last hoorah.

Today was our last day in Sydney and I woke up the same way we had arrived—to pouring down rain. Of course, there is nothing better to do in this situation than to go on a run so Dana and I put on our raincoats and headed towards the Opera House and the Botanical Gardens for one last chance to take them in before we left. I personally love running in the rain (makes it feel like home) and thoroughly enjoyed it. We ran to Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair, which is a bench hand carved out of sandstone by convicts in the early 1800s for Governor Macquarie’s wife, Elizabeth. I wanted to sit in it, but there was already a couple cuddling there, trying to escape the rain, so we just ran back since we had to make it in time for breakfast before we left for the University of Sydney.

At the University of Sydney, we took a tour of the workout facilities, the aquatics center, and walked around campus. It was very similar to a campus in the United States—students trying to get other students to sign petitions, students creating displays to increase awareness over an issue, students studying on the lawn (it had stopped raining and actually turned into a nice day), and students tossing a Frisbee around. For lunch we ate at one of their food courts, which featured typical dining hall type foods as well. We even went to a bookstore where everything was overpriced like all other university bookstores. Moral of the story—universities in Australia and the US are pretty similar. Where they differ are with their sports. While in the US it is a big deal to play sports for your high school or college, in Australia it is quite the opposite so their programs are not as developed. Currently, the University of Sydney is working on developing their athletics program to make it better and to generate better athletes. They have a number of scholarship athletes, but their scholarships only cover a small portion of their tuition. As far as training goes, they have to share the same facilities as other students and practically receive no benefits like student athletes in the US. I cannot even imagine how American student athletes would react knowing that if they were to go to school in Australia, they would have to mix with the ‘muggles’ (non-athletes).

After our tour we had a quick lecture at the University of Sydney, given by an intern from England named Will. He works with the University of Sydney footy team as a physiology intern so he spoke to us about what he does as an intern and about the Australian Football League, or footy as they call it. I found his lecture interesting because a lot of his duties are things that we do as athletic trainers and because the game of footy confuses me and I have yet to figure it out. For his internship, he tracks the athletic performance of the footy players during games by weighing them in before and after for hydration purposes, recording their play time during practice and games, how many hours they have been sleeping, and their muscle soreness before and after activity. Will then explained the rules of the game—while I still do not fully understand it, I have a general idea. The oval in which they play on is 150 meters long and each team has 18 men on the field. At the end of each side, there are 4 goal posts. In order to score six points you have to kick it in between the middle two posts. If the ball hits the posts or goes in between the outer posts, it is one point. To get the ball across the oval, you have to punch the ball and if you are running down with it, the ball has to touch the ground about every 10 meters. Also, if you are tackled, the play is not over—you have to get rid of the ball or at least make an effort to get rid of it. When we go to Melbourne, we will be watching a footy game so I am hoping that watching it will help me understand it better.

Once we finished up at the University of Sydney, we had the rest of the day off to do any last minute things that we wished to do. Since Lexi had been dying to find the Great Synagogue, we headed to Hyde Park to do that. This was also conveniently located by the mall, so we did some quick grocery shopping and also stopped by Lulu Lemon, which is something Kaitlyn and I had been dying to do. It was funny because when we entered, the sales associate said that they had just gotten in a shipment of the new winter line. Upon inspection, it was the same winter line that had come to the US for our past winter. So in addition to being a different season than the northern hemisphere, Australia also receives the clothing later (which makes complete sense, I just had never thought about it.)

For dinner, we had made a reservation at Sake since that did not work out last night and our sushi craving was left unsatisfied. Dana, Lexi, Kaitlyn, and I arrived at Sake and were seated at a sunken table where we were instructed to take our shoes off and place them in a cubby below the table. Sake was a very contemporary Japanese restaurant and the strong aroma of traditional Japanese scents made me instantly hungry. I personally ordered a bowl of miso soup, avocado rolls (such fresh avocado), and zucchini kushiyaki. It was just what I wanted and my craving of Japanese food had been more than fulfilled. Dinner however was our last hoorah, because we had to head back to the hostel to do laundry and pack before our train ride tomorrow morning at 6 am.