Adventures with Annie!: KOALAS KOALAS KOALAS!

Hello again!
I decided in my last post there was simply too much to write for one post so I have moved on to a second one. A few things I forgot to mention before: our trip to Featherdale Wildlife Park, our exploration of the botanical gardens, and our visit to the Sydney Olympic Park!
First up is the Sydney Olympic Park where we saw the main stadium where the opening and closing ceremonies were held. Take a gander at it!

Next, and I apologize for not having more pictures but I will try to get some soon, we walked through the city and found the Royal Botanical Gardens. Australia seems so independent that it is easy to forget that it is technically under the rule of the Queen still. This means that everything has funny English names! FUN! We also ventured over to the Australian Catholic University as we will be using their classrooms for our political science classes.

Last, I must tell you all about the trip to Featherdale Wildlife Park!!!!!

WE SAW KOALAS!!!!!! We also got to pet and feed kangaroos and wallabies, watch a dingo eat baby birds, see penguins splash, tease crocodiles and cassowaries and laugh at fat little wombats! I have not made it to the Sydney Zoo yet so I haven't seen the pygmy hippos but that will happen asap!

I think this is the best picture of the trip so far!

Koalas spend all day eating eucalyptus leaves or sleeping

We fed the wallabies and kangaroos (I am with a roo in this picture) ice cream cones full of food and straw. They were very tame and clearly used to being over fed by human visitors...I have heard they are much more aggressive in the wild.

The pelicans here put our pelicans to shame. They are around 4 feet tall standing up and absolutely massive!!! I would be frightened to run into one of these on the beach.

I am in love with these little penguins!

This dingo spent a good while rubbing it's meal (dead baby birds) around in the eucalyptus leaves before finally deciding to rip it to pieces.

EMUS! Emus are even bigger than Cassowaries and, with their heads straight up, seems to be at least 6 feet tall. These guys have serious talons so watch out!

Albino roo!

What this means is that Kangaroo is fair game...literally! Kangaroo is sold in the market right alongside the beef and chicken! We had kangaroo on pizza in our second day here and I really enjoyed it. It is surprisingly not all that gamey but rather more like a super rich beef. I may try cooking it for myself if I can find a good recipe...and if I can afford it. Food is easily twice as expensive as it is in the US (and that's before we lose out on the exchange rate!). I am watching the news every morning to see how the markets are and what the exchange rate is that day so I can get the best deal possible.