Freo, way to go! Hit 'em real hard, send 'em to the floor!

Today was a pretty exciting day. We started at 8:30 with a group breakfast and then had about an hour long orientation session which went over the basics of the program and what is expected of us throughout the semester. During the breakfast, I had my first encounter with vegemite. Despite what any Australian tells you, do NOT try it. It is horrible. Paul Hollick and Kate Rodger (the Sustainability and the Environment program coordinator, who is also married to Paul) told us that their kids can eat spoonfuls of vegemite at a time.Which, honestly, is probably the most disgusting thing I've heard in a long time. Poor kids...

Anyways, after the orientation session we went into the city of Perth and visited Kings Park and Botanic Garden. The drive into the city was really nice, the area we are in is absolutely gorgeous - the views, the houses, everything. The park was also pretty amazing...

King's Park

Some of Perth from the park

So we walked around the park for a little while and got to know each other a little better. Then we drove into a nice area called Cottesloe - and by nice, I mean AU$2 million a house nice. This place was superrr expensive (not that Perth/Freemantle is much cheaper), but it was right by the beach and had some really nice restaurants and shopping areas around it. We stayed on the beach for a little (the water was freezing, shocker) and then drove down the road to a little restaurant called Jester's, which served meat pies! We stopped there for lunch, and I had a Popeye meat pie and a Pavarotti meat pie. The Popeye was just feta cheese and spinach and the Pavarotti was chicken and cheese and some Italian sauce. I thought it was little weird to have a restaurant selling meat pies, but it was actually really nice. 

The beach at Cottesloe

Then we headed into Freemantle. Paul took us to the "round house" which I guess was the first prison in Perth (I can't really remember what he said) and then let us off on our own to roam around a little. So we all took that opportunity to go to the Vodafone store and get cells phones. Unfortunately, the phone my mom bought in the UK was locked so I couldn't use a different SIM card, so I bought a super cheap phone and got a pay-as-you-go plan. All in all, it cost about $65 ($29.99 for the phone, and put $35 of credit on the phone) and I have unlimited texting to any mobile in Australia and free calls to anyone with a Vodafone phone (which is everyone in the program), so that $35 should go a long way. Then we all decided to stay in Freemantle and watch the Freemantle Dockers play the West Coast Eagles in Aussie Rules Football (or footy, as everyone here calls it). I enjoyed a nice beer in the bar but, sadly, watched Freemantle lose 64-65 to West Coast - obviously, it was a really close game. After the game we headed to Hungry Jack's (the exact same thing as Burger King, just a different name) and then took the bus back to Murdoch. Everyone's pretty jet lagged, so we just went back to our rooms for the night. 

One of my other flatmates arrived today so I suppose I should go introduce myself now. Then it's off to bed. I'll write later.

xxx