Visas, Crosswords, Kangaroos, and other aspects of Ozzie!

On Wednesday morning at approximately 5:55am (remember my plane was leaving at 6:40am), at the AirNZ check-in, I learned that Australia requires visitors to have a visa to enter the country. What an interesting and useful piece of information that would have been a week, or even a day, before. I was able to purchase a visa at the customer service desk, but, unfortunately, the man working there typed in my passport number incorrectly, which did not exactly help the process. After several minutes of waiting and a near panic attack, my visa cleared, and I was able to make the flight after an AirNZ worker rushed me through the departure tax counter (who knew you had to pay $25 to leave the country?) and security, where an official-looking man examined my bag because of my empty water bottle.

Thankfully, I made the flight, and the last twenty or so minutes of it almost made up for the pre-departure almost-disaster. I'd been doing crosswords for about three or so hours, but then decided to check out my travel book and plan my day. The man sitting on my row asked me if I was visiting, and we had a pleasant conversation for the remainder of the flight. I learned that Neal was headed to Sydney for business and that he works for Shell. After he told me he was from Wales (his accent was a bit thick, I will admit; but smiling and nodding worked just fine) and had spent a year in Africa traveling and doing volunteer work, I was intrigued. Then, he complimented my crossword skills!! And, sadly, he then threw in a gilfriend reference.

After arriving in Sydney and checking in at my hostel, I headed to the zoo with all the other tourists and probably half the schoolchildren of Sydney. I took a ferry across Sydney Harbour to get to the zoo, and I made sure to get my cliche picture in front of the Opera House! The Zoo was fun, and it was especially cool to see the koalas and red pandas. But I headed back to King's Cross, where my hostel is located, after a short time because I was so exhausted from getting up early for the flight. So much for my plan of not wasting any time!

Yesterday, I saw kangaroos in the wild! When European explorers landed in Ozzie in the late 1700's, they asked the native Aboriginal people the name of what is now the kangaroo. The Aboriginals responded, "Kangaroo," which means "I don't know." And the name stuck. The miscommunication reminds me of how the Maori people got their name. According to legend, a European asked a native who he was, and he said, "Maori," which means "ordinary bloke." So, really, Maori just means "ordinary person."

Anyway, the kangaroo sighting happened during my tour of the Blue Mountains, a mountain range the size of Holland just an hour and a half outside of Sydney. I took a group tour of the area with OzExperience, the same company I'm taking on my bus tour to Melbourne on Monday. After seeing the kangaroos up close and learning all about them (a female can carry three baby roos at different ages all at once!), we moved on to explore the mountains up close. It was an interesting group, with people of different ages and ethnicities, though most of them were from Europe. (Tons of Europeans spend months or even a year on what they call a "working holiday" - and lots come to Australia to travel.) I had some awkward and somewhat forced conversations with some of the other passengers, but the tour guide was enthusiastic enough to make up for the lack of friendliness of the other tourists. She drew Aboriginal
designs on our faces (I'll put up pictures soon), and wasn't afraid to demonstrate how the Aboriginal people stuck rolled Eucalpytus leaves us their noses for medicinal purposes.

Today, I explored some of the cultural (and free) parts of Sydney with Claire, an English girl from my hostel. We took a tour of the Botanical Gardens and the Government House, which the governor of New South Wales (a woman, by the way) still uses for meetings and other events. We also explored the Art Gallery of NSW, which was a bit disappointing. But, it did serve fantastic flat whites (a coffee) so it wasn't a total waste of time! It was also very pleasant to have a traveling companion, if only for a day.

Now I'm headed back to my hostel to relax with other travelers. I'm staying in an eight-bed female dorm room that is an adventure just in itself. The other girls there are from Switzerland, Denmark, and England, and they're traveling around Ozzie for various lengths of time. Sleeping has been a bit of a challenge, partly because of the constant movement around the room and partly because of the slantedness of my bed. The toilets are scarce, and old, and the shower water is either burning hot or freezing cold. The company and conversations are fun, though, and learning about anything from the different words for "toilet"(their word for bathroom; includes, sink, shower, and actual toilet) to the differences in educational systems in various countries makes the experience worthwhile. I'm glad I'm only spending two more nights there because the hecticness of it all is quite overwhelming. I'm excited to head for Melbourne, but I am also looking forward to returning to Christchurch and Flat 42, which seems calm in comparison.