And Now For A Tour...

Not much has happened since my last post, so I decided to make this post a tour of my apartment!

But first a little update:  This past weekend I went to Glebe Market which is another market near where I live.  It was within walking distance so my friends and I walked there and spent the day looking at what everyone was selling.  The weather has been really nice lately (high 60's, 70's, and it even hit 80 one day!).  I've spent a lot of time hanging out outside and doing work on the huge fields that are all over campus.  The campus is covered in fields and benches so it makes it really easy to find a place to do work in the sun.  I still can't believe that this is considered winter here!

And here's the tour...

This is my room

My desk

My Wardrobe

This is the entry to my apartment.  My room is the first door on the right side of this picture.

This is my kitchen

The dining area

The living room area

This is the view from my apartment's balcony

It looks out onto a court yard between 2 of the apartment buildings

Friday Night Football

This past Friday I went to a Friday night football game (aka a rugby match) with my study abroad program.  We took a train out to the ANZ / Sydney Olympic Stadium.  The game was a NRL (National Rugby League) match between the Bulldogs and the Tigers.  My study abroad advisor, Fiona, was cheering for the Bulldogs and got all of us to as well.  Her and her husband helped explain the rules of rugby to us.  I actually kind of understand the game, but everything happens very quickly so it was still hard to follow.  At half time, they had little kids (probably 8 to 10 years old) come onto the field and play small rugby matches against each other.  It was really cute!

On Saturday, my friend Bekah and I went to Sydney's Justice and Police Museum.  For my crime class, one of our mid-semester paper options was to write about this museum so we went to check it out.  It was a really cool museum that covered all of Australia's crime and policing from when it was founded up to the present.  They had a lot of old police uniforms, convicts' head molds, and weapons.  They also had one room that was set up as an old police station, one room that was an old court room, and one room that was an old prison cell.  Each room told a different part of Australia's history, such as how police have developed and Australia's bushrangers.  It was cool to learn about that aspect of Australia's history.  Afterward, we went to Paddy's Market, which is a huge market place near Darling Harbour.  I also tried my first meat pie and really liked it!

The weather here has been really nice lately!  It has been in the 70's the last few days and made it up to 77 today.  It's crazy to think that this is the winter here!

And to update on my classes: I turned in my first paper on Monday!

Bulldogs!

The Bulldogs had a huge blow-up bulldog head tunnel

The Bulldog mascot 

The players running out of the bulldog head tunnel

Supporting the Bulldogs

The Olympic torch

My first meat pie!

Bekah tried it with me

I got to try on an NSW police coat

Behind bars in the courtroom :(

Taking mugshots in the sheriff's office

South Pacific in the South Pacific

This past weekend I got to go to the Sydney Opera House.  The whole outing was planned by the study abroad program that I am on.  Before the Opera House, we met up for dinner (or really dessert) at a restaurant called Pancakes on the Rocks.  The pancakes were really good!  Mine was called the Vanilla and Chocolate Surprise with one buttermilk pancake and one chocolate pancake (that tasted like chocolate cake).

At Pancakes on the Rocks

Delicious Pancakes!

Afterwards, we walked around the Harbour to the Opera House.  We went to see Roger and Hammerstein's musical "South Pacific."  I had never seen it before and really enjoyed it!  I was sitting in the second to last row of the balcony but in the very centre of the row so I had a pretty good view.  At intermission, we went to explore the Opera House.  It was really pretty.  The view of the bridge and the city from inside was gorgeous.  The back of the Opera House is right at the water so when you look out from the inside it looks like you are just on the water.

Not much else new to report.  This weekend should be fun though.  I'm going to my first Rugby match!  I just have to figure out the rules first...

The Opera House was lit up in blue when we went 

On the steps inside

Cameras weren't allowed but I snuck a picture anyway :)

This was the view from inside the Opera House during intermission.  It looked even cooler in person!

I snuck another picture before the second act

Classes Have Officially Begun

Classes started this week.  Its been quite a change going from a school of about 6,000 with classes of about 30 people to a school of 50,000 students with classes of 300 to 500.

The way that classes are set up here is different than at Emory.  Here you have a lecture and a tutorial.  The lectures are all taught by different professors.  Instead of having one professor teaching the course, there is one professor who organizes the course and a lot of the classes are taught by different people.  The tutorials are smaller, with only about 20 to 30 people.  These are either taught by grad students (called Tutors) or by the Professor.  I think my classes will be interesting.  I'm taking a Psychology class called Cognitive and Social Psychology, a class called Youth Cultures, a class called Sociology of Childhood and Youth, and a class called Crime, Punishment and Society.

The classes have a lot more reading and writing than tests.  Only my Psychology class has tests and quizzes (and it only has 2).  The rest of my classes are all graded based on papers and participation in the tutorials.

Its been weird watching the olympics in another country.  A lot of the events that I had wanted to see were either not being shown because Australia was playing in something else or were airing in the middle of the night.  However, its been cool seeing Australia playing in the sports that they are good at, and I've seen a bunch of interviews with the Australia athletes.

I have been getting more used to living here.  When crossing the street, I look the right way almost every time.  I even tried Vegemite the other day.  It was disgusting; I would not recommend it.

The other night I went to a bar called Orbit Bar for my friend Katie's birthday.  This bar is really cool because it is on the 47th floor of a circular office building in the middle of downtown Sydney.  The area of the bar where the seats are located slowly rotates around the building so you get a 360º view of the city, Darling Harbour, and the Opera House.  The view was amazing!  We went at night so the city was lit up and it looked really pretty.

I'm going to see a show at the Opera House tonight.  My study abroad program is taking us to dinner and a show.  Not sure how much I'll like the opera part, but I've heard that the Opera House is gorgeous on the inside.

My official University of Sydney ID card!

The Square where the bar was

The bar was at the top of this very tall building

The Opera House with the Harbour Bridge's shadow on it

Pretty sunsets!!

This was a store front window that had a guy sitting inside it.  We think he was a fan staying there and watching all of the olympics on 9 different screens for the entire 17 days.

View of the Harbour Bridge from the Orbit Bar 

View of the city from Orbit Bar

The same shot from my friend's much better camera

The Sydney Opera House from my friend's much better camera