my last Australia adventures (for now)

Well, well, well.. I've been VERY busy since I last posted on here.  I spent 4 days in Sydney and 6 in Cairns last week, and best of all, my family came and visited!  Between time spent with them and time spent with my friends, I did and saw a ton over those 10 days.  Luckily, we had gorgeous, sunny weather and were able to see almost everything that we wanted to.  Since I could probably type forever about Sydney and Cairns, I'll use bullet points to try to keep it somewhat short.

• Sydney Aquarium- I went down to Sydney by myself because I heard that the aquarium was really good and I wanted to see it.  It ended up being really neat and I saw some platypuses, crocs, sharks, and more.  It definitely got me very excited to go to the reef!

• Harbour Cruise- Kelly, Katie, Adam and I went on a dinner cruise through Sydney's harbour and it ended up being amazing!  The food and company were great and seeing the skyline and area at night was pretty wonderful.  There was also a blues and jazz festival at Darling Harbour that we got to listen to and enjoy before we headed out on the cruise.  It was definitely a good weekend to be in Sydney.

• Wandering around the city-  On June 7th, my family arrived in Sydney!!  It was very exciting since I've been gone for 4 months and I couldn't have been happier to see them.  The first day we did a lot of wandering around Sydney, shopping at the markets, and seeing a bunch of the touristy spots.  Walking around with them was a lot of fun since all of the little things in Australia that I've become accustomed to were new and exciting for them so it was really entertaining (my dad's favorite phrases: 'how are you going?' and 'brilliant' and 'spot on' when handing correct change).  I forced them to stay up late the first night and see fireworks so that they would get on a normal schedule for the rest of the trip and not be too jet-lagged.

• My 21st Birthday!- Monday was my birthday (though it didn't feel like it at all) and it was great to be able to spend it in Australia with my family.  The timing couldn't have worked out better.  We spent the day doing a really nice coastal walk from Bondi Beach to Coogee Beach which allowed us to see a bunch of Sydney's beaches and enjoy the beautiful weather.  That evening we got to see the Opera House all lit up (the first couple weeks in June they were lighting it up with neat colors at night) and enjoy our last moments in Sydney.

• Cairns- On Tuesday morning we flew to Cairns to spend 6 days in it's wonderful 80 degree winter.  The city and surrounding area of Cairns are really awesome and the whole area is bordered by the beach and Coral Sea on one side and mountains on the other.  It is a very green and lush area, and we had tons of sunshine the whole trip!  The city itself is a fairly small, touristy city, but is a gateway to so many cool places around the area.  There were also lots of fields along the drive to our hotel where wallabies wandered free in, and the whole area seemed very laid-back as a whole.

• Our Hotel-  Our hotel was amazing.  It was super nice, beautiful, and had an awesome location right across the street from the beach.  We stayed in Trinity Beach, which is about 20 minutes north of Cairns and it was great because it was quiet and fairly secluded.  We were able to see some beautiful sunrises from our hotel and spent a handful of afternoons playing at the beach.

• Cairns Tropical Zoo-  The first day in Cairns we went to the zoo to see a bunch of Australian animals.  It ended up being a really good hands-on zoo where we saw pelican and crocodile feedings, a bird show, got to pet and feed kangaroos, and got to hold koalas!  Everyone really enjoyed it and had a lot of fun seeing all of the different animals.

• Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation-  Our first long day was spent going through the Daintree Rainforest in what ended up being a really good day.  We got to do a handful of rainforest walks where we saw all sorts of different trees, plants, and wildlife, and stopped at some beautiful lookouts along the way too.  On the way up north we did an hour long river cruise where we got to see crocodiles, snakes, birds, and frogs in the wild.  It was really neat seeing them in their natural habitats and kind of scary as well.  Our final destination of the trip was Cape Trip on a nice beach that you have to go through the rainforest to get to.  Turns out that the water there is not croc-free... yikes.  The drive there and back was very entertaining with Traci and my mom freaking out about driving through the mountains.

• Atherton Tablelands-  We decided to do a half day trip out to the Atherton Tablelands.. Little did we know, it is nearly impossible to do a half day trip there as it is quite the trek through the mountains to get anywhere worthwhile.  We ended up going to a couple of lakes (and seeing some turtles swimming around), seeing some gorgeous waterfalls, and stopping at a crater.  It really is beautiful up there and spending the day there was very worthwhile. 

• Great Barrier Reef-  Perhaps the most anticipated part of the trip was going to the Great Barrier Reef (at least for me).  I had been really excited about this for a long time and was so happy that we got to do it!  We had a 2 hour boat ride out to Michaelmas Cay which is one of the outer reef sites and was absolutely beautiful.  We had a couple hours to snorkel and we all had a blast exploring the reef.  I found that as soon as you got away from other people, there ended up being tons of amazing and unique fish and coral.  I saw so many cool things and was just in awe the entire time.  We did not want to leave when it was time.  It was such a neat experience and I'm so happy that I got the opportunity to see it.

