First Three Days in New Zealand!

Arrival and Day 1 in New Zealand:

Flight over was cool watched rise of the planet of the apes. The flight was emotional at first but I got over it. Flying in during sunset was really cool, the clouds were very yellow. We missed the stop near our hostel but oh well we walked a little bit. There isn an interesting feel to the city but I can’t quite figure it out. It might be from how cold it is. About mid 60s. walked down the main street, queen street. Or it seemed like the main seat anyway, down to the wharf and just looked around. Gto some pictures of some cool buildings. Got back to the hostel and went right to bed. There was a little fiasco with two of the roommates, one guy was put in our room but was supposed to be in another. But sure enough one bed hadn’t been “used” yet and he climbed in. but the guy who originally claimed the bed hadn’t been around and came in at 3am and they were arguing about whose bed it was. The front desk made a mistake by putting the one kid in the wrong room. I don’t care that they argued a bit, but it pissed me off when the turned the fucking lights on. Whatever I guess. Got up early and went down to catch the bus to paihia. Was a very scenic drive and was bout 3 ½ to 4 hours. Walked around paihia and do the haruru falls. That was cool. I am enjoying this place a lot. The flora is very different. It’s almost like another world. I love it

Well. The night certainly turned interesting. Brandon and I headed back to the hostel and showered then went and got food. On our way back I turn onto Kings Rd and IMMEDIATELY I look across the street and see someone walking. This someone looks verrrrry familiar. He looks like Patrick Vandivver. Sure enough I can’t look away, I even told Brandon it looks like him. He was also staring at me. Eventually I just stopped and was like “WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE,” because sure enough it was him. It was the strangest thing to run into Pat, Tim, Tom, Harlan, Mary, and Shane. They were headed to the bottleshop and we hung around with them and it was also Shane’s bday so celebrated that with him. The night was a lot of fun with a lot of good laughs, other than the fact that we couldn’t find Nick, he got off on King’s Rd rather than in the middle of town. What made it worse was that we didn’t really communicate where we were staying, he thought the YHA in town, but it wasn’t. So we searched and gave up eventually because we didn’t know what else to do (even called the YHA in Auckland). We just hoped that he would show up in the morning….haha….

Day 2

We decided to get up early and see the sunrise since we had to leave at about 7:30am for the Cape Reinga day tour. It was the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen. The Bay of Islands put on quite a show. There was a little cloud over just above the horizon and the sun crept up over some huge hills. And it was just the most golden color I have ever seen. Whoever reads this will need to look at my pictures for sure. While watching the sunrise (went and got Tom) we saw Nick! It was a relief to see him. There was a miscommunication about the hostel we were staying at and he went to the YHA instead. And he also got off at King St. rather than in the little downtown area where Brandon and I stayed. I did feel really bad about the whole thing. After that we got on the “Dune Rider” for our day trip. First off, this thing was a badass bus. It’s like no bus you could imagine. I will have a picture of that as well. The countryside along the way was a lot of fun as well. We also learned a bit about the kaori trees. It is all pretty interesting honestly. But boring for a blog.

We got up to Cape Reinga where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean, and you can actually see a division! It was so cool. The view from up top was amazing and we had a clear day so you can only imagine. There is an awesome legend about the place that I will try and find and put on the blog, hopefully I will actually get off my lazy ass and do it.

We went to a sand dune to go sandboarding. It was…you guessed it….awesome. It was maybe about half the size of towerhill in Michigan. It was still a fucking hike up that thing. Went up it three times and my god, by the middle of the third one my legs hurt sooooo bad. I decided to run up that time and that was just a bad idea. Sandboarding was a lot of fun though, you ended up going pretty fast and the sand was flying up behind you. One the third run I tried to make it a good one. It’s pretty ironic I had a good feeling about that one. On my way down I picked up speed, I also began to turn sideways. I tried to turn myself around but to no avail. As I kept the speed up and turned more to the side…I saw a little bump coming up. You can imagine what happened next. I totally beefed it. The best fucking wipeout ever. I remember rolling on my side and flipping and also standing up for a second but I was going so fast I just fell again. Sand was EVERYWHERE. I could hear people saying “Ohhhhhhhh” at the bottom of the hill. I did open my eyes for a second what I “stood up” and I just saw sand everywhere and a blue sky for a split second before I saw more sand and closed my eyes. It was a fucking tumble.  I bet it was the coolest wipeout ever. I wish I could have seen it from everyone.

After that we traveled down the Ninety-Mile Beach. It is actually an official route where all the rules of the road apply! That’s pretty fucking sweet. It’s actually only 64 miles long. We stopped for a little bit to take some pictures and then headed on our way to the famous Mangonui Fish shop. Holy shit, best fish and chips I have ever had. No lie. It was on a beautiful bay, the sun was low in the sky, the fish was cooked perfect, it tasted great and I bought a beer that had a hint of lemon to go with it. It was a perfect way to end the day. I can’t wait to share a picture of that. I really did fall in love with the upper part of the north island. It’s ungodly beautiful.

After that I got totally plastered. We went to the bottle shop and bought a 12pack of Becks. It was actually pretty good, I liked it. I drank 5 and Brandon had 4. I was pretty tipsy and all about drinking more (wasn’t a good idea). I wanted to go buy more but we decided we would just go to the bar. The bar was TINY, but then again town itself isn’t very big. It was happy hour and all beer was only $4.50 for a pint! The happy hour ended in five minutes so….I bought two. I got Tui’s. Which I think may be my favorite beer now. Wish I could find it in the states. Anyway. We were all having a good time talking and what not and I ended up getting two more pints of Tui’s. The bartender was awesome. Since happyhour was over I asked her what the cheapest beer is. I am not sure what it was because she said she would give me more Tui’s for only 6 bucks when originally I think it was $7.50. So I was all sorts of excited getting the beer discounted! Let’s recap. I weight about 130lbs. I drank 5 bottle and 4 pints of beer. I started to black out by the end of the night. I don’t exactly remember everything. Apparently when walking outside a security guard asked us to keep it down, twice. I don’t remember this at all. I do remember making out with a girl from Minnesota, I don’t know how I managed to hook up with a girl. I also remember throwing up in our hostels flowerbox….I also remember tripping and falling face first on concrete (or something VERY hard) and my nose started to bleed. It’s weird though, it almost seems like that was a dream because it is so fuzzy and I can’t quite put it together…oh well. I DON’T remember going to bed….and I woke up very dizzy. So it was quite an interesting night for me in quaint little Paihia.

I definitely hit my face on something hard the night I drank a lot…my nose is sore the next day. It’s weird though since I have NO scratches today. Nothing at all.

Day 3

Wednesday….We had the tour of the Bay of Islands at 9am and I was so fucking dizzy and felt like shit when I woke up. I guess that is what I get for drinking so oh well. We got onto the boat and thankfully I didn’t get sea sick or anything. We had a clear sky nearly the entire time and it was so nice out there. I can’t believe a place like that exists. We went around the bay and every which was and new island was just as spectacular as the last one. We went to the end of the bay where the Hole in the Rock is. It’s a big arch in a rock and it is SWEET. It was actually huge too. Stayed around there then we went off to a little place to dock and walked around an island for about 45 minutes. First off, the water here is so crystal clear and blue. I couldn’t get over it when we docked. I was just baffled. I walked up to a look-out point on this island, and what was on the other side took my breath away and took chills down my back. What was on the other side is the picture I posted on Facebook on my wall. I only had about 10 minutes to look at it. It sucked. I wanted to stay there all day. Eventually I got back on the boat and we got back to Paihia and we hung out with the Canadians and the girl from Minnesota till it was our time to leave. Then we got on the bus and went back to Auckland. It was really sad leaving such a beautiful place. I am pretty pissed I only have a week here. And it was already Wednesday night…

The End of the Year...

