5/20/08 11:20am
Hey ya’ll! (Believe it or not, I actually said that in casual speech the other day, living with a Texan is rubbing off on me. AND I tease my hair real big on a regular basis.)
How are things back in the States? I heard the weather is kinda crappy on the east coast. Lame for you guys. It’s definitely autumn here but the average is about 65 and it’s sunny 90% of the time. Beautiful weather today, and still almost warm enough at night to wear cute little dresses (we do anyway even if it’s not warm enough).
Last week was pretty normal, got back into the swing of things after my birthday and no one went out all week except for Thursday. We went to this club/bar (there should be a word for that...blub) in North Sydney that apparently, is known to house all the 18 and 19 year olds who want to party (don’t forget, the drinking age/going out age here is 18). So the 20 something Americans were surrounded by Australian teens for a night. Exciting stuff.
Friday morning my program, CEA, had a trip to Canberra (the capital pronounced "Canbra", Sydney is not the capital of Australia). Canberra is sort of known to be a bit...boring, but we all already paid for it, so most people went. Our group had a small bus and drove down for about four hours. Bus games and merriment occurred the whole way (plus naps since some people were a bit hung over). We got to Canberra in the early afternoon and started at the Australian War Memorial. We saw fighter jets and all sorts of army related things, plus the changing of the guards (called the post). After a few hours there, we headed to our hostel to drop our stuff and get ready for dinner. We all had some before dinner drinks at the local pub and then went to Vietnamese. I love Vietnamese and was very excited.
I’m sort of known here as the resident foodie since a lot of kids are from smaller towns and haven’t been exposed to a lot of different foods. When everyone heard Vietnamese (and I jumped up and down with glee), they rushed over and called dibs on sitting next to Selina. It all wasn’t necessary though because we ordered a banquet of pre-determined food. Overall it was disappointing, I wouldn’t have normally ordered anything I actually ate, but it was an interesting experience.
Some people went out to explore the “Canberra night-life” but I was exhausted and about half of us just crashed. We got up early on Saturday, got a good breakfast and began our incredibly cultural activities. The first stop was the Australia National Museum where we saw lots of Aboriginal history, some dead animals, and made our own virtual 3D spaceships (the best part of the day by far, we all always run to the little kid activities). Next up was the Australia Art Museum where I saw Jackson Pollock’s “Blue Poles”, very exciting, as well as a lot of other art. After that, we headed to Parliament and took a guided tour of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Not the most riveting thing I’ve ever done, but educational nonetheless. We all piled back onto the bus and headed home.
The original plan was to go out on Saturday night but once everyone ate, showered, got dressed and was ready, we were all too tired to make it out. So we stayed in, played some beer pong, watched some movies etc.
Sunday was homework and relaxation day and then we had a girl’s night at Hugo’s to take advantage of the $5 Sneaky Sundays. This time I had a pumpkin, Gorgonzola, zucchini pizza, it was marvelous.
School finally came about and now it’s Tuesday in between classes. Later today we’re going to have some afternoon tea at the center and then I believe we’re hosting a beer pong tournament since Cyd’s boyfriend came yesterday to stay for 2 weeks. I’m sure very exciting things will be happening all week, and you lucky dogs, will get to read all about them. I suppose I should do some homework now/look for an internship that I still haven’t found/apply for visas that I need to travel. There are some Canberra pics (though not many) in a new album with this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2315087&l=20d35&id=824622
Byebye for now!
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