Overall, the past week and a half was pretty incredible, and it's sad because it was my last trip of my time in Australia.  Now I only have just over a week before I'm at home, and that week is going to be spent studying for and taking finals (ick), as well as trying to hang out with all of my friends around Campus East.  Though I am so excited to see all of my family and friends and to be at home again, I am certainly going to miss a lot about Australia.  I've made some amazing friends here, gotten very adjusted to the laid-back and friendly aspect of Australian culture, and thoroughly enjoyed traveling to and seeing so many amazing places.  I feel like I've definitely grown as a person on this journey and will come back to the States as a much more independent and confident person than I was when I left.  While this journey is coming to an end, I feel like a lot more doors have been opened for me and I know that I'll be back to Australia in the future.  This is probably going to be my last blog entry, so for those of you who have kept up in it, I hope you enjoyed reading about my adventures, and I can't wait to see you back at home soon!

Random Notes:

1.  There is a sizing difference in shoes and clothes here.  For example, if a girl was getting a small size in pants or a shirt, it would be size 8 here.  Similarly, I wear about a 7.5 at home in shoes and about a 37 here.

2.  Grades work differently here.  85-100 is an HD (high distinction), 75-85 is a D (distinction), and it keeps going down from there.  I've also discovered that grades aren't as important to people here and most people's goal is to pass their classes and don't see much need in doing better than that.

3.  Instead of talking about pictures, people here solely use the word 'photo'.  I like it.

4.  It isn't uncommon to wear black and brown together here, whereas at home people think it clashes.

5.  Short shorts are much more common in the general public and many guys wear them.  Something else that I've noticed is that about 95% of serious male runners that I see running are in running singlets

Paradise

Hey everyone!  This past weekend was definitely one of my favorites of the 15 that I've had in Australia so far, and I spent it at Hervey Bay and Fraser Island with two of my close friends here, Kelly and Nicole.  It was so nice to escape 'winter' and get to some beach weather, and we made sure that we embraced it and had an amazing weekend.

Our flight was early on Friday morning, so by 10am we were already checked into our hostel.  We quickly changed into our swimmers (swimsuits) and walked the 5 minutes to the beach.  It turned out to be an absolutely beautiful day and we spent a good 4.5 hours hanging out at the beach.  Somehow it is the first time since I got to Australia that I actually devoted a day to the beach--it was wonderful!  The water wasn't too cold either, and unlike the beaches in Wollongong, there were basically no waves.  The rest of the day was spent wandering around, and later on Nicole and I went for a run and ran on the beach while watching the sunset.. it was perfect.

Saturday morning we left for the most anticipated part of the trip--our tour of Fraser Island!  We had heard so much about Fraser and how amazing everyone thought that it was, so we were very anxious to see it for ourselves.  It ended up being an amazing tour, and while I originally had wanted to do the self-drive tour, I'm so glad that we did a guided one as Fraser is quite the dangerous place!  Fraser island is about 123km long and 15km wide, and is the world's largest sand island.  This means that there are no roads on the island--how cool!  However, it makes driving quite scary, as the highway is a beach, and many people crash, get taken out to sea, flip over, and much more.  I was happy to be in the hands of someone who knew what they were doing instead of people like me who don't know how to drive on sand.  It also is home to 5 of the 10 deadliest snakes in the world, tons of deadly spiders, has jellyfish, stingrays, and sharks at its ocean shore, and houses vicious dingos!  How awesome is this place!?

We got lucky and had a fantastic guide and a really great group.  Our guide Fabian (Fab) is probably the best tour guide that I've had in Australia and really wanted us to have a great experience.  He went out of his way to show us parts of the island that aren't part of the tour, and was just really accommodating all around.  We had 16 people in our tour, as opposed to the normal 40 people that they get during peak season in the summer.  We had a group of about 7 of us who got along really well and I met really nice people from England, the States, Canada, and Germany.. We all clicked really well and it made for an awesome two days that we didn't want to end.  This plus good weather made the trip amazing.  We lucked out and while it did a bit of raining, the sun managed to come out strongly at each part of the trip where we were doing exploring, it worked out perfectly.

The first day we went to two perch lakes on the island, meaning that they consist solely of rain water.  The first, Basin Lake, was nice, but nothing too special, though it was really neat to see.  In between lake stops, we went to Central Station, an old logging station, where we did a bit of hiking and had lunch.  We walked along the Whispering Creek, where we were able to see some eels and fish swimming around.  The walks were very pretty and relaxing.  The second lake that we stopped at, Lake McKenzie, was absolutely amazing.  The water was crystal clear and so pure that you could drink it..  We took pictures underwater with Kelly's camera and it looks like they were taken from inside a swimming pool, it is incredible.  Also, the sand at Lake McKenzie is so fine that it can exfoliate your skin and polish jewelry--how neat is that?! We spent a long time playing in the water and on the beach and had a blast.  We clearly did not want to leave this place and I could have spent so much time there, especially on a hot summer day.  

