Sydney Swans!

Win for Sydney Swans over the Western Bulldogs!

Finally caught up on my days, and blogging!

Today we actually got to sleep in a bit! Then it was time to attempt to find our way to the arena that would be holding an Australian Football League (AFL) game or "Footy" as they like to call it here. We weren't really sure where we were going so we were sure to look up and write down all of the trian information that we needed before we left. Except, there seemed to be something wrong with those directions; when we got off at one of our transfer spots we noticed that there were people wearing Sydney Swans gear that were still sitting on the train, so we quickly jumped back on since we figured that they knew where they were going more than we did! Come to find out that one of the girls was sent an email saying that the location was changed but apparently we were the only ones that go this memo. We decided to creepily follow what the people wearing red and white were doing and eventually one of them turned around and asked if we were following them, and we confessed! However, they were very nice and made sure that we followed the right way and eventually struck up friendly conversation with us about where we were from and what we knew about Footy (which was pretty much nothing). So they tried to fill us in a bit about what would be going on .

Australian rules football is really a mix between football, soccer and even a little volleyball. There are four poles at each end of the field; two taller poles in the middle and two smaller on either side. If the ball is kicked between the middle two poles its six points and if it hits a pole or is between the outer two its one point. The ball can only be kicked, lightly tossed or "punched" (kinda like volleyball) to other players, and you cannot run to far with the ball without bouncing it once and a while. This is a full contact sport and you are allowed to tackle one another, however keep in mind that they wear no helmets or padding at all! This sport seems to require much more endurance and athleticism than the NFL; these guys are solid muscle! One guy told us that they can run up to 10miles in one game. And I must admit have very nice rumps :) haha. Needless to say this game was very fast paced and a lot of fun to watch!

After the game we made our way back to central station and found a place to eat, which apparently wasn't such a great find. One of the girls that was with us has a very stricked diet to follow due to some sort of stomach issue and they were quite rude to her and eventually the rest of us. They were quite slow, even though they weren't all that busy, and managed to get a lot of our orders wrong in some way or another. We were discussing the fact that though there are endless amounts of friendly people around Australia, people in services tend not to be, and we were wondering if it had something to do with the fact that they are not tipped at all like we do in the states.

Now It's time to pack up my stuff here at Macquarie Uni. I am meeting my host teacher tomorrow morning and will be staying with her the majority of the time I have left here. I'm a bit nervous! but excited to finally get into the classrooms this monday :)