Flying wombats

This is what makes me roll my eyes: when you make an appointment with someone and get there five minutes early only to have them take FOR-EV-ER to do what they have to do and send you on your way. Yesterday morning, I woke up early just so I could make it to the gym before I met with a student services lady. My essay was due at 5 p.m. and she was going to check my referencing. Well I got there at 10:25 for my 10:30 appointment and was really anxious to get it done so I could be on my way back home and pack for Katoomba. Everything started out fine and then she started explaining everything I don't need to know about APA and answered not one, but TWO phone calls and made this annoying, repetitive "mm" sound to let whoever on the other line know she was listening. I started shuffling in my seat and let her know I was getting impatient. I actually started to leave. She was really nice, but I was thinking, "Don't you know I have somewhere to be?" Of course she didn't and I knew that, but I thought that anyway.

THEN I went to the library to make corrections and print off my essay again and the only computer left would have put a sloth to shame. Not to mention it wouldn't let me print and kept messing up my font. I called Sal to see if she could pick me up from campus because I was running late, and by the time I got back I had about half an hour to get a shower, pack, eat and anything else.

BUT! I finally made it to the train station to catch a bus (yeah, not a train yet) to Lithgow where I sat by this man who told me about all the places his older son has been and it made me want to travel even more. (He didn't mention his younger son that much. He must be the black sheep of the family). He also told me that a bunch of Australian students now want to go overseas to work, so the government or whoever is trying to get them to travel and work in their own country. And THEN he told me about the bad wreck in Melbourne this week. There's a tunnel that goes under the harbor and there was a big five car pile-up there that caused a fire. Of course, since it's a tunnel, they had to evacuate everyone and it's been on the news the past few days. Oh, he also told me that in the Outback (I think Central and Western Australia), there are boat races. There's no water, though, so people cut holes in the bottom of boats to put their legs through and run. It's like an Australian version of the Flintstones.

Next I took the train to Katoomba. Kathryn and her mom met me there and then took me to their house. I cannot describe how wonderful it was to take a shower with water pressure and be able to move sideways without sticking to a shower curtain. These things are taken for granted.

Kathryn also has a younger brother and a grandmother that lives with her and an older sister whose boyfriend has a motorcycle I want to ride. Her family was really nice and her brother has a shrine to Hilary Duff. There are also 3 dogs -- a dalmation, weimaraner and boxer mix named Rufus -- that are absolutely adorable. Oh and Kat bought me a Cadbury Easter bunny! How nice. It was gone in a few hours.

After an hour or so, we met up with one of Kat's friends and headed to Penrith (about an hour away, near Sydney) to see a rugby game! The two teams were the Bulldogs and Panthers, so of course I cheered for the Panthers since that's what NC is and also because Kat's mom told me to cheer for the team who was driving me home. Her mom is funny...She's a midwife and has a uterus notepad. She played "I Get Knocked Down" as loud as possible as we drove into the parking lot (car park). That's her footy theme.

The game was really good and the Panthers ended up winning! After seeing rugby players with no padding, our football just seems silly. We're pansies.

At one point, the ball came RIGHT at us and I could have been on Australian TV for all I know. I just thought my debut would show me doing something other than shrieking and trying to protect my camera. We were on the second row.

The cheerleaders were kind of silly. I've heard from a few different people that our cheerleaders are much better and I don't know what they're basing that on, but the ones at this game had gone tribal. They had feather things on their sleeves and looked like they should be backup dancers for Beyonce or Shakira. But the drums were a nice touch.

I asked Kat if there's any "rugby food" like the way we eat hotdogs at football games and she said everyone eats pies. Not like apple pie, but beef pie. I stuck to my chicken wrap from KFC...Which reminds me. I can't seem to explain the idea of a biscuit. A biscuit here is like a cracker or sometimes a roll, but no one knows what I'm talking about when I say "gravy and biscuits." I couldn't believe KFC doesn't have biscuits. They have fries (or "chips") but no biscuits. I just need to find a huge supermarket one day and make some to educate these folks.

Back to footy, Kat's mom (I really should've gotten her name) told me that when New Zealand plays, the guys always do a dance/chant before the game. It's called the harker. After the game, I saw an Order and Riot Brigade car outside and some policemen on huge horses. I wanted to get a picture, so Kat walked over and said, "Can she have a photo? She's from America." I like that excuse. It's a mix between "I'm a blonde so I can do stupid things" and "Bless her heart."

Once we got back to Katoomba, we stayed up watching Thank God You're Here. It's like Who's Line is it Anyway, but the people are given a costume and then thrown into a scene to play along. I loved it. We didn't get much sleep, though, because Kat and I stayed up til 2 talking about American and Australian differences and random things. I asked the stupid question, "Do wombats fly?" before she explained that they live in burrows, and then told her our conversations should remain confidential. (Obviously, by posting it on this blog, I should look into CIA membership). I think the "bat" part confuses me. It just sounds like they should fly. Then she asked me if Tennessee is in Texas and I told her she can't make fun of me anymore and to never be a geography teacher.

Today, we went to the Featherdale Wildlife Park. I GOT TO PET A KANGAROO!!!!!!!!!!!!! I felt four again, chasing the animals around and trying to feed them out of ice cream cones. It made my day. It also took pretty much the entire day to catch one hopping on video. For a moment in time, my life was complete. I was slightly irritated when we first got there because right off the bat, we saw a little wallaby (like a smaller kangaroo) with a baby in its pouch. There were no fences for them so I got right up to it to take a picture and this woman beside me scared it off with her flash. I wanted to tackle her, but I refrained. I've decided I can't be a professional photographer, though. Every single time I had what seemed like a perfect opportunity to take a picture, a burly man would walk in front of me or my batteries died. I had a great shot of a parrot walking toward me and as soon as I lifted my camera to aim, it literally turned around and put its back to me.

I did get a picture of a wombat sleeping in a log. Yeah, they definitely don't fly. They should be called something else that doesn't end in -bat. They also had cockatoos, kookaburras, flying foxes (THOSE look like bats), snakes and lizards, peacocks, a crocodile that had outgrown its pool, fairy penguins, dingoes, emus, koalas (one of which was doing yoga) and a Tasmanian devil that ran laps around its little habitat. There were more animals, but I don't remember what they are all called. Everything was very open, so you could get right up to a lot of the animals and the birds walked around. The kangaroos were my favorite of course. The ones in the park were gray (and a couple of white ones!), but there are also brown and red ones. The red ones are really big and live in the Outback.

On the way back, we ate at Chili's and according to Kat, that and Taco Bell are about as Mexican as they get. I've never thought of Chili's as Mexican food. Once we got to their house, we went on a bushwalk (hike). There's a wildlife refuge right by the house with a few waterfalls and a bunch of gum trees. Those are the ones with white, twisty bark. It started raining and we headed back, then watched Erin Brockovich.

My train left at 7:20 from Katoomba and I JUST made it in time. There had been a sign on the ticket window that said "Back in 10." I'm telling you, Australians are a lazy bunch. (But lovable in every way). Even half of the animals were asleep at the wildlife park.

I got lucky on the way from Lithgow to Bathurst because another girl from my dorm was waiting on the bus as well. Despite the APA woman, my weekend has been pretty good so far!