Monday was... not interesting, meh, whatever. Yesterday, Tuesday, was.

We went first to the old olympic stadiums from the 2000 games. They're still in use for recreation, performances, and the like. It was cool, I got a few pictures, we didn't stay long, only stopped as it was on the way to the blue mountains.

Next, we stopped at a small zoo-like place, which had only australian native animals as far as I saw. Most of the animals were rescued, generally from things like being hurt by traffic. I got to pet a Koala, and to feed and pet a few kangaroos, yes, of course I got pictures. They were really cute up close, and I love them as animals. Actually, I'll have to take back monday not being interesting, we learned about australian ecology. The reason Kangaroos hop is because it's evolutionarily advantageous (duh) by being the most effecienty means of animal transportation possible. At low speeds, hopping is no more effecient than quadrapedal running, but at high speeds it is MUCH more effecient. Since Australia has a very harsh environment in which most of the plantlife is inedible, this is invaluable. Also, Koala's sleep for about 20 hours out of the day, and eat whenever they are awake. They have to sleep this much because straight eucalyptus leaves are toxic, and their body needs what little energy it gets from them to process out the toxins. Wombats are also similarly lazy, but we didn't spend much time on them.

After that, we went to the blue mountains themselves, and went for a short hike (only about two hours, bah) I got lots of pictures, it was beautiful... not much to say.

Our tour guide took us to a place with a very nice candy store I got some candy, and then got us free dinner at a nightclub as part of our tour. None of us stayed longer than it took to eat though, didn't wait around for the advertised entertainment of the night... I tried the cocktail 'sex on the beach' (vodka, peach schnops, cranberry juice, orange juice, and pineapple juice) it was really good, but didn't feel like I was drinking alchohol at all. Was a fun day overall.

Free day today, so I finally got started on my paper, or at least, drew up a little bit of an outline and got some sources to look over. Maybe I'll have a few pages of actual writing by the end of this weekend? hopefully?

Anyway, feeling a bit homesick, miss you all, and miss being able to eat lunch without wearing formal stuff... I'll probably update again in a few days, till then, g'day mate.

PS I love you Hannah!