On to some happier updates. Last night we all went to Darling Harbor. After a quick cab ride, we hopped out and I fell in love. It's such a fun place. It reminds me a lot of Pleasure Island at Downtown Disney. Bars, restaurants and clubs all along the water, with lights everywhere. I could stay there all night. We found this really fun fountain that some kids were playing in, and the girls decided we wanted to do the same, so we left our shoes with the boys and got in. Stupid. The fountain was a round fountain that you could follow a circular path to the center, but the paths hurt your feet SOOOO bad if you weren't walking in the right direction, and in our *sober* state, we weren't quite playing by the rules the designer had most probably set. I eventually found the path that DIDN'T hurt your feet walking downward, if I were to take the same path upward it would have. But regardless, as soon as I get to the center I slip and just ate it. My knee is black and blue today, pretty bad bruise. Whoops. So our (the UniLodge kids) intentions were to meet up with the Gumal kids down there since they hadn't eaten yet (we returned to the pizza place across the street that we'd gone to the night before for Happy Hour pizza and jugs earlier in the day). But once we got to the place they were eating, on attempting to enter, we were turned down since the guys were not dressed appropriately, aka they were wearing shorts. And Guido was wearing running shoes(once my phone got working I called up Guido and he is now our +1 in the UTS crew), which is not acceptable, nor are flipflops. Even mine, which were cute, which I proceeded to tell the doorman, which he agreed with but didn't particularly care. He did offer to let me in for free if I went back and changed, he said it would cancel out the cab fair, which was true, but when I told him there was seven of us, he took back his offer. So after I sweet talked him to let me at least go in to tell my friends we couldn't join them, we waited around for them to finish their drinks then headed to another pub. Apparently boys are allowed into pubs with shorts, so that seemed our only option for the night. Had a couple Toohey's New drafts and then decided we wanted to head somewhere else, even though we were well aware we wouldn't succeed. We stood around for awhile, ran into some girls dressed as playboy bunnies walking down the street and took some pictures with them. Then we just decided that since we couldn't get in anywhere we'd head to UniLodge, grabbed a cab back home and called it a night.
So the money is freaking me out here. It's like Canada, anything smaller than $5 is a coin. But they use 50 cent coins as a regular coin, not like our half dollar, which is hardly ever used. And it's about the size of a small bicycle tire. And their smallest coin which is about the size of a penny, is the $2. Not sure which idiot came up with that idea, but I've found $6 on the ground already. It's so small its the easiest to lose. But I seem to be reaping the benefits, so I'm alright with it.
Today we went to Bondi Beach since it was so hot out. In order to get there, we had to walk to Central station which takes about 10 minutes, then hop on a train to Bondi Junction which is about a 15 minute ride. The trains are so cool, they're like the EL in Chicago, except they're three levels, you can sit on the level you walk in on, or go up or down. Preeeeeetty cool. Then one we got to Bondi Junction we hopped on a bus to the beach, which was another 10 minutes. It was madness, everyone getting off at Bondi Junction was heading to the beach, so they have something like five or six buses just waiting there to take people. The beach was awesome. It was so big, and pretty crowded, given the temperature. Julie, Tessa, Liz, Ellen, Guido, Luke and Chris all found a spot to put our stuff and lay out. Julie and I bought these HUGE beach towels, they're actually called beach blankets. Best investment ever. Most of my sunburn had turned brown, so I felt safe enough to be soaking in more UV's. I still was slathering on the 30SPF though, I wasn't taking anymore chances. After awhile a couple of us decided to venture into the water, it was not right. I've never felt water so cold in my entire lift. It was like back in high school when I had to soak my ankle in an ice bath, only it was my entire body. I honestly couldn't stay in it more than three minutes, then got out! But it felt really good once I went back and laid down. Later a really fat pale white guy was running into the water in a Borat suit, for those of you who don't know what that is, its like a speedo one piece but goes over your shoulders, if you can picture that. If you can't, google borat suit. It was probably the grossest thing ever. But he ran into the water, and everyone sitting on the beach got up and ran to the water, it was outrageous! Everyone was standing around, most not even knowing what they were trying to look at. Quite funny. Headed back, talked to some pretty funny guys on the train who decided to announce to everyone getting on the train when they got off that we were American and to be nice to us, and that Guido was single. No one seemed to care too much to pay attention to him, but I found it funny.
Once everyone got back, we came to the conclusion that eating pizza five nights in a row was not going to happen, so Tessa and I walked across the street to Coles and picked up stuff for burgers and we all went on the roof and Luke grilled for everyone. When we got up there, there were three other people up there already that were here through the Kelley Business school at IU, the group Guido was with, he knew one of the girls, so I ended up chatting with them for awhile. They're all really fun too, so now we have an even bigger circle of friends. No Aussies yet...bummer. I assume with orientation starting tomorrow we'll meet quite a few.
Another fun thing I love about Australia, the cross walk sound. It makes this wonderful noise like a laser is going off when you're allowed to walk. Whenever we're waiting to cross as soon as it makes its "pew" noise, Guido and I always make our own version of the noise then make a gesture like were shooting a laser gun... It's pretty stupid unless you actually hear it, then you love it!
Well I'm conked out. Gotta get up early for orientation. And to prove how tired I am, I just misspelled orientation so badly that when I right clicked to fix it the only option it gave me was urination. Wow. Good. Night.
Oh ps, got tickets to The Fray when they play in Sydney. Best news ever! The Fray and Taylor Swift and Kings of Leon? Could it get any better? Probably, but I won't complain. :)
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