We're tourists. Deal with it.

Bondi Beach!

I love it. Australia's most famous strip of sand (or so the introduction to "Bondi Rescue" says). My guess is that it's extremely touristy to go straight to Bondi on your vacation to Sydney. If you remember, it was one of the first things I did upon my arrival here. While a tourist, do as tourists do. That's how G and Christina felt and I completely agreed. It was important that they make the most out of their stay. So this was our Bondi Beach day.

We got a very early start. I was sitting on the train to Bondi Junction thinking how on a normal beach day, I'd still be laying in bed contemplating movement. That's one good thing about having G around. He's always up and ready to go. And he'd bought a sweet boomerang while we were at Paddy's Market so we were ready to whip that thing around on the sand. As the wheels on the bus went round, Bondi Beach came into view. I was stunned to see that there was nobody on the beach. Nobody. The previous few times I'd been there, I'd laid within a few inches of a half naked stranger. But as if the gods were saying "give that boomerang a throw" all we saw was never-ending sand. 

The first few boomerang throws were nothing short of pathetic. It was the least athletic I've ever felt as I watched the boomerang sink directly into the sand without any cool flight pattern. We discovered our problem. We weren't throwing hard enough. But there was literally no one there so I took the liberty of trying the first really hard throw. I chucked it close to my hardest and saw that it behaved as you would expect a boomerang to behave. It flew so far and started swinging back around, but still fell well short of coming all the way back. We saw there was no way to control this thing and thought it would be good to put it away so nobody steps in front of it and takes one in the neck. It seemed like a solid minute after we put the boomerang away when a life guard came over to scold us. 

"No boomerangs on the beach guys...Too dangerous...You nearly hit that woman...Go up by the park"

It was no use arguing with the guy. There was no camera crew with him and therefore no hope of being featured on "Bondi Rescue". Though, I have seen stupider stuff on that show than the scolding of boomerang throwers. We just laughed at him after he'd left instead. It was our fault though. We should know better than to aim our throws at imaginary women.

Boomerang throwers beware

Our attention shifted to the water.  We commented on how small the waves looked until we got in the there. After about 30 minutes of swimming/body surfing, we agreed that we felt like we'd lost a fight against mother nature. The waves were huge and we caught a couple of them all the way into the shore. We chilled for a while and discovered some interesting tan lines (Christina), but it was food time. We ate kebabs, something it seems like I've been doing a few times a day since getting here. Delicious. Normally I get chicken, but the lamb was calling my name on this day. Mmmm. I just realized I'm getting one after I type this up. No, I have sandwich stuff to use up. Damn.

The beach drained us, but we had plans for the evening that we couldn't pass on. At the aquarium, we bought passes that also allowed us access to the lifts to the top of Sydney Tower. That's the big, tall, gold, spire thing in downtown Sydney. It's the tallest building in the city, standing at 309 meters (1,014 feet). That's where Anthony, Christina, Emily, and myself headed. It was about a 20 minute elevator ride but we finally made it. I took a solid amount of pictures up there. A lot of the them were of shiny white nothing as I forgot to turn the flash off 70% of the time. Even the other ones were nothing special. The real treat was just looking out at the entire city. Oh, and we got photo booth pictures taken. I somehow came out of the experience hating photo booths. Emily went back up to the tower since that night so the day time pictures are completely stolen from her. Check it.

^Darling Harbour^

^My favorite buildling in Sydney^

^$10 American to whoever finds the Opera House in this one^

^St. Mary's Cathedral^

^ANZ (Olympic Park) Stadium^

I love kangaroos.

On this night, I found out that I also like to eat them. The four of us headed to dinner after the tower. It was Wolfie's Grill that provided me with the chance to eat both kangaroo and crocodile for the first time. I know kangaroos are seen as some sort of sacred animal here and they're on the national coat of arms and blah blah. But since there are 50 million of them throughout Australia, more than double the human population, I felt no shame in devouring just a portion of one. And eating crocodile is fair game in my mind. I just get a bad vibe from them. Doesn't it seem like they just deserve to be eaten?

