CRIKEY!

After a looong and laborious week ;) at uni the weekend is here!  I've spent much of my free time exploring Brisbane with the other EAP students and am starting to feel more settled in.  It rained friday, so we all came home after uni with the intention of going back out when the rain stopped.  Well, we ate dinner with the fam and headed into town, but Amanda and I only stayed for a short while before promptly catching a train back home and going to sleep before 1030.  Saturday, I went to the Steve Irwin Zoo!  It was sooo much fun! I got to feed and hang out with the kangaroos, hold a koala, and pet a wombat.  Feeding the roos was amazing; they're really soft and they have this one giant toe on their feet in between two small ones.  Holding the koala was awesome as well; they grab onto you as if you were a tree so you feel like youre getting a big snugly hug.  And they smell like eucalyptus; it permeates clothes and stays there forever.  Of course, I couldn't go to the Steve Irwin Zoo without seeing the croc show!  These creatures are massive.  They put alligators to shame.  I'll put some more pictures up either today or tomorrow so you can see just how frightening they can be.

For the first time in my life, I get to experience what it's like to be the one with an accent.  Generally speaking, Aussies and Americans dress the same so no one can really tell that I'm not from around here just by looking at me, but once I start talking people put surprised looks on their faces.  I've gotten a few double takes, too.  And I am slowly starting to pick up the Aussie accent.  It's substantially more difficult that a British accent which seems to just roll off the tongue, but the other night I said something about a chair and it sounded a bit Aussie.  Maybe by the end of my stay here I'll be able to impersonate the accent flawlessly.

Someone mentioned a flea market of some sort going on in the city at the moment so I think I'm going to try and find it.  There are tons of really cool buildings to see in the city so even if i don't find the market, I'll wander around a bit and see the sights.  Keep an eye out for my pictures!

Jessie