Australia 2008

Spring Break Oh Eight

2008-11-04T16:28:00.007+11:00

Hey Everyone!! I've been back from spring break for a little over a week now trying to stay caught up with Uni and catch up on sleep. Break was absolutely amazing! There were a few goof ups from STA but overall it was worth every penny. I got to see and experience the most incredible things. I did things I never thought I would do in a lifetime and I am very fortunate that I got to go on this trip. I will start with the beginning. We were supposed to meet at the Brewery at 7pm Friday night so my roommates and I all got our things packed up and out in the kitchen area. At 5:30 we started a power hour. For those of you who don't know what that is, it is when you take a shot (or in the girls case a small drink) of beer every minute for 60 minutes. We all had our beer and sat out on the balcony to watch the sunset. It was beautiful by the way. We listened to a power hour mix, one that switches songs every 60 seconds so you know when to take a drink. Needless to say, we were all "ready to go" at 6:30 when we made our way to the brewery with our luggage.

We got the Brewery and had a couple more beers only to find out later that the Greyhound bus we were supposed to get on was 5 hours late. We were supposed to leave at 9pm. We ended up leaving around 2am. There were 31 of us on the trip all together. 29 Americans, 1 guy from belgium and 1 girl from sweden. We ended up getting our own bus and somehow still got to Byron Bay on time in the morning. Byron Bay was absolutely amazing!! It is the cutest little hippie town in AUS. The beach was gorgeous and the little shops were so fun to check out. I learned how to surf while I was there with MojoSurf. I actually got up and rode the wave a few times. It was a blast and I cant wait to try it back here in Newy. Our first night in Byron was a blast. We got $5 meals at Cheeky Monkeys. This bar was awesome. MojoSurf actually messed up some times so they bought all 31 of us free jugs of beer for most of the night. That night happened to be Ladies Night. There were 5 guys picked from the crowd to go up and strip to the underwear and dance on the tables. Nate (my roommate) was not one of the chosen ones but he decided to join them anyways. Haha he got disqualified i guess because one of the girls from our group pulled his boxers off. Thank you Lord I wasn't looking then. I would have been scarred for life. Needless to say, it was a good time in Byron.

Then we got on a bus for a full day and headed up to Hervey Bay for a night. Then we packed small bags and headed to Fraser Island (the biggest sand island in the world) for 2 nights and 3 days. It was so pretty. There were 11 of us in my vehicle and 10 in the other two. We got to drive around the island the whole time. Mostly we were on the beach driving along side the ocean. We got to stop at Indian Head. It was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen in my life. Maybe if you look up images on google you will be able to see for yourself. Otherwise I’ll be bringing pictures and postcards home. We also stopped and swam in Lake Mackenzie. It is the largest fresh water lake on a sand island in the world. It was so refreshing to go in freshwater as opposed to always swimming in the ocean. The lake was an amazing color blue too.. about 4 different shades. Same thing with looking it up on google images. While camping there we got to pitch tents and all hang out and have a few drinks on the beach. It was awesome. The day we got back to Hervey Bay we hopped on an overnight greyhound bus to Airlie Beach. This town was so fun. They had a lagoon and a bunch of souvenir shops. This is where we took off on our sailboat, The Matador.

I’ve never been sailing before but it was so much fun!! The ocean was gorgeous and the islands were even more so. We sailed “the Whitsunday’s.” This is where we all got to work on our tans. We woke up about 6am both mornings and laid on the boat deck until the sun went down. The middle day we stopped in a bay and went snorkeling. That was the first time I’ve ever done that too. I’ve never seen so many colored fish in my life. It was so so much fun. I went twice that day haha. Other than that, like I said we soaked up the sun. It was gorgeous every day too. We got really lucky. At night we threw parties, it was a blast.

After we got back to Airlie beach we hopped on one more overnight bus all the way to Cairns. We arrived on my birthday. I slept approximately 30 minutes on that awful bus so I was exhausted. I never got a chance to take a nap. I called everyone from home and then went shopping with the girls. I didn’t buy anything but towards the mid afternoon I needed to get in some a/c and/or shade. Nicole and I went back to our hostel and just hung out until it was time to get ready to go out to dinner. The entire spring break group plus some of our other friends that happened to show up in Cairns that day (about 40 of us) went to a Mexican restaurant. It was s blast! A couple people bought me drinks and then everyone pitched in at the end of the meal to get a shot of tequila for everyone. Haha needless to say it was a good night. We all went back to the bar in the hostel because they had $2 drinks (which is a VERY rare occasion in Australia) so people didn’t feel bad about buying me a drink here and there with that deal. Haha.

