Tut Tut It Looks Like Rain

Yesterday we had a crazy thunderstorm. Often in the evenings here it will be cloudy and thundering with a bit of lightning but it never amounts to much. However, yesterday was crazy. A bunch of us were sitting in the green room watching a movie minding our own business not paying any attention to the rumbles of thunder and the flashes of lightning outside. It then started to rain a little and then we got one of those freak lightning bolts accompanied simultaneously by a deafening crash of thunder. The fire alarm went off immediately and everyone had to evacuate. Almost as soon as everyone was outside it began to pour. It rained so hard you would be completely soaked to the bone in about 5 seconds. Of course everyone had left their windows open and one side of the building got pummelled with rain and many poor souls had to sleep in wet beds or had wet computers. Thankfully, my room was on the opposite side of the building. After checking the water damage in my room, I went back to the green room to see if anyone was still there. When I walked in I saw that the ceiling had collapsed right over where we had been sitting and the room was half flooded. 10 minutes later the rain had stopped and you could see the stars. Crazy! So much for that drought I keep hearing about.

Pics

I've now finally had some spare time and added pics to all my posts so check 'em out!

Time to hit the books

Jake, Jaret, Joe and Adam in rez; Joe, Jaret, Cindy and Jay on the beach; our humble lodging; Joe and Cindy at BBQ; cool barn in country

So I’ve now begun my second week of classes here. It seems that they will be pretty cool. Only two of my classes have final exams so that is a bonus. It was a big mess last tuesday cuz I found out that I couldn’t get senior credit for my two Indigenous Studies classes because, even though they are 2nd year classes, they don’t have prerequisites. I was told that only classes with prerequisites could transfer back as senior credits. I was really disappointed because I was really looking forward to learning about Indigenous Australians. So Wednesday morning Jaret and I went down to the international studies office and changed a bunch of our classes. I am now taking Literary Studies 5 (Shakespeare), Discourse and Culture, Language, Cultures and Communication, and Culture, Identity and Postcoloniality. I’m actually really excited about my new classes, they sound very interesting. And the best part is I don’t have classes on Friday. Hooray for long weekends!

I have a post office box here now if anyone wants to send me anything (*wink wink nudge nudge*). The address is:
Dionne Wilkinson
LPO Box 5379
University of Canberra
Bruce, ACT 2617
Australia

This weekend a bunch of us piled into Joe’s car and went to Bateman’s Bay (thanks for pointing out the typo, Sue) to hit the beach. It was super fun. We left Friday about 11 and got there around 2. The beaches weren’t great as far as waves go but they were incredibly beautiful. In the early evening we found the local YHA (youth hostel) and got an 8-share caravan/room for the 5 of us. It was a little dodgy but they had a BBQ area out front and a little pool. So we cooked up some supper, had some beer and went for a swim. It was a great evening. Jaret taught Joe how to shotgun a beer and Joe taught Jaret how to drive on the left side of the road… not in that order of course but just as scary. On Saturday we went to South Durras where the waves were huge (but not too huge) and the water was freezing and it rained for a bit. We played in the waves, saw some dolphins and then reluctantly headed back to Canberra in the afternoon. Overall it was a fantastic weekend.

On Saturday night we celebrated Cindy’s birthday at an Irish pub downtown. We had tonnes of fun; I think it’s one of the only places in town where you can buy an actual pint. So after a weekend of fun it’s time to finally hit the books.

Sydney Part II

Crazy Surfers, Me and Cindy, Andrew and Lindsay, Me at Taronga, Steve Irwin kids ride at the mall

I’m becoming better adjusted to ressie life here now. The “returners” are back (aka the upper-year students who live in ressies) so I don’t feel so old anymore and they have balanced out the maturity level a little. However, the building is disgustingly filthy right now after all the partying that went on this weekend. I thankfully was not here. I went to Sydney for the weekend. The surf weekend was not actually this weekend; we just had so sign up for it on Thursday. I guess I was a little unclear in my last post. The surf weekend is April 4th or sometime around then.

