Starbucks date

I don’t think either of us wanted to get out of beds this morning but Riley wanted to go ahead and get his class out of the way. I, on the other hand, took my time getting ready and doing as I pleased. I packed a lunch and Frisbee though in hopes that we could give a throw whenever I met up with Riley in Victoria Park for lunch. It was a lot windier outside than I thought and we settled on swinging instead. Unfortunately, we didn’t last long since I figured I should read over my final papers one last time before I printed them off to turn them in. After today I am officially done with my International Education class, meaning I only have one more class to worry about which is a great feeling. I really do pity Riley who has to worry about two exams still. My teacher for this class is so wishy washy it seems since he randomly moved the tutorial time to 3 o’clock instead of 4 o’clock which meant that only two people showed up since barely anyone comes to the lecture anyways where he announced the changed time. That meant they didn’t get the memo about the moved tutorial. I thought we’d be getting out of there early since the other presenter didn’t show up, but he made sure to sweep in at the last minute. I had plans to meet up with my other teacher to discuss the final project in her class since I was beyond confused on how to approach it. I felt a lot better about it after leaving her office which was a relief since there are only two grades for that class. Riley was busy cooking delicious barbeque sandwiches for us, which is nice to have dinner ready after class for me. We must have done some strenuous sitting in class today though because we were both starving and the sandwiches and rice side just didn’t fill us up. That meant Riley cooked some noodles which he scarfed down, before we decided that having a big bowl of ice cream would finish us off. That was by far one of the best dinners that we have had since we both love ice cream! I haven’t been feeling good lately and we joke that I’m coming down with the Sydney Flu as well with my stuffy nose so I asked Riley to be my Starbucks date for the night. This is the first time that we’ve had Starbucks while in Australia, which may come as a shocker to my mom. I know she couldn’t have lasted this long ;) We grabbed the laptop and made it a purposeful date by catching up on these blogs. So go ahead and imagine us sitting in the corner of a Starbucks with a caramel hot chocolate in my hand and an iced mocha in Riley’s hand typing us these blogs and looking through the East Coast Australia Lonely Planet book in hopes to plan out our next adventure to the Great Barrier Reef. I’d say that was a successful date! With the night being so rainy we plan on making it another movie night! Riley trusts in my movie picking skills since Wreck it Ralph was so good, but I’m thinking about making him suffer through the Notebook since he’s managed to escape it for two years now! Muahahaha.

We really hit the jack pot that time!

We haven’t seen our one friend Molly in quite some time, but we were determined to finally hang out again and today was the day. We were planning to meet up at Paddy’s Markets since she hasn’t been bad since we showed her the first time. The meet up time kept changing but eventually we were in the same vicinity without really knowing where each other were. Choosing to meet up at the markets was a bad idea since the place is always packed on Sundays! That being said we got the fruits and veggies that we needed and got out of there. Molly had the idea of finally finding where China Town was so we followed along. We had seen a statue or rather an archway that looked like it belonged in ChinaTown and turns out we had been right. We just hadn’t noticed when we went by because we were looking for cheap little shop, but really this China Town just consists of food. We were a little disappointed by this, but now we can at least say we know where China Town is. We had gotten eggs at the market and didn’t want to bring those to the beach with us so we had to back track and drop those off before we headed off to Maroubra Beach. It was trash day Sunday and we were hoping to find some cool new treasures, so our hopes were high. We jumped off the bus once we saw water and were amazed to see our first patch of surfers! The waves were the biggest we had ever seen, even from the first time when it was windy as can be!

Okay, so those weren’t actually the waves we saw, but that’s what it looked like to us! We were definitely content with watching the surfers, but we also knew that we were on a mission. We walked through a few neighborhoods but didn’t see anything interesting and realized that we probably got really lucky the first time that we came to Maroubra. Plus, I think we were both worried about running into a bunch of Bra Boys after watching the documentary – yes, Australia used to have gangs too. We figured we’d have more fun watching the surfers so we headed back to catch a good show and eat some shelled peanuts. There were a few good surfers out there that weren’t afraid to get up and ride a few waves, but it seemed like the majority were just there to wade in the water. Once it got dark we caught the bus back to change before we went to Neill’s again for another game night. Usually Neill likes to relax on Sundays but he had agreed to play with us since he probably missed playing as much as we did. We started off by playing another round of 7 Wonders, but this time with the extension. Neill got really lucky and got the most powerful city card so he dominated that game. He even had the courage to try and tell Riley that he had messed up on counting the night before and might not have actually won since Neill had taken a picture of the game after we finished. Riley and I thought this was hilarious since Neill usually boasts about how he never loses – maybe he’s a sore loser!  ;) We all started to trash talk each other after that, but didn’t matter once Neill started his domination. We also played two games of Cluedo, one of which that Lauren won! This was obviously our lucky weekend. But we had to cut the night short since none of us had eaten dinner and our stomachs were growling. Of course we picked the one thing that took the longest to cook – snags. That just meant they were that much more delicious when we finally ate them though! 

