Talent Night and Halloween.

What can I say about IH Talent Night?

Well…as previously mentioned (see post “Do Not Enter: If the fall does not kill you the crocodile will”), I was signed up for the Talent Night by one of my friends, basically because he had been told that I could sing. This led to many people asking what I would be doing and me repeatedly saying “I have no idea” (though I briefly entertained the notion of learning how to make balloon animal kangaroos). My friend Kieran and I talked about a few different possibilities but it wasn’t until the actual night of the show that we made a final choice. And, yes, we decided to sing…in punked-out costume. We did a rendition of the Scissor Sisters Cover of Franz Ferdinand’s “Take Me Out.” And it was awesome.

In the weeks that followed, IH residents who I had never before spoken to approached me to compliment our performance (which was really made by Kieran’s uber-dramatic dancing, etc.). The only bad part about doing this so last minute was that we missed everybody else’s performances while we were practicing for our own. A small price for fame?

The Talent Show was followed by a charity “slave auction” in which residents volunteered to sell several hours of their time performing various tasks for others (cooking, cleaning, driving, what have you). The most surprising bit was when a couple of my friends went up to be auctioned and revealed that under their sweaters they were wearing makeshift garments sewn out of old onion sacks. A few of the guys were also convinced that they would go for more money if they took their shirts off. They were not wrong.

Halloween was a multi-day affair. The week before the 31st we had our end of term dinner at IH, which was Halloween Themed. This resulted in the use of Costume 1: Tyler Durden from Fight Club (Brad Pitt’s character). This was particularly fun because my friends Courtney and Tom also cross-dressed which of course led to many inappropriate jokes, etc..

I also found that being dressed as a dude made me dance differently at the after-party (Tom basically accused me of stealing his normal dance moves….which I was). It was a really fun night. I also had my first taste of Passion Pop, a carbonated alcoholic beverage that is sort of like the worst champagne you could ever imagine…popular among underage Aussie drinkers, apparently. The best part of drinking this awful, awful beverage was that with every sip my one friend Courtney kept saying “I like it. It’s pretty good.” And the rest of us just shook our heads slowly from side to side.

The second installment of Halloween was a house party thrown by a friend of a friend. Who, incidentally, is starting his own brewery, so there were several different interesting home-brewed beers to try. One memorable moment was when Court was filling a glass with the one that was labeled “Blood.” It really did have a reddish tint to it and Court just said “Yeah…when I saw the color, I knew I had to stop.” My costume for this party was a little more generic because I was rushed. I mostly told people that I was the Angel of Death…albeit a very upbeat version who enjoys skipping, holding hands, and making daisy-chains. Still, I certainly couldn’t compete with some of my friends’ outfits:

The final Halloween installment was the North American Study Break at IH. We weren’t really sure what qualified as good North American cuisine and since it was Halloween-themed we decided to mostly make sweets. So, we ended up with Rice Krispies Treats, chocolate drizzled pretzels, fun size candy bars and jell-o shots. Our biggest fear was that people would steal the jell-o shots out of the fridge while they were setting, so we left a bunch of threatening signs which did the trick. Also, the worst part of making the Rice Krispies Treats was that instead of buying a couple sticks of butter we just “borrowed” a bunch of butter pats out of the IH kitchen. Guess whose job it was to scrape each butter pat off the foil and make them into one huge mound of butter? Awesome.

"What a fun sexy time for you."

For demonstrations of our culture we showed some Halloween videos (e.g. Thriller) and Andrew, one of the Canadians, showed some hockey videos with lots of impressive collisions set to music.  My final costume for this endeavor was a joint costume with Kieran.  We went as the Frog Brothers from the 80’s teen vampire film “The Lost Boys.”

Tom made an excellent vampire foe:

What can I say?  I love Halloween.

Spit to Manly

My friend Hugh’s Mum lives in Manly. It’s a beautiful suburb just outside of Sydney. It also has a walking path that winds all along the coast and takes a few hours to complete. Because Hugh has a car, it was pretty easy to get there so one morning Eva, Hugh and I set out to do the Spit to Manly walk. It was full of beautiful foliage and views of the harbor and beach.

We even saw a couple of Water Dragons. The trip was also enhanced by the Ginger Beer that Hugh brought, and the Mr. Whippy’s Ice Cream truck that we found about halfway to the end.

Hugh will shortly be making fun of me for complaining that the instructions to invert the bottle before opening it were not plainly visible on the cap.

We went for a swim at one of the smaller beaches and I found a few good pieces of beach glass. When we made it to Manly we hit the street market, where I got a nice pair of earrings and Hugh got the infamous beach-towel shorts (exactly what they sound like) which later prompted the three of us to buy cheap beach towels that we attempted to make into shorts modeled on the first pair. My mom later had to try and salvage mine…I made poor construction decisions.

A few weeks later we returned to one of the Manly beaches to celebrate both Hugh and Tom’s birthdays with swimming, soccer and a picnic. Tom and I found heaps more beach glass, some of which even had the lip of the bottle as part of it. Makes a pretty cool beach memento that isn’t a biohazard.

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was strange. It was my first away from home which, for me, is doubly significant because I was born the day before Thanksgiving so it also meant the first time that I was not home around my birthday. However, two things helped to make this better. First, my professor, Des, and his wife hosted Thanksgiving festivities at their home in Pymble (a suburb of Sydney). Second, my friend Kieran is fantastic at making people’s birthdays wonderful, and he went all out. But, I’m getting ahead of myself.

We ended up having to work for our Thanksgiving dinner, not only because the meal was pot-luck (I made the mashed potatoes…but not very well), but also because of my friend Kate. Kate’s father has a rule that every year before they sit down for Thanksgiving dinner the family must run a mile. This year he informed Kate that just because she was overseas was no excuse for her not to do that year’s ‘Turkey Trot.’ However, he also promised that if she could convince a few gullible individuals to run the mile with her that he would make t-shirts for everyone. Well…I was one such gullible individual. So, before we had dinner at Des’s house (which we already had to ride the train to get to in the first place) we first walked the few blocks to Centennial Park to run our mile. Unfortunately, the track around Centennial Park is less than a mile long so we had to devise a very convoluted, occasionally overlapping route in order to make the necessary distance.

Before I discuss the run any further I should state the following: I hate to run, I’m using the word hate here…about running. The last time I ran any distance, in fact, was when Emily and I were going to be late for the ferry to Alcatraz while we were in San Francisco. We ran about 2 km in say 15 minutes or so. The first words out of my mouth when we made it to the wharf: “I think I taste blood.” Anyway, suffice it to say, running and I don’t get along. So, as soon as we were about 3 minutes into the Turkey Trot I started to have thoughts such as “Good God, I’m dying.” This feeling was probably exacerbated by the fact that I was stupidly wearing long jeans as well and it was a very hot day. Even so, I managed to push through the worst part until I reached a more mild level of horridness punctuated by the perpetual thought “Just keep going, just keep going, just keep @%$#-ing going.” At one point I got really excited because the finish line was in sight, but then I remembered that we still had to double back around in order to make the track a full mile…well, crap. But, in the end, I did make it and my competitive streak led me to sprint out the last 30 seconds or so to secure fourth place rather than fifth out of about 12 runners. Three or Four of the competitors actually got lost on the track and ended up coming back from the wrong direction…according to Kate’s Dad they were disqualified.

The Competitors

Dinner was delicious. My mashed potatoes left something to be desired, probably because I had trouble figuring out the best way to transport them so I ended up cooking the potatoes, refrigerating them overnight, reheating and then mashing them at Des’s house. They tasted fine, but the consistency just wasn’t right. I think my favorite dish in this very eclectic meal was my friend Snoop’s Curry Vinda-Roo, made with kangaroo meat…very tasty.

My Birthday

So I mentioned earlier that my friend Kieran is fantastic at making people’s birthdays a wonderful experience. He did this for me in several ways. On my actual birthday I had dinner at a gourmet pizza place in Sydney near IH with a bunch of IHers.

