Today was a free day, so we all headed to downtown Canberra. We mainly stayed around the mall area and like classic American tourists went directly to the souvenir shop first. From there, we just walked around and checked all of the shops. Since we had all day, we all purposely walked slower and perused the shops more closely, afraid of the potential of being bored if we did everything there was to do before the evening bus came. While Canberra may not be as exciting as the past cities, I still appreciate the fact that I am in Australia and try to make every moment a learning experience. And today, it came in the form of people watching and studying the different stores and what they sold. Not very surprisingly, it was very similar to the US. It was comical when we passed by the Apple Store however, because there was currently a class going on for a group of elderly people to learn how to use their iPads.
Around lunch time, part of the group decided they wanted to go see a movie and others decided to grab a nice lunch and continue exploring downtown Canberra. I was part of the group that wanted to get lunch and continue exploring, so Jayson, Dana, Kaitlyn, and I decided to eat lunch at Guzman y Gomez, which is pretty much Australia's version of Chipotle or Qdoba (if either of those places also served their burritos with Coronas or margaritas). I ordered a vegetable burrito bowl and it was actually pretty good--definitely a competitor with 'Potes or 'Dobes. From there, we headed to a cupcake bakery that my Happy Cow app (tells me where I can find vegan food) told me was nearby. It was called the Jazz Apple Cupcake Emporium and when I went in, I instantly fell in love with their array of cupcakes. But when I read the labels, none of them were labeled vegan and I started to worry a little, so I asked the employee which ones were vegan. I almost melted with happiness when he told me that all 20+ flavors were vegan. It was so hard to choose just one, but I ended up choosing the berry chocolate chip since I have never seen a berry flavored cake with chocolate chips and berry frosting. Needless to say, that was probably the highlight of my day.
When we finished devouring our cupcakes, we did some more walking around and looking at shops, but it was starting to get somewhat old so we decided to catch an earlier bus and head back to the AIS. It turned out to be perfect timing however because that gave Dana and I the opportunity to go on our run before dinner. As for dinner, tonight was the first night that they had a vegan dessert (a berry and apple crumble)! It was obviously my lucky day that my sweet tooth cravings from the past couple days were finally being fulfilled.
After dinner, we headed to the Brumbies' game. The Brumbies are rugby union team for Canberra and tonight they were playing the Hurricanes from Wellington, New Zealand. They were playing at Canberra Stadium, which is at the AIS; very convenient for us because it was less than a five minute walk. We sat behind one of the goal posts all in one long row. We were also really easy to sport because we were the only ones not wearing any Brumbies gear, but still waving the complimentary Brumbies flags, bam bams, and banners. Even after all of our rugby lessons and watching other rugby games, I still feel like my understanding of rugby is a little shaky. Nonetheless, the game was still extremely fun to watch and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of being at a major sports event for a different country. Oh and the Brumbies beat the Hurricanes 30-23. Go Brumbies! You have officially gained yourself 22 new fans.
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