Well it's been a bit over a week since I left the country so I figured now is as good a time as any for an update. The flight was... how should I phrase it... long. Aside from the 20+ hours of actually being in the air there was the approximate two hour delay in Boston in which we waited in the terminal because they had to switch out aircrafts because the one we had planned to depart on was not suitable to fly (I'm thankful they found that out before we actually took off, but the delay was a pain nonetheless). This delay caused us to miss our flight in L.A., but we only ended up having to wait an additional hour for the next flight. However, L.A. was not to be outdone by Boston and their petty two hour terminal delays. No, the plane we boarded in L.A. would be delayed about two hours as well, however, this delay was be spent, in its entirety, on the plane. Needless to say the whole journey was a very long ordeal and hopefully the trip back won't have as many hiccups (if any at all).
Upon finally arriving in Sydney, jet-lagged and exhausted, we waited about an hour for the shuttle to pick us up and drop us off at Macquarie University where we stayed for the next eight days. The University was about 20-30 minutes outside of Sydney, but there was plenty of buses running frequently to and from the city. The campus has a large green expanse with a pond in its center, which was really nice to just walk down and sit by. The flat we stayed at had five single bedrooms, each with their own bathrooms, which was very nice. However, the lack of air conditioning in the mid-80 degree heat got a little tiresome. I don't know if it was because my body wasn't ready for summer yet or if it was unbearably hot or a combination of the two, but the heat really threw me for a loop, so much so that I wore shorts, and for those of you who know me well, I don't think I've worn shorts in 3 years. I also noticed, upon waking up the first morning there, that we had a lizard living with us. I later figured out that there was a pretty large gap at the bottom of our back door where creatures were pretty free to come and leave so I decided to not worry about it and enjoy the company of reptiles. I figured lizards are like the mice of Australia (although Australia has mice too so my logic might be flawed).
Aside from being jet-lagged and the hot weather the trip to Sydney was a fun time. We went to visit the Opera House which is really a phenomenal building to see in real life. It's a bit odd to actually see something that you've viewed so many times in photographs right in front of you. We also visited the Royal Botanic Garden which is located right next to the Opera House. It's a rather large garden/park with a lot of cool looking trees and birds. Oh and I cannot forget about the bats, there were hundreds and hundreds of large fruit bats hanging from almost every large tree in the garden. Aside from the terrifying bats, the garden itself was beautiful and a good way to kill a few hours in the city.
Sydney itself seemed to be a pretty laid back and friendly city. I can't say I had legitimate time to really see the ins and outs of it, but I enjoyed the parts that I saw. Aside from the Opera House and garden we had a chance to visit the Art Gallery of New South Whales, which was free and air conditioned (two big plusses) and the Sydney Zoo. The gallery has a pretty impressive array of artwork from all time periods. A lot of paintings, some photography, and some sculptures. I still get a bit stunned when I see paintings that takes up almost an entire wall and the amount of detail the painter has been able to incorporate into them. I just don't think I'd ever have the patience to spend that much time on a single project, especially a painting. The zoo was fun as well, although I did feel bad for all the animals holed up in there. I got to see kangaroo, wallabies, koalas, giraffes, elephants, penguins, lions, gorillas, orangoutangs, zebras, and a whole slew of other animals. Unfortunately, the platypus were off display because their habitat was under construction, but aside from that I'm pretty sure I saw all the animals you would normally associate with Australia.
The Australian cuisine I enjoyed was quite exquisite. Due to the near proximity of a large shopping center to campus and the pure laziness of not wanting to have to deal with groceries for an eight day trip, my diet consisted of a lot of food served very quickly. McDonalds, Subway, Hungry Jack's (a.k.a. Australian Burger King), etc. It was truly a delightful gourmet eating experience through and through. However, I did learn that Coca-Cola made with sugar is definitely better than when it's made with high fructose corn syrup. I had been told this before, but now I can confirm that it is indeed fact.
Another accomplishment that I made during my stay at Sydney was to learn the basic rules of cricket, although I can't take full credit for this. There was a series of matches on tv over the course of my stay and I started to watch and pick up the basic rules bit by bit. However, when a games score board has both decimals and fractions it's very easy to get lost. Determined to get to the bottom of what this game was really about, I turned to the source of all wisdom (wikipedia) for answers. However, the sheer size of the wikipedia article and my lack of willingness to read that much about cricket quickly deterred me from that solution. Luckily on the last two days of our trip another flatmate moved in (we had previously had the entire apartment to ourselves) and she brought a friend who was a cricket fan. After spending a night watching the end of a cricket match and asking him a lot of questions I can now confidently say I know the basic rules, and man oh man am I proud of that.
Although I enjoyed the trip it did get a bit tiresome to be living out of a suitcase for eight days and not being able to really settle into any routine. Thus, I was eager to leave campus and depart for New Zealand at six this morning. I am currently finishing up my first day at the University of Canterbury, but I shall save that portion of my journey for the next entry seeing as how I have already wrote a fair amount and any more will likely cause readers to wander off (assuming they've stayed with me up to this point). Pictures of my flat and the campus to come in a week or so.
0 comments:
Post a Comment