The place was pretty empty when we got there, which helped contribute to the fact that the guy who owned the place was super friendly and catered to our every whim, even giving us some raw dough to play with, something they usually do for little kids. He may have regretted this decision.

I think it was supposed to be some kind of bird, GPK was the name of the restaurant.

My friends also arranged for him to bring out a piece of cake with sparklers in it for me. It was a nice meal. Kieran couldn’t make it to dinner, but we were hanging out in the third floor IH kitchen when he showed up with an ice cream cake that had sparklers and ninja turtle action figures on it. It was totally rad (the ninja turtles now live on my desk in Wellington).

We hung out in IH for the rest of the night, with plans to really go out on Thursday because my huge paper was due the next day so I needed to get a full night’s sleep.

Thursday Kieran had something special planned, but wouldn’t tell me what until we got there. We had dinner at a Chinese food place first and then walked down the street. It turned out that he had gotten tickets for a bunch of us to go see a production of “Little Shop of Horrors.” This was especially significant because one of the first things we bonded over was watching the film version of this musical. The production was really fun and it was the first time that I had heard the songs which the film version cut out. Afterward we went to Kelly’s down the street (all of this was in Newtown) where we had some drinks and some karaoke. An all around great night.

This, however, was not the end of my birthday extravaganza. Lastly, K got us tickets to see the Mountain Goats (my favorite band who I had only seen once before, in Cambridge) perform at Sydney Uni the next week. We took the bus down together, watched a bit of the opening band before deciding to go get some food at Oporto and then returning to see John and co. give probably the best concert I have ever seen. It was amazing. Perhaps most awesomely, however, was the fact that Kieran suggested we stick around for a minute after to see if John would come out. He did and I got him to sign an Australian 5 dollar bill for me.

I told him that I had seen the concert in Cambridge and was surprised by his candor when he said that he was sorry I had seen that performance, that it had been a rough time-period and was almost the last concert that the band ever performed. Very rarely do I get the opportunity to meet musicians who I admire, so this was a really special experience for me.

Whale Watching

Des organized this trip for our class. It was a little odd that he was so keen because he always, always gets seasick. None of the pills and things work for him. Still, he and his wife (such a lovely woman) were waiting for us at the waterfront near the Opera House when we arrived early in the morning to catch the boat. The ride out was windy but sunny and there were lots of Petrels and other seabirds to watch.  It didn’t take long for dolphins to start cavorting through our wake, something I had never experienced and which was pretty amazing. When we reached our whales it was a mother and calf (or possibly two adults and a calf). They were humpbacks, the traditional whale-watching whale. We weren’t super close (there are regulations on how close you can get), but the calf was very fun. He kept breaching, again and again, showing off his light belly and his flukes.

He was huge! We never really saw much more than the side of the adult, but it was impressive to think how big she must be considering how large the calf was. I would definitely go whale-watching again, hopefully in a place where there are other species of whale as well. I would like to see a non-baleen if I get the chance.

Melbourne

The only other major city that I hit while in Australia (besides Sydney) was Melbourne. As I understand it, these two cities are fairly competitive (both were candidates to become the capital of Australia, but the animosity was side-stepped by choosing Canberra instead). Many people from Melbourne will tell you that Sydney is a ‘tip’ (a rubbish dump). Having spent most of my time in Sydney, I would be hard-pressed not to pull a Tyler Durden on anyone who insulted the city to my face…that is to say…I love Sydney.

That said, Melbourne has its charms. The flight was cool because we went over the Australian Alps. They aren’t very high as mountains go, but made for some interesting viewing out the plane window.

Unfortunately, about halfway from Sydney to Melbourne, I started to feel a bit under the weather.  This escalated soon after my arrival at the hostel into a full blown sensation that all of my insides were either leaking out through my nose, or accumulating in my lungs. Nevertheless, knowing I only had a limited time in the city, I headed out to walk about town.

The first place I went was the State Library of Victoria, which I had actually only meant to see in order to buy a print of a particular ship to mail to Alan back in Boston. Sadly, they don’t keep prints of that ship on hand, but rather print them by request, so I had to re-evaluate the best way to accomplish that task. The cool thing, however, was that the library had two neat displays going while I was there. The first was a sort of history of the printed word, with lots of cool first editions, including the Origin of Species.

awesome

I took photos rather furtively because it seemed like the type of thing you weren’t supposed to photograph, even though after thorough searching I didn’t see any anti-photo signs. The other display was on the famous outlaw bush ranger, Ned Kelly. Kelly is, perhaps, best known for an altercation with the police during which he wore home-made full body armor. This armor, among other things (such as Kelly’s deathmask) was on display.

I couldn’t help but think of Clint Eastwood and Marty McFly with their improvised ‘bullet-proof vests.’ Sadly, Kelly’s didn’t save him and he was captured and later hanged. But, the good news is that he lives on as a folk hero, much like our Billy the Kid.

I had wanted to go to the Australian Rules Football Hall of Fame, which my guidebook said was right next to the State Library, but it turns out that they relocated it. Someone at the STA Travel that is now at that corner was able to tell me where it relocated to, but it was too far to walk.

Next I hit Chinatown. This was a bit of a disappointment. Mainly because, after having recently been to San Francisco with Emily, my expectations were high. Chinatown in Melbourne is really only a couple blocks long and mostly consists of herb, souvenir, and clothing shops. I bought a two dollar pair of earrings, tried on a few pieces of clothes, none of which fit right, and then moved on. Still, the archway is cool looking.

In one of the main squares I also saw this:

which reminded me of its sister tree in Sydney:

Being from Michigan it was very, very weird to see these types of decorations in the midst of hot summer weather. It really did not feel like Christmas. Even some of my friends in Sydney long for white Christmases and I’d have to say that by the time I left I was feeling that way too.

As I continued to wander I happened upon one of the main theaters, which was showing the musical ‘Wicked’ (based on the Gregory MacGuire novel by the same name, the story of the Wicked Witch of the West from the film ‘the Wizard of Oz). This is a musical whose cd I listen to avidly, whose songs I sing at karaoke whenever possible, but which I had never seen on stage. The longest part of the decision about whether or not to buy a ticket was figuring out where I wanted to sit. With about an hour and a half to kill before the performance, I didn’t have time enough to return to the hostel to get a sweater, so I ended up checking out quite a few shops on the main drag, looking for something cheap and long-sleeved in case the theater was cold. I finally found a fairly theater-inappropriate zippered hoody which was affordable and something I thought I would wear again (I have). I then scarfed a Subway sandwich just in time to head back to the theater.

The performance was fantastic. There was only one time where the main character fudged a line in her song (sadly, in my favorite song of the show), everything else was spot-on. My seat was great too, though I could tell that the middle-aged Australian couple next to me was not digging it as much as I was. It was all I could do to keep from singing along, even as I attempted to stem the continual flow from my nasal cavities.

Another cool thing about this theater was that you could bring your intermission drinks with you to your seat. I did not partake, but many people had martini glasses balanced on their knees during the second half. I thought of Lindsey and Kari most of the time I was there, they would have loved the show.

The walk back to the hostel afterward felt a little dicey. I stopped into a shop to pick up something to drink, some Ramen noodles, and a couple packets of travel Kleenex, and then just tried to get back by taking the least-dodgy looking streets possible. That was the main disadvantage of the fact that I was in Melbourne alone. It’s much easier to be cavalier about new places when you’re with a group. It’s the same reason that I booked an all-women’s room at the hostel –better safe than sorry and all that. Anyways, I made it back just fine, despite a little uneasiness, and went to bed straight away, pretty much feeling like I’d been hit by a truck, but happy nonetheless from seeing ‘Wicked.’

Next day I felt a little better in the morning but knew that I shouldn’t push myself too much if I wanted to feel better later in the week so I decided to explore Queen Victoria Market, a large covered but open-air market that was a short walk from the hostel (only a couple blocks). I had seen Australian markets before (one on my trip to Hervey Bay, one in Manly, one at Bondi Beach, but there are tons more in the Sydney area that I never ended up hitting), but this one was huge. The other street markets could have been its asexual offspring, budding off as little nubs that separated and then drifted vaguely northward before coming to settle near the coast. It was big.

