Christchurch, Canterbury, NZ

Christchurch.  What to say.  It kind of sounds weird, even after having been here, to not say “Cathedral” after “Christchurch”.  I do not know.  That is just my opinion.

Anyways.

Christchurch is a city in waiting.  Waiting to be demolished.  In the past two years (since about September 2010), New Zealand’s second largest city has had six earthquakes, the worse (scale-wise) was the original one in September 2010, but the most disastrous was the one on 22 February  2011.  But without the first earthquake, the one on 11.2.11 wouldn’t have been so disastrous. 

Along with the six earthquakes, there have been about 2000 aftershocks, which equates to about three per day for the past two years.  We were told that it’s been calm for a few weeks now (hopefully it’ll remain like this for a long time to come!), so I haven’t felt anything to do with earthquakes, although I haven’t even been here a day yet.  But I’m hoping to remain earthquake/aftershock free, hehe. ;P

They recently started demolishing Christchurch Cathedral, but the demolition has been put on hold due to a petition to save the destroyed structure.  I got to see it today (I have pictures, so you can see what it looks like, too), and WOW, the pictures on TV and the Internet don’t do the city justice.  I mean, sure, they show the destruction caused, but you don’t really get the whole idea just from that.  See how destroyed the city still is almost two years later, it’s incredible.

I was walking around the area of the Central City most destroyed today (they have everything blocked off really well…all the fence hire companies around the city must be doing really well! Haha), and you see spray-painted markings, saying “CLEAR” and then a date, showing just how long it’s been since most of the buildings have been touched.  And to think, the Central City wasn’t quite where the earthquake hit!  But that’s where the damage is most noticeable, I think, mostly due to how a CBD SHOULD look in the middle of a day, holiday (which today was) or not.

While on the tour, we were able to see a house of our guide’s friend which was destroyed due to the earthquake sending boulders into the air and into the house, one into the kitchen (where his wife had been minutes before), the other in the bedroom.  We weren’t actually supposed to be in there, but it was incredible to see.  He (the friend) told us that, about some brick that had been moved into a pile, it hadn’t been all the earthquake that caused the destruction of his home, but also the aftershocks.

I’ve been in shows like Supernatural where a clock stops when something bad happens, but I’ve never actually seen anything like that happen before.  Until now.  We saw two clocks while on the tour that had stopped working at 9 minutes to one, the time of the twenty second earthquake.  One was really near the epicenter, the other near here, on Victoria St, which commemorated Queen Victoria (? I think…)’s Diamond Jubilee.

In two places in the city, I saw memorials for the people who died in the quake, on at the site of St Luke’s, where they had used stones from the demolished building, 185 of pieces, one for each of the victims, for the display.  Another, on the south end of the city centre, used chairs, any and every kind, painted white.  It was inspired by a few pieces of art that use the empty chair to symbolise the person who is missing because they have died, or something (I have a picture of what it means, as they had information up at the site).  Oh, and it was on a patch of green grass, a square of 185m2, or something like that, to symbolise new growth and a new start.

Which reminds me.  I stumbled upon a mall today.  It’s called RE:Start, and the stores there are made out of storage containers.  It’s about restarting after the earthquakes and it’s a way of starting up again in the midst of the destruction all around the mall, as it’s right in the heart of the city, just down from Remembrance Bridge, which I just love.

The roads and the footpaths are all in a chaos of bumps and broken pavement.  The streets are in a constant state of rebuilding.  People are living on the streets, unable to find a place to live after their homes have been deemed unsafe.  And yet, even with the grotesque sight of rubble and a broken city, the city is still incredibly beautiful.  There are so many amazing things happening throughout the city that are incredible.  (They’re going to build a cardboard church that’s supposed to last for about five years until they’re able to build the real deal.  And don’t get me wrong, cardboard sounds like a crazy idea where they’ve had lots of snow (to their standards) for the past two years (OUCH!), and it’s not exactly the driest area, I’d assume, with how green everything is, but it’s a really cool idea.)

