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

New Zealand: the most beautiful place in the world

I got back from New Zealand and the best week of my life two days ago and I'm still on cloud nine.  New Zealand really is a magical place and is so unique not just because it's beautiful, but because it is so natural and untouched compared to most places in the world.  If half of the land in NZ was actually in the US, there would be houses and towns everywhere, but in reality, there is nothing and it is amazing.  I say that the 11 days in New Zealand were the best 11 day of my life not because I haven't had better days, but because I don't think I've had that many '10' days in a row of just being so happy, doing amazing things, going to breathtaking locations, not worrying about anything, and just enjoying life.  It definitely was a perfect vacation and the problem is that I will probably compare everything else I do from here on out to this trip.  Since I kept incredibly busy for the whole trip and this post is going to be ridiculously long, I think I'm going to try to bullet point different activities I enjoyed with a brief explanation just so I don't have you reading for 5 hours.

Here is much of what I loved about New Zealand:

• Running-  I came into the trip not expecting to do any physical activity besides walking around, and almost didn't end up bringing my running shoes (and only brought 1 sports bra.. oops), but thankfully I did.  I had a great group of active people that I hung out with and I got a lot of really good runs in on cool paths with awesome views of mountains and lakes.. It's amazing how much more of each area I was able to see by foot than most people got to!   I was able to see some sunrises, sunsets, and rainbows and boy were they great.

• Biking-  One free afternoon at Fox Glacier when most people were sleeping, me and 3 of my friends rented bikes and rode a few miles away to Lake Matheson, which is this awesome lake that is known for having really neat reflections of the mountains behind it.  It was a really fun afternoon.

• EXTREME theme- The trip I was on was an 'Extreme Adventures' tour consisting of all college kids, and the theme of the trip and everything having to do with it was EXTREME!!  I had an extreme-ly good time and met some really neat people along the way.  I was skeptical about doing a tour, but I'm so glad that I did because there's no way I would have gotten to see as many places or do as many activities had I not done it.  We had two tour guides, Tim and Wazza, who were amazing and did a great job of making everyone feel included.

• Fall-  Being on this trip made me realize how much I love fall.  It's currently fall in New Zealand and all of the trees are changing colors and leaves are falling off... it is so gorgeous there and though we spent hours driving from place to place on a bus, it never got boring because how amazing it is.  We also got lucky and the mountains were snow-capped, which apparently usually doesn't happen until later in the year. 

• Glacier Hike-  Our first actual activity was a glacier (pronounced glay-see-er by the Aussies) hike at Fox Glacier, one of only TWO growing glaciers in the world.  It was really neat and what was crazy is that we had to hike through rainforest to get to the glacier!  Apparently the glacier keeps getting tons of snow on top which is causing it to grow so much, and it moves at a quick speed of 1 meter/day, so the guide said that week to week the glacier looks completely different.  Along the walk we passed some waterfalls and creeks with amazing fresh spring water that we got to drink out of and fill our water bottles up with.. so cool!  Hiking on the glacier was really neat too and we were given picks to hold and blades on the bottom of our boots to help us walk on the glacier... What a wonderful experience it was!

• Queenstown- My favorite place on the trip was definitely Queenstown, which is apparently the adventure capital of the southern hemisphere.  Though definitely a touristy town, it is completely outdoors themed (which I love) and is geared towards the intense, adrenaline-oriented traveler (which is me).  Not only are there tons of activities that you can do from Queenstown, it has a picturesque backdrop of a lake and mountains, and you could spend so much time there and never get bored, even if it was just spent walking around.

• Jet Boat Ride-  Our first extreme activity was a fast jet boat ride on the Shotover River, which goes through a gorgeous canyon.  Just looking at the boat you wouldn't expect anything spectacular, but this little boat goes up to speeds of 80 km/hr and goes within inches of rocks and is actually pretty scary.  The boat also does all sorts of crazy 360 degree spins and keeps you on edge at all times.

• Helicopter/White Water Rafting-  The helicopter ride is definitely one of the coolest things that I've ever done in my life.. I mean really, a helicopter ride???  Being up that high gave spectacular views of Queenstown and the surrounding area, and was just surreal.  We were dropped off at a higher point on the Shotover River, where we got into rafts and went white water rafting down the canyon!  Though fun, I was slightly disappointed with the rafting as the rapids were few and far between.  By the time we got to the bottom of the canyon, we were freezing and glad to get some hot tea.

• Bungy Jumping-  This is definitely the most adrenaline-filled activity that I've ever done, though for some reason I wasn't scared at all.  We went bungy jumping at the Nevis Bungy, which is about 45 minutes outside of Queenstown, is a 134 meter free fall, the second highest bungy in the world, and the highest in the southern hemisphere.  I think part of why I wasn't scared is because I was the last in my group to go since we went by weight, so I saw everyone in front of me have such a good time.  We were on this platform extended by wires across mountains with only a tiny river at the bottom.  So basically if you weren't secured to the ropes, you were a goner.  Free falling was an amazing feeling, and the wind rushing past me was such a unique experience.  It was much smoother than I expected and was incredibly enjoyable.. I definitely want to go again sometime.  