The next day we went to the outer great barrier reef to go snorkeling. It was sunny out so everything out there was so bright. That was a lot of fun! Again when not snorkeling we just got to hang out in the sun on the boat. Then the day after that was the Cape Trib tour. That was more of a relaxing day compared to the rest of break. We were in a bus most of the time. Cape Trib is one of the Rainforests in Aus. There is one part of it where we ate lunch that was beautiful. It was a beach with the rainforest on the edge and then the water was part of the Great Barrier Reef. 2 of the great landmarks or something like that come together only at that point on earth. I don’t quite remember how they explained it. It was cool tho!

The next two days were the best! We went whitewater rafting down the Tully River! I could go on for an entire day about how it was. Needless to say it was absolutely amazing. It’s a grade 4 river out of 6. We almost flipped a couple times but it only made it that much better. The tour I had made the trip so much better. Then the next day was the last day of wild adventures. I went skydiving for the first time! I was SOOO nervous!! Haha But whats really amazing is that my parents let me get a video of it so I will always remember what it was like! Its so funny haha I can’t even count how many times I screamed “Oh My God!!” haha. It was one of the most amazing things I have ever done. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I jumped 14,000 feet which was a 60 second free fall. Then once the parachute opened everything went calm. At first the wind was deafening then it was completely peaceful. So crazy! I cant wait to show people the video! Haha mom and grandma are going to freak out.

After that we just finished up some souvenir shopping and came back to Newy. School started back up and I’ve been busy with that ever since. This is the last week of classes and then theres 3 weeks of finals. I am here for 27 more days and then I hop on the 20 hour flight home. Yuck haha but I’m super excited to come home and share with everyone my stories. I have some awesome adventures ahead of me still. Thursday my roomies and I are going to the Hunter Valley Vineyards to do a wine tasting (mom I bet you’re jealous haha) and then Friday I am going to a little farm where we get to hold koalas!! Yes hold them!!! And pet kangaroos! Haha then heading up to Nelson Bay to go on a Dolphin Watch tour on the ocean. Then Sunday I am going to Catherines (I’ve mentioned her before) house and swimming in her pool maybe having a bbq and going for a walk to look over all of Newcastle. Its going to be a blast and make the time here fly by!!

Spring Break Itinerary (for all you interested)

2008-09-23T20:23:00.001+10:00

September 26 Meet at Brewery Hotel at 7 pm. Leave at 8:50

September 27 Arrive at Byron Bay. Surf lessons at 8 or 12.50. Meet at Cheeky Monkeys for wine/beer

September 28 Surf lesson at 12.50.

September 29 Depart on bus at 7.35. Go to Brisbane to continue to Hervey Bay. Free BBQ night

September 30 Fraser Island for 3 days

October 1 Free day, Champagne Pools, Lake McKenzie

October 2 Return to Hervey Bay by 4pm Ferry. Overnight bus to Airlie Beach

October 3 Check in to OZ adventures

October 4 Sail 74 islands for 2 nights

October 5 Free day sailing aboard the Maxi Racing Yacht ‘Matador’

October 6 Return to Airlie Beach. Chill for afternoon. Depart on bus 8 pm.

October 7 (my birthday) Arrive early in Cairns. Free day, laze by the lagoon, maybe dinner and drinks at the woolshed

October 8 Check in to Deep Sea Divers Den for outer reef trip aboard reef quest including snorkeling and lunch

