THE OUTBAAAACK

This past weekend I went scuba diving on my own. It was really cool to kind of map out my route to get to the dive shop, and then went on a little adventure to get there on time. Turns out, a good number of the trains were out of service (something i learned later i could have found out on the internet). So the relaxing morning trip i was hoping for was a massive, chaotic mess of jumping on buses because that old guy said it was the right one for where i was trying to go. nevertheless, i found my way to the dive shop (albeit a little late). I took a picture of Central regardless, just because it looks really cool on the inside





Also, this morning i woke up to a very frightening sight. There was a red/orange, very vibrant glow coming from outside. There was a massive dust storm this morning, where you could barely see across the street and had to wear a mask or some sort of mouth covering. luckily, i didn't need to leave the apartment until later in the day, when it had calmed down a good bit. I tried to get some pictures, but they weren't really able to capture the eerie effect, this is the best one i could come up with. it also gives you a little view into my room, so there you go haha.

here's a link to some better pictures by the sydney morning herald
http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/environment/dust-turns-sydney-sky-red/20090923-g0tw.html?selectedImage=0



and now, to address the title of this post...i leave tomorrow for the OUTBACK. I'm taking a weeklong camping trip out into the middle of the driest continent in the world, and i'm really really excited. so don't worry if there aren't any blog posts for a while, there isn't even cell phone service out where we'll be. it should be amazing though, and i'll have plenty of pictures to barely be able to show what it was like.

Cute Pictures

So, considering it has been a pretty normal week, and considering I took over 150 pictures at the blue mountains last weekend, I figured I'd include some of those along with an update on life in Sydney.

It has begun to really get warmer here, just today the sun was out and it easily got above 85 degrees F. The sun is very very strong here, for some reason there is a significant lack of ozone above Australia, so it is a normal part of the morning procedure to put sunscreen on. I haven't been very good about it because I don't burn very easily, so I don't have to worry so much.

I have also recently discovered Penguin Books. Evidently they are a publishing company that takes really good books and sells them for 9.95 each. I got The Art of War last week, and after finishing that, just picked up The Age of Reason by Sartre. Penguin is really selective about what they publish, so you can basically be guaranteed you'll get something good, plus I've read Sartre before and am a fan.

Ok so to the pictures. First the koalas. Koalas sleep for about 20 hours out of the day, in cute little fuzzballs in eucalyptus trees. We were at a zoo last week and one was awake and looked at me in a very piercing, wise way. So i took a picture.


There were kangaroos, goats, chickens, and other generally tame and cute animals just roaming around the zoo freely as well, and that was really cool. We had a good time with this nice goat that liked to be petted.


Lastly, this is one of my favorite pictures of the trip. We were walking by the peacock pasture when of the males decided to present his plumage and really try to show off. It was quite a show, the colors were absolutely magnificent. Unfortunately, none of the females paid much attention. Tough luck man.

The BLUIES

So this past weekend we (the Arcadia group) went on our little excursion to the Blue Mountains, and it was amazing. Turns out, there was a heat wave this weekend, which meant that in the Blue Mountains, it was perfect. On Saturday, we learned how to throw boomerangs (deceptively difficult, but quite rewarding too), and did a bushwalk to some really beautiful views of the Blue Mountains.

For those who are wondering, the Blue Mountains were in fact blue, the when the sun refracts off of the eucalyptus mist that is released by its leaves, there is a soft, deep blue that bathes the mountains. Its the kind of thing you don't see right in front of you, but when looking down the valley, it was quite apparent. I also bought an AWESOME hat, because not only does it look great, but i think it'll help a lot when I go camping in the outback in a few weeks.

This is me, with my new hat, in front of the blue mountains. You can see the blue a little bit, once the sun set a bit more it got a lot stronger.


On Sunday, we stayed in the Blue mountains, but went ABSEILING! I didn't know what that meant either, apparently, that's what australians call repelling. We started on some medium sized boulders, just to get the technique down, and then repelled down an actual huge cliff. Like the really big cliff you imagine when you think of people repelling.

This is me just going down one of the training abseils. It looks big, because it was. I couldn't get pictures of myself going down the big one because there wasn't anyone at the bottom i could give my camera to.


I did however, get a picture of the group leaders setting the big cliff up for us, it gives you a good idea of just how far down this one was.

Routine routine routine

So, as you probably can guess, I have settled into a routine here in sydney. It definitely feels more like I live here rather than I'm just visiting, which is a comforting feeling. Uni is beginning to demand some sort of accountability for the 6 weeks of classes i've been taking so far, which means the first big round of tests and papers have been due/are due soon. This leads to a lot less fun adventure things and free time. I did however, make teriyaki steak the other night, and currently have chicken marinating in the fridge. I really would have never guessed that I'd get this into cooking. I did also get to go to a rugby match today, it was between Sydney Uni and some other club, whose name I don't remember. I didn't get to stay for long, but it was really cool to see a game live. I need to do better about taking a picture a day, the trouble is that I'm running out of things to take pictures of. If there's any sort of request out there, let me know. I'll include a picture of some decks of cards and sunglasses in case someone wanted to see that.

This is the steak, teriyaki sauce, and minced garlic I used to make teriyaki steak. It was really really good, I cut the steak a little thin, so it ended up cooking a lot faster than I was expecting.


This is from the rugby game. We found some nice grass space to watch it from, the grandstand was pretty full, plus it was very nice to sit and relax in the sun. The rest of the field is to the right, this is basically near the southern half of campus. Plus they have a moonbounce, and I wanted to make sure to get a picture of it.


And finally, here 3 decks of cards (we play a good bit of solitaire/assorted card games in the apartment to pass time here and there), plus my sunglasses in the background, on our kitchen table.