• Sky Swing/Luge Rides- The afternoon after bungy jumping we did a sky swing (that I thought was scarier than bungy jumping) that dropped you from about 40-50 meters and swung you past a bunch of trees.  I did it upside-down so it looked like I was going to hit the rocks and trees from my perspective.  That afternoon we also did some luge rides (which were basically go karts down hills.. much like my grass karting experience at the Blue Mountains, but this time with brakes).  They ended up being a lot of fun!!

• Canyoning-  This was probably my favorite activity of the whole trip.  Bungy jumping was amazing, yes, but I feel like it isn't a completely unique experience.  Canyoning, on the other hand, is.  Canyoning is basically making your way down this giant canyon/waterfall by abseiling (repelling), climbing, cliff jumping, going down natural water slides, and zip lining.  It was amazing.  Me and five others from our group went on our free day, and we were taken to Mt. Aspiring National Park, which is absolutely beautiful.  I don't think any of us really knew what to expect, and when we got to the canyon that we were about to go down, we joked about jumping off the bridge into it, which 20 minutes later is basically what we ended up doing.. yikes.  Lucky for us, we were suited up in some pretty hardcore wetsuits, as the water was only 5 degrees celsius (that's 41 degrees fahrenheit!! brrr!), and without them we definitely would not have survived.  Even so, our hands and faces were freezing by the end of the trip.  Going back to canyoning, it was such a cool experience.  It was really intense and we were instructed with how and where to land with each jump, and if you didn't do it correctly you risked landing on rocks.  It was such a fun afternoon and we got to see so much of this beautiful canyon that there is no way we would have ever seen otherwise.  One of my favorite parts of the day was walking to and from the canyon through mud.  It's funny how enjoyable it was knowing that I could just walk through it without having to worry about getting my shoes dirty :)

• Alpha Team Echo-  I met a lot of people on the trip, but there was a group of six of us that were inseparable and became so close over the course of the 11 days together.  I came into the trip knowing Nicole a decent amount (she goes to Illinois and Wollongong, is one of the girls I flew to Australia with, and hand hung out with her a handful of times), Nadia not very much at all (also goes to Illinois and Wollongong, but we had never hung out besides eating a couple meals in the dorm together), and Connor a little (goes to Wollongong, is in my thermo class, and was on the Blue Mountains trip that I went on), but essentially I traveled by myself and didn't know who I would spend my time with.  The first night in Christchurch I was hanging out in my room when one of my roommates Austin, and his friend Justin walked in.  After a few minutes of talking, I figured out that Austin is from Orland Park and also goes to Illinois... What a small world!  The two of them go to Melbourne, and joined the four of us from Wollongong into becoming what one of the boys decided to name Alpha Team Echo when we were canyoning.  Basically I couldn't have asked for a better group of friends to travel with and we kept each other laughing and having fun the whole week.  They're all such nice people and I think I'll stay friends with them for a long time to come.  I can't believe I only spent 11 days with them, as it feels like I have known them for years.  I'm really excited to visit Austin and Justin in Melbourne in a month!

• Nightlife-  Though I'm much more lame than the majority of the people on the trip, I got to see some awesome parts of New Zealand nightlife.  Queenstown boasts tons of unique pubs and I got to enjoy a few of them.  The coolest place that we went was a bar called Minus 5, which is a bar made entirely out of ice.  Everything from the actual bar, the seats, sculptures, and cups are all made from ice and the room is set at -5 degrees celsius.  You're only allowed in for 30 minutes and are given a warm jacket, gloves, and boots.  It is one of the neatest places I've ever been to and was definitely worth the trip.  The admission included one free drink and I had the most delicious mango drink in the world (yes, I've tried all mango drinks in the world).  

• Max- One night we were wandering around and ran into this random old guy named Max on the pier who was playing from a wooden flute.  We stopped to listen to him and ended up spending a good 45 minutes with him, part of which we paired off and slow danced to 'My Heart Will Go On.'  At one point in time Nadia and Justin sang a duet with Max playing along, and we just spent a long time talking to and laughing with him.  He had to have been drunk because he rambled for a very long time about all sorts of stuff like his trip to Alaska and how Clion Dion is in love with him (Celine Dion, yes, but he chose to continuously pronounce her name differently).  Ridiculous, but it was one of the most enjoyable evenings I've ever had.

• Milford Sound-  We did a 2 hour cruise at Milford Sound, which is known to be one of the most beautiful places on earth.  Though it was a cloudy day, it was still stunning and we saw so many waterfalls.  Lucky for us, it had rained in the morning so there were a ton of little waterfalls as a result.  One of the falls that we passed on the drive there is the fastest in the world and has water moving at 500 cubic meters/second.. Crazy!  It was a relaxing (but windy) ride and we got to see a lot of the beauty of Milford Sound.  

