Beginning to find my feet.

G'day!

It's after midnight here, which means it is OFFICIALLY the beginning of my third year of tertiary study, and my year abroad at the University of Newcastle. No, not that one, the other one. The sunnier one (supposedly). It is also two weeks since I said all my goodbyes and casually hopped on a plane to the other side of the world. It's gone pretty quickly!

The last few days have been pretty busy. We went to the Reptile Park on Friday which - despite my hopes and prayers to God/Buddha/Dumbledore/Voldemort (hey, I was hedging my bets) - was every bit as soggy as I feared it would be. It was also, however, way more fun! There were (as implied by the name, duhh) lots of lizards, crocs, crawly things, jumpy things and slithery things. There were also a number of more personable individuals - such as Matilda the Wombat, Hugo the Galapagos Tortoise and a number of ADORABLE little Kangaroos! I did my best Brit-on-tour impression and fed the rather soggy roos handfuls of stale sugarpuffs whilst attempting to ignore the permanent wall of water cascading from above. It was so fun though, and we hot-footed it to the cafe soon afterwards to warm up with chips and pumpkin soup, as the stale sugarpuffs didn't really appeal. Funny that.

Startled koala

Jus' Chillin'

I have pictured this moment many times... and it was never this soggy.

Skippy!

Friday night was party tiiiiime! One of the girls from Leeds Uni, along with her many and varied housemates opened their doors (/cupboards/beds/ipods) to 50-or-so of the best international academics Newcastle has to offer, for a night of intellectual stimulation. Needless to say, the goon flowed, and was rapidly followed by table dancing and group disney singalongs. CLASSY. I awoke on Saturday morning with a fairly unpleasant goon-over and a camera of pretty wonderful photos.

Presentable pre-goon photo...

Goon-head.

Saturday was spent wandering in the rain, and moaning intermittantly about the state of my head due to a severe hangover-induced sugar overdose. Bleurggggh. (Don't worry Mum and Dad, I'm pretty sure my brain cells have survived the goon. 9+1=11. See, my maths skills are as good as ever.)

Today the weather FINALLY took pity on us poor, summer-starved Northern Hemispherians, and the sun came out to play! We headed back to uni to make the most of it at a Sunday afternoon shindig at Edwards Hall. I can now see where the $450 accommodation acceptance fee goes! It was amazing - free BBQ (obviously), free coffee bar, free pancakes, free drinks, free henna tattoos, free facepaints, live music... It was pretty impressive. Afterwards us Evatt House newbies were treated to a 'mystery dinner' (More free food. It's a hard life down under.) which turned out to be pizza and wedges at a bowling alley, with free bowling, free lazerquest (woo!) and free karaoke (...woo?). It was a pretty fun way to end O-week!

So there we go. The last few days have been really good, although reading through this entry I realise you'll probably find it a bit boring. Well screw you, I've fed a Kangaroo!

End of week 2 in Australia.
Injuries sustained: Surprisingly few considering the whole 'rain = slippery surfaces + Livvy's lack of co-ordination skills = disaster' thing.
Random Aussie observation: All sweets are called lollies. Even those which aren't on a stick. Oh, and leggings are called tights, because tights are called stockings. They're a funny bunch down under.
Best Aussie invention: GO-LOW. A shop selling iterally everything you could ever NOT need, for cheapy cheap. Yessir.