Mark this down in the history books

With nothing do to on a Saturday, and with the weather being perfect, we decided that today would be the day that we ventured off to the famous Luna Park. We got ready and debated many ways of which we could get there – ferry, train, bus – but we decided that we would walk to day, which meant we would be walking across the Sydney Harbor Bridge! This has been something that has been on our Sydney bucket list for a while, so we were more than happy to finally be able to mark it off.  So it was off to Circular Quay, where we would start our hike across the bridge. We cheated a little and took the free bus to Circular Quay, but nonetheless we made it there. Our next goal to conquer was one we thought would be easy – How do we get on the bridge? Well, let me tell you, it is a lot harder than you may think since the streets leading up to the bridge are as swirly as a maze! Yet, we finally made it to the footpath that would take us across the bridge. We also found out the place where we had to meet up at to do the actual bridge climb. As we made our way across the bridge, Laruen was very eager to see what was over the edge, but the walls were a little too high so she couldn’t quite see; it was rather cute. When we finally made it to the main part of the bridge, there was a fence that gave us the view of everything! If you’re asking, yes, we did get pictures of the Opera House from our point of view!

We finally made it across the bridge, only to be greeted by a bunch of people trying to sell us things. Obviously it was market day on the other side of the bridge! I walked up to the first table where a guy was selling ‘sharp steak knives’ and he asked to see my finger, I said no and just walked away after that. They were also selling a bunch of food, but we decided not to get any since our main goal was to find Luna Park. After passing a couple more stalls, we finally found the main street again which led us straight to the scary entrance of Luna Park!

And if you think that is scary, go ahead and Google Luna Park to see what the original sign looked like! We made our way through the mouth of the guy to finally see what Luna Park looked like. Let’s just say it’s not very big, since it basically consists of one road that only had a couple of rides. We did manage to find the bumper cars though, and bumper cars here compared to America are ten times different. The Australian version consists of cars going around a track, counter-clockwise in an orderly manner while the American version consists of every man for themselves. We also managed to see the oldest part of Luna Park which is Coney Island. They still had the original slides that had been there when the park opened in 1935! We saw a couple more rides before we decided to have lunch shore side. It was really peaceful to just sit and listen to the wave’s crash against the rocks. After lunch, we decided that we had seen pretty much all of Luna Park’s one strip of road, so we wanted to check out the gift shop before we left. The gift shop was pretty scary as well considering all the stuffed dolls they had! After the gift shop, we made our way back since we had church later on that night. We passed the markets as they were closing down, so we decided to take a look. Lauren found a couple tops that she is looking forward to wearing once she gets back to the US. Soon, we were heading back across the bridge to catch the 555 free bus to make it to church. Just in the nick of time, we made it just before service started! It was nice to go back to church since it had been a while since the last time we had been! Although church was nice, we were excited to head back because it was board game night with Neill! It had also been a while since we played board games with Neill, but we were more than ready to play again! Since he has a lot of board games, we decided to play a new one: 7 Wonders à ranked #1 board game of 2010. It was a tough game to grasp in the beginning, but once we got the hang of it, it was easy peasy! It was a really intense game that involved quite a bit of strategy! We were able to play it twice (I surprisingly won the 2^nd game!) before we had to head back to our places for dinner. It was going to be another good dinner night since we were having chicken parmesan again!

We’re starting our business!

I woke up earlier than normal and decided to get some laundry done. Lauren soon woke up and combined her pile to mine to make it one big pile. It was easy to see that I was the one doing laundry today! I think the real reason that she dropped off her clothes is because she had a Skype date with her family. It only lasted an hour or so before we met back up and were both starving! We had the typical breakfast of champions which consisted of cereal and toast – I know, so nutritious! Once our bellies were full, we decided to head to the library, finally not for my papers, but for Lauren’s International Education papers which were fast approaching! Like always, she was a speedy typer because she managed to get one of the papers done! I am always amazed how fast she does them, especially since they are all always so good! While Lauren typed her papers, I decided that I would look up more recipes that I could cook when I get back. I say this because at the moment, I do not have an oven – which really stinks! Most of our day was spent at the library, but we soon had to head back since we knew we had more laundry to do. One the way back, we came to a conclusion that Autumn and Winter are the rainy seasons for Australia, because for the past couple days it seems we have been caught walking in the rain! We arrived back with our clothes slightly damp, and our stomachs rumbling. Earlier in the day, our friend Neill had invited us to go out to dinner and see Vivid Sydney with him and a couple of friends, but we sadly had to decline since we are planning on seeing Vivid for the first time while we are doing the bridge climb! While we ate our spaghetti and garlic bread that we prepared for dinner, we decided that we would watch a rugby match that was on the TV. We actually debated on whether we wanted to go and actually watch the game or not, but luckily we didn’t since it was down pouring! For dessert, we decided to make something that can only be found at fairs in the US – deep fired Oreos and Snickers! Oh were they just delicious! We had to send a picture to our friend Molly, since we joked about this while at the Easter festival because they had no fried food what-so-ever! We enjoyed the rest of the night eating our sweets while watching the rest of the rugby match!

