Slow down, you move too fast. You got to make the morning last...

A grab bag of thoughts:

Since I've been in Sydney, I've been walking pretty much everywhere within reasonable distance. (Though I have been using the train/buses this past week a number of times to get to places a bit further away.) Anyways, this past week my feet really started hurting, especially my heals. At first, I thought it might just be the shoes I was wearing, and that my Converse might not be giving me enough support... so I started wearing my Doc Martens more. Although this did help a little, it was still a quite painful to be walking around. Thinking about other explanations, I thought it might be possible that I was just in too much of a rush, and the constant running around could be making an impact. Believe it or not... this has worked! I was just in too much of a hurry to get places, which is silly, because my schedule is very laid back here. Now that I have chilled out, and slowed down a bit, my feet have started feeling much better.

One of the things a few people asked me to look into once I got to Australia was to see if the toilets really flush the other way, haha. It turns out, that every toilet that I have used since I've been here does not really flush in a circular motion either way. The water comes from both sides, meets in the middle at the front of the bowl, and then flows backwards.

A few of my favorite Aussie expressions:
--When someone is not bothered by or worried about something... they may say "I'm not fussed."
--When someone wants to look at something, (take a peak)... they may say "Let's have a sticky beak."
--The other day on a tv commercial, a guy who was hungry said "I could eat a horse... and chase the jockey."

World Youth Day is coming up very fast... the sign outside of St. Mary's now says just 8 days left. Then again, World Youth 'Day' is actually more of a week. It last from next Tuesday until Sunday. The rail workers announced that they will be going on strike next Thursday, which is supposed to be the busiest day during World Youth 'Day.' The news is saying that there will be over 125,000 international pilgrims during this event, (more than the 2000 Olympics.)

I'm still not quite used to the whole traffic going the other way thing. I've pretty much figured out which way to look when I'm going into a cross walk, (especially since it is printed in big white letters of every cross walk which way you should look.) However, I often find myself drifting to walk on the right side of the sidewalks. Not that this is a huge deal, because with so many tourists here, many other people are doing the same thing, and all of the pedestrians adapt... but I'm still working on walking on the 'right' side of the sidewalk... which is actually the left side.

Last night I went over to the Opera House for another documentary showing as part of the Message Sticks Festival. The documentary was called 'Aboriginal Rules' and was made by an Aboriginal film company, Warlpiri Media. The film was about the Aboriginal rules football, and focused on one team who had been fighting for a few years until they won a championship. The film makers were there, and went up on stage afterwards to talk for a bit about the production of the film.

Other than that, the past two days I've been to two different launches for NAIDOC week. Yesterday down in Glebe, there was a free BBQ accompanied by some musical performances and dances. Today, down in Hurstville, there was another performance where Descendance performed, which is an Aboriginal dance group in the area. In both performances, as with other Aboriginal ceremonies I have witnessed, all begin with a 'welcome to country.' This is when one of the Aboriginal people get up, and basically acknowledge the traditional people of the land, and thank the traditional people who are the owners of the land. I think this is a really cool way to begin a ceremony.

Good start to a week, I'd say.

Life, I love you.
All is groovy.