The second day had a lot more packed into it, and in the morning we drove on the 75 mile beach highway, so basically just on the beach, and stopped at a bunch of places along the way.  One of the places was Eli Creek, where we stopped for a bathroom break.  This cool creek had super clear water and if you wanted to get to the bathroom you had to walk through it.  We didn't spent much time there before heading to the Maheno shipwreck, a ship that crashed along the shore of Fraser over 50 years ago and has never moved and is fully rusted over now.. it is pretty neat.  One other little stop was to see the colored sands of the Pinnacles, which is basically some huge sand cliffs made of the same sand that is in 72 different shades of colors.  It was pretty remarkable.  Finally we made it to one of the big stops of the day, Indian Head, where we did a 15 minute hike up to the top of this cliff that looked over the beach on either side of it.  The view was remarkable and the weather was amazing.  We spent a lot of time up there just admiring the view.

Afterwards, we headed another 5 minutes up the coast where we were going to stop for lunch.  While Fab got lunch together we went and swam in the Champagne Pools, which are little rock pools along the side of the ocean.  Though they consist of sea water that is washed up, they were surprisingly not that cold, though they had lots of sharp rocks in them.  We hung out along the beach there for a while before heading back to have a yummy lunch.  While doing more driving, we saw a huge sea turtle and two dingos along the way!  It was pretty exciting stuff..  Our last big stop was a place not on the itinerary that Fab took us to just because he thought we should see it and it ended up being very worthwhile.  We went to a place called the Rainbow Gorge which is a sandblow, meaning it is basically dunes made up of sand that has been blown up from the ocean over the years and is constantly changing and being blown around.  This sand is on top of what used to be a forest, so it's pretty neat.  The best part about the Rainbow Gorge is that it's a place that very few people know about, so there was no one there and absolutely no footprints anywhere, it was so neat.  We felt like we were in the scene from the Lion King through the boneyard on the way to where the hyenas live.. it was pretty cool haha.  Really though, the sand was beautiful and in all sorts of neat patterns, and it was neat being in such a pure place.  Definitely a cool experience.

While a quick recap doesn't do the place justice, Fraser Island was an amazing place and I would have loved to have been able to spend more time there, but unfortunately we had to get back to Wollongong for classes since this is the last week of school--I can't believe it's here already!  And the crazy part is that in less than 5 days my family will be here and we'll be in Sydney and in Cairns, and then before I know it I'll be heading home.  While I'll be sad to leave Australia, I can't wait to see all of you at home!  Hope everyone is doing well, I miss you guys!

Random Notes:

1.  A remarkable amount of people smoke in Australia, though their cigarette packages show disgusting pictures of peoples organs being ruined from smoking.. I think it's a pretty good idea, though it doesn't seem to affect people much.

2.  They are set on making sure that people don't crash due to tiredness here.  There are signs on highways that say "don't die for a deadline, manage fatigue" and newer cars have beepers in them that go off if you've been driving for more than 2 hours.. it's pretty neat

3.  One of the popular celebrity gossip magazines here is called 'New Idea'.. whoever came up with that must have thought they were really clever

4.  Things are dated dd/mm/yyyy here and people have trouble understanding American licenses

5.  There are weird spellings for a lot of things.. for example, 'tire' is spelled 'tyre'

Dolphins and Parachutes Galore

Hey everyone!  Though I didn't go on any big trips this past week, I've kept very busy as always.  I finally have a million things due in all of my classes so I've been trying to do work (though not always successful since there are SO many distractions), and have been balancing it with hanging out with people around here since there's only a month left before I head home!  Last week was pretty typical and I went to school, did some work, hung out around Campus East and caught up on everything that I missed while I was in Melbourne.  The weather finally got out of the funk that it's been in for the past month and a half, and we had a handful of beautiful, 70 degree days.  Now this is my kind of winter for sure.

Saturday morning I went on a dolphin watching cruise with a group of study abroad students (where I actually ended up being one of 3 non-Asians out of 50 people).  We started the day with a little stop in a small town called Berry where there was some sort of Scottish parade going on.  We stopped, watched it, and stopped in a few shops before getting back on the road and heading to Jervis Bay, which is where the dolphin cruise left from.  I was really happy when I found out the cruise left from there because I had been wanting to go to Jervis Bay but didn't think that I would be able to make it since I'm running out of time.  We had about an hour to ourselves before the cruise took off and I wandered around to a bunch of the beaches and just took in the view and the gorgeous weather.  Soon enough we were on the cruise, and after a while of riding in the boat, we found the dolphins!  There were a ton around and they swam alongside the boat for a good 20 minutes.. It was awesome.  It was an awesome day and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip.. I've never seen dolphins in the wild before and I couldn't have been happier.

On Sunday Campus East had an international food fair, where cooks came in and helped people from various places cook food from their home countries.  There were over 20 countries represented, and the food was all incredible!  It was really neat being able to sample a bit of food from all over the world.  I wish I remembered what half of the foods I tried were, as they were all so good but blended together since there were so many.  Campus East also had a talent show after the international food fair, and that was pretty good as well.  Overall, it felt like a great summer day, and we all enjoyed hanging out and enjoying the weather.

