So Australians don't really celebrate Halloween, a tragic fact that the Americans at Currie Hall felt needed to be remedied. So Sunday night we had a Halloween party complete with all the proper amenities - candy, bobbing for apples, mummy wrapping, etc, etc and I think it went quite well - at least, everyone seemed to enjoy it. The mustache looked awesome but actually was insanely annoying - I gagged a couple of times when the hair went into my mouth and it was next to impossible to eat or drink anything. Looked good, though (and thanks to Noomayra, the girl with the purple hair, for the photo).
Monday I was able to finish up my last two papers and now I am officially done with my two history classes. Now just three exams - the first on this coming Wednesday - and I am home free as far as school goes. It does mean a fair amount of studying over the next week, though. In other, happier news, I am nearly done with most of the logistical aspects of the trip I will be taking when the semester ends, starting Nov 21. I am getting more pumped for it every day. I will have more on that in future posts.
The past couple days I've been giving myself a little bit of a reprieve before I started studying in earnest today. Tuesday was mostly devoted to relaxation although I did help out with the Currie Hall carwash, which was not well organized but still very fun as we had music and an inflatable swimming pool. Tuesday was also Melbourne Cup Day, Australia's biggest horse race and waaaay more popular here than say the Kentucky Derby is in the US. I but a couple dollars into a betting pool. My horse didn't win.
Yesterday was the most fun of all - the trip to Penguin Island. I managed to wrangle up Alyssa and Vanessa (a lot of people have finals beginning Saturday so they couldn't come) for the trip down. This little island about a 45 min train ride south of Perth, in Rockingham, is home to the northwesternmost breeding colony of little penguins in Australia. These are the smallest penguins in the world, sometimes also called fairy penguins or little blue penguins. They're also insanely cute and look like this:
Unfortunately it was a really hot day (about 90-100F) and we got there about 11 AM so we weren't able to see any wild penguins. This guy was one of ten they have at the Discovery Center on the island, all rescue birds. They do a thrice-daily feeding show that was very good. One of the volunteers at the penguin pool had moved to Australia from Seattle about ten years ago, and we had a nice conversation.
Despite not getting to see any wild penguins, there was still plenty of cool stuff on the island, including some awesome rock formations and little caves.
There were also a ton of these King's skinks, which were about a foot and a half long and not at all shy about coming right up to people and trying to steal their food.
Besides penguins, the island is also home to a whole bunch of other breeding seabirds, most of whom were much more visible, including this osprey, which was sitting on a branch just a few feet away from the path and didn't seem fazed at all being so close to people.
All in all, a good past couple days. After this I will have to start buckling down more on studying, but I will try to update when I can if anything exciting happens.
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