Flora and fauna. And a bit about the last few days..

Not only do the Aussie's use an interesting selection of slang vocabulary - (arvo, Banana Benders, Bush Oyster, Budgie Smuglers.. more on that in another blog sometime) - but they also have some strange (and in my view, downright outrageous) species of 'everyday' plants and animals.

The most obvious to point out is this crazy (bird?). It seems to think it is a pigeon. By that I mean it wanders around any kind of public place, looking for naive tourists who haven't yet made the mistake of feeding it and causing it's flock of 5000 mates to swoop down and join the feast. As you can see from the photos below though.. It is NOT a pigeon!! IT IS HUGE!! And it has this unnecessarily GINORMOUS beak. Which is at first scary, but then very amusing, when it has to tip its head fully horizontal in order to pick up any of the food it has scavenged.

These ones are just chilling in the park, with the pigeons. Casual.

This one has given up with the tourists and has resorted to the dustbins. 

Second in 'strangeness' only to the giant pigeons, are the cockatoos. Why are cockatoos strange you might ask? We have them in zoos don't we? YES! IN ZOOS!!!! The ones over here swarm around like they're minor swallows or sparrows. 

I first saw one in the park when I was exploring some new run routes. I thought it had escaped from someones cagey, or maybe a wildlife place or something, as you would, and wondered if I should call someone. Then there was this huge squawking noise and a giant swarm of about 50 of them flew up from a tree they were in, had a bit of a mid air war with each other and moved to another tree. 

The tree full of cockatoos.

Here's a close up one (From Google)

Enough of the wildlife. I'll document some more strange stuff another time. 

Last night we went to Scubar, one of bars in Sydney. Yes I know, it was Monday, but we are students. We have to live up to our reputation of bumming around and sponging off of the government. I would say the night was a success, mainly due to Kellie, my American friend who never gets in anywhere due to being 'too drunk, look at her eyes', actually got in! 

Meaghan and Kellie

This is Pre-Game. We are playing a drinking game called 'Fat Bitch'. I told you the Australians have interesting slang..

I came home early because I have classes ALL day. In my break this morning me and Meagan went to STA travel to look at prices and deals for our Mid-Semester break which is in September/October. (Yes I know - I only just started UNI and a break already blah blah - just to reiterate, we are students). We think we are going to have a week on the Golden Coast/Brisbane/Byron Bay. EXCITING TIMES!!

Jack - Jon

Just for jokes these are two of my friends (both male) feeding each other chocolate coated marshmallows.

(Also, all male Australians have names beginning with J. So if you don't know someones name when you should you can just guess James or Jon and you're 50% probably going to be right. Even if you're not you can be like 'Oh I got you mixed up with James!' And they'll say 'Oh yeah, I know James'! Because everyone knows about 17 Jamess.)