More Melbourne, Rushed

I'm in Sydney, but haven't finished posting Melbourne pictures! Also, I'm in the process of taking pictures here... but yes, I've touched the Opera House. I will post those before I get back to Portland, but I don't know that I'll get it done before I leave tomorrow (Monday) for CA. Anyway:

Honestly, I am pleased with this picture... This is Flinders Street Station again, previously pictured in last post at night.










Victoria State Library, currently home to a Medieval Illuminated Manuscript exhibit, displaying pieces both that belong to the VSL, but on loan from Europe. Liked a lot of the pieces, didn't like the exhibit. The lighting was too low (fellow visitors blocked lighting all the time), the layout was not informative or flowing, and basically I realized I am a total nerd because I was overanalyzing the entire exhibit. I wish my mom had been here with me. And my grandmother (Pat would have had an interesting story about everything).

Federation Square. I think the lights and giant plasma screen and even the weird building in the next picture were part of a centennial thing, haven't checked wikipedia yet. Anyway, the red lines you can see in the sky? Giant rope lights set on chase, so imagine those all flashing and the tv blasting out huge illuminating images of Australians and restaurant ads.






This is from the inside of one of the weirdest buildings I've ever seen... It's something like a museum crossed with a mall crossed with some crazy architects nightmare of triangles, but in the end I kinda liked it... The exit you see center bottom, the wall surrounding it is inflated. Yes, with air. It's like a bouncy castle.

Melbourne!

The first two are from our first night in town, we spent a long time walking around getting a feel for the place before crashing at the hostel, and night pictures are really hard to take (with my camera). At any rate, here is Flinders Street Station, a huge awesome train station, and then some Cathedral (they have way too many here for me to keep track).


This, my friends, is a Ringtail Possum! So cute! We probably shouldn't be feeding them, but there are no signs and they're so friendly, I think others do it quite a bit... Sorry they're not platypi in the wild, M ;)


Off to Victoria Marketplace, "Greektown", and the Melbourne Museum dinosaur exhibit!

Melbourne!

We arrived night before last, but we've had some trouble getting online... I will post more later, after a late nap.

Let me say though, I <3 Melbourne. AWESOME architecture everywhere you turn, shops and food all over the place (even if it's expensive sometimes), and loads of free stuff to see, including an exhibit of medieval manuscripts! Yay!

Love,
Ange

Random update

Yesterday it rained for the first time since I arrived, and the weatherman keeps reminding us that it's winter now. Ha! Winter? This is cold, dark, and dreary?


Everybody (almost) uses the clothesline to dry their clothes since it's so dry and hot here. I think it's really amusing that there's drying racks attached to the side of every cottage and a huge set of them next to the laundry-house (pictured here). Much as I like the idea, I don't think it's always dry enough in the NW to have a permanent set-up.


A few days ago we hiked up a hill in the middle of Clancy's campus. It's one of the larger ones in the area, which is just pitiful. Still, it offered some pretty views (including the first picture in this post). Here I offer you a picture of Wagga Wagga from the Hill and an image from when I was tracking some kangaroos for pictures (they kept just up and around the corner the entire hike):



Tomorrow we're headed for Melbourne, where Sean and I may stay up to a week before heading to Sydney, where we'll stay until returning to CA on the 16th. I am still working on my goals to hold a Koala and eat Kangaroo meat.

Being in Australia

So, as you can see in the previous post, I've recently learned a lesson about leaving my boyfriend alone with my logged-in blog for even two minutes!

In response to Rosa's comment on my first post, I post this picture! It's a little disturbing sometimes, still, to get used to people driving on the other side of the road. When riding in the car with Clancy, if we're on a long stretch of two-lane road at night, and a SEMI comes down the other side, I still get scared and think there's a head-on about to happen... Also, crossing the road is hard. I've adjusted to looking right first, but every time I reach the median my brain screams TO THE LEFT NO RIGHT NO LEFT OMG I'M GOING TO DIE. So, I'm still getting used to it, and always cross while holding onto Sean.

We haven't been doing much yet, since our only transport is Clancy and he's in school right now. Pretty boring. But it's kind of fun, because I have a chance to just chill out. All sorts of things take getting used to, because everything is the same while still totally different. Even the little containers the fries come in (and they're called chips) are different - I'm constantly relearning how to open packages, how to refer to foods, Australian slang (bums up, bums down... "we stuffed it"). Nutritional Info doesn't even have calories - it's in kJ. But then we walk into someone's common room to find a friend, and her house-mates are playing Donkey Kong on the TV. Or watching The Sixth Sense.

Note about the weather: It does NOT feel like late fall here. It gets a bit cool in the shade, yeah, but in full-blown sun I feel like I'm going to whither up. And then all these Australians are complaining that it's cold and turning the heat on indoors. The only time I believe it's cold out is at night, when you need a nice coat and hat on to stay warm outdoors, but it's nothing like the NW. Also, it hasn't rained yet. Not one drizzly drop. You can see in these pictures of a church near Wagga Beach (river-front, not ocean) just how much sun there is, and how gorgeous the sky is every day right now:

The Kangaroos Are Coming!!!!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH


-sean

Australia!

I left CA for Australia Tuesday night and arrived in Sydney Thursday morning. (When we return, I'll arrive four hours before we left; such is life crossing the international date line). Shortly after arriving, we drove five hours to Wagga Wagga. As our host Clancy put it, Wagga Wagga is five hours from everything - Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, the South coast. BUT we still plan on having plenty of Aussie fun here in Wagga Wagga, and are laying plans to visit some of these other more iconic Australian locations. My goal right now: hold a Koala bear (they do it in the zoos!).

Among my first culture-shock moments was this sign from Burger King... or not! "Hungry Jacks" serves "Brekky" at 6am... Also, note, the toilets all have two buttons (half flush and full) and ketchup is called tomato sauce.


I have a picture (hard to come by, I'm telling you!) of the guys I'm staying with - Clancy, our Aussie host, and Sean, my boyfriend. This picture is outside the dorm-cabin we're staying in on-campus. What you can't see in this picture is the attack of the birds that happens around dawn, a huge cacophony of sound that would wake the dead.

And this is a happy picture of me and Sean (see? I'm alive!).


I have more pictures from the last few days, including a record of the first college prank I've helped pull, but I'll post them later. Right now it's 9am Sunday morning - I believe that puts all the West Coasters at 3pm Saturday? Yeah, you have quite a while yet before you even catch up to Sunday with me.