Sunday October 17, 2010

Sunday I once again got up fairly early because I couldn’t sleep with my morning cough…again, lovely I know. I also still had no voice, which I realized I had lost mostly due to my cold, although I’m sure Oktoberfest didn’t help. Later that morning I had volleyball, so I went to that and spent the entire day playing. It was another gorgeous day out and I couldn’t think of any better way to spend it. I got back from volleyball around 3:30 or 4 at which point I decided to make an early dinner because I was going to go see Eat, Pray, Love at 6 with some friends from volleyball. Before anyone comments, yes Australia is really behind in their movies, so ones that may have come out two months ago for you guys are just coming out for us now. Personally I thought the movie was great, and I can’t wait to read the book, which I heard is even better than the movie. People that had already read the book said that the movie wasn’t nearly as good, which makes me glad that I decided to hold off on reading the book. Once I got home from the movie I just relaxed for a little while before getting to bed pretty early. I still had no voice due to the cold and thought it’d be best for me to get some rest.

Saturday October 16, 2010

Saturday was the first beautiful day we’ve had in weeks. It also happened to be Oktoberfest, so Carrie, Sam, Camilla, Dani and I decided to head to the Brisbane show grounds where they were hosting a huge Oktoberfest Festival. Supposedly it’s one of the biggest Oktoberfest celebrations in the world, although I’m sure it doesn’t compare to Oktoberfest in Munich. We didn’t have any lederhosen so we had to settle for just doing pigtail braids. I’ve honestly never actually celebrated Oktoberfest before, so this was quite the experience for me. Considering the fact that I’m not a huge fan of beer, I was pleasantly surprised by the beers they had at the festival. The whole experience was amazing. There were people dressed in lederhosen with their beer steins everywhere and they had a huge tent with a real German band playing and people doing crazy dances. There were beer stands all over the show grounds along with tons of German food. We only ended up getting beer and huge pretzels, which was enough for us and they were delicious. I don’t remember the last time I had a soft pretzel, or a pretzel at all for that matter. We ended up staying at Oktoberfest until around 9:30 at which point we headed back into the city to go get some “dinner”. We went to Pancake Manor, the most delicious pancake place I’ve ever been to and got some dessert pancakes. Dani, Carrie and I all got pancakes with grilled bananas, walnuts, chocolate ice cream, hot fudge and whipped cream on them. Pancakes don’t get much better than that. By the time we left Pancake Manor it was about 11:30, and after a day at Oktoberfest, Dani and I had completely lost our voices. It was actually quite entertaining to hear us try and talk. When we finally got home it was close to 12 and after such a busy day on our feet (there weren’t many places to sit at Oktoberfest), we all just crashed.

Friday October 15, 2010

Friday morning I woke up and couldn’t fall back asleep because I kept coughing…lovely I know. Since I couldn’t sleep I just decided to get up and try and get some work done. That ended up being an epic failure because I was so tired, so I decided to try and go back to sleep. I must say at first I felt awful for trying to sleep in the middle of the day, but the weather was not good and I realized that when I used to stay home sick from school, that’s what I was supposed to do. That was slightly comforting to me and I definitely needed to just relax, but I still hate sleeping the day away. On the bright side, when I woke up I felt much better. That night I once again made myself a good dinner, some chicken tikka masala. Interestingly enough I’ve gotten into some very different foods since being here; foods that I will miss when I go home due to Cheshire’s limited international food selection. After dinner Zach, Carrie, Dani and I needed to go to the wine store, so we walked to Hawken Drive (the “downtown” area in our suburb) and ended up also getting some delicious gelato. When we returned home we had some friends over before going to another friends house that night. It was great to finally just get to hang out with people at a house and get to talk to everyone.

Thursday October 14, 2010

Thursday the weather was finally starting to improve, but sadly my cold was getting worse. I had class in the morning and then worked on my math assignment on campus before my class at 12. Mom and Dad before you comment on my procrastinating so much on my assignment, remember that it’s for the class where I’m supposed to do most of the assignment in class with my TA. Anyway, after my class I headed home to get some lunch. After having my usual greek yogurt and granola I headed back to campus to go to the library and get some work done before volleyball at 5. After doing some work I was quite happy because I think I’m finally starting to understand my circuits course, but it will still require a lot of work. Continuing my good mood, volleyball ended up being particularly fun and we got to play 2s for a while, which most of us find more fun that 6s. That’s probably mainly due to the fact that a beach court is smaller than an indoor court, so to have 6 people on one side on a beach court is kind of hectic. After volleyball I decided to make myself a decent dinner, which means that it involved meat because I had pretty much been living off of pasta for the past week. Since I had a cold I decided it would be best for me to have an early night and just get some sleep, which felt amazing.

Wednesday October 13, 2010

Wednesday I had class in the morning from 10-12, and then I sat outside on campus for a little while getting some work done. Once again the weather wasn’t too great so I ended up heading home and more or less just lounging around and hanging out with friends. Upon arriving at home I did my laundry, which was much needed. I also got some work done, which was good, but I don’t have any more assignments due until the end of the semester, which is quickly approaching ☹. While writing this I’m realizing that it sounds like I’m not doing anything, but fairly enough, I think it was needed after the last two weeks of insanity.

