January 16, 17, 18

I'm trying to keep the posts in order at least, but they're all going to show being posted on January 31st, just ignore that please!

January 16th:

Took the ferry over to the Taronga Zoo with Brooke, Meg, Breeana and Dreux.  It was finally sunny so I finally got better pictures of the opera house, but it was SO HOT out!  We got to walk around and look at all of the cool animals, and were kind of amused seeing a North American bear being considere almost "exotic"for Australians haha! My favorites were the giraffes and of course all of the Australian animals like the kangaroos, wallabies, etc.  Didn't do much the rest of the afternoon, just a lazy sunday.

January 17th:

Took the bus down to the NSW Parliament House at 8:45 this morning.  We had a guest speaker who was a shadow minister to the police I believe?  He was really interesting to listen to, he had a past with lots of UC work with the police and combating corruption in the police forces, definitely a cool guy.  Got tours of the upper and lower houses, the lower house was decorated with green as the color and the upper house was decorated all in red symbolizing power.  The houses were very similar, but the king or queen is not allowed in the lower house because they deal with the passing of money related bills -- kind of interesting!  Got back from the tour and headed to Coogee (pronounced "kuh-jee" by the way, we've been corrected) beach for the day; pretty much a standard afternoon activity for us whenever we get the chance!

January 18th:

Took the bus down to the trial courts this morning at 8:45 again, where we got a mini tour and lecture about the court process in NSW.  The lady was so monotone and I could barely stay awake, yea thats one of the main things I remember from the lecture!!  I feel like I'm pretty accustomed to how the courts work, and they're not much different in Australia except for the jury picking process... so weird!  After sitting through a jury selection in Detroit, just hearing the Australians do it gives me a headache.  We got to go sit through a couple of magistrate court cases and watched a judge just rip a guy to pieces.  He was getting charged on multiple counts of fraud and producing a fake aviation license and what not, and he had to have a warrant out to get him to come to court.  He tried apologizing and making his side known and she goes "I DONT CARE! You had your opportunity to come to court long ago!  You're wasting my time! [turns to the clerk and asks] How long would he be sentenced to prison for?  What would his fine be instead?" [clerk replies however long in jail, or $7,000 dollar fine] She then turns to the defendant and says "you're lucky I'm not sentencing you to jail today, because I know you forgot your toothbrush.  I'm fining you $6,700 dollars instead."  SOOO BRUTAL! So funny though!

After we were dismissed, Meg, Carole, Reggie and I took a cab down to the fish market where you could actually get freshly caught sea food and it it right at the market!  It was super cheap, like $17.00 for a half of a lobster and fries and a salad.  Reggie convinced us to try raw oysters too, Meg and I just swallowed them whole the first time, too scared to chew.  We tried a second one though and actually chewed it -- not too bad!!

That evening we got to go to the Belvoir Theater to see Diary of a Madman with GEOFFERY RUSH!!!! I was so excited to get to see Barbosa up close and in person! The play was absolutely amazing, Rush is an amazing actor and at the end of the show he was dancing around the theater (which seated probably 300 people max) and so I was within like five feet of him, it was incredible.  I'm slightly obsessed now, I was so bummed I didn't get to meet him afterward :(