No more shopping!

If someone had told me I can get sick of shopping I wouldn´t have believed. I´ve been shopping a way too much during the past week I´ve been here: all kinds of essential stuff for my room and flat, clothes, food etc... Since I was allowed to bring only 20kg of luggage I had almost no clothes with me when I arrived so I actually really needed some. They´re having huge summer sales (20-80% off) in every store and I have to admit I´ve been buying some clothes just because they´re cheap and look cute. But now I feel like I´ve spent too much money and just thinking about going into those stores with all the sales makes me feel like not wanting to do it. Luckily I´ve got almost everything I need for now, expect for some high heels.

On Sunday we went to Manly with people from Geegal (plus an ex-geegalian and a traveller). We took a ferry there, which was really nice indeed. We got to see a good view of the Opera House and some other Sydney attractions. There was a street of stores, restaurants and ice cream places (we ate some Stockholm ice cream that was delicious :P ) and a nice beach. We spent most of the time swimming, trying to build a sand castle (that looked like a blumb) and burying Shinae to sand and shaping her as a mermaid. There were quite a few blue bubbles there. They are these weird animals that look like bubbles with blue poisonous strings hanging from them. You gotta watch out for them in the water.

Husain and Tim burying Shinae to sand

Sydney Opera House

I can´t recall doing anything special on Monday. I went to the UTS Fitness Centre and did a bodypump class. It was exactly similar to the classes at home and it felt good getting some excersise. They don´t use special shoes here for indoor sports, though, but you´re allowed to attend classes wearing your outdoor running shoes. I had spent a few moments at sport stores looking for indoor shoes until a clerk explained me they aren´t needed here. On Tuesday Moy and I tried capoiera (a sport that´s a mix of dance and martial arts). The instructor is a real pro and he made it look really cool! We couldn´t understand most of what he was explaining, though, since he comes from some other country. Unfortunately capoiera doesn´t really fit to my schedule with uni so I doupt I´ll keep doing it. I´d love to find a dance school with reasonable prices!

Besides capoiera I went to Darling Harbour on Tuesday. I visited the Outback Centre that presents the Australian Aborginal culture. There were some cool looking paintings (priced between $200-1500), boomerangs, pots and candles made by the native Australians. I attented a live didjeridoo performance. Didjeridoo is a traditional Australian instrument that is basically a kind of flute made of a piece of old tree. It makes sounds that sound like different animals; birds, wolfs, crocodiles etc... The artist holds onto the instrument with one hand at a time and uses the other one to mimic the animal whose sound is playing played. This guy was playing didjeridoo while they showed some beautiful pictures of landscapes from different parts of Australia. Seeing them made me want to travel to rain forest and desert! I would like to get to know more about the Aborginals culture. Later that day a group of us went to the Broadway Mall to see a movie Stranger than Fiction (if I remember the name correctly). Tickets are always cheaper on Tuesdays.

An Aborginal Australian guy playing the didjeridoo

Today I woke up pretty late and went to a yoga class. Then I planned on going to the Royal Botanic Gardens to walk around and read a book. But by the time I had taken a train there and bought a salad to eat sitting at some bench it started raining. Fortunately it cleared up a bit for about an hour that I spent explorering the park. It´s so far one of my favorite places in Sydney! There are many different kinds of exotic trees, plants and flowers there. Since I know nearly nothing about them I can´t say much more than that they look beautiful. It began thundering and lightning but it took quite a long time before it started raining again, which I think is weird since I´m used to combining thundering and rain. I stood under a big tree until it stopped raining and headed back home. I have to go back to the gardens to see the rest of them and visit the Govermental House.

At the Royal Botanic Garden

It´s been raining since and I´ve been just watching TV and enjoying the company of our new little friends - these small flies that live and born in our kitchen. They make cooking and eating kinda disgusting :/ But I managed to add some pictures to my blog. Or actually Tim gave me a program that makes the smaller so it doesn´t take like forever to post them online. I´m happy to be living next to a computer guy ;)