My most recent adventure happened this morning, when me and two of my friends, Kelly and Nicole, decided to jump out of a plane!!  I had been wanting to go skydiving for quite some time now, so I'm so glad that we actually made it happen.  It was a really good experience and we got lucky that we went early in the morning, as it ended up raining the rest of the day.  We took a tiny plane up (where the pilot was wearing a parachute... yikes), and after a 20 minute ride, were up at 14,000 feet where we jumped from!  It was really awesome being able to go skydiving in Wollongong since I know the area so well, and we were able to see some really incredible views from that high up.  We fell through a cloud and the wind on my face got ridiculous (see pictures), but the 60+ second free-fall went by way too fast and before I knew it, the parachute was being pulled.  Skydiving ended up being ridiculously relaxing and I felt on top of the world.  The rest of the ride down was really cool and I was able to spot out Uni and Campus East.. so neat!  The guy who I fell tandem with let me steer the parachute which was pretty fun, and a few minutes later we made it back to the ground.  It was quite an awesome way to start the day!

After skydiving, the rest of the day flew by, and it's already Wednesday night.. Where does time go here?  By tomorrow evening I'll be done with 90% of my schoolwork, so that's pretty exciting, and on Friday morning I leave for Fraser Island for the weekend!  I'm really excited and have been looking forward to this trip for a long time now, so it should be a blast.  I hope everything is going well with everyone at home, before you know it I'll be back at home with you guys! 

Random Notes:

1.  I've begun to feel slightly uncomfortable and confused when I see people driving on the right side of the road in movies... It's pretty crazy

2.  No one here has graphing calculators and people in my classes think it's pretty strange that I have one

3.  Skim milk is ridiculously expensive here and is twice the price of regular milk

4.  They have the most unlikely but delicious cereal here and I'm going to miss it when I come home.  Every morning I get weet bix (basically a bar of wheat stuff that is ridiculously dry, but gets super soft when you add milk.. so good!) and muesli (a more whole-grain version of granola with tons of dried fruit in it)

5.  Red and green peppers are called capsicum here

6.  Parking lots are called car parks (logical), and there are hardly any parking spots by train stations

Melbourne and the Great Ocean Road Trip

Hey guys!  It's already Wednesday and I've been home from Melbourne for 2 days but am still trying to get caught up on everything.  It's getting to that time of the semester when all classes start having everything due at once, and I'm not too used to it since I haven't done a whole lot of work this semester in comparison to what I'm normally used to.  The weather has been pretty nice recently and staying in the mid 60's which is much appreciated.  It seems like it's probably going to level out around there.  I definitely can't complain about that... In the 60's for winter is pretty darn nice.  

This past weekend I had an awesome trip to Melbourne (for those of you at home, it's pronounced Mel-bin) and the Great Ocean Road to run a half marathon.  It was slightly hectic at times because we had a group of 12 people and it's difficult to organize everything for that many people, but overall it was a lot of fun and we did and saw a lot.  I'm going to use bullet points to talk about some of the highlights of the trip so this post doesn't go on for hours.

• Queen Victoria Market-  Kelly and I wandered around all day Friday and this was our first stop.  It was awesome.  We spent about 2.5 hours wandering around the tons of stalls of all sorts of food, clothes and souvenirs.. The crazy part is we didn't even see it all!  It was quite the good time.

• The City-  Melbourne is a really cool place and is pretty artsy.  There are tons of sculptures everywhere and a lot of the buildings are very colorful.  Perhaps my favorite part of the city was the alleys.  Normally alleys are a pretty sketchy place that you try to stay away from, but here they are filled with cafes, shops, pubs, and restaurants and are always packed with people.

• Wandering-  Kelly and I did a lot of wandering and saw many cool things.  We saw some churches, museums, sat in on part of a court case in the Supreme Court, went to Melbourne Uni, saw the Docklands, went to Chinatown where we got delicious bubble tea, walked around Federation Square where Buddha Day was going on, and much more... We packed in a lot in a short period of time and I feel like we got to know Melbourne pretty well.

• 360 Tower-  We went to the top of a tower that had awesome views of the city.  We had lunch up there and enjoyed the view, as it was pretty spectacular.  Later in the evening we went back to watch the sunset and see the city at night which was equally amazing.

• Comic's Lounge-  Finally the whole group got together Friday night where we went to the Comic's Lounge, which had 3 hours of comedians.  It was one guy's 20th anniversary as a comedian so they brought in some of the best comedians from all over the area to come in and open for him.  There were many laughs and they were all really funny.  It was a good way to spend the night.