The last full weekend we had was pretty eventful I would say. I certainly enjoyed it. And the story goes like this...

     We started out by going diving on Friday at 10:45 am and it was of course...awesome! Here is a list of some of the things we saw : A beautiful loggerhead turtle, a couple lionfish, HUGE puffer fish, another leopard shark, there were a TON of wobbegongs out there, TWO MANTA RAYS, a stone fish, porcupine fish, some big cleaner shrimp, seastars, AND on the way back to shore we went somewhat around the point and we got to see some dolphins in the water! It was great to see that on my last dive, even though we didn't see any grey nurse sharks. Oh well. After that we went to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary and did a rope course that had ziplines and that was a lot of fun (I will elaborate later, just trying to finish this). After that we headed into Murwillumbah to get dinner and then headed to the camp site near Mt. Warning. It was a lot of fun camping outside but it was very wet. Woke up at 2:30am to head out and I was barely tired, it was probably all the adrenaline of hiking up a mountain keeping me up. Along the way we say an awesome leaf-tailed gecko and there were a lot of glow in the dark fungi again! This time is was small dots rather than mushrooms. We made it to the top and unfortunately it was cloudy the entire time. We made it up in about an hour and ten minutes so we had a lot of time to kill before "sunrise." We made our way down and I ended up walking by myself and it was actually kinda nice! just to listen to nature and all that shit. At one point at a lookout sorta area (I think it was actually for helicopters) The clouds opened up and there was sun and I could see the ocean. It was beautiful. Eventually I got down, everyone else did and we took an unexpected stop to Nimbin. Yeah not many were very happy about that. But oh well it is what it is. And that was my awesome weekend from what I can remember!

     On Wednesday we took a field trip for wildlife bio. We went up to the Border Ranges National Park and it was...of course...awesome. There were leeches everywhereeee it was crazy. Never had one before and they actually fascinated me. We saw some beautiful scenery, the rainforest was so cool (and wet), saw an ancient tree called the Antarctic Tree estimated to be about 10,000 years old. They are so old they have "forgotten" how to reproduce with seeds. So however many are left, that's it. We just toured around the area and not really a whole lot of interesting things happened. Harland and Tom decided to touch the stinging tree, so that was pretty funny. OH before we got there we went to Nimbin, basically to get lunch and to..buy other things (obviously not a part of the itinerary to buy other things though). Nimbin is a..lets say...alternative lifestyle living. It was certainly an interesting town, I could never live there. And that is about  it that has happened.

     OH we also had an end of the year cookout with the professors on Friday, we had TONS of food, good dessert and an all around good time. We had a mini-tri in the morning and relays and volleyball in the afternoon as well. It was a lot of fun.

     Now we are in the Brisbane airport and it sucks so bad. It was difficult to keep it together at some points, especially when I really thought about the fact that I am leaving. We were on the beach one last time and saw the sunrise. Leaving that was hard, that was the worst thus far. But once on that plane and in the air....I think that will be the worst of it all. It's all hitting me that I am leaving this country. Next time I am online I will be in America. Would rather be visiting South Bend and coming home to Australia at some point...
   

It's getting close...

     FINALLY! I am updating my blog. Nothing has really happened too much. Just the normal everyday life living on the beach here in Australia. We did go on a field trip for the wildlife biology class which was way more fun than I expected. I guess I will end up talking a little bit about that and what is in store for the next few weeks.

   On Tuesday the 2nd Harland and I went up to Byron Bay to get his didgeridoo and just look around and spend the day there. No where really opened until 10am and we got there about 8:30am so we headed down to the beach and relaxed down there, I decided to jump in the water and it felt great. Eventually we went up to Planet Corroboree to check out the didgeridoos. He wanted one with an A key. There were a couple to choose from, the one he originally saw that he really liked, and another that was much larger. He played them and eventually he decided on the new one he saw today. It had a much cleaner sound. We left the shop to come back and we went and got some lunch, looking in some stores, and then we headed over to a bar and sat down for some beers. First beer was a good ole pint of some Toohey's Old and it hit the spot. We watched a bit of the UK KU game and I got another beer, the Stone & Wood Pacific Ale. Holy shit. I love beer now. Real beer, not that shit we have in the states. Flavorful beer with something actually in it. This beer had a fruity smell and when drank was had a piney flavor, but a little something more that we just couldn't figure out. Here is Stone & Wood's website.

     So, from Wednesday until Friday afternoon we went down to Woody Head (everyone laugh...ha ha) near Iluka, NSW. It is situated on the Bunjalong National Park and is a camping ground area. It was in a beautiful location. We were set up with nice cabin style things. The goal of this field trip was to catch microbats and take a look at them and ID them, catch some small mamals in traps that we learned how to set and make the bait. We also had to find 20 forest birds and 20 seabirds, give the presentation over our selected topic
   
     We got there and the first order of business was to make the bait for the traps we were going to be setting. It was a mixture of oats, peanut butter, and honey. Was pretty funny to watch Tom, Jami, and Lora mix it, as always with us, it was all jokes. We the proceeded to go and place traps. 25 traps 10 meters back from the road and ~10 meters apart. Setting the traps was actually pretty fun. It was easy, but let me be the first to tell you that I never thought I would be walking through a forest in Australia with no path (it gets worse later). We get all 25 traps set then we are told about our bird assignment and then are given free time until dinner. Harlan and I go and try to knock out some of our bird list, got a good amount and we ended up finding an awesome open area just behind the cabin thing and stayed there for a good chunk of time and found some awesome birds (and a few leeches). We ate a very good dinner prepared by one of the guys that works at the camp and had some of the presentations that night. After that was all said and done we all got ready to go spotlighting.  We headed out at around 9 I would say?...maybe a little bit later. Regardless, we went out with these BRIGHT ASS lights, you had carry a batterypack in a backpack that was heavy as shit. There weren't enough for everyone, so I didn't take one (just had a regular flashlight). Surprisingly enough everyone was silent while looking for animals. I was shocked. That doesn't usually happen with us. Unfortunately the night was uneventful. The only thing we saw was a ring tailed possum, glow in the dark fungi (totally awesome), and another possum I believe. We decided that we were going to walk down a path to the beach and walk that home. Talk about the best choice ever. The moon was very bright that night (was getting close to a full moon) and The beach was well lit and because of the rocky shore's geography, the waves were HUGE. The rocky shore essentially just abruptly ended and the waves would crash so hard into the rocks. There was one spot that was especially tumultuous, we sat down, got a good view, and watched the show. And a show it was. The waves would crash probably 30 feet high, and as it crashed it sounded like thunder. It was amazing. An experience I won't soon forget. Brandon and I decided to get a closer look. I took a battery pack and would light up the waves. It was awesome. OH I almost forgot. Woody Head provided one of the most beautiful sunsets I have seen. So, that was the first day.
     Oh we also met this German immigrant that was working at the camp as a release sorta program from jail. He was actually a pretty nice guy, a little redneck, but he meant well. He was in jail for 6 years but Harlan and I weren't going to ask him for what. He also gave us a free beer! So that was awesome.