I spent hours there, determined to at least glance at every stall. What I realized was that a lot of them were selling the same sorts of things, with a bit of variation in prices. I was mostly able to hold myself back, getting a gift or two and a replacement set of headphones (which actually broke on my way home, even though they were a decent brand) and, perhaps, the most touristy item that I bought during my whole trip: a Kangaroo leather hat. I also got some strawberries and apples at the produce portion of the market and had to really tell myself ‘no’ as I passed the live poultry stall, chickens are cheap!

As I left the market it started to rain, and then it started to pour. By this time I was starving as well because it was mid-afternoon and I hadn’t really eaten. It took a fair bit of wandering around the area, but I managed to find a restaurant/café/pub that was open and didn’t look too dodge. I proceeded to order the all day breakfast, which was huge. I lazed about for a while hoping that the rain would let up. When it didn’t I back-tracked to a dollar store and purchased a hugely tacky Australian flag umbrella (I take it back, that was the most touristy item I bought) for about 5 bucks. I then proceed to walk into the city center to the nearest pharmacy so I could pick up more Kleenex and some cold medicines (the pharmacist was very helpful which is great because none of the drug names in Australia are the same as the ones at home). From there I managed to hoof it back to the hostel. What with the weather being so crummy and the fact that after a long morning out I was feeling much worse than I had the night before (getting wet probably didn’t help), I decided to just stay in bed at the hostel the rest of the day. I managed to nap quite a lot and did a fair bit of reading as well (I think this was when I was reading Lady Chatterley’s Lover, but I can’t remember for certain).

Next day I felt much better again so even though it was still rainy I decided to take a serious hike across the city center to go down Brunswick street, a little street on the north-east side of town that was supposed to be pretty hip, with cool cafes and boutiques, etc. It was well worth it. There were heaps of cool little places to pop into. I ended up spending a fair bit of time reading at a little café (the Retro Café), where I had a latte and one of the best muffins of my life (I believe it was cranberry nut).

There were cool shops and an awesome little record store, but there was also a lot of eye-catching street art, some of it by a guy who tags things “Ghost Patrol.”

On my way back towards the hostel I accidentally stumbled on ­­­­St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which had some really beautiful architecture that I admired for a while before continuing.

By then I was getting pretty tired so I decided to ride the free City Circle streetcar the long way round so I would get to look at some of the places I probably wouldn’t get to by walking. It was pretty cool, even though the first one to pass me didn’t stop.

Here’s where I ran into a bit of a snag. When I started feeling ill on my first day I had decided to change my flight back to Sydney to 1 day earlier. This changed how many nights I wanted to stay at the hostel. They were nice enough to give me a one night refund, which they don’t usually do. Unfortunately, when I got back to the hostel on the third night, I found out that the woman who had given me the refund had cancelled the wrong night and that my room had been given away, with no spaces left. Needless to say I was pretty upset because it was about 9:30 at night and I didn’t want to lug my stuff around town in the dark, when I was sick already, looking for a non-sketchy hostel. Fortunately, the guy who had to give me this news must have had an eye to customer reviews because he gave me a refund on my last night, called their sister hostel down the road to book me another all-women’s room, called me a cab to take me there and gave me 10 bucks to cover the cab ride (which ended up being more than enough). In the end, it turned out to be better because the sister hostel was a lot better environment for me. The first one had a big bar as part of it and just wasn’t very clean. It felt like the sort of place that twenty-somethings go to get trashed and hook up if they don’t throw up first. The second place was much more my style, cleaner, quieter, more chill. They gave me a coupon for a drink at the bar next door, which I used to get a beer that ended up being so vile tasting that I didn’t even finish it. Instead I repaired back to the hostel, watched a bit of whatever the other people in the common room had on the tv (some western I’d never seen) and then went to bed. The only annoying thing at this place was that the two women who showed up to share my room showed up quite late and woke me up, one around 12:30, the other around 2 am. The girl who showed up at 2 was quite annoying actually because she brought a couple of guys in with her at first (hello, all women’s room! Grrrr), but they left quickly and she didn’t return at all that night, though she left her stuff. Good riddance.

The next morning was my last in Melbourne and I didn’t have much time because I had to be on the bus to the airport in the early afternoon. I checked out of the hostel but left my big bag in the luggage room and went for a walk down to the river nearby. I crossed the bridge and got a coffee to walk with. It wasn’t long before I came across a groovy little art fair, where a bunch of artists were displaying their wares for sale (ranging from paintings and prints to jewelry and hand-made stuffed animals). I managed to do a fair bit of Christmas shopping and was particularly intrigued by a woman who made earrings out of old watch components. There was also an acrobat nearby, but he wasn’t very good.

ok, here he looks good.

On my way to the bus station I wandered back through the city center and saw the other famous Cathedral, St. Paul’s.

Before I got on the bus I had my first and only meal at Hungry Jack’s, which didn’t taste as good as the Burger Kings at Home.

Tuatara Research

Well, I suppose I should end my Australian adventure notes with an explanation of the research project I actually did while in school (reading through this blog you’d hardly know that I was in school at all). One o f the main challenges of the project resulted from the fact that I found out when my animal ethics committee application would be due about 2 days beforehand. This led to a rather rushed experimental design with a lot of inherent problems. Basically I conducted a pilot study (a preliminary experiment used to assess efficacy of methods, etc.) examining the use of olfaction in prey detection by the tuatara. Tuataras differ from their near relatives the snakes and lizards in that they do not have passages between the roof of their mouth and their nasal cavity, so they do not pick up chemicals from the environment by flicking their tongues. Their olfactory epithelium also differs. Observation of tuataras has led to the general assertion that they are visual predators who are mainly attracted by movement. However, these little guys have also been known to eat bird eggs and carrion, both of which suggest that scent may play a factor in locating food sources.

My study was conducted on the 3 female tuataras at Taronga Zoo. I offered each individual a choice between 6 sealed plastic tubes, some of which contained live or dead crickets, and some of which had been scented on the exterior by being rubbed with a live cricket.

which to choose, which to choose...

Each tuatara was given 10 minutes to “choose” one of the tubes by either biting or licking it. Whichever tube the tuatara bit or licked first was considered the animal’s choice, regardless of whether or not they interacted with any other tubes afterward. Once a choice was made, the tubes were removed and the next trial was run on a different individual.

Examining the results, I had to conclude that I didn’t have a large enough sample size to make firm assertions, but that visual stimuli are essential in prey detection. However, contrary to popular belief, motion is not a key factor (e.g. on multiple occasions the tuataras chose tubes which contained motionless dead crickets). More study is certainly necessary and I remain unconvinced that scent is irrelevant to tuatara feeding.

Perhaps most importantly however, after a full semester of study, with a fair few frustrations, I still think tuataras are wicked rad.

Some differences between Australia and the States:

Meat Pies replace Hot Pockets (though Hot Pockets are still available for sale).  Fyi, do not eat a meat pie with a knife and fork, Aussies will make fun of you for it.

Burger King is called Hungry Jack’s

Liquor Stores are called “Bottle shops”

You never say ‘tons’ or ‘lots,’ you say ‘heaps’

You never say ’sketchy,’ you say ‘dodgy’ or ‘a bit dodge.’

You don’t tip people in Australia, except occasionally in restaurants if the service is really good or your group is very large. I tipped a hair dresser the first time I went and she was really surprised. It takes a while to stop feeling like your being a jerk by not tipping.

Well, there you have it, that’s Australia. Next time: New Zealand. As a preview I will say that my Australian friend Tom described New Zealand as a place that only has beautiful scenery, nice people and rad wildlife. So far, I have not found him to be wrong.

So, Halloween will have to wait because I can’t believe I haven’t blogged about Queensland yet. But, I guess what with the craziness of the semester ending (I have finally turned in my research project, and gotten back High Distinctions in my other two courses, huzzah!) I never got ‘round to it. So, here’s the story:

Over mid-semester break, 10 of my friends and I went up to Hervey Bay which is right on the eastern coast of Queensland, a short plane ride from Sydney. When we arrived the first thing we did was pick up our rental van. Now, it was our understanding when we booked this 12-seater van that anybody over 21 could drive it. However, when we arrived at their office the lady said, ‘Nope, over 25 only.’