• AFL-  On Saturday we all went to see an AFL game, or Aussie Rules Football, also called footy.  We got a deal through the hostel we stayed at which also allowed us to see a video beforehand with rules of how the game is played.  Footy is pretty awesome as it is really fast paced unlike American football.  There is no standard size field, 18 players from each team play at a time, there are no pads worn but plenty of tackling, you can only pass the ball by punching it or kicking it, and there is no set time for each quarter.  For example, the quarters are supposed to be around 20 minutes each but the refs can decided how long they want them to last depending on whether they had to stop or not.  The first quarter that we watched lasted for 30 minutes and 19 seconds.  To score, there are 2 large posts and 2 smaller ones on either side and you have to kick the ball between the posts.  If you get it between the big ones it's 6 points and if you hit the big poles or get it between the little poles it's 1 point.  It's basically a pretty crazy game.  It was really entertaining to watch and try to figure out, and though they're the worst team in the league, Melbourne did a pretty good job and almost won.

• Apollo Bay Backpackers-  After a drive that ended up being much longer than expected, we got to our hostel in Apollo Bay pretty late and had to wake up at 5 the next morning for the race.  Upon arriving at the hostel, we found out that there weren't enough beds and people would have to share, and after lying down we realized that there were bugs everywhere!!  Spiders on the bedposts, little gnats on the pillows, and much more.. It was quite disgusting and ended up in some people freaking out, although we ended up just dealing with it and going to sleep because we were so exhausted.

• The Great Ocean Road Half Marathon-  We woke up early on Sunday to run this race!!  The Great Ocean Road has got to be one of the most beautiful roads in the entire world, and I feel so lucky that I was able to run on it and have it completely closed off by traffic.  The weather ended up working out really well and I was comfortable the whole time.   We saw some beautiful views along the run and while I didn't think it could happen, the entire half marathon went by way too fast!!  Before I knew it we were at the 15km mark and the rest came really quickly.  I ran the majority of the race with Colette and Anna and we had a good time together.  We saw a bunch of koalas along the run and many breathtaking views.  For only having run on completely flat roads, I think I did a great job with the hilliness, and just felt amazing.  I broke away the last 4 miles and powered home, and it made me realize that I really want to find awesome races to do all over the world.  This 'half marathon' was 23km versus the normal 21km, so we decided that it is an ultra half marathon... 14.375 miles is the longest I've ever run and it was spectacular.  Everyone did an awesome job and loved it as well.

• Touring the Great Ocean Road-  I was on cloud 9 for the rest of the day and I think everyone else was in an equally good mood.  Since we had rented cars in Melbourne, we went on to explore the rest of the Great Ocean Road and really lucked out with weather, as it cleared up right as we were getting to the main viewing points.  We saw some gorgeous rainbows and stopped at some beautiful places along the drive.  Our main destination was the Twelve Apostles, which ended up being absolutely beautiful.  It was sunny by the time we got there and the water looked turquoise.  It was perfect.  The Twelve Apostles are rock formations in the middle of the ocean that have eroded throughout time to be huge pillars and we spent a long time just standing there and admiring them.  

Unfortunately due to class, we had to end our trip after that.  It was a fantastic weekend and I enjoyed all of it from exploring the city to feeling on top of the world running in the half marathon.  This week will be pretty low-key again, as I have tons of schoolwork due this week and in the next two weeks.. I can't believe that the semester is actually coming to an end!!  I have just over 5 weeks left in Australia and it sounds like a lot, but when I look at my calendar I have barely any time left at all and I can't believe it.  I hope everything is going well with everyone at home!  I miss you guys!

A Lesson in Aussie Speech: 

1.  They have a serious problem with the letter 'r'.  They don't pronounce it when it is in a word, but add it to words when it's not there.  For example, soccer is typically pronounced 'socka', Melbourne is pronounced 'Mel-bin', and Cairns is pronounced 'Cans'.  However, words that end in vowels are often given an 'r' sound at the end.  For example, pizza will often be pronounced as 'pizzer'

2.  The letter 't' in the middle of words will often sound like a 'ch' sound.  An example of this is that youtube sounds like youchube

Hi Everyone!  I was just looking at the calendar and I come home in a month and a half.. Quite insane if you ask me, and I can't believe that I've already been here for almost three months.  The past week was another relatively laid back week where I did a lot of attempting to do homework during the week (with a little success) as well as a bunch of running as the half marathon is getting much closer!  The weather was decent and was in the mid 60's most days, though as soon as the sun goes down it is freezing now.  I sleep in sweats every night, and cocoon myself up in my blanket to stay warm... I'm not enjoying that there are no heaters in the dorms here!!  Tuesday night Kelly, Katie and I attempted to get Mexican food for Cinco de Mayo, but were very disappointed after getting there and finding out that you needed reservations (though the place was at least half empty).  We ended up getting pizza at this place called Napoli that looked pretty sketchy but ended up being good.  

