One Month Down Under

Well, here's the first big milestone - it's now been a month since I arrived in Australia. It's weird to think about it that way, because it feels like I've been here a long time. So far I couldn't be happier with my decision to come not only to Australia, both also to Perth and UWA, because I've really been having an awesome time. The weather is beautiful (for the most part), the people are friendly, it's easy to get places, and there's always something to do.

AND...I figured out how to get pictures uploaded a lot easier, so here's a few from Perth Zoo, respectively of a red kangaroo, a Tasmanian devil (which, contrary to popular belief I've learned, are really not that fast at all and would lose to a chicken in a footrace), and an elephant:





Tuesday morning I had a lovely bike ride. I don't have class until 11 on Tuesdays, so Noam and I started riding out of town, past the downtown area of Perth, and into some nice sort of suburb-ish areas, mostly hugging the Swan River. I got to see a couple things I hadn't seen yet, most notably wild black swans (which are W.A.'s animal emblem) in the wild, which I really enjoyed (didn't bring a camera, though - drats). Also saw the first husky I've seen here, out for a walk with its owner. Everything was going great until I got a flat tire about 4-5 miles out from campus (and the same one as my earlier flat - I mean, come on) and had to walk the whole way back, which took about two hours. I felt better that afternoon, though, at my history tutorial (their name for a discussion section) when we had an awesome academic discussion about the concept of "freedom fries."

Yesterday night was Sindre's birthday, so we went out for dinner at an Indian restaurant. The food was really good except that it came in tiny portions for how expensive it was (like $20 a dish). But anyways, happy birthday to Sindre! Our first down under birthday (there's a few coming up in September/October).

Things today were pretty uneventful; I did some errands (including taking my bike to the shop, which is a huge pain because they don't allow bikes on buses here - they don't even have racks on the front) and had my first yoga class, which I thought went fairly well. Tomorrow I am free until 3 so I think I'm going to check out the Western Australian Museum, and this weekend a group of us exhcanges are going down to Margaret River, which is about 3 hours south of Perth and is supposed to be totally spectacular. I'll have more on that later.

One story to leave you with: the Australian election is this weekend, and the last two days I've been downtown there's been a crazy lady decked out in Australian flag-themed clothing, screaming her lungs out at people about how illegal immigrants are ruining the country and we can't let the liberals take over, etc, etc. I guess the more you travel, the more things are the same.