October 9 Cape Tribulation tour

October 10 Full day Tully River rafting

October 11 SKYDIVE. Jumps start at 7am

October 12 Free day in Cairns

October 13 Fly home

Catching Up Once Again--Sydney and Blue Mountains

2008-09-23T16:17:00.006+10:00

So once again, its been a while since I last updated. I know I said I was going to update you on how Sydney went. It was amazing! We got to Sydney and spent the afternoon shopping around Bondi Beach. The roommates had never been there so we went back. It was gorgeous as usual. The shops there are so fun. Then we went to the Opera House Bar for dinner with Catherine. We literally sat on the harbour and had a fantastic view of the Bridge and the Opera House. The next morning we went to climb the bridge. That was amazing. We learned a lot about how it was built and some interesting stories along with it. We got to climb to the very top.. up by the flags. You could see all of Sydney and even the Blue Mountains. We got our picture taken up there but we couldn’t bring cameras. After that we went to get lunch and then headed to the Opera House for a tour. We learned a lot about how that was built and got to go into some of the rooms. The inside was surprisingly ugly. They had purple velvet floors and walls… in the same room! Gross. Um after that we went to the German Bar. We always manage to end up there in Sydney. It’s a nice atmosphere and they have really good beer. The one I really like is a regular beer with mango juice added. It sounds disgusting but it’s really good there. Then we went back to the hostel for the second night. The hostel Catherine booked for us was awesome. It was a railway one because it was right next to the train tracks (which kind of sucked at night) but was really cool because the rooms they had were old cars from trains. The next morning us girls got up early and headed back because we all had papers due a few days later.

My eyes look a bit creepy here but this was where we ate dinner. The opera house is in the background.

Heres the Harbour Bridge. You can see the two flags on top.. we walked in between them.

Other than that I have just been writing papers nonstop and keeping up with school. We’ve had a few good weekends and Wednesdays (student night) out at the bars. It’s finally starting to warm up here so its fun to get dressed up to go out now. Us girls can wear dresses and not get chilly on the way home. It has been in the 80s for the past week and I know this last Saturday was 77 at night. That was great. We saw heat lightening off our balcony across the harbour.

This is us girls hanging out with PJ at the bars

And then there is Sam. Typical Wednesday night.

This past weekend was great tho (even tho I have a 2000 word paper due tomorrow—thank god I finished it a few hours ago). My flatmates and I went on yet another trip that was included in the program costs. We got to spend the weekend at the Blue Mountains in Katoomba Australia. It was so beautiful there. Very outdoorsy. We stayed in a hostel that was very old fashioned, that was fun. We arrived Thursday and left Saturday. It sucked because it took 5 hours to get from Newcastle to Katoomba. They were doing track work on the trains on Thursday too. So we had to catch a train from Newcastle to Morrisset then get on a bus for a half hour to Gosford, then get on another train to Strathfield in Sydney and then get on another train to Katoomba. Thank goodness on the way back the track work was finished so we only had to switch at strathfield. We arrived Thursday night and grabbed some dinner then headed to bed. We had to get up early to meet Catherine. We grabbed some breakfast at Fresh (a coffee shop that apparently hates Americans). We got tickets for a day trolley pass to take us from one site to the next. We took a bus to Blackheath and went on a tour through the bush. We had a tour guide (Janelle) who taught us about the Aboriginals and their beliefs (kind of like the native Americans of the US). It was great. They use rocks to make paint for your skin. We found some on the ground and mixed them with water and we all got to paint our faces. That was fun. Then the tour was over and we were at Govetts Leap. One of the most beautiful sites I’ve ever seen. We were staring over the Blue Mountains. There was a waterfall to our left and mountains in front of us. After that we went back to katoomba and shopped around a little. Then we walked to the ever-so-famous three sisters. There is an old story that goes along with them. Something about 3 sisters were running away from this man and their dad was a sorcerer of some sort. In order to save them he turned them into stone and then he lost his baton with the magic and could never turn them back into humans. That was the shortened version. Obviously. We watched the sunset over there and walked back. It was absolutely amazing.

Tater and I painted each others faces

Me standing at Govetts Leap... still with the paint. oops.

The three sisters... Gorgeous!

Sunset!

The Blue Mountains. If you take the last 3 pictures (all taken from the same spot and at the same time), imagine standing on a platform looking over the mountains. The three sisters was on the left, the mountains were straight ahead, and the sunset was on the right. Just giving you an idea of what it looked like.