Man, I’m getting old

The one morning that I had something up my sleeve is the one morning that Riley decides to wake up early. I had to sneak around and get on skype with his mom so that we could surprise him at 7:52 AM and say Happy Birthday since that is officially the time he was born. That surprise was slightly ruined, but I know that Riley was still excited to see his mom, even though we apparently looked like aliens through skype since the connection was so bad. Riley had recently just gotten a potato cookbook and had spotted a recipe for potato cakes, so you can probably figure out what we were having for his birthday breakfast. The recipe turned out to be a lot harder than we thought and decided that hash browns would be a better idea to go with our three course breakfast. We took the morning easy until we realized that we didn’t want to be wasting the special day away. Riley was about to be a free man once he turned in his last final paper of the semester! We had planned on using our passes to go to the Sydney Wildlife center especially since it was all rainy outside but with it already being past 1 o’clock we thought we’d wait on that so we didn’t have to rush through it. Instead we made the quick decision to go to IKEA and browse around since that’s one of our favorite places. Even though we weren’t hungry we ate the lunch that we packed, but looking back we wish we wouldn’t have. It actually made us even more full from the three course breakfast and prevented us from getting hungry for dinner. To kill time we headed back to finish watching a movie that we had started the night before, Wreck it Ralph. With it being all rainy outside it was the perfect afternoon activity. Plus, it turned out to be a great movie and usually Riley doesn’t like animated ones. The movie finished in just enough for us to head out to trivia but unfortunately we got a text from our friend Neill saying that he wasn’t going to be able to make it out to trivia. This was a little disappointing since we always look forward to this particular trivia night, but we understood. Plus that meant we could go to dinner like we had planned and not have to wait until 10 o’clock to eat. However, we weren’t even hungry but rather just knew we had to pick a place before everything closed. Riley was set on just having home cooked spaghetti but I was not going to let that happen. He finally decided on this chicken place down Glebe Point Rd that is seriously amazing, plus they give you an over abundant amount of fries. Unfortunately, when we got there the place was already closed even though their website said they were open until 8:30 PM. This really upset Riley since he was looking forward to it, meaning no other place sounded appetizing – not even Dominoes pizza. We walked down the road to see if anything else jumped out at him, but I figured it was probably a lost cause. We finally decided that I could just cook up some delicious chicken sandwiches for us topped with mayo, barbeque sauce, pineapple, green pepper, cheese and lettuce. I would say they were a nice alternative to going out. Plus we had an appetizer of shelled peanuts and a picture of his mom in hopes to symbolize her being there with us. This was the first birthday she has missed with Riley so it was the least I could do.

Anyone who knows Riley knows this was the perfect birthday dinner. Chicken sandwiches with baked beans, cola and peanuts. I'd say those are some of his favorite things. Also note that his mom joined us - top right corner!

I attempted to make a cake but it just didn’t turn out like a wanted even though Riley was a fan of it. I just couldn’t let his birthday pass without giving it a shot though. To top things off for the day, Riley got his surprise package from his mom that was long awaited for. It contained lots of cards from home which I thought was a great way to remind Riley about his friends and family back home. I also had to break the surprise and tell him about his birthday present from his mom – a Bridge Climb. I had been planning with her and although the date for his birthday was booked, we’d be doing the Bridge Climb on Tuesday! He was like a little kid in a candy shop opening all those cards, but I was happy for him! Birthdays only come once a year!

This is why I never wait for you

Somehow we are always late for our first class on Wednesdays, no matter how early we wake up, but that was not going to happen today. We successfully made it out the door in time to leisurely walk to the university. Once again I had a mix up of what room my class was going to be in, but all the rest of my classmates were in the room from last week so I figured I was in the right place. Fifteen minutes into class we were starting to wonder where the teacher was until another student came and told us that she was waiting in the classroom on the second floor! Well, that meant class was going to be a little shorter for the day, plus she had to leave early to go to a meeting. Riley wasn’t so luck with his class, but he was lucky enough to finish his paper. He had been working diligently for the past few days to get the paper done before his birthday. Maybe it helped that I bought him his favorite candy bar here, a Mars bar, to wake him up and keep him going. Let’s just say I had a lot of time on my hands since Riley had class all day and I was already done. That didn’t mean I was going to just sit there and twiddle my thumbs though; I had some birthday shopping to do. I lollygagged for a little bit of the afternoon since it was cloudy and rainy outside, until I realized that the markets that I wanted to go to closed at 5 o’clock. I was planning to take a run anyways but now it just meant I was running in the rain to make it there on time. I had to get green pepper for dinner, since we go through those like they’re about to disappear of the face of the planet, as well as some birthday presents. I had decided to get Riley an Australian decorated oven mitt since he is really into cooking now along with a few other knick knacks. I also had to pick up some roasted peanuts like those found at Texas Steakhouse since that is where Riley goes every year for his birthday with his mom. His mom and I had been planning for quite some time about what to do for his birthday and that was one of the ideas we had come up with. I got there right as the markets were closing, but that didn’t mean they were going to stop selling to me, which I was glad for! Then I had to rush to the shopping center to get ingredients for a cake that I was planning to make for Riley before we met up after his class was over. I was a busy little bee, but a quiet one since I had to keep it from Riley.