The first out of the ordinary day of the week was Friday, as there was a event called the Casino Royale Ball at Uni.  Tickets sold out really quick so a lot of the people we hang out with at Campus East didn't get them, but Katie, Kelly, Siggy, Drew and I all went so we had a really good group.  It was fun getting all dressed up, and the place we went to was nicely decorated and had a red carpet and all!  We sat down for a delicious two course meal, and it was followed by dancing and gambling.  It was a blast and reminded me a bit of high school dances which were always a good time.  With our ticket we got fake gambling money, and they had tons of different things set up as if you were actually at a casino.  I spent the majority of my time playing blackjack with much success.  It was an awesome night and one of the best times I've had in Wollongong so far.  

After a late night out, Katie and I had an early wake up on Saturday as we were doing a day trip of the Jenolan Caves, which are in the Blue Mountains.  It took about 4.5 hours to get out there by bus, which I spent reading and attempting to sleep.  Though a very long drive, it was well worth it after getting there, as the caves were amazing.  There are tons of different caves that you can hike through, and we did a 90 minute guided tour of the most famous one, the Lucas Cave.  It was really incredible and walking through there and thinking about how old everything is makes you feel really microscopic.  We were told that the fastest growing stalactite grows at a rate of 1 centimeter every 100 to 1000 years.. That's pretty remarkable if you ask me.  The cave we walked through was huge and very extensive, and we saw all sorts of things, from tons of stalactites and stalagmites, to a gigantic part of the cave called the cathedral, to lots of crystals, to bones of a wombat, and much more.  It was a really unique experience and much like anything else I've seen on this trip.  Though a long ride back, it was really relaxing and nice to just sit back.

This is definitely the shortest post that I've had so far.  This week is going to be spent doing all sorts of schoolwork before Thursday and then heading out to Melbourne for the weekend to see the city, visit Austin and Justin, and run a half marathon on the Great Ocean Road.  I'm really excited for it and it should be an awesome time.  I hope everything is going well with everyone at home and Happy Mother's Day!   I miss you guys!

Random Notes:

1.  They pronounced the letter 'z' as 'zed'.  Apparently many other places do this too.

2.  Aussies as a whole are chronically late for everything.  All my lectures are scheduled to start 30 minutes after the hour and rarely start till at least 45 after.  Similarly, people just show up to class an hour into the lecture and it's completely normal.

3.  It is very common for kids to go to boarding schools far away from home in years 7 and up.  A good portion of my friends that I've made here went to boarding schools at least a couple of hours away from home

4.  Gas is called petrol, which I suppose is actually more logical

5.  Mother's Day is the same here as it is at home, though their Father's Day isn't until September.

Adelaide Adventures

Hi everyone!  Hope everything is going well at home and that it's actually starting to warm up and act like May.   This past week was pretty typical and included running, hanging out around Campus East, and going to (a little) class.  It's starting to be cold here, so I've been freezing 24/7 since there are no heaters in our dorm and I only have one blanket... Not good.  I thought Australia was supposed to be warm, right?  Thursday evening Katie, Kelly, Andy, and I continued our tradition of trying a new restaurant each week, though this week wasn't really a new place because we decided to try Outback Steakhouse!  We went there both for some good meat, as well as for the sake of comedy.  Turns out that Outback here is very similar to Outback at home, and they even give you free bread much to our surprise!  I opted for a steak since good red meat is hard to come by in the cafeteria, and I was very satisfied.  It came with a caesar salad (same deliciousness as home) and wonderful mashed potatoes.  I couldn't have been happier, at least until we went to Hungry Jack's (Burger King) and got double chocolate storms (which is basically a blizzard).  It was a fantastic evening and good to have some real food for once.

After dinner, I hopped on the train and took it to Sydney where I spent the night, so that I wouldn't have to take a 3:30am train by myself to the airport the next morning.  A few hours of sleep later, I woke up to head to the airport to go to Adelaide!   It was a very smooth flight and before I knew it, I was there.  Adelaide is a really neat city, as it is a decent size and has some big buildings and a good amount going on, but it's not massive like Sydney.  It is also surrounded by parks on all sides, which gives it a nice, fresh feel, and allows you to escape the chaotic-ness of city life whenever you like.  I got semi lost going to find Jaci's place, but finally got in the right direction.  While walking there, a bird swooped down from behind me and clawed me in the eye!!  Needless to say, I wasn't overly happy, and I spent half of the day looking like I was crying.  Luckily, I found Jaci soon after, and was so excited to see her that it didn't even matter.  

Though it did a good amount of raining on Friday, it wasn't bad, and I spent some time shopping at Rundle Mall (this outdoor mall in Adelaide that is apparently always SUPER busy no matter what time of day) and most of the day just catching up with Jaci and meeting her friends.  In the afternoon, we went to Central Market, which has the largest market in Australia (and maybe the southern hemisphere, though we're not positive).  It was really cool and there was tons of fresh fruit, veggies, meat, nuts, and little shops throughout.  I bought some strawberries and grapes and was quite thrilled.  I really wish that we had a cool market like that close to us.. I think I would probably go there ALL the time.  Since it was quite rainy, we went back to St. Mark's (where she lives) and hung out there.  It's a residential college and it's really neat because it's this tight knit community where everyone knows each other and does everything together.. I also was very appreciative of the fact that they can get as much fresh fruit as they want with no cost whereas we have to pay $0.90 for each tiny, gross piece of fruit from our cafeteria.

