P. Sherman 42 Wallaby Way Sydney is unfortunately not a place

 Welcome to Sydney. (March 28-30)

We arrived at our hostel on Friday. It was a pretty nice place. There was a decent view of the city from our room window.

Of course, the view from the hostel roof was even better.

We spent Friday walking around the harbor area and the girls went shopping (luckily we went that day, as apparently many of the shopping arcades closed Saturday and Sunday).

On Saturday was what I was most nervous for: climbing the Sydney Harbor Bridge. The highest point of the walk is 440 feet high...and I am not the biggest fan of heights. Also, we were required to wear some very lovely jumpsuits.

As the climb was getting closer I was getting really nervous. We weren't allowed to bring personal belongings up for fear they would fall on the traffic below. There were also ladders we had to climb. I also led our part of the group for some reason. I was not a very happy Joyce going into it.

It was one of the most awesome experiences of my life.

The climb was very gradual after the ladders going up. The tour guide was pretty cool. And the view was incredible. It was a great time

After our climb, our coordinator and her husband brought us snacks and drinks on the roof of our hostel.

After which they took us out for some pretty uniquely Australian pizzas. While there were BBQ chicken and vegetarian and such, we also had crocodile and kangaroo pizzas. They weren't bad. Kangaroo tastes like a game-y sort of beef and crocodile tastes like rubbery fish.

A few of us took off to see the harbor at night and look at the lit up opera house.

Sunday we all went back to the harbor opposite our hostel to take in the sights some more.

We also donned some lovely ponchos and took a crazy spin around the harbor in a jet boat, which was so fun.

Finally, we went up and took pictures by the opera house and of the bridge.

Sydney was pretty awesome and I'm hoping to take a day trip there again, being it's only about $7 to get there and back for a student.

Here's a  picture of Cole by a picture of the full group we climbed with.

May need to update you guys a bit...also Australian Football is confusing. Very. So very confusing.

...It may have been about a month and a half since my last blog. That is quite a bit of time. I'm going to try to do an update once a day for the next few days, so I don't have to upload a huge chunk of pictures at once (I have over 350. Not all of them will go up, but it's still a lot to go through.)

So here's what's coming up
- My birthday weekend (March 15 and 16)
- Sydney (March 29 and 30)
- Melbourne (April 4-6)
- First week of Easter Break (April 18-25)
- General update on weather and experience and school and what not (Don't really have dates for this, but, you know, figured you guys would want to know and such)

So this one is about my birthday weekend and the incredible mess that is the Australian Football League (AFL for short).

As part of our orientation week activities, there was a sign-up to win two tickets to see the AFL game between the Sydney Swans and the Greater Western Sydney Giants. One of the people I'm here with, Avari, won one of the pairs of tickets to the game. On March 15th we left with little to no knowledge of the game.

Embedded here is a post on the official UoN International Student Page. It gives a pretty good overview of the day.

Post by Aaron Darc.

As for what kind of game was being watched...here's a short video I took. See if you can figure out what's going on.

I'll try to give you a more in-depth description of the day and of the game. I wish I would've taken more pictures outside of the stadium, as the game took place in the Olympic Park.

As for the inside of the stadium, it was an oval shape. The field was the same shape with a center circle.

On each end, there are 4 posts. The goal of the game is to kick it between the posts. If you kick it between the middle two, it's 6 points, between the outside ones 1 point. The game starts with tip off in the middle and lasts four twenty minute quarters.

To move the ball down the field, you can run, but you must dribble every so often. Otherwise you can pass it (but only by bumping/punching it with one hand) or punt it. If someone catches a kick, they can't be tackled, otherwise it's a free-for-all.

You can be on any part of the field at any point. On catching a kick, everyone else has to back off a bit and you can back up to kick it as long as you don't pass where you caught it.

On an out of bounds, the referees put their back to the field and toss it backwards inbound.

So yeah, obviously the most sensible game given all of that.

Also, it started to pour partway through the first half.

So that was something. The fact you can clearly see the rain in the pictures is pretty telling of how back it was. At half time, they took about an extra half hour to let the storm clear a bit. In the meantime, everyone moved into the covered areas.

Soon after, the rain completely cleared up and play resumed as normal. Or, as normal as the sport got.

The game ended in a thrilling comeback by the Giants in the last five minutes. I'm glad I got to see the game, but not exactly my favorite sport if you can tell.


The following day was my 21st birthday! Mel and Dani decorated the apartment beautifully with streamers and balloons everywhere. I got some lovely gifts as well (as pictured on right).

We had a grill out for supper and chocolate cake for desert. Had lots of fun with everyone here in Australia.

 

 All in all had a great time and I'm still having a great time here down under. Check back in tomorrow for some pictures of some of Australia's most iconic sights.

Cole is making sure I'm doing all of my blogs.