With every bite I feel more like a man!

Julie had to work in the morning so we were on our own to explore the rest of the Gong before we ventured to the Sea Cliff Bridge later in the day. University of Wollongong had been one of our top choices for our exchange placements so we knew that we wanted to check out what the campus life would have been like. We caught the free Gong shuttle right at the top of the hill which zoomed us right to the uni. Apparently there had been a pretty bad wind storm the night before since there were tree branches and leaves everywhere. This really hindered our skateboarding ability but with barely any cars in the road for a Saturday morning we took that route. There weren’t a lot of people around so I joked that it was like Charlotte on the weekends. Lauren argued that there were less people here though. Nonetheless it was a really quiet, yet still beautiful and quaint university with a pond full of ducks and the botanical gardens right across the way. We even stumbled upon a recreational game of what we assumed to be field hockey. They are very proud to show what university they go to since there were at least four ‘University of Wollongong’ signs.

Yes, they had kangaroo statues and yes I pretended to be like them!

 I was drawn to the duck pond since I had packed old bread for the trip and planned on using some to feed some bird friends. We sat on a bridge over the pond and proceeded to throw out bread which the ducks and geese immediately flocked to. A very large eel actually appeared too and we thought maybe he was going to gobble up a bird but really he just swam around with them.

Do you see how big that thing is?!

 Surprisingly the ducks were more interested in the bread than the eel and just swam around. Some birds had a different tactic and decided to come ashore and walk up to me and try to get some food. One duck/goose came awfully close to me and for the first time ever scared me.

I tried throwing bread away from it in hopes it would go away but really it was just interested in the big piece of bread in my hand. We weren’t able to stay much longer after that since it refused to go away. The Botanical Gardens were our next stop but they were not at all easy to get to. We had seen the directional sign for it while on the Gong shuttle, but first we had to get back to that spot. We were using our Gong pamphlet which had a pull out map and got to the general area of the gardens but there seemed to only be one main entrance. That meant we had to skate all the way around, while being able to see the gardens through the fence. Once we were finally inside we were able to feed even more ducks by a gazebo that was placed out in the middle of a pond and break for lunch. 

I got stopped by the first patch of flowers that we came across.

Although we put a sulu down on the ground to sit on I was unfortunate to have goose poo seep through and end up on my bottom. I had almost chosen to not wear my white shorts today but of course this would be my luck! We ran off to find a bathroom, but came across a local who struck up conversation with us. Surprisingly he didn’t realize were from the US, but once he found out we were visitors he proceeded to share with us all the things we could do while here. All that I could think about was getting to the bathroom to wash my pants, but that didn’t happen for about another 15 minutes. Then, when we did got to the bathroom there was no soap! I seriously couldn’t believe my luck! When we finally made it back to the shops in Wollongong I went into the bathroom and managed to wash them a little but the dryer didn’t help much since it just made a horrible smell, leaving me with wet pants. I really wanted to head back to the host house and stick them in the washer but I knew that Lauren wanted to look around a little. She was able to get a cookbook for herself which strictly has cake and cookie recipes, go figure! We picked up some detergent and made our way back considering it was getting really cloudy, cold and windy anyways. My wonderful luck continued when I popped the shorts in an open washer and then went to shut the door a little so the wind couldn’t blow it open. Julie had given us keys that had one for the washer room but apparently each apartment has their own washing room. That meant we had locked my pants in her neighbor’s washing room. Great! But we couldn’t do anything about it, so we headed back to the apartment to get ready for the Sea Cliff bridge! Once Julie returned, she actually had to some laundry to do and we told her about our mishap. She actually laughed about the situation and just told us that we would have to ask the neighbor for the keys. We did so and he came down and unlocked it for us, and this time we didn’t close it back! Now that we had finally retrieved my trousers and put them back in the apartment, we decided we would head off to the Sea Cliff Bridge even though it was a little cloudy. It was a little further than we expected, but she had offered to drive us there, so we weren’t going to pass up the offer! We stepped out of the car into what seemed to be hurricane force winds, which nearly blew us over, not to mention it was getting even colder outside! When we were able to stand up, we snapped a couple pictures!

Look at the gloomy clouds, we were scared too!

We all agreed that it was getting a little too cold outside so we decided to head back to the house. Julie also had to get ready for a birthday dinner later that night, but we didn’t mind since it gave us a chance to further explore Wollongong! One the way back, Julie began to point out lots of different places where we could eat. There were many Thai places, but that was just like Sydney, so we passed the offer on those restaurants. We arrived back without finding a place to eat, so I asked Lauren what she was feeling. Anyone want to guess what she said…? Yep, if you answered pizza, you are correct! I was feeling it too, so I wasn’t complaining! Dinner was fast approaching but the only problem was we didn’t know where to get pizza at. Lauren went running that morning and noticed a wings, pizza, and ribs place sitting on the corner that she thought would be delicious! Plus she remembered it having a sign with nice deals on the window so we figured we’d give it a shot. We stepped into a nice little pizza shop with a girl busily making pizzas. We ordered an extra large with beef, bacon, onions and barbeque sauce instead of pizza sauce. After waiting another twenty minutes it was finally time to chow down! After a few pieces, Lauren admitted that she was starting to feel more like a man with every single bite. I have to admit, that was probably one of the best pizzas I have ever had! We knew that we wanted to make some cookies later on that night so we stopped by the grocery store to pick up ingredients for the ever famous 3 ingredient peanut butter cookies. We were pretty exhausted from all the exploring that we had done throughout the day so our evening didn’t consist of too many more exciting events.