     Thursday began by waking up at about 6:15am to go and check the animal traps. Unfortunately we only caught one animal, a bush rat. Wasn't very exciting. We then headed back to the cabin for breakfast. After that we had....free time! It was awesome. We decided to go and do some more birds and just look around the campground a bit. Ryan joined us and we weren't spotting very many so we walked up into the forest from a large sand dune covered in foliage. From there we walked quite a distance and higher than the trees. We walked through the brush, you know where snakes live (mind you deadly snakes) and made our own path to the beach. Needless to say....we didn't see too many birds but it was a lot of fun. We were back where the waves crashed very hard into the rocks. We stripped to our underwear and went up near where the waves crashed and being that close....was incredible. The ocean is a monster, one beautiful fucking monster. We actually got a little too close and Harlan braced himself and got swept back a bit and cut his foot pretty good and a couple other scrapes. We headed back to our clothes and about 10 seconds after and even larger wave crashed over the spot all three of us were at, all of us would have definitely gotten hurt. Oh, all of this was before noon as well. We headed to the kiosk and got bandaids for Harlan and met up with everyone else. We then just chilled the rest of the afternoon then met back for dinner, did more presentations (mine was this night) and then most people went and got beer. I started to feel a little ill so I was in bed by 10pm, I was tired anyway.
     Friday was about the same, woke up to check the traps and collect them and we also looked at the bats that were caught the last two nights. There were some really cool ones in there. One had HUGE ears. They all had mites that were running all over them, was very weird. After that we had to clean up our rooms and then just waited for the bus to get here. We also finished up our birdlist. Woody Head was one of the best field trips I had been on, and not because of the free time. We learned a lot of birds in the area, like the Eastern Whipbird with its distinctive call.

     This field trip was so awesome. The sights were amazing and it was one of the best we have been on. The last field trip we are gonna take is the, and I quote, "magical mystery tour." We are going to the Border Ranges National Park and, work on the street is, Nimbin as well. So it'll be a lot of fun. That is all for now! OH this weekend I am diving again and will be climbing (hopefully for real this time) Mt. Warning! So should have a good blog about that and I wanna blog about my everyday life here.

Monday, 26/3/2012

Well today was pretty uneventful for one thing...


I FOUND A BABY OCTOPUS. Now, that sounds cool and all but it is pretty rare to find an octopus at all! (and to think I saw three while doing my intro dives to get certified). It was so cool. I looked down at some rocks in the water and saw a cool shell and decided to pick it up. There was some pull to it and it didnt want to leave the rock so I figured it  still was alive. So I pulled harder and sure enough it came loose, expecting to find a snail. But sure enough I found a broken shell, sand, and this little pale pink/white looking mass. Sure enough on harder examination it had extremely small tentacles. I was in shock it was an octopus. I got it out of the shell (he wasn't really "in" it anyway) and let him crawl around on my hand and fingers. He was smaller than the top portion of my index finger. It was so cool to old such a small creature, and an octopus at that. I bathed him in seawater to make sure nothing happened to him. Eventually he was sitting with his beak on my finger and actually began to bite me haha. It was an odd feeling, a very faint pinching (considering his beak was probably 1/10 of a millimeter). Time came to let him go so I put him back in the shell I found him in and back into the water her went where I picked it up. It was so awesome. I am pissed I didn't take my camera.

Spring Break

This is Matt Schmalzel's interpretation of how I would describe my spring break: "Beer, beer,beer,beer, tits, dancing, THE GREAT BARRIER REEF WAS FUCKING AWESOME, beer, beer, tits, beer"

In all actuality, that is pretty accurate. Spring break was a lot of fun. I will start with where I left off from Sydney...

     So we stayed the night at the Maccas and blah blah blah it was boring. We eventually got to the plane and boarded and I will be the first to tell you...Jetstar is many times more uncomfortable than Air New Zealand. That is beside the point. I didn't sleep at all (nor the night before in Maccas) and actually talked to the woman next to me. She was under the impression that America is a very dangerous place and that chances are you will eventually get shot because everyone has a gun, because that's what the movies show. I was a little shocked she believed the movies, but she is also afraid of flying and made it worse by watching airplane investigations of crashes that have happened. All in all I enjoyed talking to her. Made my trip interesting. So we get to Cairns and it is very rainy and that isn't fun at all.

     OH before I forget, while in Maccas and going to Gilligane (our AWESOME hostel) we met this German kid. He was pretty cool and ended up hanging out with us the entire trip and became pretty good friends with. So ended up hanging out with him while we waited to check into our hostel....we arrived at 8am and we can't check in until 2pm. It was greaaaat. I was exhausted but we found things to do. Eventually we settled down in a skydiving place and watched jackass for about 3 hours I would say and they were cool with it. Checked in, took a nap, talked, hung out, got dinner and then we went down to the club for a beer.

     Low and behold to our surprise it was JELLO WRESTLING NIGHT. We were stoked but didn't plan on staying for it. Before the store continues: My plan was to be back in the room at 10-1030pm and have one beer, what really happened: I went to bed at 1am and had 6-7 beers. How? You ask? Could my plans go so astray? Let me tell you. We get down there and everyone is having fun talking and the club is a lot more fun than we thought, loud, good music and eventually two woman come over and ask the girls with us if they want to participate in the jello wrestling. And you better believe we were making sure the girls we were with did it. After about 20 minutes of persuasion two of them (I won't give names) finally signed up!! We were so excited, bought beer, and prepared for an exciting night! We waited, drank and waited a bit more for it to start and eventually the spectacle of night was upon us! we made sure we were right in front to cheer them on. There were I think 6 girls total in the match. One from Sweden, Britain, another from America and then our girls. We cheered loudly for our two Americans. Unfortunately one of the girls lost her first round but the other girl MADE IT TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP. You better believe we were excited as hell. She actually ended up winning the entire thing! It was a great night. In the end they had everyone in the jello looking for a bar of soap to win a prize, here is the catch, they said the girls could do it topless if they wanted, thank you girl from the UK, mind you this was my birthday (real one) and so that means it was the 2nd time celebrating.

      After a great night we pack up and head to out to make 11 dives on the Great Barrier Reef for 3 days and 2 nights. We were picked up at 745am and we made it out to our transport boat where we did two dives. I was pretty nervous, just didn't know what to expect, I have never dove without an instructor with me so my buddy and I were totally free to do whatever we like. We actually use wetsuits that only go down to just above the knees, so I expected the water will be very warm, and warm it was. The first two dives were great, didn't see anything spectacular, other than the insane amount of colourful fish, the corals, just the experience was absolutely awesome. I will give a quick description of what happened over the 3 days. Things I saw - TONS of fish, colourful, weird, all sorts of stuff. Nemo, a barracuda, 3 turtles (pet one), cleaner shirmp (gave me a manicure), very small crustaceans (on night dive), porcupine fish, unicornfish, cowfish, triggerfish, sea cucumber. I don't think I will see anything more beautiful. Can't believe it is over now but it was absolutely spectacular. The night dives were a lot of fun and sorta creepy. If you turned out the lights and it was pitch black (the feeling of pitch black underwater is like nothing else) and wave your hand in the water then bioluminescent plankton show up, so a very cool but brief light show. One more little story, during our 2nd night dive I cut my ankle on some coral and was bleeding, and sure enough a white tipped reef shark came a little closer than usual to check me out, I like to say that I was almost shark food, that is pretty exciting. I can elaborate more but ask in person, don't want to make this post too long.

     Eventually our dives on the Great Barrier Reef were over :( it was a very sad day. It was go go go the entire time so we were always doing something, or though it seemed. It was sad leaving the reef, we all got a lot better at diving after it was all done, definitely addicted. We are back on land, I am getting land sickness for SURE and you know what that means? Time to go to the club and get drunk and we sure as hell did. For a third time we celebrated my birthday. At one point in the night I had a beer in one hand and three full ones lined up to be drank, not to mention the many others that were bought for me that night and a rum and coke. It was a good as night. The club was a lot of fun, good ass music, lots of dancing and everyone was pretty friendly. Meta kid that was on the boat diving with us and hung out with him for a bit and was all around a great time.