Then we got super lucky and found some Chinese food. We have all been craving it for ever because Newcastle only has thai or Indian. After that we went to a bar called Carington Hotel. It was the fanciest hotel I have ever seen in my life. We went there and got a cocktail. After that we went to bed for an even more eventful day in the morning. Once again we woke up early (6:30) to check out of the hostel and meet Catherine after breakfast. Saturday was the day we got to go Abseiling otherwise known as repelling down a mountain. It was amazing. We started at 7 meters just for a warm up and to see how it feels to lean over backwards over a cliff. We got sweet helmets and harnesses. Next we got to do 12 meters. That one was difficult because the mountain concaved in so you kind of had to leap while dangling from a rope. It was terrifying because when you looked over the edge you couldn’t see anything except for a pile of trees that were just on a plateau in the mountain. After that one we got to do the big one. 35 meters. 5 of which were rock and the 30 other meters were you swaying in the wind. That was absolutely crazy. We got to do that one 2 times. The first time was so scary. The rope was extremely heavy that I had to hold behind my back and the wind was crazy! I got all hooked up and leaned backwards over the edge. I started walking myself down the rock and a gust of wind came. Next thing I knew I hit my side on the mountain and had to use my feet to balance out again. I made it thru the 5 meters of rock then cruised on the way down. I wanted to reach ground more than anything. I actually got rope burn on my side from sliding down so fast. The guy at the bottom thought he was going to have to catch me.. thought I wasn’t going to stop. The guy at the bottom was crazy. He tied himself to one of the trees on the plateau and leaned backward over the mountain to catch us coming down and push us to the plateau. I don’t even know how much mountain was below him. I know we didn’t even repel down half of it tho in the 35 meters. My second time going down was completely opposite from my first. There are 2 ropes when going down. You are connected to one and the other one was there for some odd reason. Well once again I was super scared and the wind was crazy. I didn’t fall this time tho. I made it through the rocks and then on my way down I wanted to go slower. Well a gust of wind came and swung me so rather than facing the mountain, I was facing everything else. All the other mountains. Due to the spin, I got tangled up in the spare rope and could barely give enough slack to make it to the bottom. It was an amazing sight tho when I was turned around.

After that, we made it to Scenic World. We took the steepest railway car in the world to the bottom of the mountain and then walked along a path around the mountain. It was cool being surrounded by the bush and walking through it. Then we took the steepest cablecar back to the top. Then basically headed home. It was a wonderful weekend. Full of adventure and beauty. I loved it! Hope you all enjoy the pictures!

Other than that, we have been hanging out on the beaches on the really warm days. Its fun going out there and watcing our friends try to surf. I've been in the water a couple times and its a struggle just to make it through the waves. They are huge! Once you get out so far you have to start diving underneath the waves so you dont get pulled back to shore. The pictures below are from the beach on the first warm day in Australia. It was wonderful! It was about 84 degrees and all our friends from the halls and around town met us there. It was a good time.

Krysti and I at Nobby's

Ben, Jack-attack, and Adam watching friends surf

Ethan took Nicole and I out for the first time in the water. It was freezing by the way.

Now I just have 2 papers due this week and I am free for spring break! We leave Friday and come back 16 or 17 days later! Its going to be amazing! I will post the itinerary so you can all see what I’m doing each day. I’m excited because my birthday will be in Cairns. We were told to go to the woolshed, one of the most popular pubs in Australia. Its going to be a good time! I’ll update you all when I get back!

Pictures you've been waiting for

2008-08-25T19:55:00.003+10:00

Walk By myself

Me, Krysti, Sam

Us playing Flippy Cup. The guy in the front just recently got mugged and ended up in the ER. Scary!!

The path I walked up on my walk

Beautiful

Us girls at Syndey at the Mexican Restaurant

Merewether Beach

Jody and Nate on our walk to Merewether Beach

And us girls

On the way back. It was soo bright

Us in Sydney

The boat show.. not quite like Duluth.

We saw a real jelly fish in the ocean!!

The Opera House

Krysti, Nicole and I again at Cafe Pacifico

Keepin' Busy

2008-08-25T18:13:00.000+10:00

G’Day everyone. Haha

So once again, it’s been a while. And once again, a lot has happened. I’ll start with last night. Dad, you’d be proud if me on this one (not). All of my roommates and I were doing history papers last night because they are due tomorrow so all our computer were plugged in. Mine wasn’t because I was at the table and the powerpoints were taken. My computer started to die and I had some good websites up for information so I went to plug it in. Well the next thing I knew flames shot out of the outlet and the whole apartment went completely black. I hit the main circuit I guess and blew out the whole apartment. Haha. The switches in our circuit breaker box weren’t working so we had to call the company that owns the villas. Oops. Us girls decided to go to Mackers and get some ice cream and sure enough the power was back on when we got back. But yeah, I almost burnt down the apartment.