After a chill night where we just hung around and talked, I got up and went for a run in the morning along the Torrens River which is right by where Jaci lives in North Adelaide.  There was a nice trail that went alongside it, and it was a shady path that had tons of people running, walking, and biking on it.  I would have loved to have had more time to explore it.  I got back and showered, and then us and her three roommates went out to breakfast at this great cafe nearby.  Afterwards, Jaci and I caught a bus to the Adelaide Hills, where we hiked up Mt. Lofty.  At the summit of Mt. Lofty you get great views of Adelaide and the surrounding area.  It was an awesome view, and we had a beautiful day.  We decided to try hiking some trails in the area, and somehow got lost and ended up doing something completely different.  Tired from the crazy hills and hour and a half later, we decided to retreat, and even though we didn't find the trail we wanted, it was still a nice afternoon.   We went back to North Adelaide where we had dinner and spent some more time relaxing.

Sunday, I went to Kangaroo Island!!  Though it was the one day that I wasn't with Jaci, it was definitely the coolest day of my trip, as Kangaroo Island is a very unique place.  It took about 2.5 hours to get there via bus and ferry, and I was pretty tired from the early start to the day, but I definitely woke up as soon as I got there.  KI is really neat because it is so isolated compared to most of Australia (minus the Outback of course), and there is only 1 person per square kilometer on the island.  It is kind of like being in a natural zoo, as we saw many kangaroos hopping alongside (and across) the road, a few echidnas, lots of sheep, horses, and cows, many birds, and tons of seals.  And they were all in the wild (and not brought over there or confined to an area... strictly them in their natural state)!  It was great :)  

Our first stop was Seal Bay, where we got to walk on the beach and see tons of seals.  Apparently we were really lucky because a bunch of them just had babies, so we were able to see a few mothers with their pups too.  On the boardwalk to the beach, there was a mom and baby on the side.. The mom yelled at us because I think we were too close for comfort.  It was definitely interesting to see how protective they are.  The beach was beautiful and it was neat to see a ton of seals just playing around.   After Seal Bay we went to lunch, where I met this kid Ed from England, and we became buddies for the day.  He's on a gap year (taking a year off between high school and college to travel), so he was by himself and was looking for some company as well.  Lunch was good and we got some soup, bread, salads, and meat.  Yummy.

After lunch, we had a 30 second (literally) drive to our next stop, which was a bird of prey show.   There we were shown all sorts of birds of prey including owls, eagles, and kookaburras, which I got to hold!  It was actually really cool and I learned a lot.  We even saw the owl eat a fully mouse, and the eagle chomp on a wallaby leg... Delicious.  After that show, we went to our next stop which was exploring in Flinders Chase National Park.  While there, we went to the Remarkable Rocks, which were really beautiful and the same orange color as Uluru, and then Admirals Arch, which is huge and its this arch carved out by the water over time.  There we saw many more seals, this time they were jumping around on rocks and playing in water.  They were very entertaining to watch.

Finishing up Flinders Chase National Park, we were basically done with our journey.  We got back to Penneshaw (which is the town that the ferry comes into), and I bought some hawaiian pizza.  I was very excited because the only pizza in all of Wollongong is Dominos, and it just doesn't cut it.  Ed and I hung out on the ferry and bus ride back to Adelaide and just chatted about life.  I really enjoyed his company and was so glad that I found someone to spend time with on the trip.  I got back into Adelaide pretty late, which concluded my trip there.  It was a really good weekend and great to see Jaci again.  I don't have anything too exciting planned this week, so it should be interesting to see where it takes me.  

Random Sidenotes:

1.  Computer paper is sized differently here.. I came with folders from home and all of the paper that I've printed out and gotten in classes are too tall and hang out over the tops

2.  There are switches on all outlets (called 'power points'), so even after you plug something in, you need to remember to turn the outlet on

3.  The fire alarm goes off in our building ALL the time and is quite deafening.  I learned last week that their fire department is called the fire brigade

4.  Everyone associates Fosters with Australia, but it isn't on the menu pretty much anywhere here

5.  If you're going to call someone you say that you're going to phone them, and cell phones are just referred to as mobiles

A Typical Week in Australia

Well, I finally had a laid back week.  After four weekends of traveling, I actually got to hang out around Wollongong and do a bit of relaxing for a change.  Not to say that it was a dull week, it was just definitely more relaxed than the past month has been.  From here until the end of my trip, I'm traveling every other weekend, so it should be a nice mix between being crazy busy and being able to chill out a bit.  Strangely, this week also marked the halfway point of my trip.  I'm torn with how I feel about it, as I am excited to get home and see everyone, but at the same time, I'm sad that it means I'm halfway done with my stay in this incredible country.  I suppose that's still quite some time off, but in only 6 weeks my family will be here and that's really not all that far away.  

