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 :(
Monday, January 31, 2011
Lithgrow Prison Tour / Katoomba Bay Weekend
So I know I'm posting this wayyyyy late but I'm trying to catch up on everything or else I'm never going to remember by the end of the trip!
Friday morning we departed at 7:45am to Lithgrow Maximum security prison; my alarm went off at 7:15 and I apparently pushed dismiss because I woke up at 7:41 and looked nice and pretty for the bus ride there. The prison was actually ridiculously nice compared to the one I went to in Ionia, MI. The pods were pretty nice, and relatively new and they weren't as dumpy or smelly as the other one. They also make a ton more money than the prisoners do in Michigan -- they get $1 an hour for prison jobs like working in the kitchen, etc. Back home they get $0.06 an hour... not too shabby here! It was a pretty cloudy day so it wasn't unbearably hot while we were there which was nice. We weren't sure how the weather was going to hold up the next day so we went straight from the prison to the Three Sisters rock, and got to take pictures and what not in our office attire, classy!
The scenery was beautiful!! Picture's really don't do this place justice; its so hard to capture the beauty of everything in a small lens, you almost need panoramic pictures but even those just couldn't compare to the natural beauty of the rolling hills and cool rock structure. The legend behind the "Three Sisters" rocks was that during a war, a witch doctor turned three sisters into rocks to protect them from being hurt or killed, but eventually died before he could turn them back.
We got to the hostel after the Three Sisters, and they just reminded me of somewhere you'd see a murder mystery. Yes, it's probably because I'm a whiny baby but at the same time it was scary and smelled funny. Everyone went out, but I just stayed in and went to bed early, I feel like I had a lot of sleep to catch up on and plus we were going hiking in the morning!
The hike was so much fun, and I'm totally not a nature person. I got my shoes pretty muddy though, but I guess thats my badge of honor for conquering all those waterfalls and trails in the woods! My camera died after like one picture, so I had to take everything else on my blackberry which kinda sucked. We rode a gondola back to the top, and it TOTALLY reminded me of a Jurassic park movie... didn't get to see any dinosaurs though, but you better believe I was looking everywhere just waiting to be eaten!
Headed back to Sydney after our first weekend away!
Friday morning we departed at 7:45am to Lithgrow Maximum security prison; my alarm went off at 7:15 and I apparently pushed dismiss because I woke up at 7:41 and looked nice and pretty for the bus ride there. The prison was actually ridiculously nice compared to the one I went to in Ionia, MI. The pods were pretty nice, and relatively new and they weren't as dumpy or smelly as the other one. They also make a ton more money than the prisoners do in Michigan -- they get $1 an hour for prison jobs like working in the kitchen, etc. Back home they get $0.06 an hour... not too shabby here! It was a pretty cloudy day so it wasn't unbearably hot while we were there which was nice. We weren't sure how the weather was going to hold up the next day so we went straight from the prison to the Three Sisters rock, and got to take pictures and what not in our office attire, classy!
The scenery was beautiful!! Picture's really don't do this place justice; its so hard to capture the beauty of everything in a small lens, you almost need panoramic pictures but even those just couldn't compare to the natural beauty of the rolling hills and cool rock structure. The legend behind the "Three Sisters" rocks was that during a war, a witch doctor turned three sisters into rocks to protect them from being hurt or killed, but eventually died before he could turn them back.
We got to the hostel after the Three Sisters, and they just reminded me of somewhere you'd see a murder mystery. Yes, it's probably because I'm a whiny baby but at the same time it was scary and smelled funny. Everyone went out, but I just stayed in and went to bed early, I feel like I had a lot of sleep to catch up on and plus we were going hiking in the morning!
The hike was so much fun, and I'm totally not a nature person. I got my shoes pretty muddy though, but I guess thats my badge of honor for conquering all those waterfalls and trails in the woods! My camera died after like one picture, so I had to take everything else on my blackberry which kinda sucked. We rode a gondola back to the top, and it TOTALLY reminded me of a Jurassic park movie... didn't get to see any dinosaurs though, but you better believe I was looking everywhere just waiting to be eaten!
Headed back to Sydney after our first weekend away!