Two weekends ago after Nicole sprained her ankle a group of us went to the beach to play beach volleyball. It was so fun. We played about 5 games and the bruises on my hand are just starting to go away. I guess I have no technique. It was a really nice day tho and the beach was gorgeous so it was well worth it. After our games we went to Harrys. It’s a little place on wheels and they have meat pies (an Australian specialty – very similar to pot pies at home). Also, they are the only place in Australia that sell REAL hotdogs. The other ones here are basically sausage sticks. Weird.

The next day a group of us went for a walk to Merewhether Beach. There was a juniors surf competition going on. It was a really long walk there, we had to pass Bar Beach. That’s past Nobbys and Newcastle Beach so it was a good distance. It was so sweet tho! We saw about 30 dolphins riding the waves that the surfers were on! They would jump out of the water and flip! I have some pictures but I haven’t taken them off my camera. I actually have to go to the hub tonight to print my history paper so I will get those pictures up in a few hours!

Other than that, this past few weeks have been really weird. There is this thing called culture shock that almost everyone goes through. Its basically a U curve on a graph and when you arrive to a new culture you are at the top of the curve and super excited. You are ready to meet new people and see new things. Then as time goes on (in our case a month to two months) you slowly make your way down the curve. Everyone is crabby with each other. We all miss our friends from home and families. We just miss everything about home. Now as the weeks continue, we are going to be on our up slope of the U curve and by the time we leave we will be at the top and not ready to go home. So then once we get home we go through it again because it’s a new culture. It’s actually quite interesting. It kind of sucks tho.

Well a week and a half ago I was having a really bad day. Everyone was mad at each other in the house and it was a nice day. I was convinced by Tony to go on a walk by myself. He said he does it in Boston all the time and he loves it so that’s what I did. I ended up going to some shops and walked all the way down to Newcastle beach. Then up a huge path (up a big hill) to see most of Newcastle and the ocean. It was so beautiful. I brought my creative writing assignment and finished it up there. Then listened to some Beatles and walked home. It was so refreshing and I’ve basically been looking at the upside of things since then.

This weekend is going to be a blast. My roommates and I are going to Sydney with Catherine. It’s part of our class so its already paid for (except for food). We leave Friday morning and hang out in Sydney. We plan on taking Catherine out to eat at a nice restaurant. Then we get up early Saturday morning to do the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb! It’s so famous here and it’s quite expensive (but its included so that’s nice)! It’s a 3 hour tour and we basically get harnessed and they take us up in groups. We get to see all of Sydney and the Opera House is going to be right in front of us. The sad thing is that we don’t get to bring our cameras but we could get a picture taken of our group at the top. So we’ll see. It might be worth it. After that we are either going to the Taronga Zoo or the Aquarium. I’ll let you know how Sydney turns out!

Parties, tattoos, sun rises, and sprained ankles!

2008-08-13T19:27:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone,

It's been a while since I last wrote. I still haven't gotten to the hub to put pics up. I might try to load them one at a time here in the apartment tho. Well the past week and a half has been nothing but eventful. For starters, the beginning of last week wasn't anything special.. just school and homework. Then Thursday I got a tattoo (sorry dad) in the middle of my upper back. I love it! Then, this past weekend one of our roommates decided to go out of town. The rest of us wanted to throw a party in our place to show that we could have fun without the other one. haha

Well we started out playing a game of circle of death. That's always a good one to start with. Throughout the whole night, someone had the genius idea of playing the coin game. That is when someone drops a coin in your drink without you seeing it, you have to finish what is in your cup. I got lucky, I only got it twice and everyone was so drunk by that point that I didn't finish it either time. ooops. haha. While this was going on, our Aussie friend that lives downstairs, Justin, was having a party of his own. When he only had 15-20 guys left at his place, he came up to ours with his friends. haha there was about 30-40 people in our tiny apartment that night.

