A Little Footy and Some Wildlife

Our view of the field, the teams warming up

After returning from Sydney, I ended up laying low for about a week and a half, but this weekend I participated in some quintessentially Melbourne/Australian activities.

Deep in Collingwood territory (their colors are black and white)

Friday night I went to my first Australian rules football game, or footy as it is affectionately called. Footy is huge in Melbourne, so my friends and I decided it was high time for us to go watch a live match. Inadvertently, we ended up going to one of the biggest games all season, between the Collingwood Magpies and Carlton Blues. The two teams have a huge rivalry and are currently seeded first and second in the league. Because of that, the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) was packed. Usually you can buy general admission tickets the day of and be able to sit in the general section, but we ended up in standing room only. Luckily, we found a less-crowded standing area with a very nice Australian man to explain some of the nuances of the game.

After watching one full game live, I definitely could get into this sport. It's a fast paced sport, and the players end up running and playing the full two hours (in 30 minute quarters). It is a contact sport, so there were plenty of exciting tackles. Mostly I was incredibly impressed with the endurance of the players. It looked exhausting! I won't attempt to explain the rules here, I'm still trying to get my arms around it, but here's the Wikipedia article if you'd like more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_rules_football. Footy is taken very seriously in Melbourne, and the fans around us were completely die-hard. I ended up supporting Collingwood, mostly because we were surrounded by Collingwood fans that would not have responded kindly to Carlton supporters. With student concession, tickets were a very reasonable $13.30, so I will definitely be going back!

Reclining roos

Today a few friends and I went to Ballarat, a historic gold-mining town about an hour and a half from Melbourne by train. The first thing on our list to visit was the Ballarat wildlife park, which was definitely worth the trip. There were tons of kangaroos just hopping around the whole park, coming up expectantly for food (we were too cheap to buy any, so we disappointed a lot of roos). They were very cute and so tame, it was awesome to get so close! Kangaroos in the wild can be pretty vicious, but these guys were very people-friendly.

Maddie and a roo contemplating each other

Unfortunately, after that the weather turned rainy. A lot of the attractions in Ballarat are outdoors, so we ended up not getting to do a lot else. There was actually a nice art gallery that discussed the Eureka uprising, when miners in Ballarat rioted against the British imposing taxes (I think that's the gist of it). We hopped back on the train and returned home to Melbourne.

Joey in a pouch!!!

Only two school weeks and then it's Easter Break and Tassie! It's very weird that I've already been here for two months. I feel like time is going so quickly! School is definitely starting to pick up, I have midterm-equivalent work due about now, so I might not have a lot of excitement for a bit. Hopefully I'll have good updates soon!