A while ago Cindy had mentioned to me that we should go to Sydney for the weekend but we hadn’t really decided on going. Then, on Thursday at about 11am Cindy called my room and said “Hey do you want to come to Sydney? We’re leaving at noon.” Lindsay had arranged a free ride to the city with a girl who had come to drop of a friend and was heading back with an empty SUV. After about 2 mins deliberation I said I’d go and about an hour later we were on the road. It was the best last-minute decision I’ve ever made. We decided on the way to find a hostel in Manly and hit the beach as soon as we could. On the way we passed the dried up lake and our impromptu tour guide told us that there has been drought in the area for 12 years and Lake George hadn’t been full for 10 years. This lake is probably the size of Waskesui… it’s pretty amazing. We got to Manly at about 4pm and found a hostel right on the Corso (the street between the ocean and the harbour —Manly is on a peninsula) and about a 1 minute walk from the beach. It was fabulous! That night we went into a little pub called the Boatshed where there was a live band playing classic rock and the crowd was a little older but it was so much fun. We danced to Brian Adams and Carley Simon, and the bartender was even from Halifax! The next day we lied on the beach and did a little shopping then took the ferry into Sydney. Andrew (from Toronto) had emailed his buddy Nick who lives in Sydney to hopefully score some free accommodation for a night but he hadn’t replied yet. So, we walked toward Sydney Central youth hostel in hopes of finding a room. Cindy pointed out an internet café so Andrew checked one last time if Nick had replied and he had. We were so excited. He instantly invited us to stay over and asked us to come to the club he bartends at on Darling Harbour. His apartment was amazing. He lives on the top floor of a 10 story building with a pool on the roof and a view of the high-rises downtown. And the bar he works at is called Cargo Bar which is right on the harbour and he told us that after the English cricket team beat Australia for the first time in like 50 years they went to Cargo to celebrate. It was pretty fabulous.

On Saturday we went to Taronga zoo which is the touristy zoo on the harbour. It wasn’t nearly as good as Featherdale but I got to see a Tasmanian devil (when we went to Featherdale they were hiding), some tigers and a bunch of Asian animals I’d never seen before. After the zoo, Cindy and I went to catch the bus to Canberra and left Lindsay and Andrew to stay another day or 2. On the way to the bus stop we were accosted in the street by a guy asking us what hair salon we go to. We said we don’t (which should have been very obvious because we looked like crap after a sweaty, wet, windy day) and he offered us a $100 hair consultation, hair cut, colour, and blow-dry worth $500 at a 5 star salon owned by Nichole Kidman’s hair stylist. We signed up after going up to the salon and making sure this guy was for real. I’m so excited. We’re gonna make our appointment for mid-March.

more canberra... grrrrr

Tent embassy, High Court, New Parliament, Old Parliament, About to get rained on


So obviously I have internet now but I can't use msn or my web cam for now. I have to download a different msn cuz I have windows Live but apparently msn 7.5 will work. This school is really behind the times. If you have windows vista, your internet won't work and you have to wait a week for some tech guy to come down and do it for you or spend 5 hours to figure it out yourself. We were talking about the phases of culture shock today and I have discovered that I am in stage 2 known as hating everything. I hate aussies and I hate this school and I definitely hate this rez. There are giant spiders (we're talkin the size of my fist big) in this rez. They aren't dangerous but they are huge and hairy. It is very stressful. The fire alarm went off yesterday cuz a girl had a huge spider in her room and was trying to kill it with some sort of aerosol spray but it was to close to the smoke detector.

So mostly all the cool people I've met are fellow exchange students. There are 2 from the U of S (Jaret and Cindy), a bunch from ontario and the USA, and a couple from Finland. I've met a couple aussies who are really cool (mainly Joe from Byron Bay) but mostly they just keep to themselves. That's why I don't like aussies right now.