It's a 3 minute walk, you can't miss it!

With Sydney Adventure coupons to use, we thought it would be a perfect day to visit Manly Sea Life, which was just a small version of the Sydney Aquarium. This was the perfect place to go since we both wanted a relax day plus it was cloudy outside, so going to the Sydney Eye was a definite no for the day. We got ready and headed out the door, only to go get a bus pass since we have been using them like crazy! We then headed to the bus stop where we did our normal thing: watch every bus except for the bus that we need stop in front of us. It seems that this is a never ending battle with the Sydney buses  Our correct bus finally arrived and soon we were off the Manly Sea Life. When we arrived, instead of looking around, we decided to just go to the information desk to ask where the aquarium was. Turns out it was just to our left, and if we would have literally just turned our heads slightly, we would have seen it. Oh well! We walked over to this extremely small building, and I think we both were thinking the same thing – how could an aquarium type of thing fit in here? Well, we both can say that it was a lot bigger on the inside than on the outside since it had three floors! We stayed on the first floor for a little bit, looking at all the different types of fish.

The most venomous fish next to the stone fish!

First ever unicorn fish!

 

After we watched all of the fish do what they do best – swim – we went down two floors to check out the underwater tunnel. It was pretty much like the Sydney Aquarium, but maybe just a little smaller. Yet, they had animals which we had both never seen before… sea turtles!

Also well as the creepiest fish we have ever seen, Cuttle fish.

They were all rescue turtles, some which would be released back into the wild and some that would live the rest of their life at the aquarium. Our tour started promptly at 3 o’ clock and only lasted about 15 minutes, which was kind of disappointing. Our tour guide showed us all of the different animals that they have there, including the stingrays which were the size of a queen size mattress! She also told us about the sea turtles and why some would have to stay at the aquarium. One turtle named Myrtle, had gotten her shell broken. Manly Sea Life Crew was able to keep her shell back together so she could swim again, but during this process her shell filled with air so when she went to swim again, all the air moved to the back of her shell making her butt sit straight in the air. Luckily, they made a belt that balanced Myrtle out so she could swim normally. For this reason though, she will not be able to be released into the wild since the belt could come off or get caught on something. After we left the underwater tunnel, we noticed on our timetable sheet that the Manly crew would be feeding the little penguins, and this was a must see! We made our way to the third floor where the penguins were and surprisingly, those little penguins were extremely loud! They are actually the loudest penguins of the penguin family! The noise became even worse when the food came out! We watched them feed the penguins and soon they were all swimming again, making the noise levels much more bearable. We headed back to the first floor since another feeding was taking place at 3:30. The lady started feeding the fish, saying that they would probably go crazy, but nothing happened. Lauren and I came to a conclusion that all of these fish were lazy! Shortly after, we decided that we had seen everything that Manly Sea Life had to offer, so we headed to the main strip to browse a couple stores. We came across a store that had Mike ‘n Ikes for a dollar, so you know Lauren couldn’t pass on the deal. With no other stores that looked too interesting, we decided to head back since I had another paper that was due on Thursday. We arrived home, ate dinner, and relaxed while I wrote my paper.

Nobody can resist the smell of Subway!

Today was going to be a late day to sleep in because Lauren had to catch up from her weekend and I had to catch up from my relaxing weekend. I was going to go to my 10 am class, but I came to a conclusion that it was too early and decided that I would go to my 4 pm alternative class. Lauren finally woke up just in time to get ready and make it to her first class. While Lauren was in class, I had to continue working on my Asian Cultures paper that was due on my birthday… I know, how convenient! During Lauren’s break, we decided to mix things up today and break away from the classic PB&J and have Subway for lunch. Although they do not have 5 dollar footlongs, we were able to settle for a $7.45 footlong which was just as good! Of course we don’t get a turkey or a ham sub, but we get a pizza sub so you know you’re dealing with Lauren and Riley! Lunch was delicious, but we had to get some shopping done at Coles for the week ahead, so we headed down stairs. We got all of our groceries, but had to run them back to our places since we were running out of time before our next class! Lauren had an interesting class because she had to sit though half the movie “City of God”, which apparently was about sex, drugs, and killing. This was because the only two students who were supposed present didn’t show up. This also meant that Lauren got out of class early! After class, we met up and made dinner together which consisted of grilled chicken sandwiches. Needless to say they were delicious!

