The 2013 Lions Tour

Yesterday morning started off nicely with a trip to my new gym. In case you're wondering what $65 a month gets you in Sydney:

Iron in the locker room. Because everyone wears suits here.

Aaaand I have no idea how much I'm lifting

I then met up with the other secondees and did a "free" walking tour (it's polite to tip at the end). It was a great introduction to the city. Saw the town hall, some churches, the shopping areas, and the quay. Here are a couple snapshots I took:

Pic of CBD (central business district)

Circular Quay/The Rocks (not sure yet what divides them, but same area)

The Rocks and Circular Quay are where the harbor is/was when people first came to Australia. Apparently its the largest natural harbor in the world. The Rocks was historically the ghetto area where a lot of the convicts were (when the English shipped out their prisoners to here).

That's the underside of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It was built during the Great Depression. For about $300, you can do a walking tour across the top that takes about 3 hours. Sounds fun, but expensive... Not sure if I'll do that yet.

And I thought this alleyway was cool. A bunch of bird cages with bird sounds playing from them. It's supposed to commemorate the birds that used to live in this area but were pushed out by humans.

Later that day was the "decider" of the rugby match between the Australian Wallabies and the British and Irish Lions (final game of a best of 3 series). I've been learning a lot about the Common Wealth Nations (this includes Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa and others). Basically, all former British colonies that didn't brutally revolt like us (oops). I'm starting to understand it, although still getting slightly conflicting information.

Basically, they all still have this connection with the UK, the motherland. This helps to explain why the Queen is still on Canadian and Australian money, a fact that always befuddled me. They are their own countries, but the Queen is technically the head of the state who may (or may not, depending on who you ask) still signs off on every law that each country passes (but it's just a formality thing. She never says no). Every few years they have the Common Wealth Games, which is similar to the Olympics. Almost makes me feel a little sad we had to go and screw this up by having a revolution... But then I think back to my patriotic high school history teacher and that potential nostalgia fades away. But it is cool that they all still have this connection.

ANYway, so every 4 years, the Lions (the British national rugby team) goes to either New Zealand, South Africa, or Australia to play them in a best of 3 series (so they visit each country every 12 years). It seems like such a cool concept to me. 

There were British people EVERYWHERE this weekend. And as you can imagine, they were obnoxious as only British people can be (people wonder where we get our obnoxious, arrogant attitude as Americans? Look no further than the country that started us).

Having some good times, though.

It all made for a great atmosphere. We decided to watch the game outside the stadium.

Photos are taken with my phone, so yeah... Not the best quality.

I had to get a Wallabies t shirt and we got some free signs. We thought the signs were hilarious because they say "try" on them. So polite, this Aussies. They don't want their team to win. Just to try their hardest.

Oh... The Scottish guy we were with explained that a "try" is a touchdown in rugby. So this sign basically says "score!" or "TD!" That makes a LOT more sense.

While watching the "test" (under increasingly colder and colder conditions) I began to realize that, wow, football really does have similarities to rugby. I always kinda new that. People would say, "yeah, rugby is kinda like football, but you can't throw the ball forward." But to finally watch an entire game, you see the touchdowns (worth 5, conversion kick afterwards is worth 2 for a total of 7), penalty kicks are worth 3 points (like a field goal) and you can see them almost snapping the ball back (like to a QB) then pitching it, like an option play. Pretty cool to see.

It was a fun match, in with a bunch of Brits cheering on their team (Liiiiiii-ons, Liiiiiiii-ons). At the end, the Lions clobbered the Wallabies, much to this bandwagon fan's disappointment.

On a side note, I expected the Aussies to speak crudely and swearing all the time. You know, like the English. However, so far I have noticed (although I brought this up and people disagreed) that the Aussies don't seem to swear that much or use language that Americans just don't really use (thinking of certain c and t words....). But at the rugby match, with all the English, ahhh... there's those words I was expecting to hear...

Exotic animal sighting of the day:

Don't ask. Not sure what this is.