March 10th, Australia Day 19

The highlight of this Wednesday was a cruise through Sydney Harbour planned by the good people at the Macquarie University Study Abroad and Exchange Office. For $10.00, we were all treated to a wonderful 3 hour cruise through the Harbour, music and all-you-could-eat pizza courtesy of Pizza Hut. The boat cast off from the Man-O'-War Steps which is a small dock located beside the Sydney Opera House.

I arrived early, camera in hand and ready to take pictures of the cruise. This would also be an experiment as it was the first time I was going to extensively use the manual setting on my digital camera. An acquaintance of mine, Alexandra, had recently returned from an exchange at McGill University in Montreal, QC and a post-exchange trip to Europe. I phoned her up and she expressed and interest in attending the cruise as she wanted to meet other international students; she is a native Australian. With great luck, I managed in getting for her the last ticket available for the cruise.

After some difficulty, we managed to find each other through the throngs of other students in the area and we boarded. The cruise was run on the theme of the 1970s, and many people went dressed as people from that era, but as I had no clothes which could pass of as being from the 1970s, I went in my beige cargo pants and a golf shirt. I decided that if someone gave me grief about my attire, I would simply explain that if I had been around in the 70s, this is what I would have worn.

The cruise went around the harbour and up th Parramatta River several times and I got a chance to use the manual feature on my camera frequently. I got some good shots and some bad ones, but I'll let you decide as to their caliber. The cruise itself went by uneventfully.

Trying to return home was more difficult matter as the buses ran about 20 minutes apart at that time of night and the first one back to Macquarie was completely full. I managed to catch the second one and made it home around 01:30. I especially dreaded the fact that I had a 09:00 class the that morning.

Photos are now available at: http://australiaday19.blogspot.com/