     Saturday was AWESOME. Eight of us decided to rent a vehicle and travel into the country a bit and see the waterfalls. After a very delayed start we finally got on the road in the most bad ass SUV I have been in. It was some Toyota, a big Toyota, a fucking diesel Toyota and it was so much freaking fun to drive. Yep, I drove on the opposite side of the road and it was SWEEEEET. The water falls were amazing. The second one we swan around behind it and swam underneath it. Its incredible to be behind a waterfall and looking up, and swimming under one. Oh but the water was probably the coldest water I have ever swam in but I certainly don't regret it.

    Saturday was St. Pattys day so you know we went out and drank once again. Australia has taught me to LOVE beer, I don't think I will drink hard liquor very often when I get back to the states, and totally okay with that. Saturday night was just like any other. Great music, dancing, meeting people and making friends. I am going to miss Cairns, Gilligans, and the Great Barrier Reef. It was definitely a spring break that will be unmatched. I had the time of my life, with some of the best people I have ever met.

Sydney

Holy shit I am in love. This city is INCREDIBLE. I certainly didn't want to leave and I can't believe I was there. Definitely a "is this real life?..." moment. Anyway....Now for what went on and all that we did.

Also, I apologize beforehand with how long this is going to be...

    To start. We left at about 915pm Thursday night and it was an overnight bus to Sydney. I didn't think how miserable this was really going to be. I was so uncomfortable the entire time and half of the time I didn't even know if I was asleep or crazy or pissed or what. It was almost like limbo. It was a bizarre experience that is for sure. I have never hated a carride more than this one. By about 545am we made a stop and I got a little to eat and then after that I somehow fell asleep for a good chunk of time. I was probably just so exhausted, I could have been hung upside down and still fallen asleep. Maybe around......730-815am the bus driver tells us to wake up. And what do you know....we are in North Sydney, huge gleaming buildings all around us. It was a great feeling to wake up to Sydney. We soon made out way closer to the harbor and then we saw it. THE HARBOUR BRIDGE. It was right in front of us. Oh it was awesome to see, this structure of granite and steel, the pride of Sydney. We pull around closer and what happens to be the very first thing we are doing? Oh I don't know....walking across the Harbour Bridge. Oh there was nothing more exciting. No one was tired, everyone was happy excited and it was exhilarating. We saw the opera house from the bridge and we just couldn't believe it. Seeing that for the first time was just unreal. I miss it still. We make our way across taking pictures every few hundred meters of the opera house. We depart from the bridge at The Rocks, Sydney's historic area. Which is kept up beautifully and it was a very cool atmosphere.we were given about 3 hours to hang out and explore the immediate area and were to meet at Wharf 4 at Circular Quay (pronounced key) to head off to the zoo. So a couple of us decided to check out the botanical gardens and just take a nice walk. They keep their city very nice and clean and we wandered through there, fed some cockatoos. We made our way to the quay and got a little something to head and headed off on a ferry to the zoo on the harbour, Torango Zoo. The zoo was a lot of fun. Harland, Ryan and I tried to hit up just about every exhibit and also saw a little presentation on spiders. It was a very well kept zoo and was fun to see.

     We headed on over to the Lands Edge Hostel over in Mosman (a good drive from downtown) and settled in...well not really. We had to hurry to freshen up and get ready for the opera IN the Sydney Opera House. We made our way back to Sydney where the bus driver dropped the group for the opera off and took the others to god knows where, I'm not concerned, they lived (actually over to Darling Harbour). The opera was interesting to say the least. Thankfully there were subtitles but only while they sang so it was tough when they were acting to figure out what they were saying. I overall did enjoy the opera and finally figured out EXACTLY what happened by the end. The end of the first act was hilarious. I can't begin to explain it, but there was a guy humping a dead deer....to say the least. I am happy to say that I saw an opera in the opera house.

     Some people got left behind that night (that was a fiasco all in its own) but I thankfully made it back to the hostel where I fell asleep in probably less than two minutes and pretty damn sure that I did not move at all. On schedule for Saturday were to visit the Blue Mountains, Bondi Beach and the night tour of Sydney. The Blue Mountains were awesome to see. We arrived and saw the Three sisters to the left (cool Aboriginal story behind that) and more mountains all around. We took a rail car (at a 53degree angle) down to the bottom and hiked around for a bit then up back to the top on a cable car. It was nice to see all of that stuff. On our way back I slept and we went to Bondi Beach first thing back. The iconic beach and most famous in Australia if not in the world. It was kinda cool and windy so quite honestly, wasn't that great. Still fun to see though. Then we headed back to the hostel to once again, freshen up as fast as possible and headed into town. We got dinner at Harry's Cafe de Wheels. It was a very famous food stand. I got the meat pie and peas and it was pretty good! Weird cause the peas were mashed though, but hey, Colonel Sanders liked it, so I can too. The coach then took us on a night tour (our hostel host was also with us, PJ, she is hilarious and a lot of fun). Learned a good chunk about the city. Played "Spot the tranny" in Kings Cross, went down Oxford Street, George Street (the main thorough-fare). The city was beautiful at night. A lot of people decided stay and go out in Sydney but a few of us went back to the hostel. But turns out instead of the hostel, we went to the pub (go figure) and we had a great time drinking with PJ and playing thirteen, "to that guy!!!" We were actually so loud that the bar got the cops called on them because of us. So just before closing they ushered us out pretty quickly. Walked down a path to the hostel with nothing but the moonlight, everyone slightly drunk, dressed up. It was hilarious and so much fun. Instead of sleeping, we drank next door outside the coffeeshop (took Pat's wine and everyone pitched in to donate money so he could buy more). It was a great night. Me, Tom, Zack and Bri laughed hysterically after we got inside and had so much fun.

     Sunday we said our goodbyes to PJ. I think she was a little sad to see us leave, she had so much fun with all of us. We went over to Manly beach which was beautiful (a common theme in Australia is seems) and headed on a ferry to the quay, got lunch and then WENT TO A RUGBY GAME!!! I went with Lee, Harlan and Nick. We barely knew what was going on so it wasn't that great but it was so cool to go and see one. Unfortunately the Sydney Roosters lost 18-0 to the Pilreth Panthers. After that we went to Central Station and then over to Chinatown and god lunch/dinner. It was interesting. Had to use chopsticks and basically ate leftover chicken parts. The three of them headed to Darling Harbour to get stuff from the bus while I went to the new hostel we were staying at for the night and I walked around a little bit. It was so nice to be alone and only with my thoughts in this beautiful city. I really enjoyed that. Eventually checked in got settled in and prepared to go out for mine, Jami's and Mary's bday!!!

     So...Sunday night was interesting to say the least. I didn't drink all that much BUT we went to a strip club. Yes...strippers on Sunday. And Tom bought me a private lap dance, but I won't go into details considering this blog is pretty public. Also I got a sorta personal show from a stripper on the poll, thanks to Putt and Audrey for giving me the ten to give to the stripper. So my night was just fantastic if i do say so myself. After we left there was uneventful. Went to another pub and was pretty much empty since it was Sunday night and we finally went back to the hostel around maybe 230am? Passed out and had to check out at 10am. Did that and just explored the city. Most of us went over the the University of Sydney, which was so cool, I want to go there so freaking bad. Definitely looking into grad school here in Australia. From there we walked down George St., over the Harbour Bridge and checked out Luna park for about five minutes then headed back over the bridge and into The Rocks and stopped to get a beer at the oldest pub in Sydney, where I had my first Guinness (I think that is a good combination, don't you?). Then made our way to the hostel to regroup and then it was off the airport!