• Hostels-  Lucky for us, we had a lot of really good hostels throughout the trip.  Me, Austin, Nadia, Nicole, Connor, and Justin were put in the same room all but one night so that made us extra happy.  My favorite hostel was our one in Queenstown called the Black Sheep that had a hot tub on the deck out back.. I don't think it can get much more amazing than sitting in a nice hot tub with beautiful mountains in the background.  One night a group of us bought a bunch of food from the grocery store and made an amazing feast... from now on I think I really need to cook more while at hostels.

• Glow Worm Cave-  Our second to last day on the tour was spent visiting a glow worm cave in Te Anau.  I hadn't expected a whole lot from it, but it was an incredible experience.  After getting into the actual cave and onto this tiny metal raft, we were brought deep in where it was silent and pitch black.  Slowly but surely we started seeing all more and more little blue dots before eventually they were everywhere.  It was a surreal experience and felt like I was in a completely different world or in outer space or something.  

• Sheep Farm-  The last day on the trip we went to a random sheep farm where we got to see a sheep shearing demonstration.  It was pretty interesting to see, and later we were shown how border collies round up the sheep.  Those dogs are definitely in control!  After the demonstrations, we were given a huge and amazing home cooked meal that included tons of meat, potatoes, and veggies, and was followed by ridiculously good fresh fruit and ice cream (called hokey pokey ice cream.... WOW is it delicious!), and then tea and biscuits.  It was funny watching us all scarf down the food, but I suppose it is legit as we haven't really had a home cooked meal in quite some time.  It was definitely a good way to end the trip.

• Plane Rides-  After my last few non-spectacular flights, I didn't have too high of expectations for these flights, but I was definitely wrong.  Apparently Emirates is a pretty classy airline, as upon walking on the plane I was given about 10 newspaper options, and after sitting down I was given a hot, wet towel to wipe my hands with.  I had my own TV on which I watched 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button' and 'Yes Man' on, and had 5 course meals on both flights!  Definitely a pleasant surprise.. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

So it turns out my attempt to keep the post short didn't end up working out too well as there is just so much to tell!  Basically if you've made it this far and haven't gotten the point yet, I had an incredible trip to New Zealand and it is one that I will never forget.  I got to go to many amazing locations, made great friends, and tried lots of new things.  If you want to hear more let me know and I would be glad to talk for hours and hours about my trip!

Random Notes (these will be kept to a minimum since the rest is so long):

1. Fries are called fries in New Zealand unlike in Australia where they're called chips.

2. There are tons of Subways in both countries and they have Subway breakfasts that actually look quite delicious (and apparently they have veggie patties that are quite good too)

More Roadkill than Radio Stations

Hi everyone!   Another adventure has come and gone, this time to Tasmania (or Tassie as it is often called).  Tassie is often made fun of by Australians and people always say that everyone there is related and such, so I was interested to see what it was like.  I left early Friday morning after getting hardly any sleep, but had a very smooth trip to Hobart with my friend Jin (from North Carolina).  The flight was shorter than I expected and only took about 90 minutes.  Before I knew it, I was looking out the window to tons of trees and mountains and got really excited to be arriving in Tassie!  I was very disappointed because I bought a bunch of fruit for the trip before leaving Wollongong, but it was all confiscated at the airport.. Apparently you can't bring fruit into Tassie, South Australia, or Western Australia.  Annoying.  Eventually we made it into town and met up with Kelly and Jaci, and though we didn't have the best weather (rainy and in the 40's and 50's... which yes isn't bad, but keep in mind we're used to warmth now!), we made the most of it and had a really good trip.

Friday was a pretty low key day, and we went to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory, which is the main plant and where the magic started!  It was well worth the journey and we got plenty of free samples and learned  a bit about the company too.  It turns out that they actually use different milk and sugar in the chocolate that they make in Australia from the chocolate made in the US, so there is a difference in taste (not that I would ever be able to notice, but I suppose maybe some chocolate fanatics could).  I also learned that Americans don't even make the top 3 in amount of chocolate eaten per person in the world, but Australians do... apparently they spend 11 (or was it 10?) months of the year at the factory making chocolate eggs, all which are sold and eaten in 1 month SOLELY by Australians.. Ridiculous.  After the presentation, we were able to buy chocolate, and we saw this giant box of breakfast bars for only $12.  After some deliberation, Jaci decided to buy it.  We were trying to guess how many boxes were inside, but after leaving and opening it up, we found a gigantic bag filled of about 100 bars, 90% of which were unwrapped... We laughed about that for a bit.

The evening was spent wandering around Hobart.  I didn't really know what to expect, but was pleasantly surprised.  Though it is one of the two main cities in Tassie, it is actually pretty tiny and has no skyscrapers,  but has a nice feel to it.  There was a neat outdoor mall and lots of cool restaurants and shops along the pier.  I wish I would have had some extra time to spend just wandering around in Hobart.  We found this really cool place to eat at for dinner and got some really good pasta and pizza (my first in a very long time!!).  