Tuesday October 12, 2010

On Tuesday Dani and I were considering going to the beach, but I was getting a cold and it was crappy weather…again. So instead, I took the day to just lounge around for the first time in weeks. I was slightly productive and went to Toowong to get some food and internet, but overall I felt that with the amount of work I had had lately, I deserved a day to just relax. Later that day I went to volleyball, per usual (although with my work I hadn’t been able to go at all the week before). On the down side, it wasn’t great weather so I ended up only staying for a little bit before heading home to get some dinner. That pretty much sums up my day, relaxing, volleyball, dinner and hanging out with friends.

Monday October 11, 2010

Monday morning Sam and Linds had to get up around 6:30, and I got up around 7. They didn’t leave until 8, which was nice that I at least got to spend a little bit more time with them. We discussed the prospect of my staying another semester, and although I think I know what the right decision is, I’m still not entirely certain it’s what I want. On the other hand, there really is no right or wrong decision, this is one of those gray areas that doesn’t really have an answer. Anyway, once they left Dani and I made our grocery list and headed to the store in the pouring rain. Some people thought we were insane for still attempting to host Thanksgiving, but we thought it was well worth it. Upon returning from the store I read over my paper again to make sure it was ok and then proceeded to start preparing stuff for Thanksgiving. Since we’re in Australia and they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, we had to make some substitutions on some stereotypical Thanksgiving foods. For one thing, they don’t sell canned pumpkin, so we couldn’t make pumpkin pie. Instead I just made two apple pies using CLC’s amazing recipe. They also don’t sell anything but frozen turkeys and we didn’t have time to thaw a turkey, nor could anyone spend the day watching it. So instead we substituted premade chicken, which personally, I think chicken and turkey taste pretty similar, so I was ok with it. Besides it took a huge stress off of Dani and I. Around 12:30 I had to go to campus to hand in my paper and go to class, so I was only able to prepare the apples for the apple pie prior to leaving for class. Class itself was fairly interesting, we discussed Native Americans for a little while and related the way we treat our Natives to the way they treat their Aboriginals. Like I said it was actually pretty interesting, and brought to my attention the fact that our schools neglect to really teach us about Native Americans. It made me feel like in America we go with the concept ignorance is bliss. If most citizens don’t know about the wars and history of the Native Americans then we won’t judge them, and hopefully vice versa. Quite frankly, it upset me to realize that we know so little about our natives. It also made me realize how segregated they are from us. I have never really met a Native American, which when you think about it, is really strange. Sometimes it’s pretty scary to think how little we know about things. It was also kind of ironic to have this discussion on the day that we were celebrating Thanksgiving. Speaking of which, once I got out of class, I had to kind of rush to get everything together so that we could actually eat that night. On the bright side Dani and I had a lot of help from some really great friends. We held the actual celebration at our friends Erin and Augie’s house. They live just down the street, but they have a much nicer house and a much bigger/better kitchen. We ended up cooking the pies in their oven because we needed our oven to cook potatoes. At our other friends’ house they cooked the green beans and some potatoes for us, and we made the sweet potatoes and some of the mashed potatoes. I must say, I never realized just how much work cooking all this stuff is. Granted we cheated on a lot of foods due to limited time, but it was fun getting to cook with everyone and just having everyone come together for a big family dinner. We ended up eating around 7:30, which personally I thought was the perfect time. There were 18 people that came and it seemed like everyone had a great time. Dani and I definitely felt proud of ourselves for our estimates on how much food we would need and for just pulling off the whole thing in general. Like I said, it was great night with great friends. It was also a great celebration for me for finally being done with the obscene amount of work I had had the past week. From that point out it’s pretty smooth sailing for me. A bunch of us hung around Erin and Augie’s house until 11 or 12, at which point we were pretty tired and headed home to get some sleep.

Sunday October 10, 2010

Sunday morning we once again had to get up at 7, except today the weather was even crappier. There were torrential downpours and pretty high winds. Needless to say, they called off playoffs, and we ended up just going home early. As much as I wanted to play, this kind of worked out for me because that huge paper that was due on Friday, was now due on Monday, and with Sam and Linds coming back that night, I wanted to be able to hang out with them. Once we got home I got some food and got to work. I don’t know how many hours overall I ended up spending working on that paper, but it was ridiculous and I better get a good mark on it. Anyway, Sam and Linds got to my place around 9:30 so I hung out with them for a while and heard about the rest of their trip. Aside from the whole losing their luggage thing, it sounds like they had a great time. Once they went to bed, I stayed up a little bit longer putting some finishing touches on my paper and then went to bed.

