I Love Study Breaks

There is nothing better than a week off from school.  The only thing that I missed in comparison with previous study breaks of undergrad was that I couldn't go home and have the fabulous catering of mom and dad.  They are great cooks and I love not having to make my own food, it just magically appears.

But, mom and dad, you better watch your backs, because lately I have been killing it at cooking.  Not to toot my own horn or anything.  But, I have churned out some sick meals (perhaps there are some better word choices to use there - oh well, I'm sticking to it; just keep in mind the context of really good), especially during this past week as I have had all the time in the world to go down to the communal kitchen in my residence building.   Now, it could be that I just haven't really had a home cooked meal in some time since I usually stick to easy things to make in my room, like salads, bleh boring.  But as I get more comfortable with my schedule and my workload, I hope that I can keep on this roll. Some of the highlights were herb crusted chicken, mushroom risotto, turkey and cheese empanadas, and today's sweet potato, bacon and kale hash.

So besides cooking during my study break, most of my time was spent... you guessed it, studying!  I did a lot of reading over the break.  I was working on making sure I was caught up, or as caught up as I could be, in all my classes, because of course the most challenging weeks are to come in terms of assignments due and amazingly only seven weeks left of first term.  Time is flying by!

Don't worry, I still had time to get out some to hang with friends and explore.  I went to the Sydney Observatory, which was fantastic!  A couple of friends and I went for dinner at a Thai restaurant beforehand.  There are a lot of different cuisines here, but for some reason I get the impression that Thai is one of the most popular choices! And boy, is it good!  Then we took the bus to the Observatory, which is more or less in the middle of the city.  It is close to an area called Barangaroo, which is not really relevant to my story, but so much fun to say.

Sydney by night is quite a sight.. 

Anyway, we went on a tour and they took us through the museum, planetarium, and to their three telescopes.  We also spent some time on the lawn where the tour guide pointed out the southern cross and a couple of others stars that I cannot remember the names of.  Unfortunately the weather was not overly cooperative as it was cloudy.  That, coupled with the light pollution, limited the number of things we could see.   But it was still amazing! We got to see Venus and Jupiter from the telescopes.

A telescope from the 1800s. - Australia's oldest working telescope.
Fun fact, they had to rebuild the observatory around the telescope because it was bigger than they thought it would be.

We peered at Sydney Harbour Bridge too.

I also went for a day trip to Lane Cove National Park.   I went with Unimates and several of the same people that I went on the Coastal Walk with.  We traveled about forty minutes to North Sydney.  It was a gorgeous sunny day and we rented a bunch of row boats and ate our packed lunches.  It was a really nice trip and a beautiful and very green area. But what was amazing was that it so closely resembled a river in Ontario.

Tell me you haven't seen a similar river in Ontario

Granted the cockatoos squawking reminded me that it wasn't, it was still kind of the same.  Oh I also saw a lizard!  It is the biggest wild animal that I have seen so far.  I'm happy that I haven't seen spiders or snakes, but that reminds me that I am long overdue for seeing a kangaroo or koala...

He actually posed like this for a while.  But then the person who rents out the boats shooed him away.  No limbs were lost.

I was surprised that not many of the people on the trip had never rowed or paddled before.  Several people got stuck right out the gate going in circles.  Our boat went backward the entire trip, but I decided not to tell them because we were moving and it was more of a leisurely hang out than anything.

It was worth it for the pictures

There were a lot of people out for a hike or a picnic around the park.  There was also the smell of a good campfire and someone cooking on the barbie.  Nothing better on a sunny day.

A picture is worth 1000 words

So those were the most exciting things that I did to escape studying.  But, now it is back to class.  Well, not quite, today was another holiday: ANZAC day.  Starting tomorrow, I will be trudging along to finish up the rest of the semester.