GIANT WOMBATS

Last week I went to the Australian Museum. I saw lots of neat stuff--VERY cool rocks, lots of crazy birds, and an exhibition of award-winning wildlife photography. But the best part was that I learned about GIANT WOMBATS.

GIANT WOMBATS were the largest marsupials EVER. They roamed Australia in the Pleistocene. It ate leaves and grass. Presumably: a LOT of leaves and grass. In the museum, they have a scale model of a GIANT WOMBAT. Because I was so in awe of the fake GIANT WOMBAT, I didn't actually read anything about it, so I actually learned all of this on Wikipedia. When I stood beside the GIANT WOMBAT, this is what I felt like:



In summary: HOLY CRAP GIANT WOMBATS!!!

Sydney Harbour

It's a pretty awesome harbour.

Parrots!

Seeing parrots outside for the first time reminded me of my first encounter with palm trees, when I visited BC in high school. I had never seen them before--it was a totally new experience! (Okay, seeing palm trees isn't necessarily an important experience, but it was still new.)

Same for the parrots. Before coming to Australia, I had only ever encountered them in pet stores and so on. I was super surprised when I noticed one just hanging out a tree as I walked by!

Parrots: Not Just Inside After All!

Sydney Festival First Night

I spent last Saturday at the Sydney Festival First Night. Sydney Festival is a huge bunch of arts events all over the city throughout January. There are a lot of concerts, and also dance, theatre, and I'm sure other things I don't even know about. For the First Night, there were free open air concerts all over the city. I went to The Domain, a big park downtown, to see The Cat Empire. We left the house at one in the afternoon to secure a truly excellent spot in front of the stage, but were quickly foiled by people standing up in front of us. Anyway, the concert was great. Then we grooved to DJ Mr. Scruff, and finally headed over to Hyde Park to see Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings.

In summary: there was awesome. Booties were shaken. I'm looking forward to the rest of the festival.

Are you ready for this?

Lots and lots of this? I just put 10 photos of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Opera House on flickr... and I'm just getting started. These photos were taken the on my first weekend in Sydney, way back in October. Now I take a train over the bridge on my way to work two or three days a week... it doesn't get any less stunning!