Me with a friendly kangaroo

Me with a delicious kangaroo

Don't worry the picture of me eating was taken first so it definitely wasn't the same kangaroo. Anthony and I both got the kangaroo and crocodile plate while the girls went with extremely boring alternatives. Typical. The kangaroo is the one that looks like your average steak. To a certain extent, thats what it was. It was delicious nonetheless. The crocodile was an interesting thing to eat. I'd say the texture was a combination of fish and chicken. But the taste was something of it's own. Thank god because fish is absolutely disgusting. I think I'd rather eat human. But ignore that and just know that the croc definitely satisfied my taste buds. Just as we planned, the bottle of wine that we ordered was never brought out. We had to ask for it again and finally,  just as we were about finishing our meals, we got it. I feel like waiters think it's a joke when young people ask for a decent bottle of wine. Our guy must have laughed and ignored the request. Anyways we had a good day and a good night. Their visit is going well so far don't you think?

U.S.A. invades Australia

A real size comparison of Australia and the United States (and the U.K. in red but ignore that)

Now, I'm in Australia and you're not: 

For the most part, this statement is true. That wouldn't be the case, though, if some of my blog readers from the states were to come visit me here. When I finalized my plans and knew for sure I was studying for five months in Australia, my friend Anthony (known to many as G) made it clear to me that he would come to visit. I told him that was a nice thought, but I'd just booked my 2,000+ dollar flight and assured him there were better odds of me laughing at a Carlos Mencia joke. 

Despite these absolutely insurmountable odds, I found myself riding the Sydney city rail one Saturday morning on my way to meet Anthony and Christina at the international airport terminal. Either they like me enough to pay loads and come visit, or they saw an opportunity to travel to Australia and I happened to be their way in. We'll call it somewhere in the middle in order to preserve my self-esteem. 

As I waited at the terminal, I was anxious to see them and compare their pale winter skin to my new brown look. I prayed I hadn't missed them off the plane as they were without Aussie mobiles and there were more than a few people in the airport to get lost amongst. I looked up at the same sign I'd looked up at four or five times already. It reassured me their flight had landed. This time, I finally realized that the sign also told me which gate I was meant to meet them at: "Gate C or D". I thought "Holy crap, what gate am I at?" (it was early morning so the brain was at half functionality). Thanks to some serious dumb luck, I saw that the 2 signs above where I had been waiting read C and D. Even better, ten minutes later, I saw my friend's ugly faces coming down the gate D ramp. It was time to plan a little over a week of craziness where we'd end up having heaps of fun which you'll start reading about approximately now.

Christina is the most thorough packer I've ever met. I just want to put that out there. She packed more for an 8 day trip than I brought for my entire 5 months. I wish that was an exaggeration. So the first order of business was to go back to Unilodge and unload everything. This took some heavy machinery and hours of work, but it was worth it to finally get them settled in. Okay, enough digs at X. Also, no offense, but the two of them were in need of a shower. It's a long trip down here. I realize they might not be my friends anymore after reading this. 

Downstairs here is Paddy's Market 

Paddy's market is the biggest and craziest touristy market place I could ever imagine encountering in my human life. This is where I buy most of the souvenirs I get for myself (and very occasionally for others). They have hats, flags, kangaroo parts, jewelry, NBA jerseys (real cheap), crazy amounts of t-shirts, sunglasses (referred to only as sunnies here), beach towels, post cards, fruits, car parts, illegal underground passports, private jets (w/ pilot license), swimming pools, and rattle snakes. I like walking around Paddy's and talking to the extremely knowledgeable salespeople who seem to all come from different parts of Asia. Once, there was a really nice brown Red Sox hat I wanted to buy. I asked the sales guy for a smaller size and he did his job well. He came back with a slightly smaller brown one, though this one had the Yankees logo stitched into the front. He looked at me as if I was then meant to snatch it from him immediately and pay up. What could I do but shake my head and walk away?

 Anyways, this is the spot I thought might be appropriate to take Anthony and Christina the day they arrived. They somehow had the energy to walk towards Chinatown where Paddy's is located and do some pretty serious looking around. I'm not the greatest host, so I had nothing crazy planned for them as they stepped off the plane. But this seemed to be a good way to see bits of the city and buy some cool crap. 

This was sweet enough, but we also got a chance to check out Darling Harbour. We took it easy the rest of the day/night. I think we were all a bit tired and it was pouring. It was probably better to rest up and prepare for Sunday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There's an aquarium in Sydney. It's sort of been on my list of things to do since I've arrived to check it out. Some people here have argued that there are aquariums in the states and going here would be a waste of time and money. That's a pretty stupid thing to say. There are completely different animals at the Sydney aquarium, and since it's not even THAT expensive, me, Anthony, Christina, and Emily decided to go.

The aquarium isn't exactly a beautiful structure. It looks like a large, crappy white tent with a picture of a dugong on it. But it's in Darling Harbour, so at least the walk to it was nice. 

