2 Weeks!

So I haven't posted in a while, my apologies - I've just been very, very busy. But it's August now (what happened? It was just the 4th of July), and my 2 week anniversary of arriving in Australia, so I figure I ought to keep this thing updated.

I believe I left off last post with having gotten my bike fixed. Excellent work myself, Matt, and the maintenance guy who gave us the tools (need to get his name), the bike rides like a dream now. Wednesday morning I had lectures for my zoology and wildlife classes, nothing earth-shattering, and then I had the afternoon off - so, naturally, I went to the zoo.

Perth Zoo, I am happy to report, is fabulous, despite the glaring lack of a tapir exhibit. There's really four main sections - African Savannah, Asian Forest, South America, and Australia, plus a nocturnal house and a main lake (attracts wild birds - and cool ones, pelicans and such, not just ducks) with gibbon and lemur islands. The Australian section is especially good, with all sorts of animals I've heard about but never actually seen before, even at Caversham - brolgas (cranes), little blue penguins, dingoes, numbats (a marsupial anteater that looks like a striped squirrel), and the most gigantic crocodile I have ever seen in my entire life. Other exhibit highlights - very nice elephant yard, including a male elephant, which you don't see at many zoos, a gigantic orangutan complex (they're very involved with breeding and are starting reintorduction attempts), the best sun bear exhibit I've ever seen, cheetahs, a big pack of African wild dogs, and Goodfellow's tree kangaroos (never seen that particular species before; they're paired with cassowaries next to the main lake in a small "New Guinea" section).

One last note of interest: some may recognize "The Kiss", a photo of a giraffe mom and baby that's put on a lot of posters and stuff (you can see it here:http://www.allposters.com/-st/Giraffes-Photography-Posters_c56550_.htm). That was taken at Perth Zoo, which has quite the track record breeding giraffes apparently and has one that was born in My and is very cute. I'll try to put some zoo pictures up soon, probably not tonight though as the internet at Currie is being kind of slow.

OK, animal/zoo nerd stuff done. At least for a while. When I got back to Currie Hall Wednesday afternoon we had training for intercollege hockey - that's field hockey, not ice hockey - that I decided to have a go at. Field hockey is a bizarre sport. The stick is like an ice hockey stick but shorter, made of wood, and instead of a blade at the end it is curved back like a candy cane (sort of - google image it). The stick also has one flat side, which you handle the ball (the size of a tennis ball but hard like a croquet ball) with, and a round side that cannot touch the ball. Scoring only occurs from inside a semicircle around the goal. Other than that, the game is a bit of a bizarre love child of soccer, ice hockey, and lacrosse. I thought it was cool. The game against Trinity Hall was today, I didn't end up going but I heard our team got smashed. Pity.

Wednesday night was the tav party, which was a gettogether at the UWA tavern for all the residential colleges. I had a very good time, met some new people, drank a fair amount of beer, and just about killed my eardrums because there were some very loud bands playing in a very small space. Fun times. Except for Alyssa (my Californian friend) spilling a cupful of beer in my lap trying to prevent our other friend from drinking any more. Well done Alyssa.

Thursday I had my history classes for the first time! Both seem fairly interesting, and pretty laid back - each has one research paper and no final exam. I was looking forward to seeing USA Since 1945 taught from an Australian perspective, but lo and behold my prof is American so I'll have to settle for that. He's actually a very nice guy, a little more on the social history side of things than I'm used to but still a good teaching style. He's from San Francisco but has lived all over. And most of the class is Australian (as far as I can tell except for one Texan) so that should be fun to get their take on things.

Friday was another fairly chill day of classes (I normally have a lab from 2 until 5 - ick - but not the first week) and I again had the afternoon off. Played a little basketball and just relaxed. Friday night a big group of people (probably 25ish) went out to Fremantle and the Little Creatures Brewery. They made good beer there, although it was a little pricey, even for Australia ($9 a pint). The atmosphere was very laid-back, though, which I enjoyed. Eventually some of us made our way over to the Sail and Anchor, where Matt tends bar, and said hi to him. Very good beer selection there, we may have to go again. And as everyone was pretty tired from class we caught the 10:40 bus home.

Saturday was tiring - 10 AM gym for the "Body Pump" class, which was light weightlifting and core strength exercises. I'm still a little sore from it. Then in the afternoon I took a group of people - Noam, Cindy, Alyssa, Leslie, Matt, Sindre, and our friend Jayde who's from Perth - to the zoo. As only a few of us have bikes we took the bus, which actually takes about twice as long because you have to go past the bridge and then transfer. But we had nice weather, the animals were active, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. Saturday night we had Currie Hall mocktail night - which sounds a little more fun than it actually was (could have been improved with alcohol or actually having drinks that didn't taste like pure corn syrup). Hung out with some people afterwards and again had a pretty early night.

That brings us to today, which was pretty lazy for me (get up, breakfast, read, nap, lunch) although I did get to playing tennis with some people. Tash, one of the full-time Australian students, is a member at the Uni Tennis Club so she took a group of us to their social event, which was very laid back but still a lot of fun. Basically we had our names on little magnets and got paired randomly with different partners for 30-minute doubles sessions. Very different talent levels, from quite good to just above terrible. I'm not as good as any of the Currie people that went, but luckily I play just well enough to be able to compete - sort of - with them. And the event was as I said really casual so I had a lot of fun. We also were playing on clay courts, which was a first for me. Waiting in the lounge we also caught a little bit of the Fremantle - West Coast Eagles (the two local teams) Australian Rules Football game. Most people seem to be Eagles fans around here; they're traditionally the much better team (won it all a couple years back) but are playing badly this year while Fremantle is pretty good (they won pretty easily today). Reminds me too much of what's been happening with the Seahawks. Seattle sports. ugh.

We got back from tennis around dinnertime and after dinner I played cards and watched Inglourious Basterds (as good as ever). Now I have a little bit of homework reading to do before I go to bed. Week 2 of class tomorrow! And I will try to remember to get some pictures up since I know this is a lot of text to go through with no visuals...