When everyone got there we decided to play about 10 rounds of Flippy Cup. I didn't have too much to drink then either but it was fun! The 4 girl roommates all went in on Baileys and Guinness for Irish carbombs (we skipped the whiskey cuz its so expensive) but i had about 1 of those! Needless to say, my roommate and our guy friend ended up throwing up EVERYWHERE!!! Everyone else left and Nicole, Jody and I stayed back to clean and take care of them. Both just so happened to miss the bathroom multiple times. My room smelled like puke for 4 days! and that was using carpet cleaner twice, and deoderizer, and bleach in the bathroom. YUCK! Well Nicole and I had to leave. We were sobered up by the time we left because we were so mad. But we couldn't sleep in a puke filled house. We met our other roommate at the bar (well outside.. she got kicked out haha) and walked to our friend Jacks house.

Jacks roommates were having their own party. Krysti passed out on the couch. Nicole, Ethan, Jack, and I tried to sleep... for about 45 minutes. Around 5 am us four decided to watch the sunrise over the ocean. We left around 5:30 not realizing how cold it actually was. It was about a 20 minute walk each way! It was so worth it tho! It was beautiful!!! We got back around 7:30 to Jacks place and crashed til 10:30. We walked home and cleaned the rest of the day.

Finally, this week I have been doing nothing but homework. I have 3 papers due in the next 3 weeks. So today after Creative Writing, Nicole and I went to the library. After checking out books for our history class we were leaving when she slipped down the stairs! We left about 3:30 to catch the 4 train back to the city. No... security picked us up and drove us to the health and services building. The doctor looked at it and in the morning I am going with Nicole to get Xrays taken. They think she pulled a tendon. We didn't get back until 6:30. We couldn't make it to the train and didn't have enough money for a taxi so Catherine had to come pick us up and bring us home. It's been quite the week.

Also, today I took a few pictures of the campus. It's literally in a jungle. Haha. It's so pretty tho, especially when it's sunny out.

Weekend in Sydney

2008-08-04T22:51:00.000+10:00

I will start with Autonomy Day. It really wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be. Kind of boring actually. You really need to be in the mood to drink and with a mishap from a roommate the night before the rest of us roommates weren’t ready. I had a bottle of Passion Pop ($4 bottle of champagne.. mix with orange juice and you are golden) and a can of beer (also $4). I was done drinking about noon and just relaxed at the apartment with Nicole the rest of the day. Later that night Nate (my roommate) had friends over but it wasn’t too bad.

Other than that, this past week has been pretty mellow. My roommates went out Wednesday night but I decided to stay in. Friday however, we decided to go o Sydney for the weekend. Sam, Nate, Nicole, Krysti, and I got a hostel (a place for students to stay in while backpacking or just traveling for cheap -- $27 per night – and that was a nice one) and stayed 2 nights. It’s mainly for students because the bedrooms are a lot like dorms. There were 4 bunks in my room (8 beds). It was really cool though because there was the Side Bar downstairs and a café where we ate breakfast. Also, there was a couch lounge with a big flat screen TV and a mini kitchen where you can cook your own food if you didn’t want to pay to eat out every night. Some people stay for weeks at a time. It was a really good experience and I would definitely stay in one again.

Friday night we arrived by train (it only cost us $18 each to get on a 3 hour train ride that goes straight from Newcastle to Sydney). We booked our room and then went to eat at a place called burgerlicious. It is supposed to be the #1 American Burger joint. We were all craving juicy burgers because it’s been a month since any of us has had it. If any of you who are reading this decide to come to Australia, don’t try the burgers. Definitely not American. They are disgusting. After that we went to the Side Bar for a few drinks and then went to bed.