At Darling Harbour en route to aquarium. 

G...can't bring him anywhere.

The inside of the aquarium was a lot cooler looking. Right off the bat there were some good animals to check out. After taking 18 minutes to figure out how to work Emily's sister's camera, I was finally able to do just that. Platypus...one of the first animals we saw. Now that's the way an aquarium walk should start. They ease you in with the decently exciting animals and gradually build up to the big kahunas. I'm talking dugongs baby. They're native to the Eastern hemisphere, so I don't want to see anybody from the states commenting on how they see these all the time. In your face. But you may have seen a manatee (the same damn thing except a dugong's tail is like a dolphin's while manatees are paddle-like.) Thanks Wikipedia for making me sound marginally intelligent. It only took 15 minutes of back and forth walking down a ramp to get to the glass observatory tube at the bottom of the pool. Pretty much worth it to get this close to an animal like this.

You should have seen this one going to town on the lettuce. Picture Queen Latifah with a plate of donuts in front of her. But we had to move on from this tank. We walked through some more dark hallway with tanks filled with Australian ocean life. There weren't three minutes that went by where we didn't hear a child yelling something about the characters of Finding Nemo. But for me, the next big attraction was the shark tank. It was the exact same thing as the dugong tank but with sharks. I hope you're following. Another long walk down back and forth ramps to this:

They were some scary looking things. But they weren't alone in the tank. There were enormous sting rays in there too. I'm talking the size of an average bedroom. If those were the ones that got Steve Irwin, then props to him for having the sweetest death ever. 

I've always wondered why they put heaps of other animals in the same tank as the sharks. Do they not eat them? There were fish and turtles swimming all around amongst them. All I'm saying is it would suck to be a fish swimming free in the ocean with your school and then be caught and thrown in a small pool with 5 beastly sharks. Good fun. I'll throw a couple more random aquarium photos your way at this point.

As if we'd just gotten off a ride at Disney, we were thrown into the aquarium gift shop before we were allowed to exit. But I couldn't stand to be surrounded by stuffed animals for too long, so we had to leave. There was still plenty of the day left and we wanted to make some cool dinner plans. It was grill on the roof time. We went to the grocery store and got our supplies then headed up to the roof. It had been raining a bit and there was a layer of water for us to slip on, but that didn't dampen our spirits enough to ruin our barbie. Do I need to specify that barbie is not a plastic doll? We put our coins into the slots on the grill and fired it up. Hamburgers aren't just good in the northern hemisphere. I also saw what it looks like when a hot dog falls from five stories up (I'm really getting a good education down here). And what did I have planned for nighttime activities for my guests who traveled a million miles to get here? 

...We played Cranium. 

You all love that game, admit it. What would you rather do on a vacation? And this one is an Australian version. Every now and then you'll get a trivia question about cricket or something. It puts a little fun twist into the game. I'm pretty sure Anthony and Christina ended up winning? Someone correct me if that's wrong. But yeah, they had Cranium experience and it showed. 

Oh but they were in Australia, so how about some fun that couldn't be had in Massachusetts. One and a half days of their trip were already over so we quickly made an itinerary and booked some stuff for the rest of their stay....

   

Not Quite New Orleans

I realize I haven't blogged for awhile. But after looking at my calendar seeing if there were any cool events coming up, I realized the blog would soon explode with posts. This is the first of this explosion. My finger came across two words and one giant gay parade/festival, Mardi Gras. In the states, this parade is not intended solely to show gay pride (with the beads and all that accompany them...you know). HOWEVER, here it's a totally different story. Big old gay pride parade. I'm only here once so I was totally in. We're not in New Orleans, but I figured it wouldn't disappoint. Oh no, not another excuse to drink and wander the city. 

Truthfully, the only reason I was so aware of the upcoming festival was that a friend from home (Wuttup Tina!) was coming to stay with me in Sydney with a friend. I've dubbed this weekend the Wollongong Invasion (Tina studies in Wollongong, AUS) to pay homage to the Mass Invasions which occur annually in North Carolina. This paragraph is a 7.8 on the digression scale. 