"Gonna have to hang by your hands for that"

Myriah and I were able to get in a morning routine with each other and successfully be out the door on time. We had a big day planned for ourselves which consisted of the Parliament House since we never made it there yesterday, War Memorial, hiking up Mount Ainslie, and going to the markets. I had bought my return bus ticket for 5 o’clock so that was our deadline, which we were determined to have everything done by. Not that we weren’t going to enjoy ourselves, but we just wanted to make up for our bus mistakes the day before. Bus after bus, we found our way to the War Memorial since Mount Ainslie is behind it. The War Memorial is huge, but we told ourselves we’d wait for the guided tour before we explored. Mind you that it was probably about 50 degrees outside, with a pretty serious wind factor, and people were still hiking in shorts and tank tops. I have no idea how they do it, since I don’t think I could ever get used to this wind. Myriah had warned me that the hike was pretty difficult since it was practically a straight shot up the mountain. I didn’t think she could be that serious, but five minutes into the hike I knew it was going to be a challenge. Especially since the wind was so cold that we could barely catch our breath. We took mini breaks throughout the way up to read the many signs and even do a little kangaroo spotting. We must have looked like such tourists to the other hikers.

Glad Myriah spotted them!

The view at the top of Mount Ainslie was just as gorgeous as Myriah had described it. We could literally see everything in Canberra and point out places we had been. The trees were all still lots of colors which reminded me of the mountains of North Carolina in the Fall. I had no idea that Canberra was covered by so many mountains, but it makes for good pictures.

The War Memorial straight across from the Parliament house. Reminds me of Washington, D. C. 

Myriah and I at the top of Mount Ainslie. GO NINERS!

A present from the United States to Australia. Note the eagle on top.

Canberra has everything that a capitol city should I think; an eye tower, lake, war memorial, parliament house, tall buildings, an university. I personally thought it was a cute little town/city, much more under control than Sydney.

All of Canberra. The eye tower is over to the right.

We easily made our way down the mountain to the War Memorial and were able to join a tour. This was Myriah’s third time to the War Memorial, but she thought the tour was worth it for the first portion since they often told stories about the people on the wall.

Outside view of the War Memorial.

Poppies that lined the names of loved ones lost. A total of over 60,000 soldiers for Australia.

The tomb of the unknown soldier is what got most of my attention since it was absolutely breathtaking. The whole enclosure is made out of six million tiles since all the walls are covered with them, including the stained glass paintings. The tomb itself was very simple and sacred, making the contrast even better.

Stained glass covered all the walls.

Mosiac made out of individual tiles, absolutely amazing to see in person!

The ceiling looked like I imagine the Sistine Chapel to look like.

The tomb itself

We had to depart from the tour once we got inside since we had limited time left before we had to catch a bus to make it to the Parliamont house for that tour. I knew that the War Memorial was huge, but I had no idea how huge until I walked inside. There were rooms upon rooms displaying artifacts and information from every war and battle that Australian has fought in. Their displays are so life like that they sometimes scared of into not looking at them. We barely stepped inside this submarine/boat control room because the voices and graphics were so real. 

A display made out of miniature soldiers.

So life like its crazy!

I really enjoyed looking around to see Australian’s involvement in the wars, but was kinda thankful when it was time to go since I can only take so much history at one time. I definitely felt overwhelmed and would suggest giving this place a whole day of exploration for those that love history and wars. We had mapped out our next bus route and sat down at the proper bus stop to eat our packed lunch. I think their bus stops are so cute since they are like tall half igloos, all painted tan with oval windows on either side. I just like how all the stops have these little huts so it’s an uniform way of recognizing a stop. We successfully made it to the Parliament house with a little bit of confusion about where the pedestrian path was. Let’s just say we made our own path. We were on a mission to make that Parliament tour and I’m so glad we did because we got to go into both the Senate and House of Representatives rooms which are closed off to the public. The Australian system seems to be very similar to ours except their Senate has twelve representatives from most of the six states. I did learn something interested about their country’s crest though.

When Canberra was established as the place for government affairs they wanted to create a crest. They knew that their country was moving forward and wanted something to show that thus why they chose the two animals – Emu and Kangaroo to represent the country because neither animal can move backwards. The kangaroo’s tail gets in the way and the Emu’s joints in its legs will not allow that to happen. Another fun fact – Canberra was created just to be Sydney’s capitol city since they couldn’t decide between Melbourne and Sydney and wanted something in between. Other than that, the Parliament house was a normal Parliament house with all the leaders’ pictures and artifacts. The roof was quite the sight though with these huge structure to hold up the Australian flag. It was said that they did not want the Parliament house to be a hill since they wanted the common people to feel that they were on the same level as the government, but I don’t think that exactly happened. We were clearly on a hill with a great view of the War Memorial and mountains behind us.

