Attack of the Cockatoos

So yesterday I got up late and missed eating breakfast with friends...it turned out that I was at the wrong cafe and needed to walk just one block and I would've found them. Oh well.

I later met Derek, Ryan, and Jamie at the Sydney Aquarium down on Darling Harbor (I refuse to spell it "harbour"). It was a really wonderful aquarium with a great platypus exhibit (both were active and I got a good picture) and a bunch of really cool reef exhibits. I was very impressed with the whole place except for the saltwater crocodile exhibit, which was really small and I swear the crocodile was fake (but you can never tell with reptiles). Anyway, it was a fun day and we spent awhile there.

Afterwards we had lunch and then explored The Rocks, an area where my hotel is located. It's a nice area and we went to their weekend market but didn't end up gettng anything (Vic Market is still the coolest in my book). We then went down to the Sydney Botanical Gardens which is located adjacent to the Opera House. I generally hate botanical gardens now (see my entry entitled "I Hate Caterpillar Man") but we had a good time anyway just walking around without a dumb tour guide. On our way back, we saw a huge flock of sulfur-crested cockatoos that were basically attacking a couple that were feeding the birds Ritz Crackers. It was hilarious. There were about 20 birds on them and as we looked around, there were about 100 more sitting in trees in about a one-block radius. It was kind of creepy. However, I really like cockatoos and they're so intelligent that it's really fun to interact with them, even on a superficial level.

We then tried to walk back to The Rocks to meet my parents for dinner. However, the gardens apparently had closed by that time so we were unable to get out. Every gate was locked and we thought about climbing over the fence but it was iron-wrought with very long spikes. Eventually we asked some guy and he directed us out, but it added to the feeling that botanical gardens suck.

By then, it was dark and we took pictures of the Sydney Opera House and the Harbor Bridge lit up at night.

We met up with Edith and had dinner with my parents at a great Italian place called Caminetto's.

This morning, Edith left to go home so now it's just the four of us. Australia is slowly emptying out of UC students.