The day of Mardi Gras came and could not be wasted. Tina and Megan (Wollongobstoppers) wanted to see the city, and since I pretty much know every nook and cranny, I was happy to share my expertise. So we basically wandered aimlessly. We walked by the famous St. Mary's Cathedral, a massive structure. To get an idea of its size, take Ste. Marguerite D'Youville (Margaritaville) from back home and multiply it by the entire town of Dracut. There were multiple alters and huge beams supporting the incredibly tall ceiling. After taking about 5-10 pictures inside this place, I walked into the gift shop in the back (because all churches have gift shops these days) and found out that you need to purchase a permit in order to take photos inside. All of us ignored this and walked back into the pretty part of the church for more pics. I don't think God will be as mad at me as he'll be at whoever scarred this place by deciding to put an obnoxious gift shop inside such a beautiful place of worship. On my last post I may have had the New South Whales police after me for posting pictures in the opera house. This time it'll be the pope. 

The cathedral is really awesome though. It's the kind of place that makes you sit and stare in awe, wondering if you're really there. It even had a cool little spiral staircase that led up to the slightly offset pulpit. I'd like to catch a mass here before I leave. Unfortunately, I'll be away for Easter. 

Anyways, we continued on to the Sydney Botanical Gardens and then on to the Opera House for some more photo opps. It was a long and hot day of walking, sweating, and picture taking. There was only one way to bring the daylight portion of Mardi Gras to an end: 30 cent soft serve from McDonalds. 

The Mardi Gras night life was finally here. YES!

So with high hopes of a smashing Mardi Gras extravaganza, my pals and I bought the very best 2-for-18$ boxed wine Liquor Land had to offer and swallowed them both. It may have been the wine talking, but I instantly decided I needed facepaint before we left for the parade. Unfortunately there was none in sight. But, it is a gay celebration after all. And Emily did have some pretty face paint-like eyeliner...I put makeup on my face is what I'm trying to say. I realize every man who was reading this has now closed the internet window in disgust, but I thank the ladies who are sticking with me to the end of the post. 

It was probably a 50 dollar tube of eye liner, but this moment called for it to be rubbed all over my face in no particular design. It doesn't count as wasting when you're drunk. Let me stress that it was not neatly applied under my eyes. Emily was kind enough to smear it on my cheeks, forehead, ears, and neck. I think I can find a picture. 

Tina y yo

Unfortunately, we were exactly on time for the parade. What this meant was that we were going to have the worst view of all time since thousands had packed the streets early due to something they have in Australia called thinking ahead. We fought our way through the crowd until we got as close as we possibly could. Through the arms, legs, masks, and feathers, we could barely make out any of the parade. I was confused. Where are all the beads being thrown about? Why are we all looking at the parade rather than mingling/partying? It seemed like everyone's eyes were so focused on the street that they forgot we were all trying to have a good time. This surprised me since there's no way everyone except me was able to perfectly view the parade. 

From what I could see of it though, the parade was good. There were extravagant costumes that left very little to the imagination. Clothing was apparently optional for parade participants....unfortunately. They were also allowed to whip each other which I found interesting. There were crazy masked dancers frolicking about back and forth across the street. Rainbow flags flew everywhere. It probably would have really been something to see if only I could have seen it. My hopes were so high for my first ever Mardi Gras that I was unfortunately left with an empty feeling of  "what now" as the parade came to an end. I probably won't ever go out of my way to experience the New Orleans version. This was the closest I may ever come and it was only mediocre. 

In no way was this going to ruin the night. We continued on (me almost getting into a fight with some non-English-speaking hooligans who intentionally bumped into me on the street) and ended up having a pretty good time. Late dinner and drinks at Scruffy Murphy's and a bit of dancing at Side Bar. It was an amazing time until Tina ended up with someone's drink all over her. That put a bit of a damper (pun intended) on the night, but overall I'd say it was groovy. Did I just say groovy? Anyways, I hope the Wallygongers decide to visit again so we can further explore this crazy city with them.

I'd post some Mardi Gras pictures up here but you'd only like those if you're into blurry photos of nothing. Keep an eye on this TNT-stuffed blog. It's gonna blow (in a good way).

They let me inside the Sydney Opera House

Some of us bought tickets to see "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the Sydney Opera House. I really couldn't wait to go since I'd just read this play a few months ago in my Shakespeare class at UMD. It very well could be my favorite Shakespeare play. That or Titus Andronicus.  I kind of want to start this blog over because I'm starting to sound like a nerd. Too late, I've continued typing too far at this point. 

