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'
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