Saturday morning we woke up and got ready. We walked approximately 7-8 miles throughout the day. We walked to Darling harbor which was absolutely beautiful. There was a boat show going on and the boats here aren’t like the boats you see at the DECC boat shows. They were all in the harbor and were yachts. Huge yachts. After walking around we walked to the Sydney Harbor Bridge. It’s a very famous bridge that people pay about $185 to climb it. Once on top you can see all of Sydney and it’s right in front of the Opera House. I get to do that later with my roommates and Catherine, the onsite program coordinator. It’s going to be amazing. We walked around the shops in the Rocks and Market City and Chinatown. We eventually made it back to the hostel to get all dressed up and go out to a fancy Mexican dinner at Café Pacifico. We walked there and all got Mexican Sangrias. Delicious. I ordered a Chimichanga (of course—for those of you who eat Mexican with me) and it had a bit of cinnamon in it so it was just sweet enough (so good!!) and got rice and beans. Before we got our food super loud music started up and we ended up getting free shots of Tequila for everyone in the restaurant. The chaser was different. It was tomato juice with tobasco sauce. Haha that was fun. After that, there was music going the rest of our meal so it was like one big party. We had a great time and spent about 2 hours there. Afterwards, we went back to the side bar and everyone danced the night away except Nate and I (we were too full to move so we sat outside under some heaters). Ended up going to bed around 2:30 and woke up at 8:30 to pack our stuff up and head out. We shopped a little bit more and then took the train back to Newcastle. The rest of Sunday night we just hung out and relaxed. The weekend was amazing and I hope mom and dad and britt get to make it out here so I can share this experience with them.

Again, I am in the apartment with slow internet so as soon as i can make it to the hub I will to post pictures of this past weekend!! =]

Worst Day Ever!

2008-07-25T18:59:00.000+10:00

Ugh. I started school on Tuesday. That was not fun. Actually Tuesday wasn’t so bad because all my roommates and me have the same History class so we all go together on Tuesdays but then Nicole Krysti and I have Popular Culture. It sounded really interesting until we actually got to the class and the teacher starts talking as though we have been there all year (we’re starting semester 2). She starts going on about these projects and papers and whatnot then asks us to go around and introduce ourselves. By our accents she could tell us three are American. She supposedly loves Americans so yay for us. Haha we have to lead a class discussion and she is letting the three of us be together. So that was Tuesday. Wednesday was the worst day of my life!! I hate speaking in front of large groups and Nicole and I had Creative Writing. Well the first hour went by ok. We just talked about what the class entailed. Then he reads a short story (which I sort of zoned off through.. apparently Nicole and the girl sitting on the other side of me did too) and tells us to write for 20 minutes with our own version of that story. So Nicole, the girl next to me, and I just write a little bit about books we are reading now. Well with my luck, the teacher decides to pick randoms to read aloud what they had written. The first 3 people were AMAZING! They read poety that they had just whipped out of no where and the stories sounded like they had already been published. Then he picked me. My face was so red and I tried telling him I understood the assignment wrong and mine was just a little journal thing. He made me read it anyways. I read what I had (I barely finished cuz I lost my breath I was so embarrassed). All he said was “oh” but for everyone else it was more of a “that was great!” But that’s not the worst part. After a person was finished reading he asked the class if they had any input on ways it could be critiqued. It’s official, I almost cried on my second day of classes. I didn’t even hear what was said about my writing. I was so embarrassed and too busy trying not to cry that I didn’t hear a word. It was a terrible day and all Wednesdays are going to be like that. Ugh.

But there is one plus side. The campus is really neat. I'll try to take some pictures soon. It's literally a jungle. The campus is huge so it's hard enough to try to find the faculties (that's what they call their buildings..weird) but then add a bunch of trees, bush, and bridges. It's gorgeous tho because there are birds everywhere and i guess one of my roommates saw a possum. We also have really nice restaurants and coffee shops, subway, and lots of options for food. (For those of you who know me, you probably know I was really excited about that). We also have 2 or three bars on campus... needless to say, it's a lot different from good ol' Soup Town. During orientation for the international students there was about 500 or more there (and that's just the ones that decided to go to orienation). Apparently we only make up 10% of the student population. Those of you good at math (Britt) can calculate how big of a campus Newcastle is.

Oh and you can all start leaving comments on any post if you feel like it. I changed the settings so anyone can post (you don't have to register). =]

BBQ!! Yumm

2008-07-21T15:53:00.000+10:00

Hey everyone,

I am so surprised at how the Uni works here compared to the US. They throw the biggest parties! For example, next Friday is Autonomy Day in Newcastle. That is where you wake up at 6 am and start drinking (it’s going to be a long day). Then after you pre-game a little bit you catch the train to the uni and they keep serving you alcohol all day. It’s going to be like the all night grad party except for you drink the entire day. They are going to have the big blow up obstacle courses and games going the whole day. The weird part about this is that there is a campus club that is putting this on and it’s being hosted at the school. Nicole and I already decided that we will be passed out by 11 am because we don’t drink very much. I’ll have to let you know on Saturday how it went. But that’s still an entire week away. Also, the last day of finals (November 29th or something?) they are hosting a beach party. They bring in 15 tons of sand and put it in the basketball court. There will be about 15 famous bands playing the entire day. The uni is also putting this party on for the students. They will be serving alcohol there also. Haha.