     So it is true, the airport does close (for domestic flights). So our plan to sleep in the airport was foiled by the (thankfully polite) security officer who directed us over to Maccas. So I spent the first hours of my bday in Maccas (McDonalds) and I would like to give a thank you to Megan Carter for buying me an ice cream cone. Best I ever had. We hungout/slept there till about 345am and headed back to the airport and met this German kid that will be on spring break with us! He was fun to get to know him and learn about his travels up until then. We finally made it to the airport. Sydney was now only a memory (and a damn good one at that). It treated me so well and I loved every minute of it. But now, it's time for spring break Aussie style. Nothing will top it!

Tenterfield Trip

Well shit, I have been slacking haven't I. Well this is going to be a quick little update because I have bigger and better things to talk about.

    On the 5th of March we took a field trip inland to the foothills of the Great Dividing Range. We went to Tenterfield and Inverll and learned about a little history of Australia. To begin the trip we went to he largest granite monolith in the southern hemisphere....which implies a bigger one in the northern, guess Australia just wanted some claim to fame. So we climbed to the top of that and it was a spectacular view. Provided a 360 degree panorama of the area and got some great shots from there. We had perfect weather for the hike up as well and it really only took about 45 minutes. On the way to Bald Rock we stopped at the "best horseman of NSW's" hideout (he was a thief and bandit) and that was really awesome to see and a bit of history. We also saw tank traps they placed during WWII just in case the Japs invaded. These tank traps were just posts of wood in the ground, not sure what this would have done....oh well.

    After we stopped at a local winery. It was cool to see my first winery and learn the process. They let us try all of their wine and I must say, that was a fun ride home with everyone tipsy. The wine they made was pretty good and I really did taste differences in the wine between each one. Since this is a wine that will never be found outside a couple cities and NEVER in a store, I bought a bottle for my mom. Super stoked about that.

   For the next day we went to Inverell and stopped at Billabong Blue Sapphire to go fossicking for sapphires!! It was freaking sweet they had this little setup that they let people come and do this (for free too I believe). I found some really good sapphires and other precious stones. After that we headed to the pioneer village in Inverell and learned about some more history.

    That night the Ball State put on a talent show for whoever wanted to see (ended up being other Ball Staters, our professor and coach driver). It was absolutely hysterical. We had an improv group and they did some great performances. From prom, to cpr, to modelling as a tiger and dress shopping. It was a great time. Bri burped her ABC's, Maddie did a real Irish dance and Lee sang the Oscar Meier Weiner song but in-between each syllable she added...something, I wish I could remember. it was hysterical and everyone enjoyed every minute of it. The next day we just had a tour of Tenterfield and learned about the federation of Australia and some more history. Was the best field trip we had taken so far.

Now onto more important things like SYDNEY AND SPRING BREAK!!...scroll up for all of that!!

Nothing :(

     Well since scuba nothing of great interest has come about. Just the usual day down under really. Monday had Australian Life and Culture and skyped my mom for a bit. Then who knows what, nothing note worthy. Tuesday we had marine biology and it has gotten much more interesting
     In marine bio we learned more about larger animals. Quite honestly, I forget what sort of groups they are divided into and all that fun stuff (guess I need to do some reviewing). Either way it was much more fun to learn about. It also resparked my interest to get a tattoo. I think I am having a tough time coming to terms with having it forever though. We shall see. Then after lunch we went back to mangrove but we were in much deeper water this time and we were catching puffer fish. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera so didn't get any pictures, they were awesome though and I am somewhat intrigued to find out mroe. They have a leathery skin, they all aren't poisonous and the don't particularly swim with their tail fin. Interesting little fish that is for sure. So we caught them to help with an ongoing experiment they have and tagged them and that was about it for the day.
    Thursday it began to rain :( For events management we were supposed to go to a surftag event in Ballina but because of the rain we had an impromptu class. It was an easy day but sucked cause we expected to see a sweet surftag comp. Later I went shopping for groceries in Ballina and we stopped at an open rugby practice. These guys were MASSIVE. I imagine if they weren't practicing they were in the weight room gettin swoll. The girls were drooling over a couple of the dudes, so we stayed longer than expected.
    And Friday the rain continued :( We went to the Lennox Head Bora ring that was used in Aborigine ceremonies. Then headed over to the Byron Bay lighthouse. It is perched up on a little point. And let me be the first to tell you that a large coach bus traveling up a small windey road that drops off next to you...is in fact, rather terrifying. It is still dreary so the sights weren't that great. But it was still pretty cool to be at the most easterly point on the Australian continent. We then headed over to the Tweed River Art Gallery and just looked at some paintings they had on display. I didn't really understand the educational value about it because we didn't have any sort of discussion about it or any of the art. Just kinda went and looked. Don't get me wrong it actually was pretty cool though. I enjoyed it, especially one painting. I'm not going to bother trying to describe it, I know what it looks like.
     And now the worst part. Because of the rain, we decided to cancel our planned trip to Mt. Warning and Currumbin and just went to the Gold Coast to check it out. We wasted so much time sitting at Murwillumbah deciding if we wanted to stay there and camp and climb Mt. Warning ragardless (we were going to camp and wake up early, climb it, and see the sunrise) or go home. Wasted time debating then finally decided we would check out the Gold Coast since we were close. Uh yeah, we didn't exactly check it out. We sat there for about an hour and a half to two hours while some people looked for hostels to stay at. For those that weren't, got extremely agitated and there was a lot of tension on the bus. It may not have been so bad if it weren't for the fact it was total shit outside. Oh well it is what it is. We got back to camp and we just drank and had a good time and ended up going to the pub. They had a DJ competition so the music was good and there were people there that were our age.
     Sunday was uneventful as well, it was nice and sunny down here in Lennox so everyone and their mom were out on the beach. I decided to tan my thighs. My white ass thighs. I forgot to put sunscreen on and was in the sun for a good 3 hours or so. I took breaks and played in the waves so it was broken up. Yeah needless to say. They absolutely burn right now. Sleeping was a pain in the ass. Oh well. In the name of beauty I guess haha.
     Monday our Australia Life and Culture class was cancelled. I think because Lyn's wife is having problems recovering from her surgery (I pray that's not it though). So everyone has just chilled today. Played rugby once again (it's awesome) and Harlan and I got on our roof and jumped over to another cabin. That was certainly fun. Hopefully the rest of the week will entail some good stories.