Saturday October 9, 2010

On Saturday we had to get up at around 7 because the tournament started at 8:30. The beach was only 5 minutes away walking distance, which was really nice for obvious reasons. On the down side though, the weather wasn’t great; it was overcast and sort of drizzling. Not raining enough that we couldn’t play but enough to be annoying. Weather aside, the tournament was, as they say in Oz, heaps of fun. It was great to finally play competitively again. My partner, Sonja, and I did pretty well during our first round of pool play, but during the second round we got tired and kind of lost it. Overall I guess that’s pretty good since we’ve never really played in a beach tournament and we haven’t been playing together that long, so I was proud of us. After the tournament we all went out and got some quality Subway for dinner because it was buy one get one free and we’re all cheap college students. We also ended up going out for some drinks because supposedly you “can’t not go out for a drink in Byron Bay”. Don’t get me wrong, it was fun, but I’m not too sure how it was much different from anywhere else.

Friday October 8, 2010

Friday morning I got up around 8 because I needed to go to Toowong and get some food. I don’t think I went into this yet, but the reason I couldn’t go with Sam and Linds this weekend was because I had a tournament scheduled in Byron Bay that I had already paid for and couldn’t find a replacement for. So I had to go get some food for the tournament before I had to leave for it at 12. After going shopping I also had to pack and I worked on my paper a little more. The drive to Byron took a little over 2 hours after which we checked into our hostel. We didn’t really have anything planned for that day so we just walked around the town a little bit and checked out the beach, which was beautiful. The town was a cute little stereotypical beach town with a bunch of little shops everywhere. The beach was shaped like a u and interestingly enough, even with being u shaped, the waves always came in perpendicular to the beach. That must be part of the reason why Byron Bay is considered one of the best surf spots in Australia.

Thursday October 7, 2010

Thursday I had class at 9 am and then I went to the center of campus so I could sit outside while I studied more for my test that day. While sitting out there I also had to get my math assignment started before my math tutorial at 12. We have weekly assignments for math that are due at the end of tutorial and you spend the tutorial working on it with your TA. However, if you don’t start it before you go, you won’t finish it. Anyway, after my tutorial at 12 I just kept reviewing my notes for my exam at 2. Overall I’d say the exam was all right except my professor told us specifically that something wasn’t going to be on the exam, and what did he do? Obviously he put it on the exam, so that was really obnoxious to say the least. Once I got out of my exam I needed to go to West End to go shopping because I needed some stuff. That happens to be the cheapest area to go shopping in. Immediately following this I went to volleyball for a little while before I had to meet with some people to work on our huge paper due the next day. Before anyone accuses me of anything, it wasn’t cheating. Our paper was a report from the field trip we went on a few weeks ago to North Stradbroke Island. The information we received was from Aboriginal people and you had to hand write everything they said. Obviously when you do that you tend to miss information, so we were all getting together to collaborate our information to make sure it was all correct, especially since our professor is very close with that particular Aboriginal family and would get really angry if we got something wrong. Anyway, we met for about half an hour and then I went home to finish my paper. I worked on it until 4 am before I decided to give up and ask for an extension. She had given everyone in class an extension until Monday, but if you recall I was picking Sam and Linds up at the airport so I hadn’t gotten the extension. On the bright side our professor is really cool so I knew she’d give me one I just didn’t want to ask for it, hence working until 4 am, but that is definitely where I draw the line and just give up because nothing I write would make sense anyway.

Wednesday October 6, 2010

Wednesday I had class first thing in the morning and then immediately after I headed to my professor’s office to hand in my paper. Once I did that I went to the library to study for an exam I had the next day. In the afternoon I had circuits lab, which went surprisingly well. We’re doing a design project and we’re given 3 lab classes to do it. This was the second class and my lab partner and I finished in the first hour, which was awesome. Although as good as it was to get out of lab early, that just meant that I had to go to the library to study more. I think I ended up getting home around 7 at which point I made some dinner and hung out with my friends for a little bit so we could discuss our Thanksgiving dinner we were going to make on Monday. Soon after this I locked myself in my room to study for my fluid dynamics exam, and that pretty much sums up my day.

Tuesday October 5, 2010

Tuesday Sam, Linds, Dani and I got up around 7 to go to the Gold Coast and have a beach day. When we first got there the weather wasn’t too great, but by the time we got a cup of coffee it had cleared up and we went to the beach. Overall it wasn’t the clearest day but it also wasn’t bad. Randomly it would start drizzling and stop within about 5 or 10 minutes, which was weird, but again it was still a pretty good beach day. Around 3 it started to get windy and the weather got a little worse so we decided to head home at that point. On the way home Dani and I took Sam and Linds through campus so they could get some dinner, which it turned out that the only place open was a pizza place so they were kind of limited in their choices. Sadly, when we got back home Sam and Linds had to pack their stuff up to go to Cairns later that night. They got a cab at 7 after which I got my work together and headed to the library for the night because I had a short paper due the next day and a huge paper due on Friday.

