Birds, buddhas and being lazy :)

Hello!

Last week Saturday I had to work and the weather was awful. It was cold, windy and raining a lot, which the cockatoos love because they can bath in the rain. Since I am quite unprotected where I am observing the birds, I didn't like it as much as the cockatoos. But with plenty of tea, a hot lunch and warming up in the canteen I managed to get through the day. So I thought.. Sunday I woke up feeling sick and cold, so I stayed most of the time in bed. I had to cancel my plans of going to a King's Day celebration, which was held at the Dutch school here in Sydney.

The beginning of the week I was still pretty tired, but I had bought a nice warm vest so I felt more comfortable during the chilly mornings. I have been observing the bird show cockatoos and also spent some time with the other group of cockatoos that I will be studying from this week on. They are kept in a normal aviary for the visitors to watch and don't have close contact with their keepers. This means they don't have names like the bird show cockatoos, but to identify them more easily I gave them names :) So the guy with the big crest, I called Elvis; a girl with problems in her left eye is called Lisa (from Lisa Left Eye Lopes - TLC, remember them?) and so on. I'm looking forward to observing them, since it's interesting to see if they behave differently from the other group.

Saturday morning I went to zumba, which was given my a different teacher with different choreographies so I had to pay attention ;) After a short stop at home to freshen up and eat lunch, I went to Darling Harbour (without my camera.. hurray for the crappy camera on my phone!). It was the celebration of Buddha's Birthday, which is quite a big festival. I had a interesting guide through the life of Buddha and the spreading of Buddhism, since I don't really know that much about it. After passing lots of booths selling gifts and tea, I reached the main park. There were plenty of Buddha statues waiting to be washed, which is a ceremony where go put water on top of the shoulders of a small statue. First his left shoulder food good words, then the right for good deeds and then the left shoulder again for good thoughts. Then you bow and make a wish. I even got a free cookie! There were blessing ceremonies for babies and mothers, lots of food stands (all vegetarian of course) and some performances. The Chinese drum players were really impressive, especially because of their serious facial expressions :) On my way back to the station I watched some breakdance/tapdance streetartists, which were really funny and good. I enjoyed an evening home alone, since Prue was at her daughter's for Mother's Day and Alex was working. Popcorn!

Sunday morning I did some cleaning and baked chocolate chip cookies, to take to Daphne. During the afternoon we took care of all her parrots together, which included me feeding a beautiful night jar (nachtzwaluw). Afterwards lots of family and friends of Daphne arrived and we had a lovely evening together with great food and drinks. Fortunately one of her friends drove me home, which meant I didn't have to go 1.5 hours by public transport.

The weekend wasn't over yet for me, because today I was free as well. I'm working Tuesday to Saturday the next two weeks, so a had an extra day to relax. So that's exactly what I did: nosing around in the library, reading a book, listen some music.. Really nice sometimes to just do nothing :)

Until next time,
Anne