Rather busy day today. I'm still pretty jetlagged which meant I woke up at 5:15 and stayed up for about an hour and a half before I could doze off again. At breakfast I tried vegemite for the first time and despite what just about every non-Australian has ever told me I actually liked it. It's basically just like peanut butter except instead of the peanut flavor there's an intense saltiness. Not bad at all.

After breakfast I had a very casual game of pickup basketball with about 8 people - my friends from California Leslie, Cindy, and Alyssa, Sindre my Norwegian friend, and a few guys from Singapore (there are a TON of Singaporeans here) on the Currie Hall court. After that it was pretty much nonstop sports for a lot of the day - played some volleyball on the Currie quad lawn, got a lesson on how to handle the ball in Australian rules football, and played indoor soccer at the rec center - all part of our orientation week at Currie Hall.

About 3:00 a small group of us went to explore King's Park, which is the massive park that sits between UWA and downtown Perth. We had to be back for a meeting at 4, so we didn't see very much of the park, but what we did get to see was pretty cool. Most of the park is preserved as natural bush habitat, which means really dry scrub forest. There's a whole network of paths through the park where you can cycle or run/walk. Further along there's some cool things - a tower shaped like a DNA helix, this giant suspension bridge, and some overlooks of the Swan River - but we didn't get that far today.

We did see a whole bunch of these cool birds that were about the same size and shape as a crow but mixed black and white with a very pale powder blue colored bill. I'm not too great on Aussie bird identification but I'll try to figure out what they are and post it. Posted a picture if anyone happens to know what it is.

Dinner in a little bit then we have a movie/pizza night for orientation week. Tomorrow I register for classes, get a student ID and can join the student guild (which runs all the clubs and stuff on campus - same thing as ASUW at U Dub). I also have to go shopping to get a few essentials, and hopefully I'll also be able to set up my bank account and get a cellphone. I hope the winter weather stays as nice as it was today - basically about sixty (which is about 15C - the rough estimate I guess is to double the celsius reading and add 30) degrees and bright sun all day.