Settling In...

This week was pretty typical, classes, soccer, and free food filled up most of my school week (Monday through Thursday).  I've been having a lot of fun playing soccer, met a lot of people that way, and have found it to be a great way to keep fit over here without having to force myself to go for boring runs.  I had to fill out a census form for Australia, which was pretty interesting considering the fact that I had to skip almost all of the questions because I am not a citizen here and don't have a job.  Although my hall gave us free pizza when we turned in our census form!  Yay for free food again!  Don't worry though, I did do some fun stuff this week...

Friday, August 12th 2011
Slept in late, and headed into the city to tour the Royal Botanical Gardens.  It was pretty cool, lots of interesting plants, plenty of opprotunity to take pictures.  I just spent some time walking around by myself snapping some interesting things, haven't done that much lately, so it was really nice!  Also got to tour a WWII memorial/shrine.  It was a really cool building and also provides a great view of the city on a balcony.

The shrine.

After the Royal Botanical Gardens, Shae and I went into the city center and checked out a free museum called the 'Ian Potter Center' which is on Federation Square (Fed Square that I mentioned earlier).  The museum houses plenty of Aboriginal art, and the display rotates every once in awhile, so hopefully I will be able to go again to see new works.

Some artwork at the museum.

It was only disappointing to find out that Cadel Evans, the Australian who just won the Tour de France (and the only Australian to ever win it), was on Fed Square that afternoon - we missed him!  I can't believe I didn't even know about it!  We later found a supermarket (and a Krispy Kreme shop for a snack for Shae) to pick up some plasticware and tim tams for a birthday gathering.  It was the night before Hesmond's 21st birthday, so we had a big surprise dinner for him.  It was really fun, and I finally got to try Asian 'Hot Pot'  (it is essentially a bunch of frozen Asian food, cooked in a hot pot with vegetables).  The meal was pretty good, although they now claim that I need to make them some traditional American food... so I'm going to make burgers or something I guess if they hold me to it.  Will update with pictures, from the birthday celebration as soon as I get them - I only had my nice camera so I didn't take the time to take pictures...

Saturday, August 13th 2011
Laundry day!  I'm really getting the hang of being a normal person that has to do laundry on a weekly basis.  It's not too bad.  Also played soccer again with the Mauritians, although I'm starting to understand what it means when they say 'football at 12:30' - it means we won't start playing til 1:30 at the earliest, haha.  It's nice to have that extra time to get ready (Jules I think you are Mauritian at heart - you run on the same time schedule :P).  After soccer I finished up my laundry, and got ready to hang out with the Mauritians for another person's 21st birthday.  I also got to prove that I am a girl and don't just wear sport gear all the time. It was fun: pizza, tim tams, and learning the 'basics' of Mauritian Creole, which is not much of anything considering I can only remember one word and it just sounds like 'go goat'!  Overall it was a good night, and they actually spoke enough English for me to actually get to know them a bit!

Laura, I got your card!  Thank you so much for the (early) birthday wishes!  I'm so happy it made it here without a problem.