Saturday, January 15, 2011
January 11/12
So all last week my Weather Channel application showed me sunny with no rain, and it rained just about every day last week at one point or another. Now this week it said that since Tuesday it was supposed to storm and rain every day until Sunday... and it hasn't. So I'm going to go with Weather Channel is completely unreliable in Australia. We got the whole flash-flood warnings, and storm warnings the other night but so far I haven't had to climb on any roofs and fight off snakes with my bare hands (crossing my fingers that doesn't happen anyway!)
Yesterday actually turned out to be beautiful, we had a guest lecturer in class and went directly to the beach afterwards. It was overcast, but I'd like to think that I still got a little bit of color. I got a cute Billabong "maxi-dress" which I felt obligated to wear out that night. It is super cute, but I wish someone would have warned me that we were going to a place that had the atmosphere of Ricks and the attire of the jersey shore, because I was definitely sticking out like a sore thumb... just imaging Snookie poofs and Jwoww tops and 4-inch heels, with me in the mix wearing a cotton floor length dress and flats, so awkward! Anyway, it was sorta kinda fun... not the best night out though.
Today we had two guest lecturers, and then after class we had to head to the library to start the outline of our 28 page papers. Mine is on drug control in Australia compared to the United States; I figure I can come up with 28 pages of crap for it thats for sure!
We went out for Chase's birthday at Churchhills later that day and that was fun! $4.40 beers, now that's college kid price! Heading to the prison tomorrow morning and then to the Blue Mountains and Katoomba -- I'll update about that later!!
Cheers :)
Yesterday actually turned out to be beautiful, we had a guest lecturer in class and went directly to the beach afterwards. It was overcast, but I'd like to think that I still got a little bit of color. I got a cute Billabong "maxi-dress" which I felt obligated to wear out that night. It is super cute, but I wish someone would have warned me that we were going to a place that had the atmosphere of Ricks and the attire of the jersey shore, because I was definitely sticking out like a sore thumb... just imaging Snookie poofs and Jwoww tops and 4-inch heels, with me in the mix wearing a cotton floor length dress and flats, so awkward! Anyway, it was sorta kinda fun... not the best night out though.
Today we had two guest lecturers, and then after class we had to head to the library to start the outline of our 28 page papers. Mine is on drug control in Australia compared to the United States; I figure I can come up with 28 pages of crap for it thats for sure!
We went out for Chase's birthday at Churchhills later that day and that was fun! $4.40 beers, now that's college kid price! Heading to the prison tomorrow morning and then to the Blue Mountains and Katoomba -- I'll update about that later!!
Cheers :)
Monday, January 10, 2011
Late Start
So I've been in Australia for just over a week now, and finally decided that it might be a good idea to start a blog or else there's no way on earth I'm going to remember everything that happened. I'll do a recap of last week just to keep up to date...
We left DTW on January 1st, flying into Dallas/Fort Worth and then San Francisco. We embarked on our 14 hour journey to Sydney at about 2 in the morning Michigan time... making me just tired enough to sleep for about 10 or so hours. The Boeing 747 was practically empty so I decided to take it upon myself to spread myself out over an entire row, not a bad choice. We got little sleeping masks in our travel kit, which was kinda cool... I woke up to a streaming beam of light when I took it off though and realized I fell asleep leaned up against the reading light button on the arm rest, and was the only ahole with their ridiculously bright light on for about 6 hours straight, oops. I was woken up for dinner and we were served actually decent food; chicken with mashed potatoes and tiramisu for dinner and then quiche, bacon, fruit, yogurt and a bran muffin for breakfast. I woke up with about 2 hours left of the flight, started watching Social Network, and attempted to finish Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country. We arrived in Sydney at about 8:30 am on January 3rd, skipping January 2nd all together... what a neat trick.
Started classes monday, which go from 9am to 1pm "technically" and realized how close the beach was so proceeded to head down there after class just about every day last week. I managed to fry my feet the first day there because I cannot get over my hatred of sand being stuck all over my body and my tendency to avoid applying sunscreen anywhere that's covered in sand. I'd have to say I've got a pretty good base color already for being the only person on the beach the first day who was translucent and paler than Casper.
