Hello all! Another pretty chill day here. Spent the first half of the day waiting for an email from one of our professors, as she said she wanted to take us out on the Writer's Walk at the Circular Quay, the special plaques on the ground around the harbour that celebrate famous authors that came to Australia and wrote about the country. We were all growing a bit frustrated as the clock kept getting later and later, as ten passed, then eleven, without any word from her at all. We had all been hoping to do a bit of exploring, but didn't want to leave our internet connection, otherwise we'd have no way of getting her emails, as the free wi-fi in Sydney is notoriously lacking. Unlike in America, it was perfectly acceptable for her to email us a mere hour beforehand requesting us to meet her at 1, which was very different to the careful planning that one would expect in the States. Since I now found myself with an awkward hour with nothing to do, but tired of sitting around the apartment doing nothing but starting my class readings, I decided to take a walk to Belmore Park, which is right down the street from me by the train station. I had a nice hour reading there, as it was a lovely day there, and I actually found myself getting hot in what I was wearing, and had to change into a dress (not too shabby for the second day of winter, huh?).
It was here where I encountered the continuing terror of the Ibis bird, which is native to Australia, incredibly common here in Sydney, and definitely terrifying. With their creepy sharp-looking, curved black beaks and beady little eyes, coupled with my already very present fear of birds, they're definitely not my best friend. And this guy here would not leave me alone. No sirree, instead he just followed me around, eyeing me with his dead eyes. I didn't realize he was there at first, until I heard a tiny sound behind me and whipped around on my bench to find him staring up at me. He kept circling my bench, obviously waiting to go in for the kill. And despite moving benches at least three times, this thing would always come find me, walking by all nonchalant and creepy like. So I was finally forced to admit defeat to his stalking and return to the apartment, luckily only twenty minutes earlier then I needed to in order to meet for the Writer's Walk.
Prior to my encounter with the Ibis, Mariah and I had attempted to cook a frozen pizza in our little half-microwave, half-convection oven, and I don't think anyone will be surprised to hear that it turned out terribly. I honestly have no idea who thought this oven thing was a good invention, but it was horrible. The center was cold, doughy, and barely cooked, while half the crust was perfect, and the other half burnt to a crisp. It'll definitely be interesting to see what we can manage to bake, as this is not looking promising. Looks like we'll be sticking to only things you can make on the stove (hello pasta). This coupled with our intense fear of setting off the fire alarm (as Australian fire detectors are notoriously sensitive, and BU's are considered sensitive even by Australian standards). The alarms can be set off so easily, BU had to install a "False Alarm" button to press, which gives you 60 seconds to clear the smoke out of the area if there's no fire, before going off again (which then can't turn off, so if you don't have an actual fire, here comes a $700 charge for you). Luckily, we managed to make our crappy pizza without the fire department arriving, weeee!
Despite our original annoyance at having to wait so long to figure out our afternoon plans, we actually had a great time walking around the harbour, as it was such a gorgeous day. There's something about the Australian sky that always looks dynamic and striking, no matter what the weather: sunny, cloudy, rainy, it will always look impressive. We took a look at some of the old shoreline markings, which was pretty cool to see how the harbour has changed, and got some recommendations on places to go in the area, so we're hoping to check some of those out. The professor then took us out for tea and coffee, which was very nice, and we spent the next three hours talking, getting to know each other a bit more, and going over exactly where we're going on the trip, which I'll post sometime tomorrow. Unfortunately, by the time we were done, we didn't have time to walk through the Royal Botanical Gardens like we'd hoped to, as they were closing in fifteen minutes. We're all hoping to go sometime this weekend if possible.
Since we couldn't go through the Gardens, we decided to slowly meander our way back to our apartment, taking the scenic route down Macquarie Street, where Parliament, the Conservatory of Music, Sydney Hospital (which looks nothing like a hospital and is absolutely gorgeous) and, my personal favorite, Hyde Park. While I'd seen the half with the Archibald Fountain during my scavenger hunt of city, I hadn't see the other half, where the gorgeous ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) memorial is. It's incredibly pretty, and we stayed to look at it for a while, even though the sky looked like it was about to open up on us. We managed to make it back to the apartment without it raining on us though, which was awesome! We then made a communal dinner of stir-fry, which was really good, especially compared to our failed pizza attempt earlier. After a half-hour meeting in the library to go over library rules and such, we all came back to our apartment to hang out, take buzzfeed quizzes together for fun, and ask embarrassing or stupid questions for everyone to answer. It was incredibly fun, and made for a very entertaining, hilarious, and relaxing pre-first day of classes night. I need to shower and go to bed now so I can be up for tomorrow's class, but have a good night everyone (or, err, morning!).
PS. How intense was that Game of Thrones episode last night, huh?
PS. How intense was that Game of Thrones episode last night, huh?