Northwest Trip Preview

I haven't updated in a while because most of my assignments are due this week. We have a study break next week, so all of the teachers assign things beforehand to get that out of the way, which is both good and bad. But the exciting thing is that I'm heading out on the 10 day Northwest trip this Friday! There are almost 50 study abroad students on this trip, and we'll be heading out at 8am. We'll drive up the west coast to Coral Bay in the north, making stops along the way, then drive back inland. Once I'm back I'll be completely bombarding you with hundreds of pictures and a bunch of posts. Here's a map of the over 2,000 km trip (both ways):

One Month?!

The last time I posted was about going to an outdoor cinema showing in King's Park. We went to go see the movie Somewhere, which was actually laughably terrible. We all pretty much were waiting for the plot or moral of the story to appear right up until the credits rolled...but other than that it was a fun night! It was on the complete opposite side of King's Park that we hadn't seen before, and the whole setting was cool. On the way there we got to take some night shots of Perth and watch the sunset in a small cafe; there were also a lot of prom pictures going on too. We also saw a lot of parrots flying around- all different kinds and colors. There are a lot of them on campus too- definitely strange to have cockatoos and parrots as common birds!

Rainbow Lorikeets in King's Park

On Sunday the student village sponsored a trip to Woodman’s Point. We all loaded into a bus at 2:30, cranked the music, and set off for a fun afternoon at the beach. One thing I love about all of the beaches here are how they always go hand in hand with parks. So far every beach I’ve been to has had a really nice park right behind it, with people picnicking and resting in the shade, and a playground or a café. It’s really nice, especially when you want to lay out without being covered in sand. Which usually happens, because Perth is incredibly windy every afternoon…which means sand is inevitable stuck in your ears and hair. But hey, I guess its great for the windsurfers and kite surfers. You always see heaps of them in the afternoon. Kite surfing is a very expensive sport, but maybe I’ll try windsurfing while I’m here.

Picture off the dock of Woodman's Point.

So anyway, we had a picnic and went to the beach, where there was a huge dock. The water was really clear and apparently a good fishing spot, as a lot of people were set up with poles along the dock. It seemed like a much more local place. The beach wasn’t that full and most of the people were fishing off the dock. We saw a huge Australian Pelican there…it seemed like it was half the size of me! I don’t know how it could get off the ground. Really enjoyed this beach and hopefully I’ll be back!

The Thursday before that I went to this place called Mojo’s where there was awesome live music. Definitely a different crowd, all ages mixed. A lot of dreadlocked, hippy people there- it was awesome. We saw the Rosie Burgess Trio, and afterwards I bought their CD and am now a big fan. We also saw this popular Aboriginal band called Oka- the best part was the electric didgeridoo! So cool sounding. Here’s a youtube clip, and I'll try to put up my own clips later:

On Monday after my Nature-Based Tourism lecture, our class had a field trip to Penguin Island, which is just off the coast of Rockingham. It was absolutely gorgeous there- I took WAY too many pictures! Penguin Island is just one of many small islands in the Shoalwater Atoll, and the only one that people are allowed to step foot on. It’s a conservation park within a marine park. There are several nesting bird species there, and colonies all over the other islands, including Little Penguins and seals. The Little Penguins have a colony of about 2,000, the biggest one in WA. Unfortunately you can’t see the wild ones because they only come on land after sunset unless they’re breeding or molting, so they have a few rehabilitated penguins that can’t be released in the “Penguin Experience Center” to educate visitors. We walked around the island, saw the penguins, and took a boat tour around some small neighboring islands. The views were gorgeous and the water was so clear- there were a lot of outdoor sports going on in the surrounding water. Before the semester ends I hope to go back and do a kayak tour there.

My favorite picture from Penguin Island.

Just one of many windsurfers.

Kitesurfer getting some air!

I can't believe I've been here for one month already! It feels like I've been here forever and yet not at all, at the same time. I almost forgot to mention: I got a job at a cafe on campus as a barista/server. I've only been to work once, but I'll be working about 10 hours this week.

Oh, and here's a picture of my room if anyone's interested in seeing it...it looks more spartan than it actually feels. :)

Aussie Slang:

Shrapnel = loose change

Tomato Sauce = ketchup

Sultanas = raisins

Till = cash register

Quick Update

Right now its about 37 degrees C (100F) again- so hot! The metric system thing is really getting me- I'm still having trouble trying to convert from celsius and kilometers, and even inches to centimeters. I didn't really notice how hot it was today until I came back to my room, I was at the pool since about 12 because I don't have any classes Friday. The sun is so strong that you can barely lay out without frying...it's a hard life here, I know.

Yesterday I had a "trial" at the kebab place in the school food court for an hour- they do that a lot here, at least with food service jobs. Hopefully it works out, it would be great because its right on campus and closed on nights and weekends.

Last night there was a beach themed party in the Tavern on campus- it was a lot of fun. It's so cool how they can have a place like that right next to the quad-they have happy hour every day Mon-Fri and a lot of people go there to chill where there are pool tables and foosball tables, and outdoor seating. It's really nice.

I'm just hanging out in my room for a bit then a few of us are going to head out to Kings Park for this outdoor cinema thing they have- I forget what the movie is. I'll update more after this weekend.

Some facts about Perth and WA

Western Australia...

is larger than all of Western Europe

is about 1/3 of the whole of Australia

is 4x bigger than Texas

has over 70 National Parks and 2 World Heritage sites

experiences dry and wet seasons up north

Perth...

is the world's most isolated and sunniest capital city

has a population of about 1.8 million

has an average winter temp of about 60-65F and average summer temp of 86F

There are only 2 million people in the huge state of WA- and 90% of them live in and around Perth. To give you an idea of how empty that is: Texas has a population of about 25 million- on land 1/4 the size of WA.