Back to this week, the main part of the week was spent exchanging spring (or 'fall' I guess) break stories with all international kids, trying to get back into the swing of classes, and attempting to catch up on sleep (which is harder than it sounds due to the fact that I think my roommate Katie and I are the only 2 people who aren't obnoxiously loud in our dorm every night).  I did laundry, went for some runs (one which was 80 minutes... my first time that long in quite some time!), watched a handful of movies, and enjoyed not constantly being on the go.  It is definitely turning to 'winter' here, as it was a very rainy week and in the low 60's the whole time.  I'm not going to lie, I'm semi sad that the weather is going to be turning wonderful at home and continuing to get cooler here.  However, I was happy to learn that it doesn't get much colder than this during the days, it's just the nights that cool off a bit.

Saturday was Anzac Day, which is a national holiday in Australia.  Most people spent the day partying and playing Two-Up, which is basically a coin game that you bet on that is ONLY legal on April 25th every year.  It's not all that interesting, as it consists of putting two coins on a paddle, betting money on heads or tails, flipping the paddle, and continuing to do that until either both heads or both tales show up.  The winner gets the money.  The reason that game is played on Anzac Day is that apparently the soldiers used to play it and since it's sort of a memorial holiday, it is in remembrance of them.  

My Anzac Day was spent doing a wine tour in the Hunter Valley, which is apparently the 4th most visited place in Australia (don't ask me what the top 3 are, I have no idea).  I went with Nadia, Nicole, and Connor, in a New Zealand-like reunion, and we had an awesome day!  It was an early morning since we had to be in Sydney by 8am, and we were then driven two hours to get to Hunter Valley.  We were lucky and had a beautiful and sunny day, as well as really friendly and nice guides.  I wasn't sure how I'd find the tour as I'm not a huge fan of wine, but it ended up being great.  We visited a total of 3 wineries, 1 brewery, and did some cheese tasting as well.  I learned a lot about wine that I never knew before, and I hope that I'll carry it over to the real world.  I also learned that I'm definitely more of a fan of white wine than red, and prefer fruity over dry wines.  

Each winery was really nice, but different, and the brewery was really neat because we got to sit outside in the gorgeous day, surrounded by tons of beautiful scenery, and listening to a guy play the guitar.  We had the option to do some beer tasting, and very uncharacteristic of me, I decided to do it basically on the premise of when else will I ever do it.  It didn't end up being the best decision as it confirmed that I'm not a fan of beer (and had 6 different kinds to taste), but I learned that I can drink beers that don't taste like beer (like a ginger beer that I tried).  The cheese tasting was definitely a success and quite delicious, and I was surprised to enjoy it so much because I'm not usually the type to seek out cheese and crackers.  The first bottle of alcohol I saw at the first winery was 'jungle juice' and I laughed because of what the drink is in the states... Apparently it's actually a legitimate beverage here.  The last winery that we went to had different kinds of schnapps to try, the last of which was called 'Dragon's Breath' that was super spicey and delicious.  They said it's great to use while making stir fries and such, so I decided to buy a bottle to test it out.  We had some nice meals, good laughs, and an overall perfect day.  It was definitely a successful day for 2/3 of Alpha Team Echo.  

Today (Sunday) I actually got to sleep in a bit (till 8:49, go me!) and relaxed and went for a run in the morning.  In the afternoon, I went with Katie, Kelly, and an Aussie guy, Andy (who thankfully has a car) to the Minnamurra Rainforest, which is about an hour away.  We had a great afternoon hiking through the rainforest and seeing amazing waterfalls.  To protect the environment as best as possible, the entirety of the hike was on raised boardwalks and it was really neat!  Afterwards, we drove another 15 minutes to get to the Illawarra Tree Top Walk, which has a really neat walk above the trees with a lookout that's 45 meters above it all.  It was awesome because from the top there were incredible views of all of the Illawarra area (which is basically a huge area all around Wollongong).  It was a really nice afternoon and made me feel so tiny in this huge country.

This weekend the pace should pick back up a bit as I'm heading to Adelaide to visit Jaci on Friday morning!! I'm really excited for the weekend and it should be a lot of fun.  I hope everyone is doing well at home, I miss you guys!

A Lesson in Aussie Lingo:

1.  One of the most common Aussie phrases is 'sweet as'.  This basically is used when describing how something is sweet or awesome.  The 'as' at the end is there for no reason and can be applied to basically any other word... For example, you could say "It's cold as outside!" or "I'm hungry as!" etc etc.

2.  When referring to being drunk, they use the word 'pissed'

3.  Arriving somewhere is often described as 'rocked up'.  For example, if talking about how Tom came to the pub at 10, you would say "Tom rocked up at 10."

4.  Other common Aussie words used are 'keen' and 'I reckon'.  I'm trying to adopt all of the phrases but they're still not too natural for me

5.  Sweatshirts and hoodies are referred to as jumpers