Open Water Dives

Remember how I was just talking about first time experiences and their real importance, well that happened once again. Saturday I did scuba for the first time. It was incredible. Another experience I will never have. Learning everything anew, knowing for the first time what its going to feel like. Well, the whole ride there I was nervous. More so when I actually thought about it or we talked about it, my heart began to flutter. We get there, get our gear together and all that fun stuff. Nothing too exciting. Then. We load up the boat. Time is getting closer and we get in the back of this old ass truck. It is the coolest truck ever, old, powerful, painted for the dive shop. It sounded awesome too. We make our way to the beach and it is a beautiful drive up there. And the beach from where we drop the boat off is beautifully amazing. It's everything you dream of, a bay with mountains to one side, the Julian Rocks in the not so far distance, a white lighthouse over looking the bay 118m high at the most easterly point on Australia. We all help get the boat in. It's such an experience just being a part of the team. We together are going to scuba dive. We are just in shock and awe of the surrounding. Just thinking back now sends chills down my back. Mt. Warning is in the background (tallest peak in Australia, will be blogging about climbing that as well). We get the boat situated and the guys help the girls in and the guys then just in. We're off. No turning back now, we're on the boat. Minutes away from being 12m under. The boat ride was half the fun. Seeing Byron Bay and the surrounding beauty from see is a site all it's own to behold. The waves were these walls of water flowing synchronicity. The boat jumps over each wave as we get closer.
     We make it to our dive site and we begin with our fins, check, spit in goggles and put on, check, and finally the weight belt. And we wait....to get the BCD on. Our lives are in that equipment. And we gear up completely. There is no hesitating when it's your turn. No "just a sec," "wait a minute," you just GO. It was my turn coming up and I knew it, my heart beat faster and I didn't know if I was ready or not. I look back and my buddy was far enough away. "okay Brian you're up" I didn't even think. You don't have time to. I scooted back and I splashed it. It was serene. You hit the water and sink, open your eyes, bubbles all around a little sunlight, and you're actually breathing. In that instant it felt it would last forever. That first time experience was incredible. This crazy contraption is working. You float to the surface and I've made it. It was a crazy feeling. We get situated at the rope and get (sorta) use to floating. As our first time it was very awkward. We look around and can see the bottom and there are fish everywhere. This is real life. I'm really living and experiencing a world like this. One by one we begin our decent and make sure enough pressure stays in our ears. Deeper and deeper we head down and everything is just beautiful. There is no thinking at all you just look and that's it. Very weird feeling.
     So the first day. Our first dive was just for fun and trying to get neutral buoyancy and just trying to get the hang of it. It was hysterical to see us rise and fall and just have no handle on it (okay wasn't that bad). From the get go you just look. I couldn't look fast enough. Sure enough there was a leopard shark at some point to greet us. And we actually had the opportunity to see and octopus. Which, during a dive at any time and essentially anywhere is very rare. Saw and eastern blue grouper, sting rays, clown fish, just everything you can imagine and then some. I found a little shrimp in a shell when we were on our knees on the broken coral and shell bottom. Just moving along like nothing were different. It was awesome. I just wish I could remember it all. It was incredible. The second dive of the day was just as beautiful. Because it was training dives we had to do skills and practice what we did in the pool. We had to put our weight belt and BCD on while already in the water and we also practice the buddy assisted ascent. Austin (my buddy) and I didn't do so well with the second ascent (the first one we practiced and the second time we actually performed it). We had forgot that we were actually going up. We finally get to the top and Rob, out instructor goes "What the fuck were you guys doing??" We were a little embarrassed but he was cool with it, he realized we are just learning and we all laughed about it later.
    Day 2 of diving. Oh man, it was incredible. We are actually getting very confident in the water and we don't look quite as sloppy moving around underwater. Dive 3, we see another octopus!! That's TWO, talk about unheard of. Rob tried to get him to come out of hiding and grab him, but he didn't go for it, but did change color and that was really cool. On this dive we had to fill our mask up partially and then we had to take it off and put it back on. It was very weird to feel the water on my face and it's a very mental thing to be able to do it. People have freaked out and the girls with us were a little nervous. I did just fine, both times I took it off. The first time I thought the snorkel was caught on the headband part and tried to fix it. Rob helped me but he realized it was backward so I took it off AGAIN, he took it and then gave it back. And was a-okay after that. Everyone else did just fine with it. While I waited for everyone else to do it, I made friends with a little fish I saw on the ground. It was a white streaked grub fish (parapercis Stricticeps). We make our way around the bottom and it was cool, just in pure awe and amazement. No thoughts. Ever. We get to the top and the skipper tells us that a manta ray was spotted a couple moorings over. We decided to head over there and just snorkel around and see if we could spot it. We sure did fucking find it. God that creature was magnificent. He looked like the king of the ocean. Even had a posse of large fish following behind and underneath him. He was a behemoth. I loved every second of it. He was damn near 7-8 ft from side to side. At one point he was to my side a bit and I swam near him and he went down and turned a bit toward me. To experience that sort of creature coming at you is something I won't soon forget. Tori was next to me and she actually screamed and hid behind me. That was pretty funny. Unfortunately he left and we got back on the boat to get new gear.
   It was depressing to know there was only one dive left. We get out there and by now we feel like we are pros and know exactly what we are doing. Up at the mooring we see these little tiny fish, maybe a quarter of and inch swimming next to it. And if you look closely you can see all sorts of small jellyfish moving around. Oh, also in dive 3 we practiced CESA (controlled emergency swimming ascent). We all did fine...well sorta. On dive 4 we just had to learn how to use a compass whish was sorta weird underwater but we did that just fine, really get our buoyancy down and "hover" and practice a safety stop and what it's like. We did everything just fine. This time I tried to pay as much attention to the wildlife around me as I could. I still can't remember nearly half of the things I saw. But I do remember it was beautiful. The highlight of this dive (if not all 4) is that I FOUND AN OCTOPUS ON MY OWN!!! These things are very well camouflaged and everyone else just swam over it. I know it was an octopus because I saw the siphon being used. I couldn't believe I found one and no one was close enough to get their attention. So that is an experience I share only with myself and I am proud of. We headed to an area called the needles which was very cool. Rocks were all around.  A leopard shark was sitting at the bottom and we got near and when he moved he was maybe a meter from me. To see that thing pass by was just awe inspiring (just like the manta ray). We finished our dive. It was all over. We are certified. We have done it. Getting to the surface we all had smiles on and I just wanted to scream out of pure enjoyment.
     
   This was without a doubt the most incredible feeling ever. I hope I don't forget this. This first time experience is one, again, I will never re-experience in my life. I just say. I loved every minute and can't wait to get back out. I, Brian Wesolowski, am actually a certified Open Water diver. For anywhere in the world and for life. That's a damn good feeling.

Reflection on the Bus!!

Oddly enough I really though about my arrival when I got on the bus. Just had music and thought about Australia. So I wrote it down, I will reiterate word for word...
     "I just wanted to reflect on my arrival to Australia a little bit more. I didn't express much emotion on that initial landing. And now I sit here on the bus now, in week three realizing how much I love this place. Also, side-note and oddly enough, I think music is a very powerful force for my feelings at the moment. The Gamble  by Fun. and next is Take Your Time (Coming Home) by Fun.
I can't believe the length of time I have been here and how important, I realize now, coming to coming to Australia is. We waited for hours to finally get here. I had been breathing the filtered air of airport terminals and planes for lets say, two entire days. We are getting close to Australia and we see alnd. The virus of land and salvation and our destination, after waiting for so long, spread like wildfire. Thankfully I had a window seat. Everyone looked left, right, left again try to get a glimpse of the land that will prove to be the best 3 months of our lives. We were hypnotized by land. Everyone was ecstatic. As we approached the runway everyone's curious, wandering eyes never leaving the window. The tires hit the runway. We cheered.
     The two days of bonding, being bored, essentially living in an airport, eating plane food, no showers, has indeed paid off. We are in AUstralia Everyone is eager to get off the plane. We make our way to customs. I'm always nervous about customs. I know I do nothing wrong but still, maybe I won't get in. I was one of the first to make it through "Welcome to Australia" was what I heard (whether or not tat is the case, I don't know, but I like to think that was said to me) and received the stamp that is showing proof I am in Australia. We go to baggage claim and we all get our luggage and 1 by 1 we get sniffed by two dogs (beagles) looking for citrus mind you. 1 by 1 we walk through the doors of essentially no return. I think we were all okay with that. The first ones out had been outside telling everyone to drop their bags and certainly the bags did drop. As we trickled out, groups ran out the door. Took that first breath of the fresh, warm, beautiful Australian air. It really did have a smell and a sense of salvation. Nothing has ever felt better. This went on for 20 minutes. Eventually we made our way to the bus and waited around. Ou pale, straight from the middle of winter skin, was no match for the intense Australian sun. Which is in fact in the northern part of the sky, not southern. We saw baobob trees and were even amazed by the grass. It was hysterical.
      We're on the bus and everyone is glued to the window, just as the plane. Occasionally getting commentary from the bus driver. We watch around us in this new culture. Subconsciously comparing it to our own. The houses, cars, signs, everything was slightly different. We have made it to Lennox. The town of about 4,000 that will be our new home. We will know this town pretty damn well when we are (unfortunately) done here. It is actually my HOME. This place on the ocean, which is always there. The ocean is beautiful from the town. And Lake Ainsworth. I've seen pictures. Lots of them. But my god, this place is actually real. I can't believe it. The lake really is root beer colored, the ocean really is my backyard.
     Looking back now, seeing everything for the first time is something I won't ever have, feel, or experience again. Sure I may come back, but I have generally already seen it. It's unfortunate my first time experience is now over. But the path is has lit, my arrival, is something I don't think I would chance for the world. I am in fact, in Australia.
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Our Valentines Day Party

