Happy One Month Anniversary to Me and Australia!

Yes, today marks a whole month of me being in this amazing country. How exciting! I'm loving it here.

Dave, my friend from UR who's studying in Melbourne ("Mel-bin," Aussies don't believe in pronouncing Rs), came up to visit for the weekend. I felt like a bad host because most of the weekend he went off and did his own thing. Basically he'd wake me up really early, saying, "Hey, I'm off, call me later," and then head into the city to do some sight seeing. However, I did spend Friday afternoon with him. We wandered around the Rocks and did the tour of the Sydney Opera House. They were both a lot of fun. Our tour guide had a really annoying British accent--I didn't quite believe it was real. However, the tour made me really excited to actually go see something at the Opera House!!

Friday night Club Ex held a pub crawl in Manly, a suburb and home to one of the most famous beaches here. We were supposed to catch the ferry out of Circular Quay to Manly at 6, but traffic was so horrible that the bus took FOREVER to get there. We ended up catching the 7 PM one. Ralph and I were both hungry and we had time to kill, so we grabbed some McDonald's. I got a Happy Meal, and the woman behind the counter asked me if I wanted the toy--to which I replied yes, of course! I had a mascot for the rest of the night. I named him "Lee Man," since we were going to Man-ly...The pub crawl was a lot of fun. David got to meet some of my friends, I got to meet some other people and we all got to explore some different places. The last ferry left at 12:20 AM, so Derek, Julian, Charlotte, and I ran to catch it (Dave left early to get some sleep). There are two different types of bus passes, Travel Ten and Travel Pass, and the Travel Pass can be used on trains, ferries, and buses. Derek and I tried to use our Travel Tens, thinking that they could be used in the same fashion, but alas, we couldn't! Since the ferry was about to take off, the guy let us go through...so we got a $6 ferry ride for free!

Saturday was Saint Patrick's Day, so of course my flatmates and our friends all headed to the city. Most people start celebrating at about 2 PM, but since we had had the pub crawl the night before, we all headed in at about 8 PM. We were going to try to find a real Irish pub, but we heard that they were all filled. We ended up going to the Three Wise Monkeys (where Sarah and I sang a few pub songs in loud, obnoxious voices...no one joined in) and Scruffy Murphy's (sounds Irish, but that's all that's truly Irish about it...it had a Green Day cover band playing). Outside of Three Monkeys, we got stopped by a promoter for "The Spanish Club" (already, a promising club, judging from its very original name). He stamped our wrists to get us in for free. We walked in, each bought a drink, realized that the DJ sucked and the sangria wasn't too hot either, and left. Overall, it was a fun night. (I also got another Happy Meal while waiting for the bus, since a bunch of us were hungry again...this time I got "Seamus" Johnny Bravo--he needed an Irish sounding name!)

Sunday Sydney was celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Harbour Bridge. They closed down the bridge to traffic and people could walk over it on the road. At first I wasn't going to go because I thought you had to register beforehand and all of the other events sounded lame, but Dave texted me to let me know that it was great crossing the bridge. Derek and I headed in (the rest of my flatmates went later on in the night).

Everyone crossing the bridge got free neon green hats. At first I thought it was a silly expense (they were predicting that over half a million people would cross the bridge), but looking over the sea of green heads crossing the bridge, I realized that the city knew it'd be a great photo op. There were so many people preparing to make it into a commerical success; I saw inflatable bridge hats and ribbon streamers for sale.

As we walked across the bridge, speakers blared music and news clips from the past 75 years. The bridge pilgrims entered with cheesy music playing (possibly the national anthem of Australia, I'm not sure what it sounds like...hey, if someone heard the Star Spangled Banner being blared over speakers with no words, they'd think it was cheesy too), then entered a world of the Beatles' "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and Olivia Newton-John's "Physical." Derek and I danced around and sung to the songs we knew, dancing as ridiculously as possible, just to say that we had crab-walked and jazz-squared on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. As we completed our journey, wind chimes sang a goodbye song.

Anyone walking the bridge was funnelled to the Rocks and Circular Quay or Darling Harbour. Derek and I chose the latter and contemplated going to the IMAX theater (the biggest IMAX in the world). However, out of what was playing, nothing grabbed our attention. Instead, we got some cheap burgers and "chips" (french fries) and threw fries at the seagulls (yes, Aussies have seagulls, and they are the same rat scavengers here). Seagulls are really territorial. You throw one fry in there, and they all start screaming at each other. Crazy.

So, after a month of being here, I can say that I've become an expert at public transport, been an activist and a tourist, used my mighty morphin' powers in front of the Opera House, and done the Wizard of Oz skip over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Not a bad start to my stay here, and I have another three and a half months to discover even more!!