First Explorations

The pancake 'fest' wasn't as good as I had hoped. I woke up very hungry and wished to find a huge pancake buffet with all sorts of toppings. However, I'm not in a 5 star hotel but in a student village and things look a little bit different here. When I arrived there (20 min late) there was already quite a few people surrounding the BBQ area, waiting for pancakes to be served. Apparently, they were making them in the kitchen next door in the common room and brought them to the hungry pack in 10s and 20s, served on plastic plates. I had to wait 30 min to finally steal 3 little pancakes off the plate and eat them without a plate myself. But they weren't bad, I'll give them that much.
Kate (an Australian girl I met at the BBQ), Chloe and I got bored pretty quickly and since Kate invited us to come with her, her mom and her grandma to drive to Fremantle and visit the market, we couldn't say no. Kate is originally from Southern Australia but her mom and granma had driven her here and so we were able to get in their car and take a 30 min drive to Fremantle.
Fremantle is a town right outside Perth and belongs to its wider area. After having parked in the local parking house, we walked to the market, which is a collection of little stands of all kinds, situated in a building. The first 20 stands when you enter the market are full of fresh fruit, veggies and all sorts of yummie stuff. We all bought fruit for cheap and I even got halp a watermelon for 2.70 Dollars, which is 1.387 Euros exactly. It's in the fridge now and I will have some tomorrow. I also got 4 nectarines and a bunch of white grapes, which are very tasty!
We walked around the market for about 1 hour and looked at all the cool things the people were selling, ranging from clothing to Boomerangs, over soap that looked like little cakes to jewellery. One stand was seeling frozen fruit, mashed into icecream. Kate, Chloe and I of course all had to have a try. It was delicious and very healthy at that. We all agreed to buy a machine like that to make our own frozen fruit icecream. We yet have to find out where to get one...
After not having gotten much to eat for breakfast, I decided to try the 'authentic' German Bratwurst the one stand was selling. They served them with Sauerkraut and onions, but I just ate it with white bread. I didn't expect too much and was right in thinking that they hadn't put the typical Bratwurst spices in them. They didn't taste like much, which is probably why they served it with other things to compensate for that. International people don't seem to like the spices, which is probably why they don't put them in there. The Bratwurst I had at the German Christmas market in Nottingham showed the same phenomenon.
After having seen enough of the market we dropped the fruit off in the car and walked up to the Fremantle Prison, which is one of the biggest tourist attractions in Western Australia. However, we didn't go inside and decided to go on a tour some other day. They offer numerous tours like a normal day tour or the tunnel tour which takes you in the 1 km long tunnel system below the prison, where you sneak around with torches and even take canoes around. We will definately go back there again.
Since it was still early, we decided to drive to the nearest beach, called Cottesloe. It was pretty packed, as expected, since today was a day without one cloud in the sky. Half of the beach is for surfers and the other half for people to lay down, tan and take a dip in the ocean. Since we didn't bring our bathing suits we just took off our shoes and tried the water. It wasn't too cold. I would have like to stay and just lay down in the sun. I still need to tan, cuz I feel too white among all the other tanned Australians.
We headed back after having walked around a bit and Kate's mom dropped us back off at the parking lot. Chloe and I wanted to meet in the common room later but somehow we missed each other. We still have no was of communicationg since she doesn't have an Australian number yet. But we'll find a way soon. I've only been here for 3 days now.
Tomorrow I will have to get up really early for the welcome meeting for all students at 9 AM. I hope I can find the way to the lecture theater easily, since I haven't been around campus at all yet. It doesn't look too complicated on the map but I will leave early to not be late for sure. Then at 10 AM I have the introductional meeting for all the exchange students. Hopefully I will get my student card there and will be able to find out how to sign up for my classes.
Good night and til then...