Since we had successfully made it through the planned day with no interruptions we thought we might as well kill the last two hours by exploring the markets. However, we didn’t realize how long it would take us to get there and then catch a bus all the back to her campus, so that left us with only about ten minutes to walk through the markets. That was a little disappointing considering all the walking we had to do to get there, but we figured we wouldn’t be doing anything better with our little bit of time before my bus ride back to Sydney anyways. The markets were cute and had a lot of neat stuff. They were also much calmer than the Sydney markets so that was a nice change. Plus, I was lucky enough to get a ride to the bus station from Myriah’s friend Tayla. She didn’t want me to miss the bus and needed a study break anyways. Sitting on the bus back to Sydney was a nice relief since we had been worried that I wasn’t going to make it an hour beforehand while sitting outside the markets. My visit to Canberra had been everything I had hoped for and more. I was very happy to add yet another city to my list of places I’ve visited and even better since it was the capitol city. Hanging out with Myriah and her new friends definitely made the experience!

I don't even know what town this is!

Myriah and I had spent a few hours on Friday getting our game plan ready for today so with our map, bus times, and packed lunch we set out into Canberra. We were planning to catch a bus into the city and then get on another one to get off at Parliament house, which was our first stop. Things were going as planned until we realized we didn’t know which stop to get off at and hit the button too late since the bus then zoomed into the next little town without any bus stops in between. We had absolutely no idea where we were, but we had at least three maps of Canberra with us so we were determined to figure it out! The hotel across the street got the best of us since we figured it'd be best to just ask for help since we were already behind schedule. The lady informed us that we were closer to the Mint Museum, which was going to be our second stop of the day, so it might be best to go ahead and go to that one first. She printed off another two maps for us highlighting the route we would have to take, but she was unaware of the bus number to catch. She advised that we head a few streets over to the bus exchange and figure it out there or give this one number a call. We thanked her profusely and walked out the door but immediately forgot which way to go out of the hotel driveway, since hotels are just confusing anyways with lots of exits and entrances. We saw a bus stop on the other side of the road from where we got dropped off and figured that would be a good place to stop and ask a bus driver. As we were walking down the street a bus started coming our way, and our first instinct was to try and out run it. We think the bus driver felt bad for us, but unfortunately didn’t know the exact bus number to catch and also advised that we go to the bus exchange in the city. We were fiddling with our maps and figuring out what to do next when an Australian walking by asked if we were alright. That’s their way of saying do you need help? We explained our situation and said he would take us there if he had a four seater car, but I was thankful he didn’t so we could avoid the awkward situation of saying no. He told us the way to take to get to the bus exchange and we were on our way. Walking through Canberra has been really nice since the leaves are just  starting to chang and fall leaving the streets all lined with beautiful colors! The wind was a little bitterer than we liked, especially since we hadn’t expected this type of weather in Australia, but it definitely gave us the feeling of Fall and I kept waiting to make plans to carve pumpkins or go to a corn maze. We made it to the bus exchange, talked with an officer to figure out the right bus number and even picked up a weekend bus book which listed all the buses that ran, their timetables and a map of the route. Myriah really wished she would have had this all semester since she would have felt more comfortable going out and exploring on her own. We had about a fifteen minute layover but when the bus came the officer came over to tell the bus driver our situation. He asked the driver to let us know where to get off since he didn’t want us to get lost again. We were thankful that he stepped in since the bus driver didn’t seem too thrilled about having to let us know. Within minutes we were right in front of the Mint Museum and so thankful that things had finally gone right. We were running late for the tour, but we figured we could just wander around on our own anyways.

We seriously wanted to kiss that sign!

They immediately put us to work. 

A staircase made of money! Who wouldn't want that?

 We ran into the tour about halfway through, but it didn’t seem like much was going on especially since there weren’t even workers working in the factory. This was actually a place where they did make money so it was cool to see the machinery and a nice conveyor belt system with a pot of gold at the end, literally, but it would have been even cooler to see the machines in action.

People say our penny is pointless, but Great Britain's was seriously smaller than my fingernail. 

I found this to be particularly interesting!

 With our handy dandy weekend bus book we were able to figure out that getting on the bus right outside the museum would take us all the way to the netball centre where Myriah’s friend would be playing netball in about an hour. I had ridden past the netball centre on Friday when I came into Canberra and had hoped that I’d somehow be able to watch a game. Never thought that would come true, but I was so excited to see an Australian game in action. We got there before Tayla, which made us very proud that we had conquered the bus system. We had known that the game would be outside and hadn’t really dressed accordingly, but we sympathized for the players since their uniforms were skirts and a tank top. That is the official uniform for netball since it is an all-girl sport, which I have mixed feelings about, especially since the skirts aren't exactly long and many times we saw more of the players than we wanted to - even though they’re supposed to wear black shorts underneath. The rules were a little confusing, but basically once a person catches the ball they can only lift up one leg to turn in circles and then throw the ball to another player. If the ball is caught in the semi circle around the hoop then they get to have a shot at goal. If a goal is scored then the game restarts itself. Players are not allowed to touch each other at all and also have certain positions on their jerseys that only allow them to go in certain sections of the court.

This is Tayla as a center throwing the ball to her teammate.