I'll set the scene. It was a gorgeous Sydney midsummer night. Very fitting, for in my hand was a ticket to "A Midsummer Night's Dream". I got off the bus and walked a short while before my eyes ran into this:

We all stopped and took seventeen photos each before we proceeded into the opera house (off to the right in the picture). The interior as I walked in was really cool. I don't know how to describe it and I didn't take a picture so deal with the fact that I saw it and you didn't. I definitely felt out of place though. We entered with a group of people in their early 20's. Everyone else there looked like they were born in the early 20's. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say we were the only ones who weren't old enough to potentially have grandchildren. The Shakespeare crowd must be a bit older than what I'm used to seeing at Showcase Cinemas. They also seemed more calm about the whole "being in the opera house about to see a world famous play" thing. I was genuinely pumped to be there. After some people bought a few snacks or whatever, we entered the enormous concert hall. I later found out this is the larger of the two main venues at the opera house. The other is the slightly smaller opera theatre. 

Why was a play being performed in the concert hall instead of the theatre? I was about to find out. But first it was time to find our seats. How exciting. It was extremely important to me that I find the correct seats without getting lost. I never want to be the person walking around absentmindedly looking like a tourist more and more every second. Especially at the Sydney Opera House. I figured they wouldn't be good seats. We got them pretty cheap. But that wasn't the case (entirely). As we walked up the stairs, and then more stairs...and then some more stairs, I finally spotted our row. We sat and I was pleasantly surprised by our view. We could see the whole entire concert hall. AKA we were in the very last row. I chose to look at it like this: Other people have to turn around to see just how big the place is. I was able to take it all in right from the comfort of my forward-facing seat. I was also far away from anyone who could yell at me for taking pictures (which I hear is not allowed but I'm not even sure). They're probably on their way to arrest me right now for posting these next few photos. Note the lack of youth in the audience.

I'd like to thank ^this^  gentleman for standing and disrupting 

what otherwise would have been a flawless picture.

You might notice that the stage has no set. There's an orchestra right in the middle of it. Confusing. I thought we were seeing a play. Unfortunately, there were no crazy sets or costumes. The actors simply walked through the musicians and recited their lines. It was still an amazing show, but much of the creative potential that "A Midsummer Night's Dream" has was stripped away by limiting the set like this. Still, the acting was great and they still managed to entertain me a bunch. Just watching the musicians play was something else. These are the professionals. I saw a very high quality show at one of the world's most famous venues. Maybe I'll go back to see something else that catches my eye. They have a Jerry Springer play showing there soon, no lie. The back row has my name all over it. 

A good way to tell how high you are on the obnoxious tourist scale is to see how long you stay after the show taking pictures outside. Since we were by far the last ones there, snapping away an hour or so after the last guests had left, I'd say we set a tourist record. You would have too if you were seeing the things we were seeing. I'll leave you with these nighttime photos to enjoy until I get around to my next entry. 

ADIOS

Aussie Life

I thought I was going to be really clever on this post. I thought this one up weeks ago while I was still in the states. The idea was to do a little mythbusters segment. We've all heard that the toilets flush in the opposite direction in Australia. I don't know where this came from, but I've heard it since I was a young warthog. Of all the things I could have been getting excited about in preparation for this trip, the toilet flush thing basically reigned supreme. I even took the time to record a video of  a typical American toilet flush before I left so I could post it here to compare it to a typical Australian flush. Try to imagine how stupid I looked holding my brand new camera over the toilet and flushing, capturing every second for you guys. Let's consider the myth. Take a second to look at the two flushes and make your own decision. 

    American

  Australian 

Right. I think we can pretty much consider this myth busted. The intense Australian flush not only startles me, it sucks straight down with no directional flow whatsoever. Boo. I was borderline upset to find that all Aussie toilets (that I've seen anyways) flush like this. I don't want to make it seem like this toilet fascination has totally consumed me, but I have done some research on the matter. You may have noticed the two flush buttons on top of the toilet. One is a half flush for liquid matter and one is a full flush for the other thing. Stop me if it's getting too gross. They also don't use plungers down here. Their toilets are better I guess and a plunger is a tool used by weird Americans. When I get home, I'm investing in an Australian toilet for the house. 

At least the toilets aren't exactly the same. That would have made this mythbusting experience even more boring than it already is. 

This isn't the only thing that's different here. My university orientation experience was nothing like what you'd see in any school across the United States. It was a few weeks ago but it's cool enough to talk about for sure. 

UTS threw international students a cocktail party which involved free beer, wine, and champagne for all of us. It also involved me double fisting to make the most out of the three hour event. There were responsible-looking faculty at this event getting their fix of the free booze as well. If it hadn't yet hit me that I wasn't in America anymore, this did it. Get jealous.