Well…being as most of my IH friends are between 19 and 23, I was pretty much the only option for driver. Which, if you don’t know my history with cars and driving and roads, may not seem like a big deal, but, you’d be wrong I’m afraid. At the age of 16 I started out very excited about learning to drive but, well, my driver’s instructor was so bad that not only did he squelch the excitement, he pretty much undermined any confidence I had about my ability to not kill people while behind the wheel (bear in mind I have never even gotten a ticket and the one time I was pulled over was for turning right on a street that, rather arbitrarily, has no right turns from 4:30-7:30 pm, oops). So, suffice it to say that when I found out that for the next 4 days I was going to be responsible for driving a 12-seater van, full of people whose death I did not want cause, on the wrong side of the road (from the wrong side of the car), my first reaction was….crap. And, admittedly, the first day was pretty dicey. I had the person in the passenger seat watching the curb for me because it took a long time to adjust and stop edging away from the middle of the road. I think I almost took off a few mirrors from parked cars. Then there was the parking garage debacle, when we tried to get the van into the underground garage at the hotel. Unfortunately the garage was at the bottom of a steep ramp and when we got down there we realized that the van was too tall to fit (note: read “realized” as “didn’t notice until the top of the van started scraping the safety board with the height restriction written on it”). This realization was further complicated by the door to the garage almost closing on the bonnet of the van (heh heh, bonnet). But, the story ends happily. Not only did I succeed in doing many hours of driving in order to get us to several different locations without mishap, but by the end of the trip, I was really enjoying it and didn’t want to give up the vehicle we had, by then, termed “the beast.”

During the trip we stayed at a great place called Delfino’s Bay Resort. It’s a hotel, but it’s made up of 2 and 3 bedroom apartments with kitchenettes and everything. So, we were able to save a lot of money by getting groceries and preparing our meals instead of eating out. It was also right across the street from the beach, which was incredibly relaxing. The first night we pretty much just got food and hung out at the beach to unwind. One of the things I loved about this beach was that, although I never saw one, there were little crabs that tunneled in it and left all these tiny balls of sand in cool patterns.

On the second day I drove us out to a little town called Maryborough, which, incidentally, is where the author of Mary Poppins, P.L. Travers, was born. We took part of the town tour (a bit boring) before we decided to just wander around. Probably my favorite thing was the gigantic Strangler Fig tree they had. I was really wishing that I hadn’t worn a skirt and flip-flops because climbing it would have been a lot easier in slacks and sneakers, but I did alright anyway.

We also went to a historic candy shoppe, where I got some of the best ice cream. It looked like Superman flavor and sort of tasted like it, but better (You’re probably thinking “how could it possibly be better?” Well, it just was. That’s the magic of Australia.).

We then found the Mary Poppins Statue before heading to the Street Market where I bought some jewelry, a skirt, and some delicious kettle corn that made me a little homesick for the Michigan Renaissance Festival (although I didn’t need to use the kettle corn bag to keep me warm like Linds, Sim1, Drew and I had to do our first year there). Back at Hervey Bay we spent some more time on the beach, which was lovely. We even found some hermit crabs, though the boys were upset that they couldn’t get them to fight.

Who wouldn't want to share a talking parrot umbrella?

The next day was spent on Fraser Island, a fairly sizable all-sand island off the coast which has beautiful freshwater lakes and rainforest. Getting there is a little complicated because you can only drive on the island with a four-wheel drive vehicle, so we had to rent jeeps and then take them with us on the ferry to the island. It was a decently long ferry ride, I’d say about 40 minutes. Fortunately, I didn’t have to drive either of the jeeps. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see as much as we were hoping too because there hadn’t been much rain recently and some of the “roads” were pretty impassable. We did make it to a nice rainforest walk and to Lake McKenzie, which was gorgeous, with the clearest water I think I’ve ever seen. You aren’t supposed to eat on the beach because it attracts dingoes, so we had a picnic lunch at some tables near the road beforehand. But, some idiot people didn’t listen to that rule; hence we saw our first dingo, stealing a packet of crisps.

After spending some time swimming in the fresh water and enjoying the amazingly white sand, we headed back to the wharf a little early. This was mainly because driving between lakes was so difficult that we didn’t think we would make it to another one before we had to leave in order to catch the last ferry. As we waited for the boat, Eva and Courtney had a bit of a misadventure in a marshy area with scary crabs…they don’t really like to talk about it.

On our last day most of the group went on a one-day trip to the Great Barrier Reef, but it was really expensive so Eva, Kellie, Kristie and I decided to drive to Rainbow Beach for the day, hitting a weekend market on the way. The market was kind of cool, although we arrived as they were starting to close up. I still managed to find an awesomely tacky belt buckle and a sterling silver wombat charm. Rainbow beach was also cool. There really are several different colors of sand within a short amount of space. Also, our time on the beach led to one of the strangest photos of me so far. Lunch involved trying to finish up the groceries that were left from the trip, including a whole pineapple. As you may be aware, trying to eat pineapple without really coring it properly results in a lot of fibers getting stuck in your teeth. I was complaining (or whinge-ing as my friends here would say) about this and saying I wished I had some floss. Well, Kristie actually had floss, hence: Me on the Beach, flossing my teeth.

The day ended with a moderate amount of danger. As we walked off the beach Kellie and I were almost taken out by a paraglider who was landing, and the drive home was a bit dicey as it was getting quite dark and that’s when the kangaroos decide to hop across the road unexpectedly (though we luckily didn’t see any).

Oh, I also bought a new hat. When I tried it on, I asked my friend Eva what she thought and she was like….’about what?’, ::blank stare::. She didn’t realize that the hat I was wearing was different from the hat I had worn into the store. But really, I don’t see how she could have made that mistake, I mean, they are completely different, as you can see:

I also enjoyed my first Rainbow Paddle Pop…which was delicious.

We flew back to Sydney the next morning, which was a harder trip for some of the group than others, depending mainly on how much Goon (Slang for extremely cheap box wine) they had the night before. I had not over-indulged, thank goodness, so the roughest part for me was saying good-bye to my ridiculously over-sized van. Dad, I think I know what type of car you should be on the lookout for at the used lots. But please, try to make sure the wheel is on the right.

My apologies for being MIA for so long.  The semester has been hitting me pretty hard for the past few weeks and is likely to continue to do so for a while yet.  Nevertheless, I am going to attempt to catch you up bit by bit on the goings-on Down Under.

The Blue Mountains and the Jenolan Caves are amazingly gorgeous.  It was a pretty long drive up to Katoomba and we stopped on the way at Featherdale Wildlife Park.  Featherdale was fun, but I am a little ambivalent about it because it’s pretty much a petting zoo for kangaroos and koalas.  I just feel bad that the animals are under almost perpetual harassment from the visitors, although there are several barn-like retreats where they can go to get away from people, which makes it a little better.  And, it gave me the opportunity to see my first koalas, my first cassowary, and to hold a swamp wallaby joey.

Sooo cute! And the wallaby's not bad either.

I also took some awesome photos of their saltwater crocodile, which was huge.

Gorgeous!

When we made it to the Blue Mountains we went on a few Bush Walks, which had great look-out points to a rock formation called the Three Sisters, as well as many waterfalls.  We took a few pictures from a boulder at the edge of one of the lookouts and while I may look like this:

I really felt like this:

By the end of the hikes I was glad that I had worn my good boots, especially since at one point I was up to my ankle in mud.  Possibly the most memorable part of the blue mountains, however, was riding on the world’s steepest funicular train.  It took us almost vertically up the mountain but the best part was that as soon as it started moving, the theme song from Indiana Jones started to play.  There’s nothing better than enjoying semi-dangerous wilderness experiences while listening to John William’s themes … ok, maybe there are some things better than that, but not many.