Yesterday and today we were all going nuts from being on campus too much so we took a couple trips into the City. This city is set up really dumb. They have it so that the suburbs are like seperate towns as if the city grew and enveloped them, but this city was a planned city and has been the same size for like 50 years. Anyway, yesterday we went down to the mall and walked around downtown a bit. It wasn't all that interesting. Today we went to the parliament buildings and saw Old Parliament House, the High Court building and the new Parliament House. We even saw Prime Minister John Howard and all the other MP's in question period. Sadly we missed the exciting part when Mr. Somebody of Brisbane did something to get suspended for 24 hours from parliament. We just got there for the vote and decision that he would be suspended. But it was still pretty neat. And Bill Bryson would be pleased to know that there is now considerable security to enter the building however, Cindy walked through the metal detector with her keys in her pocket and it didn't go off so the quality of security is still questionable. Outside the parliament buildings we talked to some Aboriginal guy who is part of a protest outside the buildings that has been going on for like 12 years. They camp outside the buildings and tell passers-by their story. Its a terrible story. The government makes it seem like they are doing tonnes to help the Aborigines but they are just making things worse. I won't get into details... it's a long story. Anyway, we got lost trying to find the bus stop to go home and got soaked in the rain but everything was really cool and we will probably be going back. But I have to get up in 6 1/2 hours to sign up for this surf weekend the study abroad office is holding so I will leave it a that for tonight.

Canberra-finally

Dad driving, Lake George, room

On Friday we drove to Canberra. Dad was driving and did a pretty good job. He only turned on the windshield wipers 7 times instead of the signal light. It was a nice drive even though we got stuck in traffic for about 45 minutes. We saw lots of farm land and a lake that was totally dried up. We got into Canberra after about 4 hours. And went to the National Museum which was pretty cool but we only had a couple hours and that wasn’t enough time. But, it was free so I’ll probably go back. Canberra is a little bigger than Saskatoon (320 000 people). It’s a really nice city and I have not even seen a magpie let alone been attacked by one as I was told I would. I arrived at the University of Canberra early Saturday morning to move in and I was immediately told that Arscott House (my rezzie) is “a little dodgy” so when I fill out the room inventory to write down everything that is even the tiniest bit damaged. My room isn’t too bad. The closet has no doors, a bug crawled out of my phone, and I couldn’t actually make phone calls anyway or use the internet all weekend because I had to put money on my phone account and I needed a password to use the internet (all of which we could not do on the weekend). So I’m sitting here at my laptop writing this on Word feeling seriously lonely and disconnected. But I do have a pretty big fridge in my room so it’s not all bad. Yesterday was fun. I met tons of cool people and at night we had the traditional naming ceremony where everyone has to tell an embarrassing story about themselves and the senior residents (SR’s) give you a nickname based on it. I am now Dangles and no, I will not tell you the story. Well, I’m going to head over to the mall now (it’s huge and only like a 5 min walk away); I still have to buy some stuff for my room.

Well, it’s 11pm now and I have a little time before bed. I was really homesick this morning but I’ve discovered that as long as I keep busy I’ll do okay. Today I saw a big group of wild kangaroos on campus on the way to the Hub (like Place Riel at the U of S). It was rainy all day today and I guess they hang out on campus all the time in cooler weather. It’s fantastic! Some of them are really big and dangerous, not like the little tame ones at the zoo. Apparently, if you piss them off or even get to close they will sit back on their tails and kick you with their back legs. This campus is great. Tomorrow the real orientation starts (so far its just been rezzie orientation) so I hope to be able to use the internet and phone; I’m going nuts without it.

