Birds are your Friends...in Australia!

Hello!! I still don't have proper internet in our dorm, that will all come tomorrow hopefully, Monday at the latest. We have our first international student orientation tomorrow morning where we will receive tons of information. This is driving most of the group insane because we got here Tuesday but have no student ID cards or JCU user name and passwords....but all is well, we still find our way around and have met some cool Aussies already!
Yesterday at lunch in the dining hall, Addie and I sat down with a group of Aussies. Two of the girls happened to be going into Stocklands (the shopping center about 15 minutes drive from campus) and they asked if we would like a lift into town. We took them up on it, as we planned to take the bus there anyways. We went to the Big W (much like Walmart) to get hair stuff, laundry basket and the sort. Then we went to Woolworths to get some fruit. As we walked in, a guy who seemed to have a bit of an accent, asked if we were JCU Students. After our smiling yeses, he proceeded with, "And from America?!" Damn, is it that obvious?? LOL He said he had ran into a few others, and figured we were all just getting in for the semester. He very kindly admitted that he too was from Florida, but now permanently here I think. Anyways...he invited us out to the AFL fields at 7 last night to play ultimate frisbee. We went right after dinner and had a blast! His informal introduction was, "okay, those are all Aussies (light team), and those are all Aussies (dark shirt team). " YESSSSS!! HAHA, sooo we had a great time playing, I actually sucked, but no one really seemed to mind. We got a whole ear load of Australian humor! Hilarious! They like to curse here, alot! But I guess no different than if you were around your group of friends back home, but they are alot more public about it too.My shoes got filthy after all this action, as the grass was rather wet and I definitely will probably get a bruise on my hip soon as I did some slipping and pouncing on the ground for passes! Then we played this game called ninja something (I cant remember), and that was rather funny for sure! You go around a circle and try to touch other peoples hands to get them out while striking your ninja pose! Silly, but fun! That is definitely something I have noticed here, everyone is very down to earth and very laid back!! Love it! Then they invited us to a house party on Saturday night! Excited, should be fun!
Soooo the best is probably next, on our walk back to our dorm ( on campus, mind you, at around 9:30 at night) we saw about 8 kangaroos!! They were just chilling out in an open field and that was sooooooo awesome!! It was our first official siting! (Earlier that day, Addie and I had been wandering campus, and caught the tail end of a kangaroo running into the bushes.) Then,we showed our room off to some of the other kids we know, and they were jealous, apparently we have good rooms, I mean they are better than A&M. The layout is neat. We have this big common room where we can have people over to hang out and yeah it is pretty cool! We got showers and once again passed out....I don't think my body is fully transitioned into the time zone yet, but it'll come!

So this morning we went down for breakfast, threw a load of laundry in and walked over to the international student center (where they let us access internet). On the walk over, the most seemingly bazaar moment occurred. This cockatoo (about the size of an owl), just flew down and landed perfectly on my shoulder. You can probably only imagine the yelp I let out followed by lots of laughter. Then he tried to peck at my sunglasses but got my ear instead! OUCH!! It felt about like when I got my cartilage pierced! And thank God he didn't go for that ear!!! But this was hilarious, in fact we took a laughing break, and a guy driving by (actually the guy who had dropped us and our luggage off earlier that week) stopped to ask if we were okay. He said the birds were just being friendly!! YAY!! I'm wearing a bright blue shirt and I have a feeling they like bright stuff, because while we were in Sydney in one of the parks we stopped to purposely have the birds perch on our arms, but with the help of bread!! I definitely wasn't holding bread this morning though, as why I think he was attracted to my shirt! I wish I would have had a camera, first bird "attack"! By the way, the birds are BEAUTIFUL here! I never imagined I could take such an interest in watching birds, until all of them are brightly colored and just amazing!
We now found ourselves at the library to use internet and read the paper, trying to get updated on the Townsville news..HAHA! Talking points!

Okay well that's about all...I can't wait to post some of the photos from Sydney, and stories! Cheers for now!