Monday October 4, 2010

On Monday morning I had the pleasure of going to the airport to greet Sam and Linds! It was one of those cute moments where they got out of the terminal and we ran and hugged each other. Once we got all of their luggage we got a cab back to my place so that they could have one of the most glorious showers of their lives. We then went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary where they got to see a good portion of the strange Australian wildlife. We even got to pet some kangaroos and wallabies and hold koalas!! We attempted to pet an emu but it wasn’t too keen on us coming near it. Once we finished going through the Koala Sanctuary we went back to my house for a little bit and then did a tour of my campus. This then led us to the main shopping area near my house, Hawken Drive, where we got some delicious gelato and some take out Italian food for dinner. Upon returning to my house Sam and Linds took naps while I got some work done. I’m rather impressed with how much energy they had after traveling for that long. Once they got up we ate our dinners and then I had them do a timtam explosion, which can’t really be described as anything other than the most delicious thing you will ever eat. After dinner Sam and Linds had enough energy that they still wanted to go out in the city, again rather impressive. So we got ready, hung out for a little while, and then went to Down Under Bar (aka Dunder) with my friends Dani and Carrie. It was definitely interesting going out on a Monday night because the city was rather dead, but still as beautiful as ever. I’m just glad they got to see what the city looks like at night because it’s spectacular! You’ll have to ask them what they thought of Dunder because compared to normal it was absolutely dead there, but even still there were quite a few people there. We didn’t end up staying at the bar too long, but that was probably better because I know Sam and Linds were exhausted.

Sunday October 3, 2010

On Sunday I more or less spent the entire day doing work. It was rainy out so I didn’t have anything to distract me like good weather. I spent some of the day in the library but most of it at home probably procrastinating more than working due to the fact that I was incredibly excited about Sam and Linds arriving the next day. Either way I got a decent amount of work done and spent time hanging out with my roommates.

Saturday October 2, 2010

Saturday morning we had to be up by 4 so we could leave at 4:30 to get to the airport by 5 for our 6 am flight back to Brisbane. This was definitely a morning that we just went through the necessary motions to get ourselves home. We landed in Brisbane at 8 and got a cab home. Our driver actually ended up getting pulled over by a cop so that was my first experience dealing with cops in Australia. It wasn’t intimidating for us since we were just passengers, but it couldn’t have been great for our driver because I’m sure he got penalized for it by his company. He was also pretty moronic because once we started driving again he immediately went back to the speed he had just been driving at. When we finally got back home we settled back in and I went grocery shopping. I then spent most of the day relaxing, which I shouldn’t have done because I had a bunch of work, but I was way too tired to do anything. I did get some work done though, which was good.

Friday October 1, 2010

Friday morning we had another early morning, getting up at 6:30 again for a rainforest tour. Sadly, the weather was not very good today. It rained off and on, but most on. Our day started off in a bus that took us to a wildlife habitat where I got to see my first koala since being here. I also got to pet my first wallaby and crocodile! As excited as I was to pet the crocodile, I felt bad for it because it was a baby with its mouth taped shut. I mean couldn’t they find something better than tape to hold its mouth shut? Anyway, at the wildlife habitat we were given a presentation on koalas, which was followed up by a presentation on snakes and crocodiles. After the presentations we roamed about the place until 10:30 seeing all sorts of cool birds and animals. Just before leaving Nicki and I ran to the grocery store across the street to pick up some snacks for the day because we were certain we’d be hungry come the ride home. I forgot to mention that prior to the habitat we stopped at a lookout point and got to take some cool pictures. This is the place where I have a picture of the instructions that are given on how to cross the street as if people don’t know how to do that. After the habitat we went to a gorge where we were supposed to be able to walk through the rainforest, but most of it was closed off because they needed to reconstruct the bridge that allowed you to get to most of the rainforest. The part that we did get to see was really cool, but it was kind of lame that we weren’t able to see the whole thing. We ended up hanging out there for a while because you were able to go swimming in the river. Only Katie and Carrie actually went swimming, while Dani, Nicki and I just put our feet in. Once we left the rainforest we ate lunch at the place where we were going to go on a crocodile cruise later. The crocodile cruise here wasn’t nearly as cool as the one in Darwin. I think that’s due in part to the fact that our tour guide was not very good and it had started raining again. Rain and boats never mix very well. We did get to see a couple crocodiles though which was cool, but they weren’t nearly as big as the ones in Darwin. The crocodile cruise lasted about an hour, and then we got back on our tour bus and continued up towards Cape Tribulation. The day trippers on our tour (aka us) were supposed to stop at a beach for a little while, while our tour guide dropped off the two-day trippers at their accommodations for the night. However, due to the bad weather she dropped us off at the only place nearby with a roof, which happened to be a bar/restaurant with a grocery store next to it. There was a beach that we were able to walk down to, but we only went down to it for about 10 minutes. The rest of the time we just walked around and contemplated buying some snacks but the grocery store was insanely expensive. Once our tour guide picked us up we headed home, which took about 3 hours. We were pretty lucky about when we left Cape Tribulation because apparently there is only one road to get there and when it rains the road floods. If the road floods enough then no one is allowed to cross it, and once we got across the road our tour guide told us that it was highly unlikely any of the two-day trippers were going to be coming back the next day because the road would probably be too flooded. The prospect of getting stranded was something that the tour group did not inform people about ahead of time, which was kind of obnoxious, but thankfully we didn’t have to deal with it. For the majority of the ride home I just slept; anything to not have to listen to our tour guide who seemed like some rando they found on the street and asked to drive a tour bus. She had no idea what she was talking about most of the time and actually provided us with some wrong information at one point. The bad weather combined with our tour guide’s lack of etiquette and knowledge made this my least favorite tour, but it was still a cool experience. Once we got back to Cairns we met up with our friends from home for some Indian food. This was of course followed up by some gelato and another night walking around the cute downtown area. We once again didn’t stay out too late because we had an early flight the next morning.