Paramatta/Last Day in Sydney

Yesterday we took the ferry out to Paramatta (a city that has become a suburb of Sydney) where my childhood hairdresser's daughter Joanne is living. She took us out to the Blue Mountains for a bit of a drive around. The "mountains" are really just valleys and we didn't actually get out to the Three Sisters or anything particularly fascinating but it was still really fun. Joanne took us to this little Mexican restaurant for lunchand I had my first flan that I hear so much about in Spanish class. It was wonderful. After lunch Joanne had to run off to a meeting and the rest of us went to a market and bought the fattest, most delicious mango. (You taught me well to pick a good mango Mike). We took the ferry back to Circular Quay (a beautiful ride) and took a couple more ferries around the harbour before having supper at a neat Korean/Japanese place where they BBQ your food right at your table and I discovered a button on the table that calls you waiter to your table. (I decided I would push it to see what it does and 2 seconds later our waiter was at our table.) We then took the train back to our hotel to pack up and get ready to leave Sydney today. I'm really excited to get to Canberra today and see how "borrrrring" it really is. I won't be online now for a couple days. I'll post all my pics from the last couple days later.

Museums

I forgot to mention yesterday that on the way to meet Dad, a group of about 6 college students stopped us and asked me if I would be in a little film for them. It was an orientation film for Sydney International College (or something to that effect). They got me to be a member of the police aerobics class. All we did was shoot our make-believe guns, put our hands up, and eat a make-believe doughnut for 4x4 counts each. I don't think their video will be very good or funny... just incredibly dumb if that is the kind of stuff that's gonna be on it, but I had a wonderful time.

So anyway, today we attempted to have a museum day. First, we walked toward the Government House in the Botanical Gardens but on the way we walked past the library of New South Wales that had an exhibition on called "On the Run: Daring Convict Escapes." It's pretty self-explanatory... It was very interesting and the library was this really cool old building with 3 storeys of shelves and little walkways along each of them (like a library from the movies). So after that we continued on our way to the government house only to discover that it was closed. Mom and I wanted to go on a tour of the Opera House but Dad thought it would be silly and went to the Museum of Sydney for the Harbour Bridge exhibition. The Opera House tour was amazing! It's my favourite thing so far and I highly recommend it to anyone. The Opera House has 5 theatres. The Concert Hall and Opera Hall are on top and the Drama Hall, Studio and something else I can't remember are on the bottom. We got to go inside the concert hall and the drama hall. The concert hall seats over 2600 people and has the largest pipe organ in the world (12000 pipes, is worth well over 1 million dollars and took 10 years to build). I could go on forever about this building... it is truly amazing.

After the Opera House we were going to meet up with Dad and go to the Police and Justice museum to see an exhibition of convict portraits but, it was closed too. So we went for a delicious lunch (food here is fantastic!) and decided to go to the Hyde Park Barracks Museum. There we learned all about the history of convictism (that's a real word, they used it at the museum). It was a great supplement to what we had already seen at the library. By the time we had finished there, the blustery day had turned into a rainy, thundering evening so we hopped on the nearest train back to the hotel. After supper at a quiant Aussie restaurant Dad thought it would be a good idea to explore King's Cross. I have never seen so many strip clubs and kink shops in my entire life as I did in those 10 mins. As an illustration, walking out of the King's Cross train station you will walk past a fetish shop, followed by a restaurant called Thai Me Up, followed by a strip club. Classy classy neighbourhood.

Pics :)

Pics of a wonderful billboard at the monorail station I could not resist, a seal, a shark, me at the aquarium and the QV Building we lost.

Sydney Aquarium Adventure

Today we went to the Sydney Aquarium. It was so great. You can walk through these glass tunnels under the water in the shark tank and the seal pool. The shark tank was amazing. They had all sorts of sharks (some of them up to 10ft long) and giant sea turtles that were bigger than me and a bunch of different kinds of rays. My dad saw a sea turtle eat a little fish but I missed it. We also saw some huge shark rays and way more boring little fishies than one could ever hope to see in a couple hours. I got some really cool video of the sharks and turtles (if you want to see them email me and i'll send them to you cuz i can't post video here).

After the Aquarium my dad went on the bridge climb where you go all the way up to the top of the arch on the harbour bridge. He says it was really cool but over-priced ($169!). While he did that Mum and I witnessed some magic. We walked into the Queen Victoria Building (a big fancy shopping mall like Harrods in London) and came out of the building 2 blocks later. Somehow without knowing it we went underground to the next block where there was a different mall, through that mall and out the other side. When we walked out of the mall we had no idea where we were and absolutely could not find the QV Building again. Amazingly, we had lost an entire building and not just any building but one that is the size of an entire city block.