When we got back to Katoomba we had dinner at a pricey but delicious Greek restaurant, where I discovered the previously unknown phenomenon of Saganaki Feta.  Apparently when it’s made with Feta, they don’t light it on fire and shout “Opa!,” but the added taste sensation of the cheese being feta more than made up for this mild disappointment.  After dinner we stopped at the grocery store and picked up some items to make dessert with at the YHA Hostel where we were spending the night.

Everybody loves a good hostel

It ended up being a fairly elaborate affair that started with tasty frozen yogurt and berries and ended with a game of Charades with clues such as “Be a Candle,” “Be a Child who is Sad because his Ice Cream Just Fell on the Ground,” and the most challenging “Be Courtney (no pointing),” which was made more difficult by the fact that Courtney herself received this one.  Apparently, she is not very good at acting like herself.

The next morning we went to the Jenolan Caves, which was about another hour, hour and a half drive.  It was lucky that we chose to do the caves on Sunday because that was when the weather broke and we got to be inside for most of the rain.  I have to admit that when we first began our cave tour (for the cave called Temple of Baal) I thought it was going to be pretty lame because the guide started by showing us some not-very-thrilling tiny little formations.

Look closely, can you see Cinderella's Slipper?

As it turned out, he was just easing us in.  The tour became exponentially better when we got into the next cavern and there was a music and lights show.  Normally I am not a fan of artificial light shows in natural settings but as soon as I realized that the music was an orchestrated version of “Who Wants to Live Forever” by Queen (yes, it’s from the soundtrack to the movie “Highlander,” and yes, I wanted nothing more than for Kari Patch to be there at the instant I recognized it) I was all in favor and could not stop giggling to myself.  In fact, the guide even said at the end that he had been told it was a version of a Queen song but he didn’t know if it was true…I was able to educate him a bit on the awesomeness of the album “A Kind of Magic.”  I don’t think he was as thrilled with this knowledge as I was.  Anywho, the last chamber was really impressive, with many large formations.  My favorite of which was the Angel’s Wing, a long wavy sheet that, when properly lit, does look remarkably wing-like.

After we finished with this cave we went into the self-guided caverns.  The part of these that impressed me the most was the presence of Stromatolites, which are usually only associated with bodies of water I think.  Apparently the darkness of the cave and it’s humidity allows the cyanobacteria to exist, even without the presence of a larger water source.  Science = Cool.

The drive back was pretty long. Our radio wasn’t working for part of it either, which led me to play my iPod earbuds at full blast, which sort of allowed us to all hear the music if I draped one earbud over each shoulder from the front seat.  Also, we managed to get a photo that I had really been hoping for:

Hitting one of these will seriously mess up your car.

The following Thursday was another triumphant night at karaoke, with Hugh and I winning another $25 gift card after our rendition of “Under the Bridge” by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. I have to say I was probably prouder of Kieran and my version of “Paradise by the Dashboard Light,” but it was all fun.

On Friday I went back out to Taronga Zoo to observe the tuataras feeding for the first time. I couldn’t start my actual research yet as the A/C unit in their enclosure spontaneously broke, so their behavior was not super demonstrative of what it would be in their natural, colder, environment. Still, the warmth made them pretty active and fun to watch as they tried to chase down the crickets that we were throwing in. Each animal has a unique coloration and they seem to all behave a little differently.

That evening was the James Bond themed Cocktail party at IH. I will admit I planned ahead in my typical, used to work in a high school theatre department so I know a little about costuming and tend to be over-dramatic, fashion. I had been planning to dye my hair for a while, so I decided to do it right after dinner but before the party and, without really planning it, the color turned out the same as that of my evening dress. As a final touch, I had designed a way to strap a plastic knife to my leg, in a pseudo-emulation of the dagger strapped to a bikini look that has now been portrayed in 2 Bond flicks.

Yes...I am dangerous

Now, I basically did all of this in order to make my friends laugh (which they did), not realizing that there would be a best dressed competition which I would subsequently win. As a result I have a $30 gift card to use at Tar-get Boutique.

After the party we headed to a dance club which plays a lot of re-mixes of classic 80’s songs. It was pretty fantastic.

On Saturday I spent pretty much the whole day out, heading to the beach with my friend Tom in the morning, and then going rock climbing at an indoor gym after lunch (which led to about a week of sore arms and shoulders, but that didn’t stop me from going back the next week). In the evening we went out for a friend’s birthday at a club that was a little over-priced, but still fun.

Well…this post hasn’t really gotten American Lizard up to date, but it’s a start.  Next time we’ll be discussing IH Talent Night (turns out I can sing), and maybe, just maybe, my uncanny ability to design Halloween costumes that make me look very much like a man.

Awesome.

A week ago Saturday was loads of fun. One of the women in MConBio celebrated her birthday by inviting us all to a picnic at Bronte Beach. There was a ton of good food (I discovered that Brie and Raspberry preserves go very nicely together) and good company. We even got to play with other people’s dogs a little. One little terrier really enjoyed having us throw a pinecone for him to retrieve.

The big news from that Saturday, however, is that the AFL (Australian Football League) is completely and utterly awesome. It’s sort of like a combination of all of the best parts of most major American sports. It has the speed and energy of hockey and basketball, and tackling similar to the NFL. Some basic rules include that you cannot run more than 10 steps without bouncing the ball, you can pass forward, but only if you hit the ball out of your hand with the other fist, sort of like a volleyball serve. If you kick the ball between the middle two goal posts you get 6 points, if you kick it through the outer posts you get 1 point. The Sydney Swans thoroughly crushed the Brisbane Lions, which should help the Swans get a better cede in the Finals. I had a really good time and would definitely go to another game if I get the opportunity.

In other good news, a week ago Monday was the first day of spring and it actually felt like it, very sunny and clear. Since I don’t have class on Mondays, I went with some friends to Coogee Beach for a few hours. It was a little too cold to swim yet, but we did do some wading. To be honest, I was quite tempted to just go for it and dive in, but I imagine the walk home would have been chilly if I had. One of my buddies has agreed to try to teach me to surf when we are at the Fraser coast over break. I might look into lessons at Coogee beach as well, but I’m not really sure how expensive it would be, and I may need my own wetsuit, which, at this point, might actually be a worthwhile investment.

More recently, last Friday was spent at Taronga Zoo. This was fun, but would have been better if it hadn’t rained, all day long. Although we went for my course Australasian Mammals, we honestly spent just as much time looking at other things, like gorillas (these guys were neat because they had two infants, one of which was only 2 weeks old). We also went behind the scenes at the vet department and saw, among other things, a baby ring-tailed possum, a juvenile loggerhead turtle, and a Little Penguin that were being rehabbed by the wildlife clinic. One of my favorite discoveries in the Zoo, however, was in the nocturnal exhibit. There I found out that feathertail gliders (the smallest sugar-gliders in the world apparently) have toepads on their feet similar to a frog’s. This allows them to actually dash across glass! It was pretty amazing, they move just like a gecko going up the exterior of a house. They are extremely quick and only about as big as a field mouse. You can also see how they got their name as the fur on their tails spreads out to either side just like the barbs of a feather.

Obviously I also loved Taronga’s herp house. They have some really gorgeous animals (not to sound like the late Steve Irwin, but seriously, gorgeous is the word), including a very large Komodo dragon.

Sunday was also quite busy. A few of us from IH went to Cockatoo Island, located in the harbor to the west of the Harbor Bridge to view some modern art installations, as well as the island itself. We then proceeded to a, somewhat lackluster, sidewalk chalk art exhibition (it must have been better a few days earlier, before all the rain), and finally ended at the Aquarium, where I saw my first platypuses (in fact, the plural of platypus is platypuses, not platypi. You learn something new every day). I did end up getting a bit sunburned (very minor), which resulted in several people telling me that once summer actually arrives I may be in serious trouble. Good thing I brought the waterproof SPF 75.

Aquarium Saltwater Crocodile Disclaimer...you can see the croc in the upper left

We also found out that there is a brushtail possum who likes to sneak into the courtyard of IH to search for dropped food after study breaks. She’s quite bold, but adorable. She looks just like Fin Raziel from the movieWillow, when she first appears on the island. In fact, seeing her prompted us to watch Willow, since some of my friends hadn’t seen it and others of us couldn’t stop quoting Raziel’s lines as a Possum.

