Long weekend excitement

Well the rain didn’t listen... after staying in most of Saturday, we decided to go on a power walk before dinner. It was the most intense walk I’ve ever been on, the Swedish girls don’t mess around, but it felt good to actually do something with my day.

Sunday was the National Rugby League Grand Final where the Manly Sea Eagles played the Melbourne Storm. After losing an hour overnight (I am now 16 hours ahead of Central time) we all made it to brunch and set off for the game. Our tickets included public transportation which was really nice. After a ferry and two train rides, we made it to Olympic Park. It’s a bit farther from central Sydney than I imagined. The rain stopped for a while, but it was still very overcast and everything was pretty spread out so I didn’t get a chance to explore much of the park. There was a food court set up outside the stadium, and a pre-game party with a band and a lot of drunken crazy fans. Manly was definitely the majority, but I guess that makes sense since we’re so close. We learned the basic cheer of the evening “Man-ly” (they aren’t very creative) and hung out for an hour or so before entering the stadium. It was impossible to get seats for everyone together, so we all split up... I sat with Melissa, Mia, Alex, and AJ. Our seats were right at midfield but very high up, at first we were a little upset, but in the end I think we were able to see more of the game than those that bought cheaper tickets in the end zones. I probably should have done some research on the Manly team, or even rugby in general, before the game since I know very little about the sport. Luckily there were some nice guys behind us that didn’t mind answering our questions. The game was so much fun, rugby is pretty hardcore and the fans are awesome. It’s more fast-paced and action packed than American football. There were over 80,000 people at the game, I’d say 2/3 were Manly supporters... and Manly won 40-0! People continued to cheer “Man-ly” and shout “40-nil” the whole way home. Felicia and Kristin were entertaining us with some Swedish rap on the train rides home. Everyone was so energized from the game and all in great spirits.

We finally arrived back to Manly by 10pm. I have never seen so many people in town... I didn’t think Manly held that many people. All of the bars had hundreds of people lined up to get in, they were all at capacity. People were cheering on the streets still decked out in their gear, and the police were in full force trying to keep everything under control. I didn’t feel like waiting in line over an hour to get into a bar, so Melissa and I headed over to our friend Sebastian’s house to hang out for a few hours before heading back to college. I’m sure the bars would have been fun, but it was really nice to relax after such an eventful day.

Today started out with more rain but we went down to Manly anyway. It was the last day of the jazz festival and markets by the beach. It finally stopped raining around noon and we were able to enjoy shopping and some great live jazz music. There were so many great vendors at the markets this weekend; fortunately I limited the amount of cash I took with this morning. I love looking at the handmade clothing and jewellery. I found a few gifts and a nice pearl necklace for myself. Eventually it got so warm I had to take my sweatshirt off, and within 15 minutes I could feel my arms and chest starting to get sunburned. I didn’t have sunscreen with (since it was raining when I left) so we walked back up to college. I spent the rest of the afternoon taking a nap and doing homework. It was nice to have time to unwind from the weekend and prepare for the week of school ahead. I’m really not looking forward to putting my uniform back on for my 8am class tomorrow.

This upcoming weekend I was planning a trip to the Blue Mountains, but instead will be attending a make-up class on Saturday. Since today was a public holiday, classes were canceled, but we have to make them up on the weekend. This logic makes very little sense to me, what is the point of having a day off if we have to make up the class on a Saturday? On Sunday (providing the weather cooperates) a few of us may go into the city and visit the Chinese Friendship Garden, Paddington markets, and do some shopping on Oxford Street. I’m looking forward to that already.

More Australian lingo... less fun, but more commonly used:

Zipper crossing= cross walk, they have zigzag lines leading up to them. Unlike America, a painted cross walk is the only time pedestrians have the right of way in Australia. Even with cross walk lights, pedestrians must yield to traffic.

Footpath= sidewalk

Queue=waiting line, this one is very common and I actually use quite a bit

Also... they say tomato with an “ah” sound for the a and will look at you funny if you say it normally. It happens quite often since we have fried tomato slices with cheese on top every morning there is hot breakfast.

Due to my almost non-existent internet connection and lack of patience, I didn't add any pictures to this blog, but there are more up on my website