So, we gave up trying to find the QV Building and decided to take the monorail to Paddy's Market. I'd tell you what one can find in Paddy's Market but I don't know because when we got there it was closed. So, tired and hungry we slowly found our way to The Rocks where we were to meet Dad after his climb. To add insult to injury, on the way we walked right through the Queen Victoria Building. We met up with Dad with no puchases to show for our day of "shopping" and went to the Australian Hotel for beers and supper.

I am in the process of compiling a list of things that are different between Saskatchewan and New South Wales. It is a highly entertaining process. Before I came to Australia I was told that it is just the same as Canada but warmer. I disagree. For example, when one asks for a lemonade in NSW, you will be served a sprite.

Featherdale Wildlife Park 2

Featherdale Wildlife Park

I've gotten into the habit of writting in the morning as I am way too tired when we get back to the hotel at night. But anyhoo, we went to Featherdale Wildlife Park in Blacktown yesterday. It was quite the adventure to get there. We had to take the train to Central station and then buy tickets to Blacktown and then find the bus to take us to the zoo. I think it took a couple hours in total. But we arrived in the heat of the day so many of the animals were sleeping in their shelters but we were still able to see tons of really cool animals. I got to feed and pet wallabies and kangaroos and I got to pet a koala (he was so soft I wanted to pick him up and cuddle him like a teddybear). We saw albino roos and wallabies too, and echindnas and dingoes and a huge crocodile. It was really really cool (Thanks Kate for the tip). There was a lot less confusion on the way back and once we got there we walked down to Darling Harbour which is another beautiful harbour in Sydney up the coast a ways from the Opera House. They were filming an ad or something for some multicultual festival (or so we decided because they were speaking portugese but had a chinese dragon in the back). Then we had supper on the harbour and walked up to town hall station and caught the train back to our hotel.

Manly

Yesterday we went to Manly for some fun in the sun. We hopped on the ferry over there and went stright to the beach. I made a valiant effort to body surf but only managed to go about 5 feet at a time. But it was still a great time. After lunch we went shopping and I found new shoes! Hooray! Then we went hiking out to a lookout point on the top of a cliff overlooking the beaches. It was beautiful. On the way back Mum and Dad took a dip in a rock cut out pool next to the ocean. It's pretty neat, they carve out the pool from the rocks on shore and at high tide the pool gets filled with ocean water. After supper we headed back to our hotel and, to my dismay, I learned that the Opera House and the bridge aren't lit up at night. It's a very unimpressive harbour at night. Today we are going to the zoo in Blacktown to see some native Australian wildlife.

pics

Feb 3rd First contact

This morning I met a man named Tina. Our hotel is near Kings Cross which is the redlight district in Sydney and as it is the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras this month there is no short supply of men like Tina around here. It is highly entertaining.

I got my first real view of the city today as we arrived in the dark last night and couldn't see much. What a fabulous city. We walked down to the harbour this morning and on the way walked through the beautiful botanical gardens and saw tons of flying foxes sleeping in the trees. We shortly arrived at the Opera House and I was surprised to see that the roof that looks like the sails of a ship are actually completely covered in tile. Then we walked along Circular Quay (pronounced Key) to The Rocks which is the oldest part of Sydney and is full of neat old pubs and hotels. We stopped for lunch and listened to a great band playing in the square. After that we walked/climbed the 300 stairs up the southeast tower of the Harbour Bridge to the Pylon Lookout. It was really windy up there and I was stupidly wearing a skirt that really wanted to fly up around my ears. I let my dad take all the pictures as my hands were occupied trying to keep my skirt down. It was a highly ammusing battle. From there we slowly made our way back to the hotel for a rest before heading to a thai restaurant for supper. My feet were killing me (didn't find a shoe store yet) so after supper I went back to the hotel to rest up for tomorrow.