Art - fireworks and opera

On Tuesday we started the day with a fatburner class at the fitness centre to burn at least some of the calories we had gained eating the cakes the day before. After the class I was supposed to do some orientation sessions - Skills for Uni Life and Support Services - but I decided I could just as well skip them since I´m already an experienced uni student ;) So Carla, Silja and I took a bus to Circular Quay to see Queen Mary 2 - one of the world´s biggest cruise ships. It was huge and I once again decided that when I´m rich I´m going to go on a cruise on one of those ships! There were tons of people wanting to see the ship and some road was even closed for the occasion. It was said in the newspaper they had even added extra trains and busses that day but despite of that the public transportation was kinda messed up people having to wait for several hours getting home from work etc. I wonder how Sydney could handle a major event since its transportation can´t even come up having a cruise ship in the city.


Queen Mary 2

We left Silja dowtown for some shopping and took a bus - which took forever! - to the UTS to attend a welcome barbeque. There was no program despite of eating there. So we just sat on the grass eating salad, wraps, chicken and vegetables and chatting for around an hour before I met Silja again at the Paddy´s Markets. We headed to Kings Cross to walk around and saw a cool water thing. Other than that it was mostly nice looking pubs and restaurants where I want to go to sometime later. There were fireworks for Queen Mary 2 and another big cruise ship - Queen Elizabeth - at the harbour. We followed people to the harbour at Kings Cross, just to find out the fireworks were shot from Botanical Gardens and we could only see half of them because Queen Mary 2 was covering our sight. But the half we saw was spectacular! The fireworks lasted for 10 minutes and were so big, colorful and beautiful. After they were over I noticed I had just stayed there looking at them my mouth open - looking like an idiot :)

Carlos, someone, Moy, I, Carla and Shinae at the Welcome BBQ

A water fountain at Kings Cross

It was a sunny morning on Wednesday so we decided to head to Bondi Beach. It was Silja, Carla, Shinae, Moy and I going. I suggested dropping by at the UTS since they had a presentation day of all the clubs and societies. We got excited collecting all the free stuff - goodie bags, candy, pens, magazines, drinks etc... I found two associations for business students (I consider myself a business student here because I´m taking only business subjects) and joined one of them. I got the impression it does same kinds of things as guilds do in Finland - a mix of useful and fun events, such as company visits, excursions and parties. They seem to have a lot more religious and political clubs here - for example, I was asked to join a "Stop-the-US-war-In-Iraq"-club. Even though it took us over an hour to walk around the stands it was worth it because when we finally took the train and bus to the beach we were equipped with chips, chocolate, water and energy drinks :) We spent a couple of relaxed hours at the beach. Unfortunately waves weren´t that high so Silja didn´t get to experience how it feels like being thrown all around by them. (That´s what I did when I went to Bondi for the first time.)

Eating at the beach

After getting home from the beach Silja cooked us a delicious dinner of new potatoes with egg and onion sauce. Then we took part in the Cocktail Party for new international students at the UTS. Once again, we were just standing and walking around drinking wine, beer or juice. The dress code for the party was smart casual, which made me wonder why on earth some people showed up wearing t-shirts and thongs. We were wearing nice dresses, also because we went to the Opera House to see Sweeney Todd right from the party. It felt good going to see a musical at THE Sydney Opera House. Not everyone respected the situation, though, wearing just regular clothes that would be fine at the beach but not at the opera :/ Sweeney Todd was a thriller musical telling about a barber returning to London after being overseas for many years. He discovered his wife had dissapeared and his daughter was to be married to an evil judge. His intention was to kill the judge, accompanied by a baking lady. They found out a creative way to make the pie business boom but in the end almost everyone ended up dying because of various reasons. I couldn´t understand half of what they were singing (and neither could this American lady sitting next to me) but I had read the plot before hand so it was easy enough to follow anyways. The singing was really good, and so were the scenes and costumes! We really enjoyed the musical! From the Opera House we found our way to a German pub at the Rocks to join a pub crawl that had been going on for the previous 3 hours. Most people had already left home but we found most of the Geegalians there. We followed them to the final destination and bought a few drinks. We didn´t end up staying long but shared a taxi and got home at a reasonably low price: everyone paying just $3. (I had imagined taxi would be more expensive here.)

Silja and I in front of the Opera House

P.S I´ve been trying to add pictures but the internet connection is working too slowly at the moment. So just read the text and come back later to see some pictures.