In more recent news, some kind companions of mine signed me up for the IH talent show which will take place in a few weeks, so if anyone can think of any talents I have that are capable of reasonable exhibition, let me know, otherwise it might get ugly. Apparently one of my friends interpreted my statement that I like to sing to mean that I am good at it, which I have never been able to judge accurately enough to want to call it a talent. I may have to fall back on lesser known skills, such as making origami golden snitches…or quoting long passages of science fiction films. Spouting little-known trivia about the production of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy? Le sigh, this could take some planning.

In our next installment: The Blue Mountains and the Jenolan Caves. Also, we may discover if Liz has lost her super science-writing powers (“Pow!” “Zap!” “Citation!”) when she finally gets the results from her first paper. Is Aussie fun academic Kryptonite? Stay tuned to find out.

So last Thursday and Friday were spent at Cowan Field Station where we learned how to trap Tammar Wallabies. One of the important things to know about wallaby and kangaroo trapping is that many of these guys are very easy to stress out. Normally this wouldn’t seem like a big deal except that when a kangaroo/wallaby gets really stressed, their body has an extreme reaction which can lead to rapid degeneration of muscle tissue followed by death. On that happy note, I should say that Tammar wallabies are the exception. For some reason these little guys are much more tolerant of trapping than other species. This makes them a great research animal.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, how does one trap a wallaby? Does it involve high tech wire cages? Anesthetic darts? Strategically placed cheesy-flavored baits? No. No it doesn’t. In fact, trapping Tammars basically involves giant modified butterfly nets (solid cloth, not mesh), and making sure you have enough people to act as sheepdogs…………wallabydogs. The Tammars at Cowan have been trained to run along the fences of their enclosure. So, one person carries a net near the fence line and the rest herd the wallabies into a corner until one of them makes a break for it along the fence. When that potential escapee gets up enough speed and is about to run past the person with the net, the net is thrust out against the fence and the Tammar runs straight into it.

Easy enough, right.

Yeah, no. In theory this is a pretty easy thing to do and the guys who work up at Cowan make it look deceptively easy as well. The trouble is the timing. If you throw the net out too quickly, the Tammar sees it and either changes direction or just jumps over the damn thing. If you throw the net out too slowly, the Tammar will slip right past it, they aren’t very big animals compared with your average kangaroo.

After a few failed attempts, I did manage to net a Tammar. My conclusion is that you have to stand a fair distance from the group that the animal is breaking away from. This will give the wallaby time to build up some speed before it reaches you. Once it has gotten near its top speed, the Tammar won’t be able to slow down or change direction quickly enough to get out of the way of your net. Once it has run into the net, you lift the opening vertically so the Tammar will be sitting in the bottom.

But Liz, what do you do with a Tammar once you have netted it? Do you give it an anesthetic to calm it down?

Nope. You reach into the net, grab the Tammar by the base of its tail and lift the little guy out and into a burlap sack, being careful not to let him kick you in the head/face. Once it’s in the sack the Tammar will be calm, having a similar response to being in the pouch, regardless of the animal’s age or size. You can then tie the sack closed and work with the animal at your leisure, so long as you don’t leave the sack somewhere where the animal will overheat.

So, that is basically what we did. When we had all of the Tammars in sacks we pulled them partway out to check their health (looking for scratches and cuts and any swelling in the jaw that might indicate a condition called lumpy jaw, a bacterial infection of the jaw bone which is often fatal). If the animal was female we checked their pouch for young as well.

sleepy wallaby joey inside the pouch

The best quote of the trip was from another student, best understood when you know that the easiest way to find the pouch is to look for a slightly discolored yellow-brown patch of fur on the underside of the animal:

Student: “James, I can’t get the pouch to open.”

James: “That’s not the pouch.”

checking out wallaby feet

All in all, it was a really awesome trip. We even got to see some red kangaroos being released after a study (they were a little wobbly and drool-y because large kangaroos are sedated when they are captured. These ones were on valium, literally). I also saw my first kookaburra, a really cheeky little guy who showed up when we were learning how to age kangaroos from preserved skulls. He dived out of a tree, knocked a kangaroo skull right out of a woman’s hand and then proceeded to land on our barbecue and stare at us quite insolently.

Tenting out overnight was a bit cold even with my new sleeping bag, but it was still a fun experience, with a nice campfire on Thursday evening (although marshmallows are weird here. They are about half the size of ours and come in white and pink. The pink ones are supposed to taste like raspberry, but they pretty much taste like Cherry Pepto Bismol.)

Saturday was another amazing trip, this one arranged by International Student Services to Royal National Park. 6 people from IH came as well as 2 women from my MConBio program. When we arrived at Royal National Park we canoed for 2 hours into a pseudo rainforesty area.

We even saw a bunch of wild cockatoos.

We then drove over to a lookout point over the ocean and a bridge we could walk over to get a really nice view. Finally we headed over to Wattamolla, where we went on a bush-walk to find some small waterfalls and then headed onto a beach area where I had my first go at throwing a boomerang.

We also learned that aborigines would traditionally rip eucalyptus leaves in half, roll up the halves and put them in their nostrils to clear up cold symptoms. I didn’t go quite that far, but I did discover that the ripped leaves have a very pungent scent. This also explains why you can buy Kleenexes with eucalyptus oil in them here, kind of like the ones with Vicks in them back home.

Saturday night, after we got back from the National Park, I went on an excursion to Star City Casino with two women from IH. I had never been to a casino before so it was a bit of an experience. We ended up getting one girly cocktail each and then we each spent five dollars on a slot machine just to see what it was like. It was actually a really good time, probably in part because none of us lost any more money than we planned on losing. Someday, when I’m less tired, I may go play a round of blackjack just so that I can feel like an International Woman of Mystery.

::Raises Eyebrow Dramatically:: “I also like to live dangerously”

Although I suppose playing Baccarat would be more dashing since it’s 007’s card game of choice. But who knows how to play Baccarat anymore?

I digress. Suffice it to say, it was an interesting week and I’m not surprised that I have slept for 10 hours on multiple nights since.

For the benefit of repeat readers

Our next exciting installment should include a Professional AFL (Australian Rules Football League) Game. I may even be able to explain some of the rules apart from the obvious one: ‘Kill the guy with the ball.’ Stay Tuned.

Hard to believe it has taken me this long to make my next post, but the week has been somewhat crazed.

Wednesday may very well have been one of the best days of my life. I went out to Taronga Zoo in the morning to meet with the Manager of Reptiles about my proposed research project. He was running a bit behind so I got to spend time with the Reptile Division supervisor, Michael. He took me behind-the-scenes, straight back to the tuatara enclosure, popped in, pulled one of them out and let me hold her! For those of you who don’t know this about me, working with tuataras has been a fantasy of mine for better than six years (click here for info on the tuatara). So, not to be cliché, but the moment I was handed that animal was literally a dream come true. I really have wanted to work with tuataras pretty much since the first moment that I found out about their existence. The fact that I am now getting to do it is almost emotional overload…in a good way:

How’d you get that scratch on your arm Liz?

Tuatara claw.

How’d you get that dirt on your flannel Liz?

Tuatara was digging before I picked her up.

Awesome.

Also, I got my question from the other day answered. Yes, Australians who are animal lovers do get excited about American animals we consider somewhat run-of-the-mill. This information came from Michael, the Supervisor of the Reptile Division at Taronga. It turns out he was in Michigan and Ohio about a year ago (we even know a few of the same people from when he visited the Detroit Zoo) and did some herping in the wild (Herping, from the verb to herp: to search for reptiles and amphibians in the wild. It comes from Herpetology, the study of reptiles and amphibians. No, it has nothing to do with Herpes…yes, people have asked me that multiple times. Sigh.). Michael said that, as an Australian in the States, finding garter snakes and eastern fox snakes was quite exciting (for those who don’t know, both species are fairly common in Michigan).

