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