A Fellow Zoo Nerd?

So the computers went down for a couple days and all of us almost died from lack of Internet access. We're finally back online so we're all very happy. I'm going to attempt to backtrack through the last couple days, which is difficult because so much is packed into one day.

On Tuesday, class was really boring and then afterwards we took naps and then went to Chinatown. According to my guidebook, Chinatown is one of Melbourne's most impressive and most famous districts, with extensive shopping, restaurants, and other diversions. However, it pretty much sucked. The streets were crowded with tiny, dirty restaurants with rotting fish in the windows, and there was absolutely no shopping or anything. We ended up eating at this restaurant called Idea, which turned out to serve really excellent food. My fried rice was the best I've ever had. Still, Chinatown was dumb.

Afterwards, we ate dinner and the guys (Derek, Ryan, Jamie, Ervin, Peter, and I) went upstairs to visit the girls on the 3rd floor. We ended up winding our way down to the lounge. There is this footy camp going on right now for 8-16 year olds and everyone is staying in one of the buildings at I-House (I-House is actually a cluster of high-rise buildings). Anyway, the girls went and brought all the footy coaches down to the lounge to hang out. The coaches are our age and I'm sure the girls had alterior motives, but it was funny because the guys just ended up hanging out with the coaches. I talked extensively with a couple guys and we compared American sayings and Australian sayings; they laughed hilariously when I said that I had the same pair of Pumas - instead of saying "Pooomah," they say "Pyooma." There were other such instances that don't sound as funny when I write them, but it was certainly an interesting night.

By the way, I'm continually impressed with how friendly most Australians have been. Perfect strangers will come up and talk to us not knowing that we're Americans (even if we're being really obnoxious, which is usually the case). We've only had a few rude people, but most people are really impressed with California and think American accents are cool. Melbourne is the friendliest city I've ever been to.

Yesterday, we had class and then went to Melbourne Zoo. It was AMAZING (partially because I miss the zoo and partially because it's really well done). We were taken on a tour of the Australian exhibit where we saw kangaroos, emus (I got like 8 inches away from one!), cassowaries, wombats, koalas, and a huge aviary of Australian birds. It was really great. Afterwards, we were taken into the Discovery Center where we were able to pet a carpet python, a bilby (SO COOL), and potoroo (AWESOME), and then got to feed a wombat. The Education Center was so well done and the animals that we got to see up close were so cool.

Afterwards, we had around 30 minutes to see the rest of the zoo, so I grabbed Edith, Derek, Marie, Kristen, and Ervin and we ran over to the penguin exhibit. Little penguins (aka blue penguins) are AMAZING! We got so close to them and they're like the cutest, awesomest, bluest penguins I've ever seen!

And then to top it all off, Ryan said, "This zoo is so well-designed, I really liked how they were able to create a more zoogeographical rather than a taxonomic set-up with their exhibits." I almost died. We spent almost two hours talking about how we're huge zoo nerds and how this zoo compares to other zoos, and how the Sacramento Zoo sucks. Wow. Anyway, Ryan and I decided that we were going back to the Melbourne Zoo on Saturday so we could spend more time looking at stuff...SO excited. Okay, zoo stuff is done.

Today after class we went down to Greek town to see if it was better than Chinatown. We ate at this amazing Greek restaurant and then stumbled into this gigantic five-floor, three-block mall (Greek town sucked anyway). The mall is really cool and most of the clothes were really cheap or on sale. I bought a sweater and two shirts for A$45, which would probably equate to US$32. Pretty sweet.

Anyway, that's the last three days. Tomorrow we're leaving at 6:30 am to go to Wilson's Promontory, which is a wildlife reserve on the coast of Australia. Hopefully we'll see some really cool stuff. Afterwards, we're going to Phillip Island which is where the little penguins come ashore every night to dig burrows in the sand. I am so excited I can barely breathe.