West Side

I found this from ages ago....oops. And it has a twin, long-lost, forgotten blog sister who will be joining the world wide web shortly as well.

So anyways, remember that time I went to Perth? like a month ago? Well here is some more of that land in Western Australia known as Perth.

I can't really remember what I told you about Perth already, but guessing from these pics I have yet to mention Kings Park and the Perth mint. Kings Park is, according to local legends...and perhaps facts, the largest inter-city park. While I can't tell you for sure if that is true, I can tell you it is pretty freaking huge. And gorgeous. And Sunday picnics there rock, as do: leisurely strolls, sunning by the water garden, views from the quirky, random set of DNA stairs.

flowers. I thought they were cool....it has a really sweet selection of fauna from all over Australia.
(please note the use of fauna. yes it's awesome.)

Stairs. Side note: I love mosaics. Someone please let me mosaic a wall in their house. kthanks.

Anzac memorial, or simply war memorial. can't remember...

View from the park of downtown Perth.

And again.

So much river. And imagine epic bike trails all around it. So lovely.

There is my face and Perth. 

Before mentioned DNA stairs.

View from said stairs.

And again. I couldn't figure out what the super long stretch of grass was for, but it was quite a nice random long stretch of grass...

To top off my touristy exploration of Perth I hit up the Perth mint. To which many Perthians were like, "Whaaa....we have a mint??" Which just goes to show, being a tourist sometimes rocks. Because we learn about random things like mints. If you are planning an Ocean's 11, 12, or 13 type robbery in Perth, the mint would so be the place to hit up. Seriously I have never seen so much gold in my life(not that gold and I come into regular contact anyways...) They have heaps of pretty nuggets from all over the world on display and quite large chunks of the stuff straight from the ground as well. ANd you get to watch them heat up gold and pour a bar which is pretty sick. So while I walked away no richer, and in fact $15 poorer. I rather enjoyed my trip to the mint.

Unfortunately, these are just gold nugget fakers and they did not let me get this close to any of the real things. But seriously just imagine stumbling across one of these suckers. Had to have made their days.

My buddies Lachlan and Hamish.
 (No I don't know their real names, but I feel like vague general names for dudes here would be Lachlan and Hamish instead of like Bob and Joe in the states. Seriously you may think I'm kidding, but those names are everywhere!)

Casing the building for my return visit.....hahaha.kidding.

But seriously, Norcross 11 anyone??

The only shiny thing I got from the mint:(

And that was some more of Perth....the rest coming shortly.

Tourguide Meghan

Kind of like tourguide barbie...but not.

So Elisabeth came to visit from New Zealand. We met in Dunedin when Andrea was there and reconnected when I was there again. And she came to visit!!! So I of course took the day off to play tourguide.....well try anyways. Because I still don't really know Sydney like the back of my hand. We actually went to Taronga Zoo, which I had never been to ever. tourguide fail. But then we did some shopping!! And I'm pretty good at knowing my way around the mall;)

So I have some pretty awesome pics of the zoo, because it is quite possibly has the best view for a zoo ever. But as of right now my camera is NOT uploading my pics. technology fail. So until further notice this blog is going to stink.

And I am currently blowing/sneezing my brains out. Literally. (question: does anyone else's eyeballs hurt from blowing their nose? or is that freakishly unnormal?) I really need to be finishing my assignment so that I can play tourguide some more when my PARENTS GET HERE TOMORROW!!! woot.woot. but all I want to do is sleep.

And I'm pretty sure tourguide is two words (spell check is telling me it is anyways, but I really like it better as one. So deal with it.

Cinco de Mayo

Saturday was Cinco de Mayo, but I am definitely in the wrong country to celebrate that. Not that I remember ever going all out to celebrate in the states either....

But anyways, my cinco de mayo celebration was a Swedish dinner! Yep, not even close to the right way to celebrate, but a fabulous evening none the less. Louise cooked us all a DELICIOUS, traditional Swedish meal. I'm pretty sure it was the first I've ever had, but let me tell ya, I am keen to go to Sweden and have another:) Anyone want to come with??

We really did like each other...we were just really good at pretending we didn't. 

The Swedish chefs. They had skills.

Hello delicious.

Be jealous.

Rugby

On my list of must-dos while in Australia was go see a rugby game. Once again I have been successful. Saturday afternoon I met up with some girls from uni, and Sarah being the awesome local that she is took two clueless girls to a local rugby club for a match. Apparently we watched shute shield?? which is the level right below the professional level. I'm thinking that it compares to like minor league baseball instead of major league. Anyways so this was rugby union, as opposed to rugby league and then there is AFL (Australian rules football) which I thought was also similar but apparently is completely different. Don't ask me to explain all the differences because I can't. But I did kinda sorta learn how rugby union works. And I loved it. Sorry football fans, but rugby is probably better! And no not just because the boys wear short shorts and no pads:)

Even though we were completely clueless about how to get in (since it was a rugby club we like had to be with a member and sign in and all this jazz), how to order food (weird restaurant/bar combo and you could only have food/drinks in certain places, and Sarah was te only one who had any clue what was happening on the field, we had a total blast.

Pro-rugby-rules teacher Sarah, and Katie who sadly was not as clueless about rugby as me:)

It's a scrum. (sp?) but let me tell you these dudes are not afraid to get up close and personal with each other....