WACA Warriors + Freo

On Wednesday a few of us went to the WACA stadium to see our first cricket game. Of course, the day turned out to be about 37°C…or a bit over 100° F. Luckily the buses and the train to get there were all air-conditioned! When we finally got to the stadium it was pretty empty so we could sit anywhere. The game was too confusing and to really hold our attention- the Retravision Warriors wore the yellow uniforms, but the crowd seemed to cheer for both teams- that’s how confusing the rules were!

Warriors up at bat.

The scoreboard looked pretty cool but we had no idea how to interpret it. Despite all the confusion it was fun just hanging out, meeting new people and chatting during the game. Later that night we decided to check out the Newport club in Freo for a bit for student night- we didn’t stay for too long but it was really fun and crowded.

The confusing scoreboard- each player appears to have a score and their names

would occasionally light up.

WACA Stadium

Thursday was my second class: Country, Nature, and Identity: Indigenous Sustainability. It was really interesting and the professor was awesome! Looking forward to the semester. It was a small class so there’ll be a lot of discussion and it was nice to be mixed with Aussies. A bunch of my friends from the U.S. are in it with me, so that’ll be fun. There’s such a large international population here that I don’t think you could find a class without a few people studying abroad or from a different country. I decided to switch into the Nature-Based Tourism class on Monday, freeing up my Fridays. There are two field trips during the semester to Penguin Island and Yanchep National Park- very excited for that.

Probably my favorite part of being here so far is going into Fremantle- it’s just a bus ride away and there are tons of fun things to do. There are a lot of different restaurants and bars, shops, a park, a beach, and an amazing marketplace. On weekend nights it’s crowded with people and there are live bands playing in some restaurants, and the overall vibe of area is just amazing. The marketplace is open every Friday to Sunday with a ton of vendors inside this huge building. They have everything imaginable, like clothes, jewelry, didgeridoos and paintings. There’s a section for produce and food, which was fresh and cheap on Sunday so I’ll definitely be back there a lot! Over the weekend there are also a lot of street performers and musicians livening up Freo. They shorten every word in Australia- for example, Fremantle is Freo, Rottnest Island is Rotto, the Salvation Army is Salvo’s (even on the sign), etc. One act we saw last week was the “badpiper”- a guy in a leather-studded kilt playing Queen’s “We will rock you.” There was also a sword-swallowing pirate, and there are always a few didgeridoo players around.

Some stalls in Fremantle Market

Fremantle Harbor

Classes

Today was my first class, Environmental Politics. It seems interesting so far and we work in a group throughout the semester on a case study, which will be good to get to meet people. The teacher seems really nice and the two other people in my group are from Australia and Holland- though I could have sworn both were from Australia. Its funny because I've never really thought about people learning english as their second language with an australian accent- it was definitely confusing sometimes during orientation presentations telling where people were from with a blend of both accents!

After class ended at 2, I just hung around at Bush Court and read a book-it was really nice. Tomorrow we're heading to the Waca stadium to watch a cricket game! Last night we had an hour info session to explain the rules. It seems really complicated but interesting, I'm not sure what watching it will be like. I'll update on that tomorrow.

Koalas, Kangaroos, and Wallabies- Caversham Wildlife Park

Today we visited the Caversham Wildlife Park. We took about an hour bus ride there and split into 3 groups, each with a zoo tour guide. First up were the koalas. They were so cute! We were lucky to spot a few with their eyes open and one moving around because they spend the majority of their day sleeping. We were able to gently pet their backs and they were so soft! Also, the keepers rotate them and give them time alone so they don’t have to interact with visitors too much, which is good.

Petting a soft, sleeping koala.

Next we went to the Kangaroo enclosure, the part I was most excited for. There was a bucket of feed for the kangaroos, but they were so tame that you could pretty much just walk right up to them and pet them. They were really soft too, and really lazy in the heat and sun. A lot of them had joeys sticking out of their pouch- it was weird when all you could see were long legs sticking out of the mom’s stomach!

Me with a small white kangaroo.

I loved this one- she was one of the bigger ones in the enclosure.

A mum with a big joey. If you look closely at the baby's toes you can see that they have two small side ones, and one large middle toe. Very strange looking!

The zookeeper told us that many of the kangaroos that interact with the visitors are either juveniles or females because adult males can get up to seven feet tall. Here she is with her orphaned joey, Daniel. She takes him home every night to give him milk and he sleeps in a pillowcase.

Here’s the groups with Big Bubs, a female wallaby. I did not think this is what they looked like- they are adorable! They look like a giant stuffed animal/pillow. Jesse (the keeper) told us they can run up to 40 km/hr…which is about 25 mph. I don’t know HOW that is possible…maybe they can roll that fast? J

That’s another thing that’s hard to get used to here- the conversions. Everyone always tells us the temperature in Celsius and the road signs are all in kilometers, etc.

After our tour of the park we went out and had yet another sausage sizzle, complete with veggie sausages like always. Soda is pretty different here too…I got a Kirk’s “Creaming Soda” expecting it to be cream soda, and opened it up to find fluorescent pink, gross candy flavored soda. Kirk’s also has Passion Fruit flavor, which tastes like cough syrup. The lemon squash kind isn’t so bad. "Lemon Squash" is like lemonade while "Lemonade" labeled soda is more like sprite here. There are always tons of varieties of lemonade at the sausage sizzles.

Slang:

Arvo- afternoon (“good arvo”)

Footy- Aussie Rules football

Thongs- flipflops

Sun Cream- sunscreen