Failing At This

So I finally got my internet set up in my room but it costs money for internet and the most expensive drain is uploading and downloading, so I'll have to save my pictures from this weekend until I can get my wireless set up at the BU Sydney Center.

It's been a ridiculously long, busy, tiring and awesome past five days. I can't believe I've already been here a full week as of tomorrow morning. It's late at night so I'll just try to post a few quick details about what's happened and follow with pictures and fuller posts later this week when I get the wireless set up. Friday we went on a harbour cruise which was absolutely phenomenal. The Sydney Harbour is very west coast style but much cooler and with more variety. The Opera House is obviously the most famous part but everything was just unbelievable to look at and we lucked out because it was 65 and sunny-a perfect winter day here.

Saturday we went to a marketplace as a big group-I strayed off and watched the second half of the Celtics game-really the only contact I've had with American sports since I've gotten here. We then took a random detour through this residential district and after finding some really cool historical landmarks and strange signs including: "Dogs Totally Prohibited" we found a high school rugby match. I'd never watched a rugby match really and especially not up close. We got lucky because it was their 12th year game-the seniors, so the kids were big and talented. All private school kids in Sydney have to play which we all had a hard time wrapping our heads around. There were a couple of fights right in front of us and the weirdest part was the coaches were invisible until halftime. Instead of yelling and screaming about strategy or more likely the late hits and even a few dirty punches the coaches were silent-a very strange concept for American sports fans who are used to constant whining by coaches.

Sunday we went to one of Sydney's two famous beaches. Bondi Beach is a 3km beach (2 miles) that is absolutely gorgeous. We took a walk along the cliffs of the beach and were so satisfied despite the four to five hours of sleep we'd gotten the night before. The waves easily reached 10-15 feet at points which made watching the surfers even more incredible. At one point I even saw a small whale fifty feet below me-I have a pretty cool photo of it when I can upload photos.

Monday we had our first day of class. I'm taking an Australian Cinema class which I'm not sure about but the class didn't seem that bad-2.5 of our 4 hours of class was taken up by the film Australia. Today-Tuesday was my first day at work for Channel NINEMSN, one of the big three networks in Australia. I'm working on a show called A Current Affair, which is like the Aussie Version of Nightline only less serious journalism. I left for work at 8AM today and got home at 8PM. Today I mostly familiarized myself with the facility and did odd errands and tried to come up with story ideas for future shows. It's amazing how much knowledge I picked up of Australia current affairs in one day-that's what reading the internet and papers for 6-7 hours can do. I got to watch the show which actually is shot in Melbourne for the first time today though and I was really happy with the final product. Tomorrow I'm going on a shoot for a story on one of Australia's most famous tennis players-John Newcombe, a former world number 1 player.