Hanging Out With Wallabies

Yeah yeah, I know I didn't make a post for Friday, or Saturday & Sunday now. Bollocks! Friday morning consisted of boring orientation for the student village I live in. Same stuff I sat through my first year at Clark. They gave us t-shirts though (for the courtyard we live in; there are six or eight of them, and I live in Melaleuca, which is represented by a mammoth, so we're the Melaleuca Mammoths and  our shirts are purple) and lunch. I wish I could buy the other courtyards' t-shirts because they're all pretty cool. Lunch was catered Chinese food and I thought it was pretty good.

In the avo (afternoon), a few of us went to Bush Court where a bunch of clubs and organizations were tabling. I signed five or six environmental petitions and received a ream's worth of fliers. I was pleasantly surprised to see a Buddhist table (presented by some locals, not students) and I took an audio CD which I hope to listen to (basic stuff I probably am already aware of). I thought it was pretty snazzy though.

Sarin, Alice and I went to K-Mart and Coles to get a few things. Apparently I forgot my SLR battery charger needs a converter not just an adapter, but I couldn't find a converter which sucks. I guess I'll have to keep looking and hope my current charges will last me another week or two. We bought some cheap wine which we ended up mixing with mango orange juice (extremely tasty!).

I finally made my vegetarian pasties (vegetarian patties mixed with barbecue sauce and garlic wrapped in puff pastry) and they were absolutely fantastic. Sarin, Alice, and eventually Jesse  and I spent the evening drinking (responsibly even! Go team!), eating, and finding ridiculous videos on YouTube. Good times! Unfortunately, I've "used up" my internet bandwidth so I'm stuck at 64 kps speeds for the rest of the month.

On Saturday, we went to Caversham Wildlife Park, or the place in WA where you can see all the awesomely cool marsupials! Our tour wasn't too too long, but this is who I saw:

Wallabies!

Koalas!

Tasmanian devils!

Dingoes (non indigenous), emus, and foxes (non indigenous). Oh, and a kookaburra!

Oh, and a wombat...

&& KANGAS!

That was the gist of my Saturday. Our bus driver was absolutely ridiculously eccentric. He took us a long way round home. He stopped the bus so we could buy produce at a farm stand in Swan Valley (a vineyard valley). We drove through the first settlement in (Western?) Australia and he talked about how his wife wasn't a pretty site (the driver was in his 70s he said) and how she didn't wear a bra. It was a little ridiculous.

Sunday, or yesterday, was a fairly good day. I woke up at a decent hour and got a load of laundry done, and then Jesse and I roamed campus to get a general idea of where our classes are. I only have one class on Monday, about 8 minutes from my flat.

After two peanut butter and raspberry jelly sandwiches, and a lot of sunscreen application, Jesse and I went to South Beach on that hot (around 33°C) day. We saw one of our American friends on the bus, and we all talked about going to Queensland on one of our study breaks (which I would love to do if I can manage it moneywise).

Our friend Alice met us at the beach and the water was nice and warm. It made for a good time. We stayed for a few hours before going into Freo to go through the shops. I was sorta amazed at how touristy the shops were: such crappy and cheap wares. I was kinda disappointed. We then made our way to a different part of town and found the produce market, which was like a zoo. It was a real experience having people yell out prices and such (especially the Asian kids, who I don't think were yelling out in English). I bought a dozen eggs (which I'll prolly cook up soooon) but that was it. I should probably buy more next time, especially since everything gets really cheap at the end since it needs to all go.

I went for a short run when we all got back. It was an absolutely gorgeous run: slightly breezy, warm, and sunny. I do however need to get in better shape so I can go for longer runs (like to the ocean!). Later in the evening, Jesse, Sarin, Alice and I went to a student village cookout, which was fun enough. I played some basketball on a 9 foot hoop (American hoops are 10 feet). in my flip flops, which was a bad idea. It probably wasn't as bad as playing barefoot, which really hurt (ouch Charlie!). To end the night, Sarin, Alice and I watched Ferris Bueller and Talladega Nights. I was absolutely exhausted but still couldn't fall asleep right away at 2am, and then I barely slept til 9:30am.

Angels & Airwaves came out with a new album on Sunday for Valentine's Day. A&A (or AVA) is one of my favorite bands ever. I made sure to find a really awesome spot (the Zen Garden) late at night to listen to it for the first time on my iPod and good headphones. It was a really cool set up, only for the album to be absolute trash. I feel like they made it on Garage Band on one of their Macs. It's so choppy and messy. It's not cohesive and it doesn't build. This is how I felt about their previous album, and I like it well enough. I'm hoping I'll like it more later once I've gone through it more. If not, it will be one of my biggest disappointments in music.

Friday: 6.5
Saturday: 7.5
Sunday: 7

Sorry I didn't post for three days. Sorry that post was dreadfully boring. I need to get a charger for my camera, and then I feel like I'll be more driven to post more often. However, with classes starting this week, and traveling being reduced dramatically, I don't think I'll be posting as much, but I'll try!