In other news, I have my first cold. It started last week as nausea and lowgrade fever which, thankfully, were short-lived, making way for stuffy nose, cough and sore-throat, yea. I actually held out for a fair amount of time considering that everybody at IH has been sick. And at this point, I don’t really care because I held a flippin’ Tuatara.

Trying to buy cold medicine was interesting though because they don’t have any of the same brands, not even the same chemicals. Paracetamol is the pain killer and Phenylephrine Hydrochloride is the decongestant. Fortunately, the pharmacist must deal with a lot of internationals because he didn’t mind at all explaining to me which was which and what things not to mix. Now that it has been about a week the sore throat is finally going away, ironic because I finally decided to make a doctor’s appointment that is a few days away still. By then I will probably be healthy again.

Wild animal sightings of the week include more flying foxes (one that was in a low branch right in front of me and which I didn’t see until I startled it into flying out of the tree and up into a higher branch. One of my great ambitions is to try to get a look at one when it’s not flying so I can finally see its face.), and my first possum, I think it was a brush-tail or “brushie.” I have also seen a ton of feral cats in the campus area, apparently some woman feeds and looks after them. One of my friends said she saw the woman literally trying to herd cats by clapping her hands and saying “come on , let’s go.” Good luck lady.

The big challenge of the week was getting my first paper finished, an opinion piece responding to the Archbishop of Sydney’s declaration that Western countries are in danger of many social problems due to our decreased birth rates. Because apparently the responsible thing to do now that we have a world population between 6 and 7 billion is to chuck family planning out the window. Heaven forbid that the divorce rate increase now that fewer people stay together for the sake of their 12 kids. Good thinkin’ Cardinal, really top drawer.

Sorry … I just have strong feelings when it comes to overpopulation … can you tell?

At any rate, this week should be loads of fun because we are spending Thursday and Friday at Cowan field station to learn safe trapping and handling of wallabies and kangaroos (as I told Mom, don’t worry, tranquilizer darts will be involved. And, even if they weren’t, I have been practicing my boxing). Many of us will be staying at Cowan in tents overnight so I picked up a cheap sleeping bag which ought to come in handy later on as well. In other travel news, I am spending Saturday up at Royal National Park with a few friends on a trip that International Student Services organized. There will be canoeing, hiking, swimming, and a BBQ. All in all, it should be a very outdoorsy week. If I come back with good pictures, you’re sure to see some. So, stay tuned.

Same Tuatara time, same Tuatara channel.

There is a cookie here called the Tim Tam.  It may be the best thing on the planet.  Tim Tams come in multiple varieties but they are traditionally two chocolate cookie rectangles with a frosting-like cocoa/sugar between them, then dipped in more chocolate.  This, by itself, is good.  However, Tim Tams can be made even better through employment of the “Tim Tam Slam” or “Tim Tam Straw” technique.  Allow me to demonstrate.

Step One:  Procure a box of Tim Tams.  I like the dark chocolate variety.

Step Two:  Remove a Tim Tam from the box.

Step Three:  Bite off just the ends of the Tim Tam.

Step Four:  Procure a  cup/mug of  a cookie-compatible beverage such as tea, hot chocolate, or milk.  I am using milk.

Step Five:  Put one end of the Tim Tam in your mouth.

Step Six:  Lower the other end of the Tim Tam into your beverage and drink the beverage through the cookie, essentially using the cookie as a straw.

Step Seven:  Note that the cookie has been moistened throughout by the beverage, but the chocolate coating manages to maintain the Tim Tam’s structural integrity (e.g. large bits of it will not break off and fall into your beverage as sometimes happens with Oreos or graham crackers).

Step Eight:  Devour the now uber-delicious Tim Tam.

Step Nine:  deliziosi!

Classes are going well so far. The prof for the Animal Behavior course I’m auditing is pretty funny. Wednesday night I went to Coogee Beach with a few of the ladies from my MConBio program since it was one of their birthdays. She found out about a place where you can get a free 300 gram steak with a $4 drink. The steak wasn’t the best I’ve ever had, but it was pretty good, especially for $4 ($7 including fries and salad). I made it back to campus just in time for the Thai students’ Study Break at IH.  Basically, the story behind these is that each nationality chooses a Wednesday night in the term to present something about their culture (as well as some of their traditional food) to the rest of the residents (We North Americans will be doing a Halloween study break in October, of course). One of my Aussie friends was saying that the last time there was a Thai Study Break a lot of the Australian students went running out of the room trying to find water because the food was so much spicier than they expected. I ended up eating an eggplant dish that was spicy, but not too spicy (which is good because the nearest water might have been in the courtyard pond, and it’s pretty sludgy. Even the fish look like they are considering hauling themselves onto land to get some fresh air.).

We’re getting a rather slow start to the semester, with my first assignment not due until the 18^th.  Friday was my first meeting for my Conservation Project course, which our program head (also the Prof. of most of my courses), Des Cooper, decided to have in his office rather than the appointed classroom. One of the aspects of culture here that some of the American students (including myself) have had to adjust to is that alcohol (or ‘grog’ as Des calls it) is an aspect of most social and/or business-type gatherings. So, basically our whole first day of class for the project was sitting in the bio building’s 4^th floor lounge, drinking white wine while Des asked us about ourselves, and about what we wanted to do our projects on. For some of us (particularly those who did their undergraduate degrees at Dry Campuses) having drinks as part of a class was an extremely foreign experience. As far as the actual project is concerned, the guy who is helping to coordinate them is going to check into a few avenues for reptile and amphibian study, but it looks like I may have to settle for studying behavior of kangaroos or potoroos at Cowan field station because of the length of time that it would take to get a new type of research approved by the ethics committee. I should know by the end of the week. Either way, as long as I’m doing behavioral study, I should be happy. For some reason I have been developing a bit of a passion for ethology (maybe it’s the Dawkins I’ve been reading).

In the evening on Friday we had Foundation Dinner at IH. Apparently, this is usually only a semi-big affair at the start of Semester 2. However, this year is the 40^th anniversary of UNSW’s International House, so it became a much bigger deal. It ended up being a semi-formal dinner with instrumental and dance performances and a few speakers. Several of the original IH residents from 1968 showed up, including the first Master of the house who is now 95 years old. But, the best part of the evening was the current residents’ after-party. Even though the stereo’s speakers were so bad that all of the vocalists sounded like R2-D2, I still managed to spend a good amount of time making an idiot of myself on the dance floor, followed by hanging out and chatting with one of my new friends (the one whose 30 gigs of X-men comics I have begun to read and thoroughly enjoy. Who knew that Cyclops’ original name was Slim Summers, rather than Scott? Good change Stan, good change.).

Saturday night was another chance to get onto the dance floor as one of the women in MConBio had a friend with a birthday, so we headed back to the place where we got steaks earlier in the week, called the Palace. The upstairs has dance music and, although I only recognized songs sporadically, the dj was pretty good. Possibly the part of the evening that made me smile the most, however, was that on my way home I saw my first Flying Fox (for those who don’t know, this is a giant fruit-eating bat). Apparently they are quite common, but this was my first sighting. It flew out of one of the trees at the edge of the parking lot by IH and it was huge! I felt quite a child-like sense of wonder as it flapped around the tree, probably looking for a better perch. It’s amazing how animals that some people take for granted as common can be so amazing to those of us who have never been around them in their natural habitat before. I wonder if Australians have this experience with any of our fauna at home……………….Wowwee!  A raccoon!

Very busy weekend.

Friday night was a study-break (funny to call it that when studies hadn’t really started yet) hosted by the senior IH students, basically an opportunity to mingle and get to know some of the people we hadn’t met yet, with hot chocolate and the screening of a terrible Jim Carrey movie called the Number 23. I only watched a smidge of the movie, but did get the chance to have longer conversations with a few different residents. I have always found it easier to get to know people one-on-one than in a group, I guess I just become shy when I feel out-numbered, so any opportunity to have individual conversations is a good one. It also led to some MST3K-esque heckling of Jim Carrey’s performance, which is always a good time (“I even wrote it down, ‘breach hull all die,’ and I went ahead and did it anyway”).