A girl having a shot at the goal - notice there's no backboard!

It was a fun game to watch especially since we had someone to root for, but Tayla’s team did not come out on top unfortunately. She had a game to ref afterwards so that meant extra netball time for us, but we were almost frozen at this point meaning our interest in netball had quickly decreased. Plus, the girls on the next teams weren’t as friendly and tried giving Tayla a hard time about every call she made! This really got to Tayla since she doesn’t like confrontation, but those girls were truly mean and annoying. I guess that’s what you get from an all-girls sport. We were happy to be heading back to campus and get warm but that wasn’t going to happen too quickly since they don’t have central heating in their dorms. We had to head up to Myriah’s room and turn on her wall heater, then wait about twenty minutes for it to start to feel even remotely warm. We had planned on going out to dinner that night in Civic, but I don’t think any of us were looking forward to going back out in the cold; especially since you have to dress up if you want to get into the pubs. Us girls decided that a skirt and tights would be the best option and we were heading out the door a little past 7 o’clock after their friend, Chuck from New York, came over. We all chowed down on burgers at Hogs Breath which were absolutely delicious since they were soaked in barbeque sauce. This is one of the raved about restaurants in Australia and I can definitely see why, except for their decorations since the borders were surrounded with US license plates. This reminded me more of a Logan’s or Texas Roadhouse, so it felt more like we were at home. They caught me up on a few of their traveling stories and what they had planned to do throughout the rest of their time here. Once the food came though, we all feel silent to gobble up our burgers. We had been starving by the time we left the dorms so dinner was long overdue. Next we walked to one of the more popular pubs called the Uni Pub. We were a little out of place since it was more of an older crowd that night, considering it was only 9 o’clock and the others weren’t used to being out that early. We still had a good time talking and listening to the awesome 80’s and 90’s music that the DJ was playing. We also ran into some of their Australian friends, so I got to meet them as well. We had thought about going to another popular pub so I could see what that one was like as well, but they wouldn’t let us in with their students cards since the numbers had been rubbed off. I think we were fine with heading back home though since it was cold and we were exhausted from all our travels throughout the day! 

blog to come

The rest of the blog will appear once my computer decides to turn on!

Sydney Flu

Thursday morning is the usual skype day for Lauren and her family so I let her get caught up with them while I got ready for the day and planned out what to do. We had talked about going easy on our adventure day since Lauren had a big weekend ahead of her if she decided to go visit her friend from UNCC who was also on exchange in the capitol city of Canberra. I had originally thought about joining her but my school work and final papers sneaked up on me and I just didn’t feel comfortable leaving since I knew I wouldn’t get any work done throughout the weekend. First things first, she had to buy her bus ticket which she did solemnly since they turned out to be more expensive than she had originally thought. But she finally came to terms with it after she realized we had gotten away with spending almost nothing throughout the past few weekend trips – thanks to couchsurfing! Then we were off to Bondi Junction which is the bus/train station near Bondi beach that we had been to during our first week in Australia. We had noticed a huge outside mall which we didn’t have time to explore the first go round so we figured that would be a nice easy adventure for the day. Plus we knew where it was already and just had to hop on a bus to get there. The mall was exactly what we expected and had a few nice stores in them. We were even able to find another bookstore with $5 books – never thought that would happen in Sydney! Of course we were drawn to the cookbook section but nothing really popped out at us. Unfortunately, my stomach started to bother me so I wasn’t in much of a shopping mood but thankfully neither was Lauren. Plus we had to get back to the city a little bit early since we were meeting up with a lady. While browsing on the internet the night before Lauren was able to find a deal for some IMAX tickets on the gumtree site, which is the equivalent of our craigslist. Don't worry, we met up with her in the middle of the city on a busy street, so it wasn't any shady deal. We don't exactly know what movie we're going to watch with the tickets but we knew we had to at least watch one movie at this IMAX theater since it’s the biggest in the world! Then it was a quick dinner before we headed off to the usual spot in Newtown for trivia night. We actually beat Neill there for the first time ever. While walking into the pub Neill had struck up conversation with an older gentleman who claimed he would be playing trivia on his own and wanted to know if Neill had a group of people. Of course we said he could join our team since the more diversity a team has the better they do. There was a crossword puzzle for 10 extra points that had the theme of song names with colors in them and he had almost filled up the whole sheet already. We figured with his help we would do really good this time around. Things were really starting to look in our favor since we answered all but two questions confidently in the first round. I even made it past the first round of heads or tails which rarely happens! We were in the middle of the pack after the first round and determined to make it out on top. However, a few questions in the second round were near impossible for us to answer and we ended up not placing. I couldn’t believe it since we only missed a a total of about five questions and only left two song names blank on the crossword puzzle. We still don’t know if other teams cheat but that was the best we had ever done and we still didn’t place. Halfway through trivia I started to feel nauseous and had to run off to the bathrooms a few times. I barely made it back to have another shot at the airplane throwing contest. I am convinced that I suffered from the Sydney Flu that night, or some branch of it. We had to take it easy on the walk back in fear that my stomach might act up again. Lauren still had to pack for her weekend in Canberra, but she made sure to take care of me and even picked up ginger ale and crackers. I basically slept the night away and began to slowly feel better. 

