Footy!

Yesterday I went to my first game of footy! From what I can tell, the term footy is loosely used to describe Australian Rules football (AFL), Rugby Union or Rugby League (NRL) games, the latter being the variety I went to.

 NRL is more popular in New South Wales than it is in other states, and the players and fans have a reputation (perpetuated by Rugby Union enthusiasts) for being a lot rougher and unsophisticated, partially because Union is mostly played in private schools. I’ll stay out of that debate, but apparently fights break out fairly often at games, to the point where they have purposely begun to water down the beer to maintain the peace. Luckily for me, it was a fairly orderly match between the Newcastle Knights and the Cronulla Sharks (my team).

When we got there, a game was already going on for the Under 20 players (the teams that feed into the regular Sharks team). The stadium holds about 20,000 people, and since it was the first home game of the season and a beautiful day outside, I would estimate that it was close to capacity. The stadium is quite old, with never-remodelled bathrooms featuring a chain hanging from the ceiling that you pull to flush the toilet. There is a grandstand on each side of the field, but we just sat in the grassy hill on the south side of the field. I was close enough to the field to hear players swear, and there were some colourful moments throughout the game. The Sharkies had a rough time, and weren’t able to score a single try (similar to a touchdown, but you have to ground the ball in the end zone). Hopefully they’re just dusting off the cobwebs and can get in better shape before the next game!

The view from where I was standing.

Spotted: An OSU fan!?

Visitors!

This past week I had my first houseguests in Sydney! Rochelle and Stephan came down for ten days, and even though I had to work for a good portion of those days, I managed to squeeze in some leisure time. I took work off the Monday they arrived in Sydney, and met them at the airport to show them back to my house in Cronulla. They were a little tired from the flight, but jetlag from Seattle to Australia actually isn’t too bad (apparently it’s awful on the way back to the US). They really wanted to see the beach so we headed down there pretty much right away for a swim.

 
I had to work Tuesday, but Rochelle and Stephan met me at my office in the city for a few drinks. After 5:00 on Tuesdays, the Australian Museum is open to adults only. They serve beer and wine, and there is live music while you wander around looking at the exhibits. I would definitely go back since I probably only looked at half of the exhibits-the Aboriginal art exhibit was my favourite, but they had a lot of other nice exhibits specific to Australian animals, dinosaurs that used to live here, birds, etc.

Here we are at St. Mary's Cathedral before heading into the museum.

Saturday and Sunday were my only days off, so we had to cram in as much touristy stuff as possible. We went on a free walking tour of the city that I had gone on with Tony and Katrina when I first arrived in Sydney. It was fun to learn about places I walk by everyday without giving any thought. For example, in the Queen Victoria Building there is a clock donated by the Queen of England, with a letter enclosed that cannot be opened until 2080. Or the glass floor in Custom’s House with an extremely accurate model of the city underneath. Or the barracks near Hyde Park where convicts as young as seven years old were housed.

Sunday we took the ferry to the Taronga Zoo, which is probably the nicest zoo I’ve been to. It’s up on a hill on the north side of Sydney Harbour, so you get glimpses of the skyline while you walk between the exhibits. I finally saw a platypus! They’re usually very shy, but this one was swimming circles right in front of the glass. The Tasmanian devil was asleep in his den, but I still got to see him up close. I didn’t realize this, but the devil population is currently threatened due to a facial cancer that has a 100% mortality rate. It’s a very unusual cancer because it is contagious, and devils pass it when they bite each other in fights-very sad!

View from the ferry to the zoo.

 Making friends with a wallabee.

That night we went to opera bar and relaxed with a few beers. It was a really warm night, so we could sit outside with a view of the harbour and the hundreds of bats that were flying out of the botanic gardens. It was a really nice end to their time here, and I was really sad to see them go. Hopefully I get some more visitors soon!

View from Opera Bar.