FREE

FREE

After the cocktail party we went on the pub crawl that was also organized by the school. It showed us a couple of good pubs in The Rocks and gave me an opportunity to drink a quick litre mug of beer. Solid. 

Not free, but still good

I swear everything seen in these pictures is 100% legal for me here. This beer mug was so big I could probably fit all the Australian change I've been accumulating into just two of them. An exaggeration, but I'm trying to make a point here. The change that inhabits my pocket/wallet/desk/floor space is getting a bit out of hand. The worst part is the infamous 2 dollar coin. This is the most valuable coin they have here yet it's the smallest in size. Try to imagine the USA coming out with a two dollar coin that is the same exact size as the penny. It's worth 200 times as much but takes up the same amount of room in my pocket. Every time I buy something I have to remind myself that it's worth taking the tiny coin back from the cashier. This is also why whenever I hear a coin drop on the ground, I immediately stop what I'm doing and crouch down in public like an idiot in search of whatever treasure may have escaped my pocket. It's funny to watch all my American friends struggle to remember that coins have worth here.

The ridiculously tiny 2$ coin (with US penny)

The other coins. Left to right: 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c, and 1$

The notes aren't that hard to use luckily. They're colour coded. Yeah, it's Monopoly money. I don't feel like I'm actually spending anything when I hand over a purple piece of currency. The cool thing about the notes is that they're completely water proof. I don't have to worry about putting them through the wash (not that my laundry will be done with any consistency). 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let's talk about some of the things that can be watched on the gorgeous, 19-inch, snowy-pictured television I have in my room. Well, I'll just talk about it for now since I'm the one posting. But feel free to give your comments afterwards. When I sit down to watch TV here, it's a long process. I have to put some deep thought into it. Which of the five channels will I choose? On one station, there will be some sort of Australian soap opera. The only reason this potentially interests me is that a girl in my film class stars in one of them. I need to find out which one and when it airs when i see her this week. Normally I'd rather drag my knees across cement than watch a soap opera so I flip to the next station. Here's an unfamiliar face: Oprah Winfrey. I thought I was going to be able to escape Oprah's control over what people do and buy. This episode was about living a long, healthy life. I decided to leave it on (strictly for background noise, seriously). Apparently drinking goat milk can extend your life. Some old Italian guy on the show had been drinking it since childhood so its got to be the real deal. 

Like a true American, I absorbed Oprah's every word and immediately vowed to run out to the store and grab some goat milk ASAP. I must have told Lauren every day: "I'm getting the goat milk today". But again, like a true American, I was too lazy to actually go get the stuff. Eventually, I think Lauren got fed up with all my talk. I walked into Unilodge one day and she slammed a carton of goat milk down on my desk. Or did she just hand it to me? I don't know, but slamming it seems more dramatic so that's what we'll go with. We immediately cracked it open and had a taste. When I saw Oprah drink it, she looked like she was chewing on it. Fortunately, this milk went down pretty smooth for me. Of course, I forced other people to try it (despite their repeated attempts at declining) and got mixed reactions. I'm going to have to do further research, but if it really does add to your life, I have every reason to buy it again the next time I need milk (which coincidentally is today). 

Before the goat milk talk I believe I was blabbering about the television. You'll see a whole lot of American shows. "Two and a Half Men" (very popular), "The Simpsons", "Everybody Loves Raymond", "Beauty and the Geek", "David Letterman", and my personal favorite "The Ellen Degeneres Show".  I came to Australia hoping the TV was going to be crappy so I wouldn't get addicted to any shows and become a couch potato. I think I got my wish. As good as Ellen is, I don't feel like I'm missing out when I skip it in favour of a more quality study abroad experience. We did rent season one of the Aussie comedy "Summer Heights High" though. Whoever has seen it knows just how necessary of a decision that was. 

One show I'd wanted to catch is "Bondi Rescue". They pretty much show all kinds of emergencies and lifeguard rescues at the nearby Bondi beach. I've been to this beach a few times and have seen the camera crew doing their work. That got me really interested. A few days ago I was finally able to tune in. It was nothing like what I imagined. Maybe it was a boring episode, but I wanted shark attacks and I got beach arguments and cuts on the leg. Bondi Rescue is not dead to me, but I'm temporarily rescuing myself from the program so no time here is wasted. 

I have HEAPS more to write about. I've just been a tiny bit lazy and I'm again struggling with my internet. More to come.