Good news all around (updated)

So it’s been a while. We just got the internet working in out apartment yesterday and it’s extremely slow. I was hoping to be able to use skype while I’m here but it’s going to be difficult with that and the time difference. A lot has happened so far while I’ve been here. I left off last time talking about the first few days in Sydney. Well I met my roommates (4 besides Nicole and me). There is Nate from St. Thomas (he got into the WI program because he’s an engineer major and this trip used to be for engineers only), Krysti from Platteville and Nathan from Platteville, and Sam from Oshkosh. Our apartment is really neat…


We met our onsite program coordinator Catherine the first day and she showed us around Newcastle. It has a population of 300 or 400 thousand people? I can’t quite remember. But the city is basically on a peninsula so there is the Pacific Ocean behind us and in front of us. There are two main beaches (only a 15 minute walk to each) Nobby’s and Newcastle. They are absolutely beautiful!

Nobby's Beach

Newcastle Beach
This week we had orientation. It was really neat in the beginning because they had two aboriginal men playing the Digeridoo. For those of you who don’t know, it’s basically a hollow stick that you blow into and you can make amazing music out of it. I want to bring one back with me but it wont fit in my bag L The other stuff after that happened was soo boring. I hate orientation. So after about 6 hours of sitting there listening to a bunch of people talk (and watching Nicole fall asleep) Nicole Krysti and I decided to go to Newcastle. The waves and sunset was beautiful! (oh and we saw some guy fishing off the rocks and he was wearing a raincoat but looked like he had no pants on.. we thought it was hilarious!)
Krysti, Nicole, Me

Hahaha

Last night (unfortunately I didn’t get pictures) we were invited to catherines house. It was the biggest most beautiful house I have ever seen!! She lives in Merewether which is a suburb of Newcastle and is on a huge hill. Well her house is almost all glass. You look out one side and see the ocean and then look out the other and look over all of Newcastle. The food was amazing also! The food here is similar to the states but oh so different. There ketchup is nasty, they call it tomato sauce. Oh and today at lunch they offered kangaroo, but it was all gone by the time we got to eat.
Speaking of, that leads me into today. We went with the Uni (that’s what they call the university. If you say school that means little kids like elementary then you get made fun of by all the aussies) to Blackbutt reserve. We got to see Kangaroos, Emus, Koalas, Wombats and a bunch of birds! It was fun and the koalas and kangaroos were sooo cute!!


Last but not least, I get to tell you all about the spring break trip I get to go on with my roommates! Its 16 days up the entire east coast. We take a bus then fly back from Cairns to Sydney. We get to go surfing at Byron Bay (take lessons and whatnot) for 2 days, go to Fraser island where we rent some sort of car and drive around the sand dunes and go sand surfing, spend 2 days and 2 nights sailing the whitsundays. I heard that’s amazing! Go to the great barrier reef in Cairns and scuba dive, full day cape tribulation tour ( I googled that and it looks beautiful!), full day of whitewater rafting down the Tully River, and then our very last day I get to go skydiving!! I am SO excited! This trip is going to make memories that will last forever! But that’s all my news for now. Now that I have internet I will try to post every other day or every three days. Hope all is well at home!