Hyde Park & Botanical Gardens

July 20th

Today we had Jen as our professor (she's from MSU), which was a really nice break! We got to go in at 9 rather than 8:30 AND got out an hour early! We talked mostly about the different hw assignments we are going to have once we start living with our host families and joining them in the classrooms. Which I am really starting to excited for! I can't wait to work with 1st and 2nd graders with cute Australian accents! haha...Oh! I also got to try TimTams which are like a cookie sandwhich thing covered in chocolate, and I honestly don't think I'm a fan. Apparently there are a variety of flavors, but the only one I really wanna try is the mint chocolate kind. I'll have you let you know if I end up liking that one any better.

There were actually people playing!

The plans for after class were to head to Hyde Park, Botanical Gardens, and to get our tickets to the Sydney Opera House. Hyde Park was a lot more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be; it was gorgeous...even if it was raining (go figure). We spent most our time there looking for the "life size" chess set that we were told was there, and tho it was pretty big, we all were expecing it to be a lot bigger haha. After that we made our way to the Botanical gardens. Upon entering, Katie and Amy decided that they wanted to just wander around them rather than making their way to where you are able to get both the Harbor Bridge and the Opera house in the same picture. I was able to get some really good pictures, especially when I climbed some rocks along the shore line!

We then were off to the Opera House while looking for Amy and Katie at the same time; though we never did find them! We ended up getting tickets for August 5th to see Randy Newman with the Sydney Symphony. Since we gave up on trying to find the other girls, Lauren, Emily, Stephanie and I headed to the Rocks to find this place that we kept hearing about called Zia Pina. It was a cute but very crowded little Italian place and though the pizza was good, I think it was built up a little more than it should have been. Eventually we headed back to the dorms and once again I returned drenched!