Saturday morning we woke up early to go rent a car!!  After going to a few places the day before with expensive estimates, we found this kind of sketchy company called Selective Car Rentals that gave us a good price, so we decided to go with it.  We got a lovely, old Toyota Corolla (that Kelly named Blue Betty), that had some difficulty accelerating up hills and with brakes that needed extra effort to work.  Renting a car was an awesome decision and made for a great weekend.  We spent about 9 hours in the car on Saturday, but it was great because we got to see so much of Tassie as a result.  It was a really scenic drive, but it sometimes would turn into a dirt road for extended periods of time or would just go down to one lane for both directions.. scary!  

Eventually we made it to Cradle Mountain, which is probably Tassie's most iconic location.  It was very much worth the 5 hour drive there, as it was absolutely amazing!  I've been to plenty of beautiful places so far, but this was basically my first time (minus the Blue Mountains) seeing mountains instead of beaches, and it was great!  We did a two hour hike around Dove Lake and past Cradle Mountain and then two mini hikes that went by waterfalls nearby.  We were really happy because the weather looked like it was going to start pouring any minute, but held out for us.  We started heading back around 6pm and made it to this town called Sheffield in about an hour where we decided to stop for dinner.  Despite this town being one of the biggest ones on the map, it was so empty, and at 7pm on a Saturday night there were literally only 2 'restaurants' open in town.  The one that we ate at doesn't really even count as a restaurant as it basically served fast food.  We also learned that Sheffield has stores with really weird combinations of goods... This one store that we walked by sold the nice combination of flour, dvds, and clothes.  Very logical if you ask me.  I drove the rest of the way back, and though it was a few hour drive, it flew by and I enjoyed being able to drive again and driving on the left side of the road!

Sadly Kelly had to leave us Sunday morning, but Jaci, Jin, and I continued our journey, this time to Bruny Island which is pretty close to Hobart.  We took a ferry over with the car, and then went to explore the island.  Unfortunately it was pretty cold and rainy for most of the day, so there were tons of hikes that looked awesome that we didn't do just because we didn't want to get stuck freezing in the forest.  We did get to see the majority of the island and stopped at many awesome look outs along the way.  My favorite spot was 'the neck' that separated the north and south islands.  It was really cool because you could see the two beautiful, but different beaches on both sides.  Also, there are a ton of penguins there, but since it was during the day, we only saw one (but were very excited about that one).  After a few hours we decided that we saw everything that we could by car, and decided to go back.  We stopped at a cheese factory on the island on the way out and got to try some samples which were pretty delicious  (though I'm not the biggest fan of goat cheese I learned).

That evening we went to search for some place for dinner and ended up at a restaurant called Bay Leaf Bistro.  We settled on it because it looked decent and we had barely any options, but were pleasantly surprised.  The service was by far the best that I've had since being in Australia (often waitresses don't care because they don't get tipped), and we got complimentary rolls (also never happens), delicious food, a chocolate ball for free (also NEVER happens), and split checks (I've only been to one place so far that has done this)!!!  We were amazed, especially at the fact that these little things could make us so ridiculously happy.  Later that evening we did a ghost tour through some old penitentiary in Hobart.  As a whole it was kind of dumb, but it was a cool thing to see, and we got to see where prisoners used to stay and were hanged, and our crazy guide looked just like this old convict.  However the closest we got to creepiness was how loud one guy on the tour was breathing the entire time.    

As a whole, Tassie was an awesome time and I wish I would have been able to stay longer because there is SO much to do there..  I've already begun to plan my next trip to Australia (I know, I'm strange), so perhaps I'll have to add Tassie to the list.   Last night I went to see a play at the Opera House which is another thing that was at the top of my list to do.  I went with Katie and her mom, and we saw The Alchemist, which was very good and hilarious.  We ate dinner at Circular Quay with an awesome view of the bridge and city lit up beforehand, and then went to the play which was such a great experience.  Tomorrow, I leave for New Zealand for 11 days, and I couldn't be more excited!  Expect the next post to be ridiculously long because there is going to be tons to talk about.  Anyways, talk to you all soon!  

Random things we learned in Tassie:

1. Don't listen to crazy 1 tooth airport shuttle guys on where to stay... we were almost scared away from our hostel when our driver told us that staying there was a terrible decision, but it ended up being awesome!

2.  There are more sheep than people 

3.  The windshield wiper will not operate the turn signal... we kept forgetting that this was flip-flopped in the car as well

4.  There is more roadkill than radio stations.. we saw tons of wallabies, kangaroos, tasmania devils, and wombats... but most were dead on the road :(

5.  If you get a box of breakfast bars, don't be surprised if 90% are unwrapped

6.  You're allowed to drive in the middle of the road

7.  It's probably not the best idea to eat 3 chocolate eggs in one sitting.. you will probably get a stomach ache of some sort

8.  If you go to Cadbury and the sample bin is empty, make sure to look in the cabinet below

9.  The roads can randomly go down to one lane for both directions to share

10.  Don't be alarmed if the car you rent comes with a casette player and has spider webs on the mirror

11.  You may drive on gravel roads for extended periods of time

12.  There are still places where people will pump your gas for you

13.  You can go to Perth, Brisbane, and New Zealand all within Tasmania 

14.  Don't be surprised if your headlights don't work and then find out the next evening that you just weren't turning them on the right way

