new format & a pic!

The best aspect of hosting a blog on Google's Blogger is how much you can adapt your blog to your own specifications. So when I get the urge to change up the layout of my blog, the colors and the various elements, it's really, really easy. And right now, I'm relishing the fact that I brought my computer with me, because I just made all these changes to "Under where?" under nice, toasty covers, as I listen to the rain dribble on the window. Yeaaaaaaaaaaah(o:

Now, as promised, I'll pick up from where I left off about my ridiculously long walk with Travis. After walking all through the downtown area of Sydney, Travis and I met up with one of his friends from "Uni" (Aussie for college) and she convinced Travis to take the train out to where the main campus of the University of Sydney is located. Now, the train in Sydney is equivalent to the Tube in London or the Metro in DC, save one thing: the trains are double-decker and absolutely pristine. Probably due to the fact that there are "Don't put your feet up on the seats" signs everywhere - a picture of a little stick-figure man with his feet comfortably up on the seats with a very stern slash mark over it. At this point in the day, seriously, all I wanted to do was put my feet up, but Travis and his friends assured me that I would be handed a $250 fine if caught. Bugger.

After debarking the very clean train at Redfern, Travis and I walked through part of the main campus of the USyd. Earlier that day, Travis and I had been talking about how I wanted to see a rugby match and he told me a few of the more specific detail about rugby in Australia. Apparently there are two different forms of the sport, and various levels of teams play nationally and internationally. We happened to walk by a rugby league match (what I mean by "happened to walk by" is that we heard the shouting, climbed a very steep, short dirt hill full of brushy stuff that was difficult to get up without sliding back down the hill...) up onto a swath of green lawn, where a rugby game was underway. Rugby is a rough sport, with some seemingly odd rules, but is quite exciting to watch. Instead of stopping the game each time someone is tackled (without any pads, for the record) like in American football, players can pull the ball up from the tackled players and punt the ball backwards to their teammates, and keep the game going. And when the ball is thrown out of bounds, it's thrown in, and one player from each team is lifted up to collect the ball from mid-air. Based on what I saw, if a son or daughter comes home and tells me that they want to join a rugby team, I'll have to take out stocks in a Band-aid company to ensure that we have enough on hand for the daily cuts, brushes and busted up appendages.

By this point, I'm seriously dead exhausted from walking, so Travis and I sit on a bench watching a black swan and various other avian creatures wander around. From there, we decided to get some coffee before meeting up with Ash, and had a cappuccino & cookie before hopping onto a blessed bus (more "we'll fine you for actually getting comfortable" signs) back to the Circular Quay.

Back at the Quay, we listen to some sweet traditional Aboriginal music superimposed on top of electronica beats...pretty trippy. After Travis had to leave, I was getting cold and had already added as many layers to my outfit as I could, so I decided to head over to the Opera House (OH). On the way, I had fun and got frustrated taking pictures of the Harbor at night - it's beautiful, but my camera sucks at night shots. So I end up erasing nearly all the pictures I take. Oh well. At least I forgot about how cold I was.

Ok, I'm going to end this post b/c it's getting really long. And regardless of the fact that I'm just going to start another one to finish the days details.