Who is Sergei?

5.5.2012

Cinco De Mayo!!!

Today I had service placement. It was actually kind of a rough morning there. We had issues because there were only 2 boys and a lot more girls. We usually have to have at least one boy and one girl in a team for safety reasons. And I was supposed to be leading a team today. So anyway, I ended up leading a team of 3 girls (including myself), and we were told to just visit the regular women that we see. After just a little while we kind ran out of people that we could visit without a boy, so we wrapped up kind of early.

Afterward, I took the train to Circular Quay and ate lunch by the Warf watching all the ferryboats come and go. A little later my roommates joined me and we hoped on the ferry that goes to Toranga Zoo! Now Toranga Zoo usually costs about $40 to get into, but Carly had some connections through her service placement, so we got in for free! Score!

So we hung out there and I saw lots of Aussie animals like a platypus, emu, koala and kangas! So cool! 

The whole zoo is build into a hill. Luckily we had taken a bus to the top and worked out way down. At the end it spits you out back at the ferry dock.When we got to the end we got back on the ferry and headed to Circular Quay. We decided we wanted to grab some dinner in the Rocks. As we were walking the Rocks markets were just closing so we were able to see a few cute booths. We then went and ate dinner at Pancakes on the Rocks. This is the original one, not the fake darling harbor one that I went to when I saw Titanic. I got a dish called the Aussie Sunrise which was 2 pancakes, a scrambled egg, and ham. It was so good! I ate it all so fast. I couldn’t help myself.

After dinner we headed to young street. Here we were meeting a bunch of ASCers to go to Sydney Swans AFL game. AFL = Australian football league.

If you want to read about AFL, click here for the Wikipedia page

 We caught a shuttle bus that took us to the stadium. I actually really enjoyed watching AFL. I think I just like Aussie sports more than American ones. Another reason why I belong here. But I have to say, it was a really good thing that Kieran taught us the rules last night, otherwise I would have had NO idea what was going on. The people in the front row had the giant pom poms that they would bring out whenever Sydney scored. The whole stadium was full of red and white (Sydney Swans colors).  

This guy is dedicated

I sat by Carly, Tam and Monika. And one time after Sydney scored, Carly leans over to me and says: “Does that guy have a Canadian flag?” and sure enough, I look over, and there is a man who is standing there, waving a Canadian flag. We wondered if he knew it was a Canadian flag, or if he just brought it because it was red and white. I tried to get a picture of it but I couldn’t pull it off sneakily.

Also, it took Carly and I a while to figure out what the crowd was chanting at various points in the match. At first we thought they were chanting “Ser-gei! Ser-gei!”. To which we thought, “Who’s Sergei? Is that one of the players?”

Later we figured out they were actually chanting “Syd-ney! Syd-ney!” which makes A LOT more sense. After the game we all headed out of the stadium and back to the busses that would take us to the train station. I sat by Joel and we joked about how we had been bus buddies earlier in the semester. Joel, what a character.

Finally when I got home, I did the math, and it had been 16 hours sense I had been home. That made for one very long and eventful day.