15.  Most places will be closed at 7pm on a Saturday night

16.  It is more hillbilly-ish than the rest of Australia and there are radio hosts with ridiculous lisps

17.  Don't be surprised if a museum you stop at is the size of a bedroom and they expect you to pay $4 to enter

The REAL Australia

Well, it turns out that I'm officially in Australia.  I just got back from a 5 day trip to the outback, and it was probably the coolest trip that I've ever been on.  Before I start talking about the actual trip, let me reflect on getting to Alice Springs.  For some insane reason I decided that it would be a good idea to wake up at 4:40 to run before the flight because I knew I wouldn't run the whole trip, so I did a long-ish run then.  I came back and showered, and not joking, 60 seconds before I was about to leave to walk to the train station it starts pouring outside.  The kind of pouring where you're concerned that your window is going to cave in... So since I obviously didn't want to miss the train (and flight as well) Colette and I trekked through this monsoon to the train station.  As a result, we, and all of our stuff, were soaked once we got there which made for a nice, cold train ride.  Going through the airport was exponentially easier than I could have ever imagined.  Apparently since Australia isn't hated by other countries there is hardly any security in the airport.  We arrived early because we thought it might take a while, but we were literally in the terminal within 5 minutes of walking into the airport.  Basically anyone can go through, they don't ask to see your id or ticket, and they don't stick to any of their rules (for example they have liquid rules here and Colette violated them and they didn't even look through her bag, and I brought a big can of bugspray that is way larger than 3 ounces and they didn't say a word).  So as a whole, the airport experience was quite smooth and enjoyable.

Three hours later and we were in Alice Springs, right in the center of Australia, and 1,500 km from any real city.  You know the feeling when you open the oven door and heat bursts out at you?  Welcome to the Outback.  We were welcomed by this heat upon leaving the airport via stairs from the plane.  The airport is super tiny, and we noticed that on the incoming and outgoing flight screen, there were only four flights listed... insane, especially since we're used to O'Hare's insanity.   We took a free shuttle to our hostel, Annie's Place, which ended up being this really cool place with lots of character.  It was really colorful, had a pool, plays movies outside every night, is attached to a bar/restaurant, and just has a great atmosphere.  Colette and I just spent the day wandering around Alice Springs and looking at shops along the way.  For as small of a town that Alice Springs is, there is actually a lot of stuff going on and many places to go.  Also, there are tons of Aboriginal people walking all over the place, I didn't realize that the population was so large there.  Since we were exhausted from the day and had an early wake up the next morning, we went to sleep really early.

The next day began our outback adventure!  We were picked up early and welcomed by our guide, Drew, a 22 year old from England.  He was a really cool guy and knew a ton about everything that we encountered along the trip.  We were the last two people to be picked up (of a group of 21), so I ended up sitting shotgun the whole trip which was great because I got to know Drew and learn a lot about him and the area along the way.  Much to my surprise, Colette and I were the only Americans on the tour, which is a first for me on this trip.  After lots of talking to all of the Europeans, we figured out that the reason there are so many Americans that study abroad is that we can't get off much time after we start working, but the Europeans can take 6 month or 1 year working holidays basically whenever they want with no penalty, so as a result don't study abroad much but do it later.  I'm actually pretty jealous.  However, as a whole, we had an awesome group which made for a very good trip. 

We did lots of driving on Saturday, but eventually made it to Kings Canyon, where we did an awesome 3.5 hour hike.  It was quite the toasty day (37 degrees celsius, or close to 100 degrees fahrenheit), but the dry heat isn't that bad at all.  I drank a ton of water and barely sweat.  It is strange because for as hot as it was, the heat didn't bother me the slightest bit, which is saying something because I'm usually not too fond of extreme heat.  If anything, the thousands of flies are what got to me.  I definitely wasn't expecting them (I know, I should have), and they weren't the most pleasant of surprises.  Anyways, Kings Canyon was amazing and really gorgeous.  There were tons of beautiful lookouts, and it was just a great hike as a whole.  Drew is really knowledgeable and taught us about all kind of different rocks and trees along the way.  He showed us this plant ippy yippy (spelled totally wrong, but pronounced like that) which is where the idea for the 2nd skin bandage idea came from.  He demonstrated how it works on someone's cut, and that was pretty cool.  

Afterwards we did some more driving and eventually made it to our campsite for the night, in a place completely isolated from everything else.  There were no towns or buildings nearby (or toilets or showers), and it was so neat being completely alone.  However, we did have cows for neighbors, and they kept us company by moo-ing all night.  We had really good chili that was cooked over the fire, and Drew made this crazy desert bread that was super delicious.  Afterwards, we set up our swags and sleeping bags, and camped out under the stars.  I had expected to be in tents, but it was so amazing this way and the sky was so beautiful and clear.  If there's any good place to see the stars, this is it.  It truly was an amazing experience.  Much to my surprise, there were no bugs around at all (the flies luckily go away at night), and it was really cool out, so it made for a good sleep.  