Saturday was the IH picnic at La Perouse, right by Botany Bay, where both Captain Cook and La Perouse himself first landed on Australia, causing Cook to say that Botany Bay would be a decent place to inhabit…though it wasn’t, no fresh water and he also arrived during an atypically verdant season, not very representative of what it is actually like. Even so, it was lovely. We finally got some sun and the water was very blue. Although the WWII fort on the site wasn’t open for tours, we were able to walk down to it and around the rocks it is built upon. They showed some really interesting patterns of wear from the tide and surf, many deep circular impressions, almost as though someone had been carving a set of soup bowls directly into the rock.

There were snails and what looked like barnacles all along the rock as well. We even found a few crabs in the tidal pool areas. Some of the residents played soccer and Frisbee, while the rest of us just stretched out on the grass and soaked in some of the much-missed sun (don’t worry Mom, I wore sunscreen). When lunch arrived (a very American seeming mix of Subway sandwiches and Dominoes pizza) the Master of IH, Bob, told us about some of the history of the area, including the fact that if it weren’t for the American Revolution, Australia may not have ended up getting inhabited by the English when it did. When the US began the fight for freedom from Britain, one of the consequences for the English was that they had to find someplace else to send their convicts; hence the British convict colonization of Australia.

Sunday ended up being quite the endurance battle. The MConBio program (Master of Conservation Biology) was hosting a BBQ featuring meat from the native biodiversity on the Australian emblem, namely kangaroo and emu. However, this is the first year that the BBQ was hosted at the Cowan Field Station, about a 45 minute train ride north of Sydney’s Central train station. Now, I have not had a lot of experience using Sydney public transit yet so, naturally, I contacted a few other MConBio students to see if we could go out to Cowan as a group. I managed to plan to meet two of them in Randwick to catch the bus to the Central train station, and then a train on to Berowra, the nearest stop to Cowan Field Station. From this decision onwards, the trip was entirely ruled by Murphy’s Law. First, we missed the bus we had planned to take out of Randwick because we were at the wrong stop. This happened because there were two stops with nearly identical names, except that in one name the cross streets were listed “X at Y” and the other was “Y at X.” The next bus to where we wanted to be was almost an hour later, so we ended up walking all the way back from Randwick to the bus stop that is right across the street from my dorm, checking the schedules at the few stops we passed on our way there, just to be sure we couldn’t catch one earlier. From the stop near IH there are a few actual sections of sidewalk at which various buses will stop. It took us a while to figure out which one we had to be at but, finally, we got onto the right bus and we were able to get to the train station. From there, we were able to buy round trip tickets to Berowra and we asked a few different CityRail employees which train to get on. All seemed well. We were making good time, passing the right stops and we had been assured that the train would actually stop at Berowra. Well…it didn’t. In fact, the train kept going another 20 minutes, taking us over water where oysters were being cultivated until we reached a fairly backwater stop called Woy Woy (apparently a famous Australian comedian once said of Woy Woy that when he used his electric shaver there, all the lightbulbs throughout town would dim). We were stuck in Woy Woy for about 20 minutes waiting to catch a train back the way we had come, but the quickest train would again pass the stop we wanted. In the end, we had taken three trains back and forth to finally get to Berowra. We arrived at the field station almost 2 and a half hours late.

Even so, it was completely worth it. We met the rest of the new students, ate some native wildlife (this emu was much much better than the last emu I had at a restaurant called Woodruffs in Royal Oak, Michigan. The emu here tasted a lot like steak, even though emu is a bird. Des said it’s because the emu is a runner, like it’s relative the ostrich, so it builds up red meat like cattle, I’m guessing something to do with the mitochondria level in the cells?), and then had a tour of the field station, including wallabys, and red and gray kangaroos. For those of you who have requested cuddly souvenirs of my trip, I checked with our guide and he said they keep a pretty close count of their animals, at least enough to notice if one is missing, so sorry, I won’t be bringing any pouch-toting furry ones home…how about a boomerang?

The trip back was much less eventful, although it was late enough that I missed dinner at IH. I stopped at the Subway in Randwick to get a sandwich instead and a guy who worked there guessed my nationality based solely on the fact that I asked for provolone cheese. FYI, Subways in Australia do not have provolone cheese. Nor do they have oil and vinegar. It was a very Royale with Cheese moment for me.

Le Big Mac

Monday was my last day of idleness. Sadly, the rain returned so my grand plan to reach Bondi Beach has been postponed yet again.

Whatever, I saw kangaroos and wallabys.

Also:

Top Five Reasons why the UNSW library is my new favorite place:

5. It has an IT desk on the main floor to resolve computer issues.

4. The librarian gave me a free “UNSW Library” shoulder bag to carry the books I was checking out, similar to what you’d buy at Whole Foods or the Hardware store.

3. It offers lots of places to sit inside and connect to the university wireless network, particularly useful because when it’s sunny outside it is too bright to be able to see anything on your computer screen in the courtyard and when it’s not sunny outside, it’s probably raining.

2. It has an on-line catalogue that is fairly easy to search and navigate.

1. The Sixth floor is off the Funking Chain! They have almost any Biology-related text you could possibly want for class, as well as bound back issues of Copeia! (for those not as bio-nerdy as me, Copeia is a journal on Ichthyology and Herpetology) It is also quiet and has lots of desks, so I’m sure I will retreat there for study purposes in the future.

Awesome…just really awesome.

Went back to Randwick Thursday morning for more hangers and a prepaid cell phone. Fortunately, I was able to get one that will work in both Australia and New Zealand (as will the hangers), although I will have to get a new SIM card in NZ. I hit a bit of a speed bump trying to get the thing registered because the law requires that you provide them with a residential address to activate your phone and, of course, my normal dorm address didn’t count, but I was able to get it sorted. In other Randwick news, I went into a grocery store called Coles (which an IH resident told me about, but I had originally thought she meant ‘Kohl’s’ since there are several American department stores here). By browsing through I was able to round out my sense of what’s affordable and what’s not. As my Aunt warned, make-up is extremely expensive, I’m talking $20 for a thing of mascara. On the plus side, good tea is really affordable. I ended up getting a 100 bag box of Twinings English Breakfast for about $8. It would probably cost twice that at home and a box that big should last me a whole semester. Tea is definitely the best study drink.

In weather news, it’s still Rain

Rain Rain

Rain Rain

Rain

Rain Rain

Rain

But that’s alright, ‘cept I haven’t bought an umbrella yet….

Went on a pub crawl Thursday night with a bunch of IHers, through the part of the city called “The Rocks.” I think my favorite place we went was Lord Nelson Brewery.  They brew a dark beer that tastes quite like Guiness, but smoother. Another favorite so far is a beer called “Bee’s Knees,” you can really taste the honey in it. Fortunately, the bartenders are very nice everywhere I have been, as none of them minded that I just had water at most of the places we went. This is easy to understand because back home when we Pubcrawl, we go to maybe 3 places, a fairly reasonable number if you are going to get one beer at each and spend about an hour drinking it before moving on. At this Pubcrawl we hit SIX places, and spent only about half an hour at each…..waters all around please! Luckily, most of the other residents I was with were of a similar mind to myself, taking the opportunity to socialize and check out the various places without having to get a pint at every one of them. It was interesting to see the variety of Pubs. We went to one that was quite Australian, one that was Irish, one that was German, etc. The Irish pub had live music, a guitarist and fiddler who were both very talented.  It reminded me of the guy who used to play at the pub in Petosky when I was working at Camp Michigania.

I’d have to say that I’m feeling very ready for classes to start. I’m having a good time just enjoying the company of the other IH residents, but the rainy weather makes it a little difficult to find things to occupy the day. Also, as much as I am enjoying being in this new environment, my primary reason for coming is to learn, and, dorky as it sounds, I can feel my palms itching for a pen and spiral notebook. We’ll have to wait and see if my eagerness lasts once the stress of actually studying sets in, but with courses like Australasian Mammals, World Conservation, and Animal Behavior, how could it not?

uh-oh……Nerd-Alert!