Thursday September 30, 2010

On Thursday morning we got up with our roommates around 6:30 because we were leaving for our white water rafting tour at 7:15. As I mentioned before our roommates happened to be on the same tour as us. Our first stop was at a bar associated with the company where we would learn about the rules associated with the tour and get our rafting shoes. The bus ride there took about 2 hours, and once we got there we were able to get some breakfast while listening to the safety regulations. From there we had to ride the bus for another half hour to an hour to get to the river. Upon getting off the bus we were given our helmets and life jackets, and within about 15 minutes we were walking down to the river. Thankfully Dani, Carrie, Katie, our roommates and I were all able to go together on a raft with our awesome guide Freddie. With an oar in hand we all just got into the raft, Katie and I in the front, and began heading down the river, no instruction given yet. That was terrifying because we had no idea what we were doing, and almost immediately had to go over a rapid. Right after our first rapid, which thankfully we made it through, we stopped at a calm spot to have Freddie tell us what we needed to do. He taught us some techniques for going through the rapids such as where you need to sit and what you need to do when he yells out certain commands. We then proceeded to practice those techniques a few times and then just continued down the river. At the first difficult rapid we came to the first raft, which had left a little before us, had flipped and everyone was at a stand still. Not a great way to start off the day. If that didn’t make us nervous enough Freddie proceeded to tell us about all of the incidents that have occurred on the trips. At that point all that was going through my head was what did I get myself into. We were held up at that spot for almost half an hour, but eventually we were able to get through. At the next intense rapid we came to one of the girls on our raft actually ended up falling out. This was terrifying to say the least. Even our instructor was swearing about it. Thankfully she was completely fine, but later he proceeded to tell us how one of his mates died in that exact spot. Once again the only thought running through my head was what did I get myself into, perhaps with a few profanities mixed in. After this the day went very smoothly although Freddie continued to tell us stories of people dying. Apparently the biggest danger in white water rafting is getting your feet caught in a rock underwater. This is why the first thing they taught us was that if you fall out just lift your feet up. As long as your feet are up you won’t drown because the life jackets that are used are meant to allow 250 kilograms (about 550 pounds) to float. We actually got to try this out in a calm, not rocky part of the river and just float down part of it. We also got to flip out of the raft going over a short waterfall, climb a huge boulder and then jump in the river from the top of it, and go through a waterfall. At one point we stopped for about half an hour for some lunch, which was some pretty good burgers. The whole rafting trip lasted about 5 hours, so by the end we were pretty tired, but it was absolutely incredible. It was such an exhilarating experience that I would definitely do many times again. I felt quite accomplished by the end of the trip because they had told us that it was a grade 4 river out of 6. The only down side to the whole trip was that there were an obscene amount of these huge flies that would bite you, which not only would hurt, but itch too. Freddie gave us this lotion that did a pretty good job at keeping the flies from biting you because it had a fairly high concentration of deet in it, but a few days later I learned that I am in fact allergic to high concentrations of deet...that was fun. Oh well it was still well worth it. By the end of the trip I was definitely pretty tired so it was kind of nice to have a long trip home so that we could sleep on the bus. On the way back we once again stopped at the bar to get some fries and to see the pictures that the photographers took along the river. The seven of us ended up buying a disk of the pictures and just split the cost, so I’ll try to post those pictures soon. We hung out at the bar until about 4:30 (and no Mom and Dad we didn’t have any drinks, we were all way too tired) before heading the rest of the way home. The ride to and from the river was gorgeous. The whole area is covered in mountains that rise high enough into the sky that clouds surround the peaks. Once we got back to the hostel we got some food before meeting up with our friends from home for gelato again. We then spent the rest of our night walking around the area, which didn’t last too long because we were tired and wanted to get some sleep after the exhausting day we had. Besides we were going to have another early morning the next day.