We had a very early wake up the next morning, and drove to Kata Tjuta (more commonly known as The Olgas).   We did another long hike through the Olgas and it was really beautiful (as was everything this weekend I suppose).  Half of the group did a long hike which was entirely in the sun, and met up with the other half at a really awesome look out.  After some more driving and lunch, we made it to the Aboriginal culture center where we were able to learn about the Aboriginal culture, see their artwork, and just get more acquainted with everything about Aborigines as a whole.  At this point, Colette and I caved and bought fly nets because we had a very frustrating time on the morning hike swatting flies constantly and decided that in order to have a good next day and a half we would have to get them.  We were proud that we made it as long as we did.  

After the culture center, we went to Uluru (or Ayers Rock), and did the Mala walk, which is along part of the base and on which you can see all sorts of Aboriginal artwork on the side of the walk.  Drew had us stop at many places and told us different stories about the area and the artwork.  That evening, we watched the sunset over Uluru and watched it changed colors.  It was pretty incredible, and something that I wont forget (even though apparently we saw a 'not so good' day).  We camped again that night (but were luckily able to shower this time), and woke up early the next morning to have breakfast at Uluru and watch the sunrise (another really cool experience).  

The day was the least busy, and we did a base walk around Uluru in the morning (which took 2 hours to do... insane as this is just ONE rock.. and apparently at least 800 meters of the rock is completely underground!) which was pretty cool and very relaxing.  Originally, Colette and I had wanted to do the climb, but were pretty discouraged from doing it after being told how sacred it is and how much the Aborigines don't like it (and the fact that 35 people have died from doing it).  We drove back in the afternoon, and stopped to ride camels along the way, which was definitely an interesting experience.  After getting back to the hostel and showering, we met up with the whole group for dinner, where I tried kangaroo for the first time (I ordered the 'Roo Filet'... Aussies pronounce filet as fill-it).  It was really good and was similar to steak with a slightly different taste.  A lot of the people in the group were going to a pub/saloon in town, and Colette and I were going to go back and sleep because we were exhausted, but after a lot of persuasion, Drew convinced us to check it out.  We were really glad we went because it was this really cool place (called Bo's) with this saloon theme.. Apparently the pub is broadcasted on the internet every night and people can go on and buy people at the pub drinks from online.. insane!  We stayed there for a couple hours, and I got to hold a snake and put it around my neck!  

Anyways, that was my outback adventure.  It was a very busy weekend that flew by (the busy-ness is my excuse for this ridiculously long post), and I learned a lot, saw many amazing places, and met tons of cool people.  Next up this weekend is Tasmania, and it should be another adventure!  

Random Notes:  

1.  Flooding is not that uncommon in the Outback.. Apparently as soon as it starts raining, it pours, and there are flooding signs pretty frequently on the roads

2.  Colette and I were basically the only people we saw on the trip in athletic shorts.. apparently Aussies and Europeans don't believe in them..?

3.  The Outback is greener than I expected.  Not necessarily green, but there are lots of shrubs and plants along the roads.  It is also much less dangerous than originally though.

4.  Maxibons are perhaps the most delicious packaged ice cream bar in the world.  You can get them with vanilla or honeycomb flavored ice cream, and half of the bar is covered in a chocolate, crunch bar-like coating, and the other half is like an ice cream sandwich

5.  Australian money is indestructible (made of plastic) and has dollar and 2 dollar coins.. Which can be annoying since coins are easy to lose, but wonderful because you always end up having more money than you thought

6.  Field trips are called excursions

No Tripping, No Falling, No Eating.

Hi everyone!  This past week was a good one, as I had visitors here!  It was definitely nice to see some familiar faces and made me feel a little bit more like I was at home.  Craig got to come on his spring break since his mom works for an airline, and he got in last Sunday morning.  He stayed here for a whole week, so it was definitely nice to have his company.  After he got here on Sunday, him, Katie, and I went to Otford which is about a 45 minute train ride north of Wollongong to go horseback riding!  I haven't been in forever and the trip was a lot of fun.  We went on a two hour tour that went through the forests and by a waterfall, and we were lucky because we had a tiny group and the horses got to canter instead of just slowly walking the entire time.  It was a beautiful day and a good time.  

The first couple days of the week weren't especially exciting since I had class and had to work a study abroad fair at uni, but Craig got nice weather so he was able to do a good amount of hanging out at the beach.  He got along really well with all of my roommates, so that was wonderful for when I had to be gone at class.  On Monday, we tried a thai restaurant right by where I live and I got delicious pad thai.  I definitely want to go back there again.  Craig and I went for a long walk on Tuesday out to the lighthouse and did some illegal fence hopping and wandering around by the base of it.. I definitely recommend it.  After we got back from our walk, basically everyone from Campus East went to a pub that has weekly steak nights on Tuesdays for St. Patrick's Day, and it was fun seeing everyone out and wearing lots of green. 