First off....yes I know that it is rather late to be posting about the v-day party. But it has just been sooo nice out and I don't want to do anything but play in the lake, swing on the rope swing, jump from trees, and visit the ocean. Such a pain not able to get anything done lol.
Back to the party.
When we received the email about the party many of us were not all that excited. "8th grade style dance, bring an appetizer and dessert" it just sounded like a lot of work (especially for such short notice as we were having it THAT DAY). Oh......and we had to make cards as well. So the day went on blah blah as usual. No classes on Tuesday so that was nice.
Aimee rolls back around 5pm or so with supplies for the cards and I made mine. It was very gaudy...should have gotten a picture of it. Feathers and three cotton balls on the front and in green glittler glue I said "Happy V-day" on the inside....which was boring it read: "Hope you have a great Valentines day! (Of course you will, you are here with all of us)" and at the bottom: "Redeem this for a free back rub or.....something....." I thought it was pretty damn clever. So everyone is getting ready. We all get nice clothes on and the appetizers and desserts begin to flow to the table. The only thing our cabin had to offer were fruit cups...how nice I know. Other things included pasta salad, cakes, chocolate and peanut butter park, veal meatballs, buffalo chicken dip, apple stuff, peanut butter and jelly hors d'oeuvre, and....many other things I can't remember. It was awesome food. Aimee began to have people draw from a hate to get their valentine (whoever you drew, you gave them the card but you receive from someone else). I just so happen to get the first guy... Ryan Mantel. It was really funny though and he goes "I think I will take the something else" I ended up being Thomas Thompsons valentine (or his bitch how he called it considering how drunk he was). He actually bought chocolate for whoever it would be so I got two bars of chocolate! How nice, I know.
So everyone ate and hung out and drank and it was awesome. We had a nice little house party in cabin 7 with strobe lights (from iPhones) and it was a cool little thing and I have videos and pictures (on Facebook). It was definitely the absolute best Valentines Day I have had and I can say that with confidence.

SCUBA!!!

So....this was actually on Sunday but I have been "busy" and just not gotten around to posting about it. Let's hope that I haven't forgotten too many details. First off....breathing underwater is damn near the coolest thing I have ever done. Even though I was in a pool that was maybe 8ft deep it was still an amazing experience. To stay underwater and just sit there forever looking around. It's an incredible experience I encourage everyone to try.
Now for the actual fun stuff. We got there around 9am. We met our instructor...who I think had a crush on me (I will explain later) and she was really cool and blah blah. We got situated with all of our gear and met around the pool to learn how to check the BCD and regulators and all that fun stuff. It took a long time for her to explain and everything but it is important she is thorough and makes sure we know it since it is what our lives are relying on. So I check mine...twice....and waiting around (all of us were) and she walks by and pushed me into the pool. Yes...she flirted with me. I know it. All in all it was out of good fun and we all laughed about it haha.
We got in the pool and geared up and she had us swim around and pool with the snorkel first and figure out how to dive and just get the hang of it. then......we went under. It is much easier to breath from your mouth than you might think. The respirator breathes very easy and it was an odd experience at first. Kinda like "oh wow....I am really doing this, sitting here breathing underwater" everyone just looks around and it was awesome. We are all very clumsy down there. You move up and down so easy and its actually difficult to coordinate movements. She had us to different things such as clearing our mask, taking a weight belt off, taking the BCD off, and just making sure we knew how to do things.
We had a break for lunch and went to Subway....
When we returned and got back in the water it was 20x easier to dive and move around. I felt much more comfortable in the water and enjoyed the second pool dive a lot (especially considering I had to pee like a race horse toward the end of the first...and you dont wanna pee in a wetsuit...). This time we learned more safety things and with a buddy like getting them up out of the water if they are out of air and giving them air and all that fun stuff. This time my instructor chooses ME as her buddy (told you she had a crush on me). I actually think it was because we were somewhat the same size so it was easier. The part I was very nervous for was taking the mask off and then doing a lap underwater without the mask. It's a bizarre feeling to not have it on and your entire face to be in contact with the water. But if you stayed calm about it, you had no problems. I was proud that I opened my eye underwater (I do have contacts) and did a lap and was able to put my mask back on and clear it underwater.
This weekend we are going to the Julian Rocks (GOOGLE IT) this weekend. I will be doing 4 open water dives Sat. and Sun. and I am so excited about it.

Dorroughby, 10th of February

Friday we have a field trip to Dorroughby, which is a subtropical rainforest area. Lyn Lockery, who is our Australian Life & Culture class professor organized it for us. When we arrived we were first greeted by a goanna living in the area. It was sweet to be so close to this giant lizard. It was very calm for all the people being around and so close. Anyway, we were served lunch and it was amazing. We had a small salad (nothing special) but the protein they gave us. One for everyone and it was marlin, giant prawn and KANGAROO!!! Yes, I can say I have eaten kangaroo. It essentially tasted like beer. They gave us two dipping sauces which were very good as well. They had fresh bread that you put honey on, real Australian honey mind you. For dessert they gave us choc. chip and macadamia nut muffins. The lunch they put on was awesome and I was very thankful for it.

After lunch we were split in two groups. The group I was in went with the native Aborigine woman to tell us some history and a few dreamtime stories. It was fascinating. I could have listened to her for hours. They have nations of their own, rules, ceremonies, it was just so cool. She told us how the Europeans came and there were 7 massacres (in the area I was staying) from 1853-1863 or so. It really hurt to hear here saying that. Especially because it was so close to her family. Her family lied on the coast so they were affected by it. Her great grandmother traveled up the coast running from the massacres. She managed to escape 5 of them but was eventually killed. Before that though she wrapped her baby up and pushed her across the river to a man with the last name Cook. He was actually Captain Cooks cousin. It was all very interesting to learn the history. Her totem is the pelican because she is inquisitive and asked a lot of questions. She told us stories from when she was little (about the dolphins and fishing)...but I won't bore you with it. She told us the history of her tribe and how they first got there, and of the snake and the goanna and how the snake still waits for the goanna to return but never does and the freak waves at the point is the snakes bite (hopefully I remember the story since I won't write out everything). She told us that they believed there were giant animals thousands of years ago. Not dinosaurs, just animals. The strange thing was is that I think she truly believed it too. I remember her saying "You have your dinosaurs, well, we had giant animals" and it is so odd to me because I think she really does believe that. She said they had to live in caves to protect themselves from it. It was all fascinating. My roommate got to play the didgeridoo which was so freaking cool. And that was about it. That night we had a taco night with everyone in the camp and that was a ton of fun. I will have to figure out an effective way to post pictures on here...