Serious fans.....go Woody's!!!!

I secretly liked the striped team better, even though I was supposed to be cheering for my Eastwood homies. Maybe that's why they lost their first game of the season....oops.

Perth

After my few days in Brisbane I hopped on a plane and made the long haul across Australia. 5 hours. Ew.  Perth is lovely, but getting there from practically anywhere, is not. And flights that get in at midnight and then getting to a crap hostel at 1 in the morning is just not my idea of the best night ever. But things got significantly better from this rocky start:) I spent the first day wandering around downtown then met up with Rachel, and ended up staying at her and her brother's place for the whole week.....ya, I know you're thinking, "wow, they put up with you for that long!!" and the answer is yes, they really are that awesome. And even though we had the fun adventure of living in the dark ages with no electricity (they have power companies with lameo customer service here too), it was still like the best time ever.

So here is Perth!

They claimed this was the concert/entertainment venue....
I now compare everything to the opera house and this one was severely lacking.

Random statue.

I think Perth was like, "hm we really have nothing that cool like a harbor bridge, or an opera house. let's just build something random!!" and this is the product of that conversation.

Yep, so random. It's a bell tower. And the bells play sometimes and it's pretty. But they really want you to pay to go up it. But seriously you would go up probably like 3 floors, max. Needless to say I wasn't super impressed. Sorry, Perth......

I did take the required 50 photos of though. I'm not a complete tourist failure.

They have this one random street that is supposed to resemble London. I'd rather see the real thing....

The next day I headed out to Fremantle. A town near Perth, perhaps could be considered a suburb? Not really sure how they classify themselves, but anyways. It is the cutest little town!!! It has like all old style buildings, and cutesy shops. Such fun wanderings. I'm pretty sure it was where people first landed on that side of Australia. Pretty sure.

Fremantle railway station.

I liked this building...

SO CUTE!!!

Indian Ocean....holla!!!

When you go to Perth in the summer, you should go out to the island you can kinda-sorta see in the distance. Apparently there is awesome snorkeling. (Rottnest Island for those of you planning your epic Australian adventures.)

I'm a baby, and thought it was a wee bit chilly for a swim. But my toes have been in the Indian Ocean, so I'm totally crossing it of my list of oceans in the world I need to swim in.

Fremantle Prison. It's their touristy thing.

It was a little worrisome that this was attached to the outside of the prison.....
I'm assuming they started here after  the prison actually had prisoners.

And someday there will be more of Perth... just not today:) But I feel like I'm doing better than I was with NZ here....so I'm still feeling pretty good about it!

Running

Let me clarify my idea of running for you.

It's better than this.

But nowhere near this!!!!

And probably more often than I'd like to admit I look like this.....minus the six pack abs.

So now that we understand what I mean by the light jog that I like to call a run, I can tell you that I went for one today. And it was a good one. The kind where you feel energized and ready to take on the day after. Never mind that it was like noon and not the crack of dawn when this feeling occurred. But anyways. The weather is gorgeous, the weekend is looking good, and while there is a special place in my heart that wants to be in Casa Grande this weekend and at Camp Tatiyee in 3 weeks I know that I have a special place here as well and am going to try my hardest to enjoy these next two months like none other. 

ps. even though ASU is done for the summer and I still have assignments and exams to look forward to.ya I'm going to be the bigger person here and not do a whole post whining about this fact.

pps. TWO MONTHS!!! less actually!!! how insane is it that I head back to the USA in two months. mind.blown.

Brissie, cont.

FYI. Brissie=Brisbane.

So after all the fabulousness of koalas I explored downtown-ish Brisbane. Which really was no competition for koalas, but still cool. Brisbane is divided by a river. I'm sure it makes it convenient for gangs, because the north-side and south-side are oh so helpfully already divided. So of course there are heaps of bridges, like literally the most bridges I have seen over water in my life. And super gorgeous walks along the river too.

Downtown and a bridge(they all had names, but I only remember one....and it's not this one.)

But this one was pretttty cool.

The most helpful landmark ever when trying to navigate through Brisbane....the ferris wheel is on South Bank , in all seriousness this is probably the only reason I made it home, otherwise I'd still be wandering through Brisbane.

What is the cool old building you ask?? Well they call it the treasury , so that you continue to think it is really cool....
but really it's only a casino.

So apparently I realllllllly liked this bridge. 

Another bridge.

And another!!!! They are really proud of this one, they consider it the equivalent to the harbor bridge (it's not).
But this is the one I remember the name of, the story bridge.

best.sign.as.you.are.entering.a.bridge.ever.

Yes, I did walk across it and around the river for ages and give myself some gnarly blisters....

City, they also have a really pretty botanic garden if you keep going to the right....apparently I thought buildings were cooler than plants on this day though.....

What do you do when your city doesn't have a real beach? You make a fake one. I love Australia.

Sweet trapeze man outside the art museum.

Makes a pretty sweet walk along the river.

Leftover from the world fair a long time ago. But still way cool and random.

What a cutie!!!

woohoo!!!! you just took a walk around Brisbane  via pictures without ever leaving your computer chair, and you didn't have to get the blisters either....I'm beginning to think one of us is brilliant, and it's not me.
Kidding, it's soooooo not the same. So get out of your chair and come see for yourself;)