On Wednesday, Craig and I took a day trip out to Kiama, where there is this really cool blow hole that shoots up water.  It was a calm day when we went, so the blow hole wasn't especially powerful, but it was really beautiful out there and fun to see.  We spent the rest of the day hiking up and down rocks around the blow hole, wandering around the cute town of Kiama, sitting at the beach, and Craig enjoyed feeding millions of seagulls.   Thursday was another exciting day because Jaci got in!  I was very excited to see her, and since we've both been away from home for over a month now, it was good timing.  We got a group of people together to go to this nice seafood restaurant on the ocean at night and it turned out to be very, very delicious.  We just hung out and talked that night because we had a weekend in Sydney awaiting us.

We got to spend the entire weekend in Sydney, and I feel like I'm getting to know it much better already.  I still only know a few roads, but I feel pretty comfortable there and am able to get around without any trouble.  The three of us spent Friday touring around the city and going to all the main touristy locations to see them and get pictures.  We ended up eating dinner in Chinatown and spent the night hanging out in the hostel.  Unfortunately Craig had to leave us on Saturday since his spring break was coming to an end.  He will definitely be missed by all of my friends at Campus East... someone even asked him if it was his room that we were hanging out in one day haha.  

After Craig left, Jaci and I started on our adventure of a day.  In my one guide book I found this really cool sounding hike in Bouddi National Park which is close to Sydney, so we decided we should do it.  Apparently Killcare (the town that the hike starts in) is incredibly inaccessible, and they really don't want people having an easy time getting out there unless they have a car.  The way there was fine as we just took a train and then a bus, but there was only one bus back for the day, so we needed to find another way to get home.  We had planned on getting lunch to eat when we got there, but after getting off the bus, there were no stores or really any people in sight, so we didn't really have a choice.  

We decided to go ahead and do the hike (after not eating since 9:30) and figured that we would be fine since we each had a bottle of water.  The hike was beautiful and we spent over 4 hours hiking through neat forests, going to beautiful overhangs that looked out to the ocean, and walking on some remarkably clear beaches.  It was definitely the coolest hike that I have been on so far, and I don't know why they wouldn't make the national park easier to get to since it is so gorgeous.  Some parts of the hike were super steep so we decided that the rules of the day would be 1. no tripping, 2. no falling, and 3. no eating.  We did quite well.  Since the hike was an out and back, we ended up power walking the way back since we were getting really hungry... 4 hours of hiking and lots of sun will do that to you!

After getting out of the park, we decided that we needed to find food fast.  The one road went in two directions, and we figured the street going up the hill would be the right way since it would be away from the beach and therefore into town.  After 15 minutes of walking uphill, we came to a dead end.  Figures.  We eventually made our way into town and we had the best cajun chicken burgers I could imagine having.  They were massive and had beets and pineapple on them which I had never tried before, but was really delicious!!  It was definitely quite rewarding to have it after a long day.  We had to catch a cab back to the Woy Woy train station, and since the bus driver told us it would probably be $40-50, we were very excited when it ended up only costing us $27.  Though strenuous and tiring, this is definitely one of the best days that I have had so far.

Sunday was much less entertaining, but the two of us went running over by the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge in the morning and saw some beautiful sights.. I wish that I would have brought my camera with.  I think I just need to start taking it everywhere that I go.  That afternoon we went to Bondi Beach, which is the most popular and well known beach in the Sydney area.  The beach was really nice, but super crowded.  We had a nice, 80 degree day, so it was perfect for the beach.  We spent the afternoon hanging out on the beach and playing in the waves.  I got a really delicious smoothie and a piece of pear and raspberry bread which was quite amazing.  We got back to the heart of Sydney early evening and I was sad to have to say goodbye to Jaci.  I had a great week/weekend and am so glad that I got to see my friends.  Even though saying bye is never fun, I'll see Jaci two weekends in a row starting in 4.5 weeks, so that should be a good time.  Anyways, this next weekend begins my psycho traveling weeks with the Outback.  I'll be gone Friday-Tuesday, and it should be a really great experience!  Talk to you all soon!

Random Notes:  

1.  They listen to all of the same music/watch all of the same movies here

2.  Apparently some Australians really, really love American accents (some guy that was working at a convenience store that Jaci and I went to gushed about it for 5 minutes)

3.  Speedos are much more popular, and people are not all that shy about going topless

4.  It is a lot cleaner here with less trash around, but there is a good amount of vandalism

5.  Kids take public transportation (buses and trains) to school instead of having specified school buses

The waterfall is 5.5km the OTHER way???

Hello everyone!!  Though this has been the most uneventful week so far, there have still been many exciting things that have taken place.  School is beginning to feel more normal, though only having class twice a week doesn't necessarily make me feel like I'm a full time student.. I need to work on focusing and doing homework from time to time, but it's hard because there is no weekly homework to turn in!  Much like at home, I have an Asian professor who is impossible to understand for my thermo class, so it makes paying attention in lecture that much more difficult (especially since it is a 2 hour lecture).  But I'm starting to get to know more people in my classes so it makes going not as bad.  Both days that I have class I have it at 8:30 in the morning, and while I thought I wouldn't like it, it's actually nice to have something to get me going early in the day so I don't just waste time sitting around.

