Why do I always pick the losing team?

On Sunday we went to another Aussie Rules Football game, this time the Collingwood Magpies against the Western Bulldogs. Both teams are from the Melbourne area, so it was billed as a great cross-town rivalry. The game was in the Telstra Dome, right in the heart of the city (exterior above, interior above). It was a sellout (above), with a total attendance of 46,990.

It was a good game, with lots of scoring and physical play (above). The fans were very into it, and they each had their craziest cheering sections behind the goals (above). I decided to root for the Magpies (black and white) because Collingwood is closer to where we live. It was looking pretty good, as they were up by 25 points halfway into the third quarter. However, because I had chosen to root for them, they ended up losing by 33 points (typical). The final score was Bulldogs 135 to Magpies 102 (above). One of my friends Dan, who had chosen to root for the Bulldogs, couldn’t stop gloating (above).

I had a good time, and I understand more of the game now. It is a fun, fast paced game, but it’s hard for me to get really into it because I have no emotional connection to the teams and haven’t grown up with the sport always on my TV set or in the papers. But I imagine that if I grew up here I would probably love it. Maybe one day it will come to America, where fans will catch on and make it more popular than the NFL.

I won’t hold my breath.

Saving the earth, one tree at a time

On Saturday I volunteered with Conservation Volunteers Australia in a town called Ballarat, about an hour outside of Melbourne. Ballarat was a pretty sleepy town that has nice buildings from the gold rush that populated Australia (above). 100 years ago it sounds like it was a pretty hopping place, but now there is not much there.

I was working along a stretch of road (above) that had been cleared to construct the roads. As a result, the area had become really rocky (above), causing erosion. Also, koalas lost their habitat due to the clearing. So, our job was to plant trees. There was 7 of us from Conservation Volunteers and about 10 from a group in Ballarat.

We learned how to plant these little saplings. We were given these tools that were basically pogo sticks with a shovel at the bottom of them (above). To create the hole for the tree, I had to jump on the tool. This created a hole just large enough for the sapling to go in. Then, I had to protect the trees from weather and rabbits by hammering 3 stakes around the tree and placing a plastic sheet around them (above). Sounds easy enough, but it was a pretty rocky area so it was hard to find an area to put a tree on. I also had a mishap where I jumped on the tool, slipped, and fell forwards to have the foot platforms nail my hamstrings. It was pretty funny.

It was a fun day. I think I planted about 15 trees myself, which added to the hundreds that were already planted there (above). It was cool to see some trees that had been planted 3 years ago that were starting to mature (above). Hopefully someday my trees will be home to some koalas!

Okay, seriously, I want a koala.

On Friday our class took a field trip to the Healesville Sanctuary, an animal rehabilitation zoo. While I’ve seen most of these animals before, it was still a fun day.

First, we got a special talk with one of the zookeepers. He brought out a snake (above) and let all of us touch it. He showed us this double-headed lizard, whose tail looks like a head to try to confuse its predators (above). He brought out this sugar glider (above), a little squirrel-like thing that glides through the air using its extra skin as a parachute. We didn’t see it glide, but we got to pet it, and boy was it fuzzy.

Then we saw a birds of prey flying extravaganza. We saw this buzzard who has evolved to use a stone to break open an emu egg (above). It’s one of two bird species in the world that has learned how to use a tool to eat their food. There was an owl, who flew really close to all of the audience members. It has crazy eyes (above). I love owls, but that dude looked pretty scary.

We walked around the whole zoo, and saw some cool animals. We saw flying foxes (above), which looked pretty much like bats to me. I saw some kangaroos hugging (above), and a wombat that was quite large (above) but not as big as the one who sat on my lap in Perth. I also saw these cool birds, I’m not sure what they’re called but I nicknamed them Platy-birds since they have platypus bills (above). I did see some real platypuses, but the display was too dark to take any decent pictures. I’ve added them to my list of “animals that should not exist” because they are so bizarre looking, they look like something from science fiction (above, from website).

Then we got to my favorite part, the koala exhibit. I was really lucky, because two of them were awake and crawling around on tree branches. Since koalas sleep for 20 hours a day, it was great luck to see two of them awake and being active. The zookeeper talked about how they have pads of fat on their butts so that they can sleep all day comfortably (above, look at that fuzzy butt!). They were very hungry when I saw them, but very lazy in how they got their food. They tried to keep their butt planted, so they would stretch their necks as far as possible to get to the eucalyptus leaves (above). Then, if they determined that they actually had to move, they moved about the branches like really slow monkeys (above). It was hard to tear myself away from the koalas, because they are just so cute and soft and fuzzy (above).

46 days until my birthday, so there’s still plenty of time for you to secure a koala for me. Just putting that out there.

The National Gallery of Victoria

On Saturday we visited the NGV, a huge art museum (above). Inside the museum was a “great hall” that had a fantastic stained glass ceiling (above).

First we saw galleries made up of old stuff from different areas of the world. First there was old stuff from South America (above). Then we saw older stuff from Egypt (above). Any art museum visit would be remiss without viewing old stuff from Greece (above). The Grecian Urns reminded me of the singing ladies in Hercules. Finally, we saw some old stuff from Southeast Asia (above).

There was (like most art museums) a section with furniture. There were a few crazy chairs, such as this silver chair (above), and this orange toothpick-like chair (above). But the thing that blew my mind was this green stool (above). Can someone please explain to me how one is supposed to sit on this? It remains a mystery to me.

Of course there was a modern art section, my favorite (*rolling my eyes*). While there were no kindergarten paintings, there were several paintings of just colors in rectangles (above). There was actually one piece that I really enjoyed. It was a mirror (above). But next to the mirror was a series of text documents that basically said “anyone can recreate this” and then had detailed directions of how anyone could make a piece of art out of a mirror. I appreciated that it at least had a sense of humor.

My real favorite exhibit was the one about sneakers (above). It featured awesomely designed shoes, like these brightly colored ones (above) and these crazy silver ones (above).

I definitely enjoyed my culture dose of the week.