Wednesday September 29, 2010

Wednesday morning we got up around 6 because we had to be at our dive boat by 7. Upon arriving at the dive boat we got some lovely, sleepy pictures taken of us (dive boats have on board photographers constantly taking pictures). We then had to fill out some paper work before we were able to leave and head out to the reef. Prior to leaving we were also assigned our guide, who I must note, looked freakishly like Mark with sideburns. He even acted like him; it was quite strange. Anyway, we could not have been luckier with the day we decided to go diving. The currents, winds and weather were so perfect that we got the opportunity to go out to Pellowes Reef, the furthest possible reef we could go to, which they are only able to make it to about once a year. For those of you who don’t know, the further out on the reef you can go, the better because it means it’s been less disturbed by humans. On the trip out to the reef we had to review a few things about diving with our guide and we also got to learn about what makes the Great Barrier Reef so great. Obviously it’s mostly due to the fact that it’s so massive, but I don’t think most people realize just how incredible it is that the reef got to the size it is given how long it actually takes coral to grow. Personally I think that in order to understand what’s so amazing about the Great Barrier Reef you just have to see it. The ride out to Pellowes took around 1.5 to 2 hours, but it was well worth the trip. Immediately after arriving we got into the water and began our guided dive. As it is diving is an incredible experience, let alone diving the Great Barrier Reef. You’re really in a whole new world when you’re diving; everything is so foreign to you and it’s so majestic that the wildlife just seems so undisturbed. Throughout the course of the day we went on three dives. The first two were in the morning at a reef that didn’t even have a name because so few people got to dive there. On those two dives we saw a huge assortment of fish from Nemo’s to Gill’s to Dory’s to parrot fish to barracudas and a shark. I would say at least 95% of the things I saw I have no idea what they’re called, but either way I’ve never seen so many fish before. The coral was also indescribable. There were both soft and hard coral in all colors, and near the surface the sun would reflect off the coral making it sparkle. Like I said, you have to see the GBR to understand why it’s called the GBR. After our second dive we ate the delicious lunch they provided for us while we moved to Thetford reef for our third dive. I don’t think I mentioned this earlier, but one of the nicest things about the trip was that we didn’t have to prepare any of our equipment; they did everything for us, which if you know anything about diving is really nice. Anyway, on our dive at Thetford reef our guide took us through a maze of coral caverns. Before anyone asks, yes the caverns were actually made entirely of coral. I’m not entirely sure how to describe the experience, but I think the best way is to just say that we were surrounded by coral. If we looked left, right or even if we rolled over to look above us we could just see coral. In all of this coral was a huge assortment of fish. In the more open areas we would see fish below us, roll ourselves over and see schools of fish above us. We were just surrounded by underwater wildlife. It was similar to the butterfly colony, but underwater. On this dive we also found three white tip sharks. White tips are just a small reef shark that are pretty scared of humans because we’re bigger than them, so m and d don’t worry, they wouldn’t harm us. Our guide brought an empty water bottle with him that he started crackling to attract the sharks. Apparently the vibrations from the water bottle are so unique to them that they are completely intrigued and will approach you. This allowed us to play with the sharks for a little while, which was unbelievable. I’m not entirely certain which dives we did what on, but throughout all of them we got to play with different underwater life forms. During the course of the day I ended up holding a sea star, different types of sea cucumbers, I played with an anemone, touched all different types of coral, played with giant clams, and played with Christmas tree coral. The whole experience was surreal. After our third dive, they brought us back to shore, and while on the trip back we filled out our dive logs with our guide. Upon returning it was almost dinnertime, so we headed back to our hostel and got some dinner. We also met our hostel roommates who just so happened to be students studying abroad at UQ and going on the same tour as us the next day. What are the odds of that? Later that night we met up with some of our other friends from UQ who also happened to be in Cairns for break and got some gelato/hung out together for a while. Once again we ended up having a fairly early night since we had to be up early again the next day for our whitewater rafting tour.

Tuesday September 28, 2010

Tuesday morning was an early morning, getting up at 3 am to make our 5 am flight. Since we were basically zombies at that point, not much happened. We just went through the necessary motions to get ourselves to the airport and onto our flight so that we could go back to sleep for 3 hours before arriving in Cairns. The only interesting thing about the flight was that apparently Darwin is a typical layover point for people traveling from Singapore, so they claimed we were flying international and we had to go through customs. That was just annoying more than anything. Anyway, once we arrived in Cairns we hung out at the airport for an hour before our friend Dani arrived. She had had another trip at the beginning of break so she decided to meet us in Cairns. Once we got to our hostel in Cairns, we decided to explore the area. Cairns has this really cute downtown area with a ton of shops and restaurants; such a nice change from Darwin. While walking around we found the dive shop that we wanted to take a dive trip through. Thankfully they had availability for the four of us to be able to go diving the next day. Once we booked that we continued to walk around and found that Cairns has a nicely landscaped area with a huge beach pool at it (similar to what I’ve described that Brisbane has, but bigger and nicer). While walking around the area we ended up going down to the harbor for a little while and decided to check out our dive boat, which looked awesome. We continued to walk around a for while and then decided to go to Woolworth’s (a grocery store) to get some breakfast food and snacks for the week. By the time we got back to our hostel it was close to dinnertime, and our hostel provided free dinner for all of its guests, so obviously that’s what we did for most of the week. Granted the dinners weren’t of the highest quality, but free food is free food. Later that night we decided to walk around the town and found some cool night markets. That pretty much sums up our Tuesday. We had been tired from the early morning and we were going to be getting up early the next morning for our dive, so we just went to bed after going to the night markets.