1 down, 2 to go

Once again the morning got away from us and we were rushing to make it to class in time. I started the last section of my Creative Arts class today - media arts. I thought I knew where the classroom was but when I arrived there was a sign on the door saying that it was on the 6^th floor in a room which I didn’t know. So I walked in a little late, but had found more classmates along the way so at least I wasn’t alone. We briefly went over media arts and did a few ice breakers exercises to get us thinking more in the technology sense. We were told that we were going to partner up and go around campus to take pictures of our favorite places. When asked if everyone had a camera on their phone I was the only one that raised their hand - shocking I know. But, being the only international student in the class I should have expected that. We had to partner up anyways so I was in good shape and chose to take a picture of the gorgeous courtyard in the middle of the Quad and the huge tree with a circle bench all the way around it that it is front of the library and also where Riley and I often eat lunch together. It was nice to talk and walk with a girl from my class that I often had small talk with. Although I was done with my classes for the day, Riley had to power through three more classes, along with turning in his first final paper. We spent our break looking over his paper until we were confident that it would suite what the lecturer wanted. I know that he was happy to just be able to turn in one of his papers and get it checked off his list of assignments. I had to get working on my paper for the Australian Sport Learning class. The night before we had suffered through the documentary of the Bra Boys that went through the forming of the ‘gang’ in Maroubra Beach. Our teacher had often joked that we better not run into any of these boys while on the beach but I didn’t find them too intimidating; they were basically just a surfing brotherhood. The only issue they caused was being too territory about their beach and fighting other surfers that wanted to claim it as their own. A lot of fights brought out and boys were arrested, but now they focus more on the surfing. There were clips of some boys surfing massive, low hanging waves off the coast of Hawaii which was amazing, yet terrifying at the same time. We were supposed to work that documentary into our paper somehow, along with four other sources so it was quite the task. But the topic was all about Sydney beach culture and we had a lot of experience with that so it wasn’t as hard as I had expected once I got into writing it. I was able to get most of it done while Riley hopped in and out of class which was a relief. After dinner and more homework I had a skype session with a girl from UNCC to talk about our upcoming exchange trip to Germany in the Fall. I had been accepted to go on this faculty led trip for two months but since I'm halfway across the world I haven't been able to attend the meetings. Emily was just catching me up on the stuff I had missed, but really it had just been general study abroad information that I had previously sat through before coming here. Talking to Emily made me very excited for the upcoming Fall and what we had in store for us especially after she said that most of the girls were planning to go to Paris for the first weekend trip!

Everytime we pass we’re still going to think their just as cute!

We took our morning easy and enjoyed breakfast which consisted of one of Laurens hearty, delicious omelets. We planned to go to Madame Taussad’s Wax Museum on Darling Harbor as it was part of the ticket package that we bought. Since we were in no rush today, we didn’t make it out of the door until a little after noon, but we zoomed to the wax museum because we were both excited to see all of the famous people! Before we made it to the museum, we decided to have a lunch on the boardwalk lining Darling Harbor. While eating, we both noticed a couple fishes that were swimming right below the boardwalk, so we decided to start feeding them. Next thing we knew we were feeding a whole school of fish! It was actually really cool to see so many fish so close to people. Soon, we made it to Madame Taussad’s with our tickets in hand, but no ticket booth to take our tickets. We went passed the main desk and thought that we got into the museum for free, but just around the corner there was another booth that was ready to take our tickets. I guess we couldn’t get that lucky! Since we took a lot of pictures, we figured those should do the talking! Note that Riley is the best person ever at being photographed!

President Breindel!

Prime Minister Julia Gillard

Queen Elizabeth

Obviously I'm not a race car driver!

Apparently he is so dreamy ;)

Tough Girl face!

Needless to say we were both excited!

Couldn't resist

Lauren's so called 'kick' ;)

All in the hips

Lauren man-handling the crocodile...

me getting mauled by the crocodile.

No, I was not on anything in this picture.

The wax museum was truly an amazing time and the statues are so life like that it was  unbelievable. Since we had trivia tonight at the Royal Hotel, we decided to head back, prepare dinner and change into some warmer clothes. When we arrived at the Royal Hotel, we knew the night wasn’t going to be the greatest since the host was sick and said, “Yea, I’m sick. Let’s go ahead and get this done so I can go back to bed”. He was such a crowd pleaser. The trivia at the royal hotel was rather difficult because Neill didn’t even know most of the question. By half time, we were close to dead last so we decided that we would do better the second half. Turns out, like you could have guessed, the question got harder and we barley scored anymore points. At the end, we decided to leave since we knew we weren’t going to be anywhere close to the top. We headed back in the crisp cold where we soon made it back to our warm places.