Week Three

Hello and greetings once again from the Lucky Country! In this week's blog post I will be discussing a weekend trip me and some of the other international students took to the Botanic Gardens here in Wagga Wagga and a few more random musings on the differences between Australian and American culture.

Last weekend, me and a few of the other international students (three Americans, one Swede, one Canadian, and a Frenchwoman) took a trip to the Botanic Gardens in Wagga Wagga. Well, not exactly in Wagga Wagga. Wagga's public transportation (actually a lot better and more frequently used than it would be in a town of its size in America) dropped us quite a ways from our destination and gave us the opportunity to walk through and explore some of Wagga's suburbs. The neighbourhoods we walked through were all quite nice and pleasant. In fact, they definitely could've passed for a typical American suburb in one of the bigger cities (as the houses were quite close together, uncomfortably for so for my tastes). One thing, however, that definitely separates the architecture of Australian family homes from those of American ones, is the fact that Australian houses have either tin roofs or tile roofs. My grandmother lives in Phoenix, so a tile roof is nothing new to me, but a tin roof on someone's home would be seem quite absurd and probably be deemed ugly by most Americans (especially in this part of the country). I have yet to have seen a single shingled roof, and I have to admit I do find the tin roofs (not the tile ones) quite displeasing to the eye.

But anyways, after we had taken a pleasant morning stroll through the Wagga Wagga suburbs we finally arrived at the Botanic Gardens. It was earlier in the day, but the weather was pleasant, and  there weren't many people there so it proved to be a very relaxing walk. I only included four pictures in this particular blog post for the sake of space, however, if you would like to see more photographic evidence of my adventures, feel free to view them on my Facebook page. There have been absolutley gorgeous sunsets here in Wagga over the past week, but no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to do them justice with my iPhone. The pictures I've posted here on this blog entry turned out fairly nicely, though I would've liked to have taken slightly more scenic photos.

The Botanic Gardens consisted of a lovely nature walk through uniquely Australian floral and tree arrangements, there was also a Chinese pagoda, and a Shakespeare garden (though I was bit let down by this one, it was really just a small area surrounding a fountain in the middle of a hedge). There was also a lovely rose garden and numerous pathways for people to take very relaxing walks. The zoo, which included mostly animals native to Australia, was good fun and pictures of the kangaroos, peacocks, and other creatures can be found once again on my Facebook page for public viewing. There was also an incredibly pleasant outdoor chapel, where outdoor weddings and the like could take place. The trip was definitely a delightful excursion and I will more than likely go back when spring arrives here in Australia shortly.

Overall, the trip was a delightful one and I had a great time. Speaking of trips, I will be taking a trip to Sydney this weekend and as you can probably guess, that will be the subject of next week's post. Expect lots of cool pictures (hopefully) and nice anecdotes. I have finally found a method of uploading pictures that works reasonably well, so that frustrating aspect of blogging has mostly been eliminated. As I hope you can tell, I'm starting to get a better feel for this blogging thing with each passing week, just pray that my progress continues. More updates coming soon, have a nice week!