So yesterday was awesome. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten that much in my life. We went to Cathrine’s coworkers BBQ. She saw us in Catherine’s office and decided to invite us. That was really neat because most people think Americans are rude. Although, Aussie’s are very forward here. I’ve seen a few of my roommates get hit on at the bars and it’s just awkward because the guys walk right up to them. Anyways, back to the BBQ. Her name is Halena and her husband is Geoff. They have kids and grandkids. Geoff was hilarious and made a ton of food! It was only us 6 (my roommates and I) Geoff, Halena and Halena’s mother. Catherine stopped by for a little bit after we ate lunch. We had grilled sausage, roast beef, chicken kababs, onions, corn on the cob, rice, buns, and more. There was more too but I can’t think of it right now. That was just the main course, oh and there was about 2 dozen of each food too. Then we went for a walk around a lake that they live on. When we got back, we were served fruit like grapes, pears, apples, oranges, kiwi, and bing cherries from the US (Halena was so excited to have cherries from the US). Then after that we were served desert. Lamingtons which is yellow cake covered in chocolate and coconut. I guess that is a traditional Australian dessert. Also pavlova which is basically pure sugar with fruit on it. Its kind of like meringue but soft in the middle. Then we got all the left overs! I couldn’t believe it. It was like going to grandmas house! Haha but not really… I like the food way better at home. I miss moms and grandmas dinners.
Halenas house was beautiful! They have lived in it for 30 some years and it was built in 1910. It was one of those old open houses with really high ceilings. It was gorgeous!

Good news all around (updated)

2008-07-18T16:55:00.000+10:00

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!

Getting Started

2008-07-13T17:10:00.000+10:00

I have been in Australia for a week now. A lot has happened since then. The 20 hour travel time was not as terrible as I thought. I slept for about 6 or 7 hours of the 14 hour plane ride. Also Nicole and I got to watch movies (even though we didn't pay for it -- SCORE!) so I basically spent my awak time watching Definitely, Maybe and Two and a Half Men. When we arrived in Sydney is when things started to get interesting. We were supposed to have a shuttle to the apartment complex from the airport but it turns out they didn't have one set up for us when we arrived. We ended up taking a taxi which cost 40 dollars! (Yes they use dollars too but Australian dollars so we still have to exchange -- boo!) We arrived at our hotel/apartment in Bondi Beach (suburb of Sydney) at 7:30 am with no phones and all our luggage only to find out that the office doesn't open until 9:30 on Sundays. Some kind gentleman let us into the square and we sat on the side walk with our luggage until someone came in. Eventually someone came and then we found out there were no available rooms yet because check out is not until 10-noon. She let us put our stuff down in a back room so we could walk around Bondi. It was not a pretty site considering we had just flown for 20 hours and hadn't showered or any of the sort. We walked down about 3 blocks and right in front of us was the most beautiful sight.. Bondi Beach. I will try to figure out how to put pictures on here so you can see. Everything else that day started to get a whole lot better after that. We got into our room and showered then went back down to the beach. I ended up falling asleep on the couch at 5 pm. Haha oops. That of course meant I couldnt sleep in past 4 am on Monday. Later that day Nicole and I went to sydney and saw the bridge and the oh-so-famous Sydney opera house. It was beautiful! We got to walk around the city and do a little shopping. I bought absolutely nothing with the CRAZY prices!!! For example, a box of cereal is $7! It is pretty much the same price to cook a dinner than it is to go out to eat! Also the alcohol is just as bad if not worse. So those of you worried about that now know I cant afford to drink a lot here. A liter of malibu is $45 and a 6 pack of beer is $13 (and that's if you get lucky).The rest of the time Nicole and I just made our way through parts Syndey and looked in all the little shops. Wednesday morning we had to get up at 5:30 to be at the airport at 7 to meet our 4 other roommates and head up to coast to Newcastle (where we will be spending the next 5 months).

Bondi Beach

Bondi Beach again

Sydney Opera House!