Zoo, Slap Betting, and My First Assignment

Pretty uneventful past week. Everybody is a little busier as we get further into the semester and so there's a little less going on. I did have my first real assignment in Australia due on Friday, a set of questions for my vertebrate zoology class. So that's one more milestone down. I think I did fairly well.

There wasn't a whole lot going on Saturday, but it was pretty nice weather and I didn't have a lot of work to do so in the afternoon I decided to head over to the zoo yet again. It was a decent day for animal viewing, although it was a bit crowded due to it being the weekend and warm outside. I managed to get a few decent pictures:




Radiated Tortoise


Sacred Kingfisher


Blue-and-Gold Macaw

After my zoo visit, I decided to take a walk through South Perth (the city where the zoo is located; it's literally about 200 yards across the river from downtown Perth but is it's own city) heading back to the busport. I managed to get quite a few good pictures, especially of the pelicans and other birds that were around. Perth has done a really nice job of preserving some ponds and trees right next to the city center, and I took a stroll through that area before I caught the bus back.

Saturday night was a lot of fun; a group of guys got together and we played poker for a few hours. I didn't win, but I didn't finish last either. After that, the Australia vs South Africa rugby game was on and a big group of people got together to watch that. Having never followed rugby at all before, I was largely at a loss to understand what was going on a lot of the time (a lot of elements are really similar to football, but the ball kept switching hands for reasons I didn't understand and the penalties were a total mystery). It was a good game - they were playing at altitude in Bloemfontein, South Africa, and Australia went up early, then gave the lead back but scored on the last play of the game to win by 2.

The outcome of the game, however, was made a whole lot more exciting by the fact that two guys from Currie, an Australian and a South African, had a slap bet on the outcome. What this means is that the guy whose team won gets to slap the loser once, as hard as he likes, at any time in the next week (if anyone out there is familiar with How I Met Your Mother, it's the same thing as they do on the show). Rudy hasn't been slapped yet, but we're all keeping an eye out to see it when it happens.

Fairly relaxed day today. It was beautiful weather, so in the morning I went for a run through King's Park with Matt, then after lunch hung out with some people on the quad lawn in the sun. Naturally, it being opening weekend of football season and all I had to check scores and I was pretty ticked to see that the Huskies lost, but at least we didn't get blown out so I guess there's hope for the rest of the season. But still, really - shut out in the second half? Had some homework to do, then dinner, and now I'm here. Should be a good week ahead, I'll have more later. Keep it real in the Northwest (and by golly beat Syracuse next week).