The royal rendezvous

The Queen Elizabeth II moving towards the overseas passenger terminal for the final time

Since my last post I have gone to the Sydney Aquarium, explored several shops and markets, and have made visits to the numerous parks and gardens around the city. I haven't had any exotic food since my Turkish experience since I have been making it back to campus in time to eat at the college. I guess I did have lamb, which was new to me (my only previous experience with lamb was a sample at Costco). Apparently, they eat a lot of lamb here (makes sense with all the sheep) because in the past week we've had lamb twice for dinner.

Ahh! About to be attacked by a shark! The aquarium had a really cool shark tank that had glass tunnels through it so you could be surrounded by sharks.

Me hanging out on the reef

Interesting sign near the croc area

I forget sometimes that it's winter at home. Everyone is walking around in shorts and T-shirts and all the shops are having end-of-summer sales. In my last post, I mentioned that there weren't very many differences between the United States and Australia, but the longer I'm here, the more differences I notice.

I am getting better about knowing which direction to look when crossing the street. A lot of the streets in the touristy areas have "look left" and "look right" written on the streets at crosswalks. Something I have found interesting is how much Australians know about the United States. Australian news almost always includes something about the U.S. The shootings in Indiana were even breaking news on the radios here. I was talking to a vendor at a market and when I told him I was from Maryland he said, "Oh, you missed your primaries then." I was a little surprised that he would know when different primaries were being held, but our Arcadia coordinators did tell us that Australians are following the U.S. elections very carefully.

I find it strange that they know so much about us, but we know so little about them. In the beginning of Bill Bryson's book, A Sunburned Country, the author discusses how little Australia is mentioned in U.S. news and how little we know about the country. Even in school, Australia was never discussed beyond it being a country and a continent.

I moved into my permanent room two days ago and have a roommate, Samantha, from George Washington. Tomorrow, all the freshmen ("freshers") are moving in and the St. John's orientation will begin. This weekend some of the upperclassmen moved back into their rooms, which was nice, because up until a few days ago the building was empty except for about 10 Americans. I'm looking forward to making friends with Australians.

Other future events include dinner tonight in Darlington Harbour with the other Arcadia students, a visit from Professor McGinnis of the Civil Engineering department on Thursday, and "As You Like It" at the opera house on Saturday.

Hope everything is going well in the Northern Hemisphere! I hear that the CivEs did not win Engineers Week, but that the video was awesome. I can't wait to watch it!