I hear from someone before I left Australia who had been here to Christchurch, saying that the city was still as it was almost two years ago.  They seemed cynical about it, like the city was just supposed to have completely rebuilt itself.  And, while yes, the city has been away from the headlines (thank goodness) for a long time, and yes, I didn’t really know what to expect of the city before I came, just that I knew I wanted to see the city I had heard so much about (it’s sad to think that an earthquake put it on the map for me, but it did).  And after hearing about all the earthquakes they had, and now it wasn’t just one or two, but six, and how they’ve also had to deal with about 2000 aftershocks in the aftermath, it’s amazing that they’ve even got as much done as they have.  They’re reopening the city as quickly as they possibly can and it’s incredible to see that happening.

I think everyone kind of just assumes that since New Zealand is a first-world country, well able to handle themselves in most parts, that they forget that when natural disasters happen, everyone needs help, not just those who were poor to begin with.  A city, no matter what, can’t just pick itself back up after something like this.

Anyways, they’re doing really well with what they have.

And that’s just the first day of my holiday in New Zealand.

Did you notice all the random facts that I threw in where I could? ;)  heheh.

Port Arthur

Yesterday, we went to Port Arthur, a very famous, very much still intact prison from the late 1800s. It was really cool seeing everything.

The part I think I found most interesting, though, was that anyone in any of the British colonies could be sent to Australia to serve their time. AND if they had money, they could go back to wherever they were living. Meaning that those Canadian convicts could return to Canada. So Canadians can (possibly unknowingly) have convicts in their history that served time in Australia, possibly at Port Arthur.

Anyways, that's all I have to say right now.  I'm currently on a city tour if Hobart. Ta! xxx

Fairy Penguins!!

These psst few days have been incredible! The tour to Melbourne from Sydney was heaps of fun, and I met some great people. We went to Canberra, which was kinda boring, and then to the Snowy Mountains, with the next day including walking through the snow AND swimming in the ocean! (For some of us anyways!) We saw kangaroos and emus in the wild, including some joeys! :3

The tour ended in Melbourne but we still hung out that night.  Oh and we saw an AC/DC cover band in the mountains.  Cool stuff. :P

The day after I went out to Phillip Island, which was awesome! I saw kangaroos, wallabies, emus, koalas, peacocks, dingos, and, best of all: fairy penguins! Such smart animals! I love them, officially my favourite type of bird (which probably isn't saying much, buuut).

I explored Melbourne the next day, and then flew to Launceston, Tasmania to begin the next tour. Today, when gbe tour began, we went to Cateracts Gorge, or something lakeheadu that, and it was really pretty. We then went to the Bay of Fires.  Really cool and pretty place. Remind me to tell you where the name came from layer. :P

This evening, we had the option of seeing fairy penguins (again), and so I did that, and it essential pretty cool. At one point, we had to wait while one of the penguins crossed in front of us. Haha, really cool! I love those guys! :3

Tomorrow, we head... somewhere before going somewhere else, before going to Hobart. Haha, I can't remember where we're going. :P

Well, TTFN! xxx

Surf Camp

<p>These last few days (the first few of my trip) have been amazing. I'm currently headed back to Sydney for a couple days before the next leg begins. </p>
<p>The last few days have been spent at surf camp, where I've been, surprise, surprise, learning to surf. And, while sometimes pretty painful (having to board hit you) and disgusting (getting a faceful of salt water), it was so much fun!!&nbsp; Yesterday (30th), one of the instructors stayed with me, even showing g me a different way to get up in the board after I was having difficulties with the usual way and getting stuck on my knees, until I finally got up all the wat and was surfing for a few milliseconds! Ah, what a feeling. Of course, this afternoon, when he helped me again, and I got up, the feeling was even better. I hadn't quite realised I got up, and when I got up and started heading back out, his reaction made it even better! Haha. They were both super excited whenever we finally got up and got the wave.</p>

<p>It was so much fun, and it's kind of sad that it's over, but maybe I can go back sometime or something. ;P </p>

<p>Tomorrow, though, it's bridge climbing time! Ahahah! Can't wait!</p>

<p>xxx</P>

Four Months

It's hard to believe I've been in Australia almost four months now. The time has just flown right by. I'll be leaving the place I've called home for the past 4 months, and that's going to be kind of really weird, methinks. I'll be in a different bed almost every night for a month.