We went on a Hunter Valley wine tour on Saturday, visited four different wineries, and discovered I'm a Moscato fan... yum. I'd have the say going on a wine tour with your professors beats the heck out of syllabus week of spring semester at MSU, sorry to rub it in all you Spartans back home in 10 degree weather.
Sunday we went to a Twenty20 cricket match at ANZ Stadium in Olympic Park, home of the 2000 Sydney Olympics!! It was so cool being able to sit in the stadium knowing that there were olympic athletes and games held there at one point. I've actually learned the rules of cricket, and can pretty much understand the concept of the game. Usually it takes almost 5 days to play, but the Twenty20 games are different and only take about three hours. There was a rain delay, and we ended up leaving just as it started pouring which made for an eventful train ride back -- which needless to say we got on the wrong one and ended up taking an extra hour to get home.
Found mushrooms growing in the shower yesterday... what a treat. This place isn't exactly a 5 star resort.... maybe not even a 2 star resort but I guess it gets the job done. The food is kinda lacking too, but I know the kitchen staff tries, we're just not used to everything yet. As Reggie says "its not wrong, it's just different".
About to go to dinner tonight and have all you can eat mussels... but after last nights escapades down at Coogee beach beer garden I'm not exactly sure if I can stomach mussels, hopefully they'll have other less risky food options.
Well, I'll try to keep this thing updated and I'll add in stuff that I've forgotten about as I go along.
As they say here as a closing,
Cheers!
We left DTW on January 1st, flying into Dallas/Fort Worth and then San Francisco. We embarked on our 14 hour journey to Sydney at about 2 in the morning Michigan time... making me just tired enough to sleep for about 10 or so hours. The Boeing 747 was practically empty so I decided to take it upon myself to spread myself out over an entire row, not a bad choice. We got little sleeping masks in our travel kit, which was kinda cool... I woke up to a streaming beam of light when I took it off though and realized I fell asleep leaned up against the reading light button on the arm rest, and was the only ahole with their ridiculously bright light on for about 6 hours straight, oops. I was woken up for dinner and we were served actually decent food; chicken with mashed potatoes and tiramisu for dinner and then quiche, bacon, fruit, yogurt and a bran muffin for breakfast. I woke up with about 2 hours left of the flight, started watching Social Network, and attempted to finish Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country. We arrived in Sydney at about 8:30 am on January 3rd, skipping January 2nd all together... what a neat trick.
Started classes monday, which go from 9am to 1pm "technically" and realized how close the beach was so proceeded to head down there after class just about every day last week. I managed to fry my feet the first day there because I cannot get over my hatred of sand being stuck all over my body and my tendency to avoid applying sunscreen anywhere that's covered in sand. I'd have to say I've got a pretty good base color already for being the only person on the beach the first day who was translucent and paler than Casper.
We went on a Hunter Valley wine tour on Saturday, visited four different wineries, and discovered I'm a Moscato fan... yum. I'd have the say going on a wine tour with your professors beats the heck out of syllabus week of spring semester at MSU, sorry to rub it in all you Spartans back home in 10 degree weather.
Sunday we went to a Twenty20 cricket match at ANZ Stadium in Olympic Park, home of the 2000 Sydney Olympics!! It was so cool being able to sit in the stadium knowing that there were olympic athletes and games held there at one point. I've actually learned the rules of cricket, and can pretty much understand the concept of the game. Usually it takes almost 5 days to play, but the Twenty20 games are different and only take about three hours. There was a rain delay, and we ended up leaving just as it started pouring which made for an eventful train ride back -- which needless to say we got on the wrong one and ended up taking an extra hour to get home.
Found mushrooms growing in the shower yesterday... what a treat. This place isn't exactly a 5 star resort.... maybe not even a 2 star resort but I guess it gets the job done. The food is kinda lacking too, but I know the kitchen staff tries, we're just not used to everything yet. As Reggie says "its not wrong, it's just different".
About to go to dinner tonight and have all you can eat mussels... but after last nights escapades down at Coogee beach beer garden I'm not exactly sure if I can stomach mussels, hopefully they'll have other less risky food options.
Well, I'll try to keep this thing updated and I'll add in stuff that I've forgotten about as I go along.
As they say here as a closing,
Cheers!
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