The first day I arrived for orientation was pretty relaxing. We moved into our hotel, The Meriton World Tower (a five star "serviced apartment"), and then had dinner on Darling Harbor. Although I hate to admit it, I did try some kangaroo. Apparently they are like Wisconsin's deer--extremely overpopulated--so I didn't feel so bad about it after I learned that. The following morning we had a brief walking tour of the area of Sydney we were staying in. For lunch we had meat pies from Harry's, which is like an icon in Australia. I got a veggie pie that was stuffed with potatoes, carrots, and gravy and topped off with mashed potatoes and peas. Even though it was 80 degrees out and the pie was extremely hot, it was still so delicous. After that we walked to the Sydney Harbour Bridge and prepared for our bridge climb. They start you out in a full body suit, then give you a belt with a safety harness, and finish it up with a rain jacket and walkie talkies. The climb was about 3 1/2 hours and consisted of 4 ladders and 1 ,332 steps. It sounds really difficult but there were a few stops to take in the view and give our climb leader time to share some facts with us that gave us time to catch our breath. Hearing about the architecture and the building process was pretty crazy. One guy even fell off and survived. When they pulled him out of the water, though, his boots were all the way up to his knees from the impact. He had 3 broken ribs, but still went back to work building the bridge two weeks later!! Not me!! Good thing is is that it is basically impossible to fall off now despite the height and wind(So mom, you could probably do it). So I now have one thing crossed off my Australia bucket list!!
Friday afternoon we took a bus to a Wildlife zoo outside of Sydney. There were a lot of birds and wallabies just running around right when we got in. Then there was a koala sanctuary with a lot of sleeping koalas. It must be all they do because there were probably 100 koalas there and I only saw 1 or 2 move, and that was only after there was eucalytpus put in front of them! Although it is illegal to "cuddle a koala" in New South Wales, we did get to pet it and take a picture. We then got to play with some kangaroos. I bought kangaroo food for $1, which was alphala and carrots in an ice cream cone. They would come right up to you and eat out of your hands. So cute!! I saw one with a really big looking belly/pouch, so I literally waited for 30 minutes to see if there was a baby! Literally two seconds before I was about to leave a baby kangaroo popped it's head out--too cute!
