Moomba and More!

Before I begin, I want to announce that I have a new goal. I want to be in the studio audience for a game show. I've just recently realized that they film SO MANY in Melbourne. Pretty much every Australian game show I've ever seen or heard of is filmed here. And since I'm in university and have large gaps of free time during the day, going to game shows seems like a fantastic way to fill the time. Maybe one day I can even try to be a contestant?

In other news, there are only five (!!) weeks of term left. One of which will be spent on school placement, so only four weeks of classes and such. Where did the semester go??

Well, to answer that question, we shall have to go back in time...back to...March 11, 2007. Actually, I don't think anything much happened that day. Let's try for...the 12th, Monday!

Wednesday the 14th was Labour day, but everyone got Monday off for it so we'd all have a three day weekend. Everyone, that is, except Melbourne Uni. For some reason my uni never closes for Labour Day. All the other unis do, and everyone gets the day off work! So I went to my morning classes, but then said "Grr to university!" and skipped my afternoon lecture. Then I met up with Pippi to check out Moomba, which is an annual festival here. Moomba is supposed to be Aboriginal for "Let's get together and have some fun," but it's, well, not. We had a guest lecuture the other day at uni whose Aboriginal, and he explained to us what it really means. The story goes that in 1950s, there was this Aboriginal and he was pretty prominent among the Aboriginal activists and also pretty mad at how they were being treated. So when the Melbourne government came to him asking what would be a cool thing to name their festival, he told them, "Moomba." When asked what that meant, he told them it meant getting together and having fun. But, of course, it doesn't. But the name has stuck. And if you're curious about what Moomba really means, I'm sure you can find it online hehe. But anyway.

On to Moomba. I didn't actually take that many pictures. So I've stolen other pictures that people took from the festivities this year and in previous years, so you can still feel as if you were there. But one of the pictures is actually mine

The parade:

The rides:

The fireworks:

Other cool stuff:

And, of course, the waterfest! Pippi's favorite part:

The next significant day I can recall was Friday, March 16th. That was the day that André and I went to go buy fishies! 6 zebra fish...or so we thought! The store clerk accidentally gave us 7, which is sort of understandable considering how quickly they swim around. So we named them Splish, Splash, Spot, Soren, Susanna, Sam, and Surprise. Yes, Susanna, we named a fish after you. So feel special. They live in André's kitchen and I can visit them when I'm at his place. I tried to take pictures of them, but it didn't really work, because they swim really fast! But here are my attempts anyway: