So, not to brag...excessively anyways...this is what the sky looks like everyday here in Darwin! It is always blue skies, bright sun and just beautiful! Don't worry, it won't be this nice all year, pretty soon it'll be pouring rain every day and I might even see a cyclone! There's something to look forward to!
TERRITORY WILDLIFE PARK:
The picture above was taken at the Territory Wildlife Park which is about a 45 min drive from school. NFIH (the dorms I'm living in) provided free transportation and got us in for half price!!! The park was beautiful! I don't think "park" is really a good word to describe what they have there...it's more like a small, specialized zoo. They had quite a few different demonstrations in different sections of the park and had little trollies to transport us around. There was a nocturnal house, aquarium, natural lagoon, dingo pen, aviary, and tons of walking trails!
The first demonstration was for feeding stingrays and another kind of fish. In the top picture you can see how large the stingrays are! They kept bumping into the speaker, like a little nudge to say, "Hey! I know why you're here, quit teasing!" The second pic is of this certain kind of fish that actually uses suction to get food into it's mouth. He would hold the food just above the water and the fist would come up and make a really loud noise as sucked in it's dinner! There were also Archer fish that can see bugs flying above water and spit water at them to knock them into the water! You could hold out your hand over the water and they would spit at your hand; they had really good aim!
We went through the Wilderness Walk and I found some really interesting trees. I also spotted my first wallaby here!!! They had a couple acres fenced off area where they were housed and ran around freely, the Wilderness Walk was really just a path through this area. I was surprised the wallaby was anywhere near us, not that it was that close, but we were being so loud laughing and talking. Plus, Mo's cell phone kept going off until I heckled him about ruining the ambiance multiple times!
This is Sarah, Jessica and Mo (hiding behind Jessica) as we walked through the park over a small pond where there were warning signs for crocs all over!
The aviary! Like any good aviary, there were tons of birds...and stairs...Poor Sarah is petrified of birds, but we made her go in anyways! She squealed every time one moved or made noise! As soon as we got within 20 ft of the exit, she actually ran out the door...
We went through the aquarium and they had this super awesome sawfish! These are the craziest looking fish I've ever seen! They are completely flat on the bottom and have a long, flat nose that has little spines sticking out each side. I was definitely the most excited person in our group about these, and probably more than the little kids that were there too. I can't explain it, they are just fricken awesome.
Big nasty croc! Probably about 12 feet, or so, long; he was asleep when we walked up but he opened his eyes just as a snapped this picture. I wonder if they ever look happy...they always appear cantankerous! Like a grumpy old man...
We got to hold a really big snake!!! The bottom picture is Mo, who was the most enthusiastic about holding the snake. He even asked the guy before the presentation started if he could hold the snake, then bragged to us about it because he wasn't told that everyone else would get to hold it too!
WE ROCK THIS CLUB, WE GO ALL NIGHT:
Now, of course I'm not only going to be sight seeing and having good clean fun! I'm still young enough to be reckless...so that's what we do!
Example #1:There's a bar in the city (Darwin City, about 20 mins away by car, 45 by bus) called Tab and they have a drink called "The Fishbowl" that comes in quite a few fruity flavors. The drink seemed to consist of mostly Sprite...but it was more about the experience anyways! They even made you put a deposit down on the glass, which is funny because before they did...I may or may not have been wondering if I could sneak it out with me. Since Jessica and I are classy ladies, we always order drinks by color. I got to choose first so, naturally, I chose purple...which looked a bit black. And Jessica, of course, chose pink (don't know if I've mentioned this before, but she loves pink. "If it comes in pink, I must have it").
Example #2: We frequent a club called Monsoon's, also in the city, and always dance our butts off! The top one is most of the crew near the end of one night, but it was so crowded that we had a hard time sticking together. I love how we are all making different faces! The other is Jessica, Sarah, and I up on stage doing "The Creep" as I had just introduced them to Lonely Island, a band that collaborates with a number of celebrities to make hilarious music and is shown on Saturday Night Live.
THE DARWIN CUP:
The Darwin Cup is an annual horse race that lasts all day, and I mean all day. It's a formal event and fancy hats are strongly encouraged! Everyone buys really nice dresses, puts on their fancy heels and with a feather or two on their head head out to spend the day at the track! It's also a great excuse to drink all day long, and I mean all day long. We were up at about 8:30 to get pretty and be ready for the bus at 10. When we found out that bus was full and had to wait an hour for the next one, so we sat around having cosmo's at 10am! Definitely a strange feeling, but we knew it would be cheaper to start at home.
Starting at left: Jessica, Sarah, Damien, Mo, and Natalia walking toward the track since the bus had to drop us off about 3 blocks away due to massive amounts of traffic. People come from all around for this event!
Our first horse bet! We chose our bets based solely on the names of the horses. My top pick was Crackalakin...but I was let down! I don't think either of us won much of anything...but we had so much fun yelling the ridiculous names of our horses!
I think I actually won on this race! But I never bet much...so I got $2! Which was just enough to get me a much-needed bottle of water!
By about 2pm, we had enough bottles to make a good sized pyramid...but since the tables were on a grass hill...it didn't actually stand. Good try though.
Damien and I switching "sunnies" as he calls them. He's from Darwin and uses all the weird sayings and Aussie abbreviations that I love to laugh at. He just thinks I laugh a lot and doesn't usually realize it's at him...I think it's best that way! Haha!
That's enough for now!!! We're almost caught up to date too! Yay!!! Thanks for checking it out!
Love it! Keep the posts coming!!
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