StumbleUpon IRL

OK so I only have about 15 more minutes of paid internet at the hostel before I get kicked off and have to buy more so I'll try to make this quick (edit- I bought more internet- my Australian life is just too exciting for 15 minutes).

Let me start with something that I find funny and encounter everyday but haven't yet shared with you all. So I'm walking everywhere. Probably like 5 miles a day. No Joke. Just down to the harbor and back is a 30 minute walk (45 for a normal person but I walk freakishly fast as you all know) and everyday I tell myself I'm not going to do that walk and everyday I find myself doing it more than once. That being said, if you don't already know, people drive on the other side of the road here. In America something I never thought about was when you're walking on the street, you walk on the right because that's the side you drive on. I cannot tell you how many people I walk into everyday because I'm constantly trying to move to the right and they're going to the left.

But now onto more exciting things. So the Work and Holiday people opened a bank account for me and today I went down to pick up my debit card. Once again I told myself I was going to explore other parts of Sydney, and once again I found myself making the walk down George Street towards the harbor to the Westpak bank on Pitt St where my card was waiting for me. Once I finished that, I made a spur of the moment decision to take a different route and explore some more and stumbled upon the Royal Botanical Gardens.

I really wanted to see them and even though I didn't have my camera or water or anything I would have wanted to bring when I saw them I couldn't resist just going now and checking it out. I took tons of pictures on my useless blackberry because it was better than nothing, but I hate not being able to share them with you. Honestly, in order to fully appreciate what I saw you would need sound and smell-o-vision. It was like Australia's version of the Arnold Arboretum but a lot cooler because I hadn't seen it before and it was much more exotic, showcasing plant life from all over the country, not just Sydney. There were so many cool animals like the flying foxes which are really bats but look a lot like birds. I've seen them flying around at night but here they were all wrapped up in their wings upside down in the trees. Everywhere you went it smelled amazing and different. I couldn't describe half of the things I experienced so you should all just come to Australia and see for yourself.

Today was fairly overcast and after feeling a couple raindrops I decided to head back. Again I told myself I'd take a bus instead of making the walk and again my curiosity got the best of my and I took a new route back to the hostel stopping at a crowded food court for a chicken kebob wrap. Luckily I didn't get rained on, but my spontaneous adventure I'm afraid caused me to add even more pink to my already rosy cheeks.

I have my RSA course tonight which I am NOT looking forward to but I suppose I'll be glad to have it out of the way. Tonight I think I'm going out with the same group I've been hanging out with for the past few nights and then possibly going to Bondi Beach with them tomorrow. We added a New Yorker who just arrived to our group of friends which was nice in some ways and not in others. It was comforting having someone around who sounded like me, but if we were in America I never would have hung out with this girl. She was nice, just not my type. I'm not sure what I'll do with myself to kill time before my course, but I'm off to figure it out!