Monday September 27, 2010

Monday morning we had to wake up at 6 in order to pack up our stuff from the campsite, eat breakfast, and make sandwiches for lunch before leaving at 7. Once we got all of that done and got on the road, we made our way to the first gorge we were going to called Twin Falls Gorge. The drive took a couple hours mainly because in Darwin they pretty much only have dirt roads, and once we got to a certain point, we had to legitimately go off-roading. While we were off-roading we actually got to see some wild horses, which I’ve never seen before, so that was pretty cool. Upon arriving at the Twin Falls parking lot the first thing we did was cover ourselves in sunscreen and bug spray because Darwin is a bug filled sauna. We then proceeded to go to a boat, which would take us down a river through the gorge. As we were going down the river these enormous cliff walls surrounded us on either side rising probably close to 400 feet. You’ll have to look at the pictures on facebook to even get an idea of what they looked like because honestly, words can’t describe it. The boat took us as close to the center of the gorge as possible at which point we had to hike the rest of the way. The first part of the hike was through sand trails, but it eventually turned to boulders before we got to the beach at the center of the gorge. Looking at the center of the gorge all you see is white beach leading into water that is surrounded on 3 sides by 400-foot cliffs with a waterfall on one side. Granted the waterfall wasn’t running too much because it was the dry season, but the whole place was absolutely gorgeous. Again you’ll have to see the pictures on facebook to even get an idea of what it looked like. Sadly, no matter how badly we wanted to, we couldn’t go swimming in the water in the gorge because it was filled with crocodiles. Once we left Twin Falls we went off-roading to another waterfall, Jim Jim Falls. Again, since it was the dry season it wasn’t really running too much so they change the name to Jim Jim Drip. To get to this waterfall we had to hike the longest 900m (just over half a mile) I’ve ever seen through sand and boulders. Although the hike was long, we got to experience the most incredible thing. The forest you have to hike through has a huge butterfly colony in it and when you get close to the colony they all start to fly around you. I felt like I was in a movie with thousands of butterflies all around me. I tried to get a picture and video of it, but nothing does it justice. Once we passed the butterfly colony the sand path we were walking along became a boulder path. As it is, the temperature was around 85 to 90 degrees, now try climbing over black boulders to get to the center of the gorge. Needless to say every pore on our bodies was dripping sweat. When we finally got to the center of the gorge, we were in desperate need of a swim. Thankfully at the center of this gorge it was highly unlikely that there would be any crocodiles (aka there aren’t any but since it’s animals, which are unpredictable, they can’t just claim that there aren’t any), which meant that we got to go swimming in the water that was 63 m deep (about 200 feet), surrounded on three sides by 300-400 foot cliffs. This was probably the most refreshing swim I have ever had in my life. It was also the most surreal swim I’ve ever had. Swimming in the middle of a gorge filled with aquamarine water surrounded by 300 foot cliffs? The whole place just looked like something you see in National Geographic, not in real life. What was even more interesting was that as we swam the 100 m to the other side of the water where the “waterfall” was the water temperature kept changing. One minute you’d be in warm water and the next you’d be in cold water; such a strange sensation. When we swam to the other side of the water there were ledges that you could sit on, so our whole tour group stayed over there for a while and just hung out and talked. After a while we started getting hungry and decided to swim back to the other side to eat our sandwiches we had made for lunch. After lunch we hung out a while longer and swam a little bit more before we had to head back to the truck to head home. On the drive home we saw more wild horses and we were actually able to take some pictures of them (on facebook). Aside from seeing the wild horses, the drive home was uneventful. By the time we got back to Darwin it was dinnertime, so we quickly showered and then went to get some food. Our tour guide had recommended we go to the Victory Hotel for dinner if we wanted some cheap, good food. As college students, nothing sounds more appealing so Katie, Carrie and I went there for dinner. After the intense tour we had just had we felt that we deserved a treat, so after dinner we went to get some delicious gelato. The next morning we were going to be having a 5 am flight to Cairns meaning we’d have to be up at around 3, so after gelato we decided to go back to our hostel, pack our stuff up, and attempt to go to bed in our insanely hot room.

Just as a heads up to anyone who is still checking this, I'm working on writing out the details from break, but since we did so much it's a taking me a while. However, I have been keeping up with writing daily blogs, I just want to post everything in order. So once I finish writing the ones from break, I will be able to finally fully update you guys. Love you and miss you!

