My Amazing Australian Adventure: AFL, Party and Zoo

This was another busy weekend of doing fun Sydney things.

I went into the city Friday to do some shopping. Just lounged around at home at night taking it easy.

Saturday morning I met Mike and Macca at Sydney Uni. We boarded a school bus with a bunch of other guys and some girls and with beer cans in hand, we made our way to Kelso Park to watch Sydney Uni versus UTS in Australian Rules Football (or ‘Footy’). We watched two games, 1^st and 2^nd grade. Unfortunately, Sydney Uni lost but it was a great day. The weather was amazing…. So hot and sunny. I wished I was on a beach. I met Carrie from Vancouver Island. She’s working here in Sydney and will be for at least the next four years. So we just chatted about Canada and the strange nuiances in Aussieland. She was really sweet and explained the game to me. Met heaps of other friendly people. Carrie knew a number of the fans and players as her boyfriend used to play for the team and she had followed it quite a bit. A number of people just came by to say hi to her and were really friendly and introduced them selves to me. I also met her twin sister. We had some beer (ick!) and I had a sausage sandwich. And yes again, it was the same weird tasting sausages they always have at BBQs and fried onions with tomatoe sauce on one the wonderful, multi purpose white sandwich bread. I’m now going to try to avoid Aussie BBQs, they are just not quite my thing.

There were some good plays but it was so hot and sometimes the wind was against our team. I now understand the game a bit and glad I went along on Saturday. It is very different than rugby. I went thinking I’d see some hot, buff rugby boys ;) but they were quite lean runners. The purpose of the game it to bring the ball through two of the four posts. You can kick the ball forward, bunt it or just run (but you have to bounce or kick the ball after a number of steps). If you catch a ball that has been kicked, you have scored a mark and no one can tackle you for the first few moments that you have with the ball. There are some rules about tackling but it’s not like rugby were the main purpose is to tackle someone to get the ball. Quite honestly, the game seems like it’s all about a bunch of men kicking and catching the ball randomly. And you can kick, tumble, or run the ball through the posts. If you get it through the middle two posts, you get 6 points. If you get it on either side, it’s one point. And that’s all I learned about the game. It was a lot of fun and a great way to spend the day. Carrie and her boyfriend drove Mike and me back to the Uni (Macca drove back with someone else) and then they went back to South Coogee.

The only disappointing thing about the whole day was that my camera battery was dead and I didn’t realize until I had already left the house. So unfortunately, no pictures. I should really pay attention to that kind of stuff.

Saturday night I tried rallying a bunch of people together to go out. But Kristen and Kristina couldn’t make it. So it left Brendan, Mike, Ming and I. We hung out at my place chatting about the most random shit and then Ming kindly drove us to Burdekin. We tried doing some promoting for Mike (he’s a Dj and wants gigs so has to put in some promotion work) but I’m not a good salesperson. Brendan did a great job but I don’t reckon many people were convinced to go unfortunately. We finally got in and danced the night away. The music was pretty good. There weren’t that many people which was alright because it just meant there was more room to dance. We left pretty late and I just had to have something to eat. We stopped at Hungry Jacks which is Burger King. Long story about how Hungry Jack’s came to be, but I had the best Whopper with cheese ever! It was pretty good at 3am in the morning. Again, no pictures of this night. Just didn’t feel like getting the camera out although I did look like an Aussie with my new clothes. :)

Sunday morning I woke up after 5 hours of sleep as I was determined to finally make it to the zoo. Mike joined me since Kristina and Kristen had already been there and there was no one else to go with. The ferry ride was pretty cool. I could just stare at the Bridge and Opera House all day. The zoo was great. We saw a lot of cool animals. Most I’ve already seen. But you can’t beat the zoo with a view. It was really nicely laid out and had a great atmosphere to it. We saw a really cool bird show. The birds were trained to fly on command. There were owls and eagles and other birds. Very entertaining. We stayed until it closed at 5pm.

The all time funniest thing that happened in a long time was this… We were looking at a porcupine (pictured below) and there was a mural with pictures and names of different wild cats, including a sabre tooth tiger. A mother with her husband and two children asked what animal is was they were looking at next to the mural? (Looking at the porcupine) And there was some question about what it was and finally the husband decided, “it’s saber tooth tiger!” (of course said in the typical Aussie accent). I almost died! How does a porcupine look like a saber tooth tiger?!?! God those poor children are going to be dumb. So Mike and I had a good laugh and the running joke throughout the afternoon was the fact everything looked like a saber tooth tiger. So minutes later when we were out of the wild cat area, I said, quite seriously, “Damn… we actually never got to see the saber tooth tiger.” Mike just shook his head and responded, “yea cause they’re f**kin’ extinct.” Apparently, my kids will be dumb too. But it was a long hot day in the sun with only 5 hours of sleep… Give me a break!

The all fearsome SABER TOOTH TIGER!!