On the River

Started off today trying to find some more housing. :( It’s a bit scary…. Ads seem the run the gamut from $500 PER WEEK (which just about makes me hyperventilate) to “free” rent in exchange for being a “friend with benefits” (I wish I was kidding D: ). The study abroad advisor (the one I’ve bothered over email since last semester) was exceptionally nice today though, and let me use her office telephone while she was at lunch to call and inquire on some of the ads I’ve found. One does sound a bit promising, as this guy seems to have a few rooms at a few locations, but we’ll see. For the room about which I was originally asking, I may have to find another girl to share the room with me, which may or may not prove difficult. I seem to have a harder time getting along with new girls these days....

Anyways, I made another friend today! A guy named Dusty, from Calgary, Canada. A coincidence, I swear! Or maybe I have a sixth sense for Canucks now? If I do, I blame it on Kevin. : P Today was the “Day by the River” international student activity. UWA is right on the Swan River, so we spent the afternoon playing games/sports before having a bit of barbie. ^_^ I met Dusty while waiting around for the even to start. I was sitting on a bench watching the river (which is incredibly lovely) when all of a sudden THERE WERE DOLPHINS. In the river. DOLPHINS OMFG.  Within like 20 feet of the shore. (sorry, they moved too quick to get a picture) I jumped up to get a closer look, and ended up standing next to Dusty, where we were both like “OMG did you see that?!?”

View of the Swan River from where we spent the afternoon.

We played a bit of bocce for a while with another Canadian and a girl from Norway (though we all agreed it would be a much better sport if drunk), then we got to have a bit of sailing on a lovely small yacht. I even got to steer! We only were out for about 15 minutes before we had to park the boat again (as some other non-uwa tour needed to use it). Unfortunately, our boat guy promptly abandoned us (us being a group of about ten boys and girls), with only vague instructions to “go wait in the grass” until someone came to pick us up. I should note that I did not have shoes, as I’d left them on the beach back at the party area in order to wade out to the motor boat that took us to the yacht already on the river. This portion of the day was significantly less than pleasant. The cement of the jetty and then the blacktop of the parking lot was HOT (it was something like 100*F today T_T) and occasionally covered in pointy unhappy things. The grass was only barely better, as it had sticks, and occasionally bits of broken glass. We ended up walking in the direction of the party (which was within sight, but a good 15-20 minute walk away). Might I reiterate that I was BAREFOOT. Thankfully someone did come with a car to pick us up, but he could only take 5 at a time, and all the other girls leapt into the car despite the fact that they had flip flops. The bitches. We did get picked up eventually (after walking a bit more), and got back to the party in time to get sausages. Funny fact: Australia doesn’t have hot dog buns. So we had a sausage (which was a bit more like a hot dog than a sausage, but still definitely a sausage) wrapped in a piece of sliced bread, with “tomato sauce” ie, ketchup. Hilariously, the sausage stuck out of the bread by about 2 inches on either side. XD

I managed to catch the last bus home, and am now exhausted. There is some kind of international student hang out at a bar close to campus tonight, but I didn’t think I could go unless I had someone to come back to my hostel with, so I’ll have to save the partying for later. It’s surprising how the city changes character at night; nearly all the shops close (by 6 or 7pm) except for the restaurants, which are suddenly filled with people. I have been keeping surprisingly early hours since I got to Perth; Sunday and Monday I woke up naturally at 5am, and this morning a nightmare rolled me out by 7am. I’ll need to be getting up a bit early tomorrow as well, in order to make it down to campus to join a group going to the Caversham Wildlife Park! I have been promised some Kangaroos, so hopefully I’ll have pictures by this weekend!

Loves to all!