoped for, and had never actually been ridden before. However, when Riley went to take it for a test ride the tires went completely flat. That was a problem since Riley would never buy anything he wasn’t able to test out first. The seller agreed to stick it in her car and take us to blow up the tires at the newest gas station. But for all those worried about us getting in a car with her, don’t worry. She was very nice and Riley sat in front with his beating stick ready (umbrella). Fun Fact: Having a pocketknife or pepper spray, or even any type of self-defense device is illegal in Australia! Hence the umbrella. After the tires were blown up we both took it for a ride and thoroughly enjoyed it. We both felt like kids again! We paid a good price for it and then we were on our way back with Lauren on the new bike and Riley on his skateboard. He was so happy to finally get up to speed and cruise on his skateboard since I usually hinder him as I’m not as confident and skilled as him yet.

P.S. It was also 5.90 pizza day at Dominoes. We couldn’t resist.