Britt

Sunday September 26, 2010

Sunday morning we had to wake up around 5 to get all our stuff together for our overnight 4wd tour, which we were getting picked up for at 6. The tour was taking us through Kakadu National Park, which is supposed to be one of the most incredible national parks in Australia. After the tour I definitely understood how it could be labeled as such. The first stop on the tour was to see the Tradition Owners of the park so that they could welcome us to the park. Traditional Owners is a more proper term for Aboriginals and the park is one of their cultural landscapes. As such it is proper/necessary to have them welcome you to the land. The Traditional Owners that welcomed us to Kakadu also taught us a little bit about some of their cultural traditions. That included learning about how didgeridoos are made and what their significance is, how baskets/bags are made and from what materials, and how to make/throw spears. It was very interesting although after taking my Aboriginal Heritage class I kind of felt bad because most Aborigines feel that by us partaking in their traditional activities, such as throwing spears, we are mocking them. Either way the TOs that we met were very kind and welcoming. After welcoming us we went on a crocodile cruise where I learned a lot of interesting information about crocs that kind of gave me a new perspective on them. For instance, crocs can sense heartbeats so well that they can pick out every individual person’s heartbeat on a boat. Also, crocs are pretty smart animals and don’t want to take on a bunch of humans, which is why there are no recorded instances of a crocodile attacking a boat without being instigated. On the croc cruise we did get to see one along with a bunch of different birds including eagles and cranes. We actually got the honor of seeing two sets of male and female cranes together, which is practically unheard of. If you look at my facebook pictures you’ll also see the huge lily pads that we got to pick out of the billabong (where we took the cruise). After the cruise we went to Ubirr where we got to hike up a mountain and see a bunch of Aboriginal rock art. I personally think my pictures will speak better than my words, but I have never seen anything like this. At the top of the mountain looking out over the land seeing wild kangaroos hopping through the grass and groups of cockatoos across the land, it was one of the most majestic places I’ve ever seen. Not to mention the colors; there were shades of green that I never even imagined existed. Oddly enough, the view made me think of what you might stereotypically see in Africa minus the animals. The utter silence combined with the majestic view easily makes it the most serene place I’ve ever been to in my entire life. Once we left Ubirr we headed to our campgrounds where we were going to spend the night. I can honestly say that this was the most luxurious “campground” I’ve ever seen. We had fixed tents with bunk beds in them and the campground had a restaurant, bar, and two pools. Like I said, I’d hardly call it camping, but I didn’t mind because the pool was definitely needed and the bunk beds were a lot better than sleeping on the ground. Upon arriving at the campsite we unloaded, prepared dinner (chicken satay with rice), and then ate as a group. Speaking of which we had a great group of people from France, England, Germany, Australia, New Zealand and America. Everyone was very nice and outgoing making the trip a lot of fun. After dinner a bunch of us went to the pool to cool off because we had been dripping sweat all day including through dinner, so like I said it was much needed. Once we dried off after the pool we decided to go to bed because we had another early morning ahead of us, which would be followed by a long day filled with exciting activities.

Saturday September 25, 2010

Saturday morning I was up pretty early because I was leaving for my spring break trip with Katie and Carrie. We had a 12 pm flight to Darwin and arrived in Darwin around 3. We got a cab to our hostel, checked in and then decided to walk around the “city”. I’d hardly call it a city because it’s in the middle of nowhere and has hardly any restaurants/shops, but since it’s pretty much the only developed area around there, it’s called a city. For those of you reading this that are from Cheshire I would say take West Main Street, squish the buildings together while adding a few 6 story buildings, put it on flat land, throw in a little artistic graffiti and that’s what the streets in Darwin looked like. I must say though, the graffiti in Darwin was really cool. I put up some pictures on facebook of it, but someone actually replicated Van Gogh’s Starry Night; it was quite impressive. Anyway, while we were walking around we were pretty hungry because we hadn’t gotten lunch so we decided to look for a restaurant. You’d think that wouldn’t be too hard, but based on what I said earlier it turned out to be quite the daunting task. Eventually we found a cute little Italian restaurant and got pizza and chips (aka fries), which based on how hungry we were, couldn’t have been more delicious. After dinner the sun was just starting to set so we walked toward a park that overlooked the water and got to see a beautiful sunset that was only slightly ruined by the bugs. I’m not sure what it is about me, but mosquitoes love me and they ate me alive. It was also close to a million degrees outside so even just standing outside we were sweating like crazy, but oh well it was still a good night. After watching the sunset we walked around the city a little more and got some gelato, which has easily become one of my favorite things to eat here. What’s even better is that they have an endless amount of flavors and each night the flavors at gelato places change so you can always try something new. At this point we were pretty tired and went back to our hostel to relax by the pool for a little while before going to bed fairly early because we were leaving for a 4wd tour the next morning at 6.

Monday September 20, 2010 - Friday September 24, 2010

So after how long it's been since I last posted I'm not even sure if any of you will still be checking this, but anyway I'm sorry it took me so long to post again. I've had a pretty hectic last few weeks. Monday I had a lazy morning just kind of lounging around before my 3-hour class at 1. Speaking of which, that class couldn’t have been more boring. Our teacher had a speaker come for half of it and he was one of the most monotone people I have ever met. The rest of the day/night was pretty relaxing. Side note, I wrote that a while ago but never posted it hence the knowledge of details from Monday but since I’ve waited so long to post I don’t really remember the details of the week too well. I do however know that nothing too thrilling happened. It was just another week and it was right before break so none of us really did much because we knew how crazy our next week would be. Tuesday and Thursday I went to volleyball per usual. Thursday the volleyball team went out together to the Vic, which was a lot of fun. Friday I spent packing for my trip and then I went to the movies with my friends Nicole and Adrienne to see Easy A, which was pretty funny. It kind of seems like it might be the next Mean Girls. After the movie I went home and finished packing before attempting to go to bed too excited to sleep. I promise the next several posts will have much more detail because a lot happened over my trip. I love you and miss you!

Britt