The Past Few Days

From Wednesday -  Thursday not a lot has been going on. Wednesday was my marine biology class and it was actually incredibly cool. We learned about mangroves and estuaries and how they form and what they are all about. We saw some wildlife and two different kinds of crabs. One was the red fingered marsh crab and the other was the soldier crab. The soldier crab was one of the coolest things I have seen in awhile. Not only did they have a peculiar shape and walked forward rather than sideways, there were hundreds of them. It was quite a site to see. After that not much else happened, just hung around the cabin as usual.

Thurday we woke up at 7:45am...well only some of us, to go to the store and buy food. For some damn reason we had to go to two other department style stores and wasted sooo much time it was a pain in the ass. We then went to a mall that had a Woolworths (owned by Wal-mart but its only food), target, and other small stores. It is a really cool place. THEN we went to the liquor store Dan Murphy's. Now, I'm not 21 yet so I have never been in a liquor store in the State. But from any knowledge I have of liquor stores back one. This place is sooo nice, and it's HUGE. The people have uniforms they wear, the place is well lit and the interior just looks nice. I finally bought some alcohol too! (aside from at the bar where my favorite beer is the dark beer!!) I bought some AUS$13 box wine that is 5L. Which on the box says it translates to 5 1/2 bottles, so it's a great deal. Finally we went to Aldis and bough our food and went home. We left around 8:30am and go back at 12:30pm. It sucked and not to mention I have class at 1pm. So I hurried to make a sandwich and went to my events management class. That class is going to be a lot of fun. We have to make a blog which is where we answer questions he gives us as homework at. And this week we also have to organize sports with the group. Jami and I volunteered to organize soccer. So we will see how that goes. After that class I had the rest of my SCUBA certification class. We took a final exam (got a 49/50) and I can say now that I am a certified at SCUBA through Padi!! It's international so I will be able to do it anywhere. The Gulf would be a lot of fun. Once again the rest of the night was....uneventful.

Weekend 1 (Fri, Sat, Sun)

Friday was a pretty chill day. Woke up 8am (which was freaking amazing!!) felt like i was able to sleep in. At 10 we all met to sign up for a library card and then head out on a scavenger hunt around town to locate important buildings. Sounded like a lot of fun but it was a TON of walking. I was exhausted walking around town and we quit after the first page of the hunt. We ended at a very cool place downtown where there are food shops and all sorts of cool places. I definitely want to ride my bike back in town and explore more. I got food at this sweet little shop that had burgers and sandwiches. They do in fact put beets on their burgers! i didnt even ask for it!!. After lunch we walked all the way up to Lennox point. It was a breath taking hike up there and being up top. we went around and got some very cool pictures of the cliffs. Although....it was also very exhausting to walk up and back down. took about 2 hours total if not longer. My feet HURT SO BAD. I did get awesome pictures though. Not much else happened the rest of the evening. just the usual stuff. We went to the Lennox Head Hotel....which is actually a pub. The same band that played the night before played again officially as part of their international tour. We plan to go see them again and many others at the Byron Bay Blues fest. Its going to be a blast.

Saturday we went to Byron Bay. It is a freaking awesome city. there were a TON of little shops and what not and places to eat. We got in and I ate at this place called Wahoos and they claimed the worlds best fish tacos. I must fucking say....they were pretty damn good. The sauce they had had a nice little kick to it. I want to try their burritos next time. We were planning on walking around and checking out places but when we got to the beach.....we just had to stay. It was a great time. Lennox is awesome but there were so many people here and that made it just so much better. People had their dogs and one lady had us babysit hers while she went and had a smoke! We had a nice shaded place on the beach and it was an awesome way to spend the day. Can't wait to go back for longer and see the nightlife. The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful

Sunday was a pretty chill day. We began our SCUBA lessons and it was just the theory portion, watching videos, doing a study guide and taking quizzes. It took about five hours today but it actually flew by. We also had to tread water for 10 minutes and then swim 200 meters. it was a chore. The 200 meters was the worst part. My muscles were sore by the time I was back to shore. I would love to be able to swim long distance and be fit. After SCUBA i went and laid on the beach and went in the ocean. The rest of the evening just hung out until bed and excited for class in the morning!!

I could get used to this...

Day 3

I think day 3 might have been the best damn day of my life. it was absolutely beautiful. I woke up at around 7am and took at walk to the beach and took some amazing pictures. today i also took a fucking breath taking panoramic picture of our beach. it is unbelievable how amazing this place is. it has finally hit me that I LIVE HERE. i never wanna leave. later we took a walk around the camp with a guide. he knew his biology in and out and it was incredibly impressive. I ate some wild berries and leaves and learned all sorts of species of animals. Best day ever.

At night nearly the entire troop went out to the pub. I must say. I cant leave this place. it was incredible. two of the people here sing and play guitar and they went onstage at a local bar in AUSTRALIA and sang. and we listen to a woman named Beth play and she sang a song by Nora Jones and did an amazing job. we listened to some other songs. One about sex which was funny and another that really hit home. Went something along the lines of "....you came over as...and left as friends" it felt like the song for Australia. I wish i could remember the actual line. it was beautiful. drank three different kind of beers. Tiger, Toohey's New, and Toohey's Old. They were pretty good. Old was a very dark beer and tasted somewhat of coffee and a hint of chocolate. The pub was amazing. All the americans were up near the stage dancing and having an awesome time. It has finally hit me that i love it here. i never want to leave. I can't wait to make some more posts. Its amazing here. We walked on the beach at night and it was just amazing. I ended up having to pee so I got a little distance between me and the others and just walking along the beach in Australia under the stars with your own thoughts after a good night...it was quite the experience. God I love it here....

First two days!

We are finally beginning to settle into our cabins! But first, the flights

It was a long ass day. 4 flights. I still have to do the math for time spend traveling. Began at 4:30am and took off at 7am. Took an hour for the flight and waited an hour in Chicago. The Chicago flight was 4 1/2 hours and spent EIGHT HOURS IN SAN FRANCISCO. The flight from America to New Zealand was 12 hours. thankfully right after dinner i fell asleep and woke up occasionally but slept pretty well. I woke up 2 hour before landing and in time for breakfast. So the flight was not bad at all and the sleep helped the jet lag. Spent another 5 hours in New zealand. It was a very cool airport (will be back there). And then had a three hour flight to Brisbane. So looks like total flying time was.....i dont know. i will do it later.

Upon arrival and driving (2 1/2 hours) the country side is beautiful. it is amazing. cant wait to take even more pictures. lake ainsworth is a very interesting lake. it is stained a coca cola kind of color. The community is a very tight nit and warm place. I am very excited to get involved. We had a cook out and met the professors. We went to a pub that night, one that i imagine we will frequent quite a lot. Went to the beach and walked along it and my winter paleness got burned after about 30 minutes total on the beach (not even all at the same time!!). Definitely putting sun screen on a lot. My upper back and forehead are a little burned :( oh well! Sleeping was easier than i figured. It was humid and a little warm but it was surprising easier to sleep though.

The next day (2nd day here), we got a little lesson on water safety. mainly rip tides and then we went to a town south of us called Ballina.and we were at a mall and got food at Aldis. The mall was a cool place and would like to go back. i got back to the cabins and just hung out and eventually went to the beach and went for a swim! Rain clouds are rolling in and it was VERY choppy. the waves were huge! it was a workout but a lot of fun. The ocean is much cooler than i expected. difficult to get used to at first. Can't wait to get even more settled in. It's going to be a great three months

Two days before departure!!

Just been getting prepared to leave and making sure I have everything I need for my 3 months in Australia! Nearly all packed!