As I said, it was a pretty relaxed week, and I spent a lot of time just hanging out with people, going to the beach, and walking around.  The excitement started picking up a bit on Thursday, and Katie and I had plans to watch the sunrise, but woke up and saw that it was cloudy so we decided otherwise.  I couldn't fall back asleep so I decided to go for a run and ended up seeing the sunrise along the beach while I was running and it was so beautiful.  I was mad because I didn't have my camera, but I think I might want to continue doing early morning runs before class so I'm sure I'll have plenty more opportunities to see the sunrise.

 Also on Thursday I tried vegemite for the first time.  It was a much anticipated event, and I was slightly scared because I've heard many people's horror stories about how much they hate vegemite.  I ended up not liking it but not hating it, so I consider it to be a success.  I think I'll probably have to give it another shot at some point in time.  Later that evening, Kelly and I went into downtown Wollongong to look at some shops and get ice cream.  We went to a place called Cold Rock Ice Creamery which is very similar to Coldstone and it was delicious!  I got ferrero roche ice cream with tim tams (popular Australian cookie that is SO good) and caramel. 

On Friday Katie, Kelly, and I decided that we want to try one new restaurant in Wollongong each week, and this week we went to a place called Mylan which is a Vietnamese restaurant right in downtown.  It had a really neat atmosphere and it was probably the best meal that I've had since getting to Australia.  Unlike the cafeteria food, it was hot (not luke warm) and very delicious.  This place actually had pretty good service, which is sometimes uncommon for Australia since you really aren't supposed to tip unless it's a fancy restaurant.  Afterwards we went down by the beach since it was such a beautiful night and walked around.. it was wonderful.

Then today, Saturday, was full of adventure!  I organized a little day trip 45 minutes north of here, and we ended up having a group of 9 people come, so it was a lot of fun.  We had remarkable timing and barely made it on two trains, but somehow everything came together and worked out.  We started out by going to the Symbio Wildlife Park which was a small zoo that allowed you to have more interaction with the animals.  We got to feed and pet the kangaroos and pet a koala!  It was very exciting!

After lunch we went another 10 minute train ride north and went to Royal National Park (which was apparently the second declared national park in the world after Yosemite... or something like that).  We had a gorgeous (but a little too hot) day, and definitely worked up a sweat hiking for about 4 hours (and probably 9 miles).  It was beautiful and after thinking that we were lost numerous times (and actually kind of being lost a few) we eventually made it to one waterfall.  Right before we got there we saw a sign that said 'Waterfall 5.5km -->' the direction away from where we were walking and we all had a minor panic attack until we remembered that the town is named Waterfall and that it probably wasn't talking about the Uloola Waterfall that we were trying to find.  

The first 4 or 5 miles of the walk were pretty easy with a wide open path, and after going past the waterfall, it got down to a path that I think is where 'bushwalking' got its name from.  We were whacked by all sorts of bushes and plants and made it through so many different changes of scenery.  Eventually we got to this giant pool in the middle of a bunch of rocks and a bunch of us jumped in.  It was a lot of fun and the water felt soo refreshing.  After getting out, we realized that we had limited time because the train was only coming once for the rest of the night and we had less than an hour to get there.  It turned into pandemonium for a few minutes when we couldn't find a path in any direction and it started thundering and pouring.  Eventually we found the way to go, and I had such a blast the last hour of the hike.  We spent half of it running through puddles and dodging bushes while it poured on us, and it was definitely as extreme of an adventure as I've had so far.  Luckily we made it to the train station just in time... though we were absolutely soaked from head to toe and starving.  I had some casualties (hopefully just temporary) as my phone now seems to be broken after being waterlogged, and there's a bunch of moisture in my watch :(.  

Anyways, it felt great to get home and I am now exhausted and almost ready to go to bed even though its just after 9pm on a Saturday.  Craig is getting into Sydney tomorrow morning and I am very excited for him and Jaci to come visit this week!  It will be awesome to finally see some friendly and familiar faces!  Hope everyone is doing well at home.. I miss you all!

Random Notes:

1.  All outlets here have on and off switches

2.  If you want fries, they're called chips.  If you want chips, they're called chips.  If you ask for chips you might not get the kind you want... though you can specify 'hot' or 'cold' chips

3.  Girls here don't wear a lot of makeup (which I love), but ALWAYS wear dresses (which I don't have many of)

4.  'Skull' is their equivalent of 'chug'

5.  We had a lengthy discussion the other day about jelly and jam.  Jelly is what they call jello, and jelly/jam is always referred to as jam.

6.  MANY Australians pronounce the letter 'h' weird as I've noticed in my engineering classes.  It is often said sounding like 'haych'