kangaroo is quite tasty...

The past few days have been pretty eventful. Lets see, I ate kangaroo for the first time, I even cooked it myself once with a friend, I moved into my apartment, I got my first true Australian sunburn and i learned how to cook curry.

So I have not yet seen a kangaroo, but i have managed to eat them twice. The taste of kangaroo is tough to describe but I guess I would say that it tastes like chewy steak. You can buy it marinated at the supermarket, order a kangaroo burger from a fast food place or go all out with a kangaroo fillet. My friend and I made 'roo cheese steaks' and they were delicious!

Moving into my apartment went well. I arrived at the apartment at 10:30 am on Sunday and mostly everyone was still sleeping, but I hung out in the apartment most of the day and eventually got to meet all ten of my roommates. I am in a three person room with a Dutch girl and a girl from Belgium. Everyone is in Australia for different reasons, either studying, working or just trying to perfect their English. The only problem is that I am terrible with names to begin with and several of them have names that i can barely pronounce, nevermind remember, so i have to work on that. Three of the guys in the apartment play soccer (the Turkish, Colombian and Brazilian guys- go figure), so i finally have others to play with! Everything is in convenient walking distance from the apartment. Town hall station with trains and buses all over the city is just down the block, Hyde Park (similar to central park) is a few minutes away, Darling Harbour (where i work) is about a ten minute walk and there are supermarkets and shops all around.

Monday was my second day of work and my first payday. Apparently in Australia Monday is pay day. They explain the reasoning to be that if they pay on fridays everyone will waste their money on alcohol over the weekend, so Monday is a better choice. Makes sense. I spent most of my shift greeting and seating people and being asked where i was from.

Apparently it is really hard to get a job here and I lucked out. I have met travelers that have been trying for months to get a job with no luck. In my five hour shift, three girls stopped and asked if we were hiring.

Yesterday I went hiking at Royal National Park, which is the second oldest national park in the world (after Yellowstone, which i have yet to see!) I have no idea how they determine the age of a national park, but i didn't question it. Even after numerous warnings, I packed sunscreen and decided not to wear it since it was cloudy and about 75 degrees. That wasn't the greatest of ideas. But I guess I learned my lesson.