This next month is going to be very busy. I have three tours planned, totalling 22days, a day of traveling - 9-something AM to 11-something PM - and some extreme traveling - 7pm to 830pm, the same day while crowing the International Dateline. I've got a few ideas for the days where I have nothing planned as of yet. Like the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb, and visiting the Olympic Park in Sydney, visiting the Blue Mountains, a day trip to Phillip Island, a tour of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory in Hobart, Tas (this one will happen on a free day), bungee jumping in New Zealand (might happen on the tour), as well as hitting some beaches, and don't some shopping. :)  Busy, busy, busy, but fun, fun, fun!

Until I figure out exactly what I'll be doing up until the 3rd of November, I'll be pacing and repacking my bag to try to make everything fit better. So much effort. This whole planning would be a lot easier with my laptop, but my adapter when kaput on the weekend, so my laptop is dead right now. :(  I'll be getting a new adapter when I get to Sydney though, so hopefully it won't be too much longer. *crosses fingers*

Well, I'm about ready to fall asleep...TTFN! xx

Queensland, Con't (con't)

Otherwise known as part three...

Anyways, back to Cairns! (I wish I could go back, actually.)

The first night was kind of boring, honestly.  The next morning, we were to get up pretty early in order to go to our activities (those of us going, that is... a few people didn't go).  Most of us signed up for the Great Barrier Reef tour, but a couple signed up for white water rafting.

After a tired breakfast, we met up in the lobby and headed down to the Esplanade, aka: the harbour, in order to get our boarding passes and load the boat.  Shortly afterwards, we were on the boat and ready to go.

Fast-forward a bit (including safety instructions with the guy telling us the emergency exits... EVERYWHERE! and the scuba diving and snorkelling information sessions) and we're getting ready to just ship as we've arrived at the first of the two locations.  Since my new camcorder (which I bought specially for this trip, specifically for seeing the Great Barrier Reef) is water-resistant, I brought it with me and went snorkelling.

While I had been scared just before jumping off the boat, once I figured out how to do it properly, I really enjoyed the experience.  Such a better experience than the first time!  I turned my camera on just after entering the water and recorded most of the time I spent in the water, looking at the reef and the fish.  I only stopped when I got excited about seeing a rainbow fish, which I had to get a picture of.

I didn't hear when they called for the other dive group to return to the boat, as I was underwater when they did.  And then, everyone I had been swimming with was suddenly gone.  But soon I made my way back to the boat and once the first group was out of the water, out of their gear, and signed back in, they got us ready to go in the water for our dive (after they showed us how to do everything properly).

Annoying, I had a lot of trouble getting my ears to pop, so I couldn't go very deep.  But that was okay, the guy we were diving with didn't take us too deep (it was still pretty deep, since my ears were hurting a little most of the time...) around the reef.  It was incredible!  I was able to touch the ocean floor at one point.  Ah, it was awesome.  And he pointed out the clown fish coming out of the anemone!  NEMO HAS BEEN FOUND!  We saw a bunch of other fish, too, none of which I know the names of.

And then, when the dive was finished, it was lunch.  I swear, by the time I come home, I'm going to have had so much curry and the like that I'm actually going to like it.  haha, if you couldn't figure it out, lunch was curry....  Anyways, then we arrived at the next location.  And I went snorkelling again.  We had the option to go diving another time, but since I couldn't equalise my ears the first time, I didn't want to do it again.  Plus, I really only wanted to do it the one time to begin with.  (The whole thing really freaked me out the first time, it was incredible, and incredibly scary.  haha.)  A couple people went down a second time, but I was perfectly content with just snorkelling.

Which I did for more than thirty minutes.  It was amazing.  At first I had some troubles with my mask and snorkel, but then I got them adjusted properly and everything was smooth...snorkelling after that (I just had to remember not to do any more dolphin dives...like I had down at the first location...after getting a little excited and not thinking about the open end of the snorkel... haha).  It was gorgeous, and I was sad when I realised I was supposed to be heading back to the boat.  Occasionally, I would look down at how long I had been recording, and would think to myself, "okay, I'll head back in five more minutes."  And then that five minutes would pass and I'd still be there in ten minutes, and I'd repeat it.  At twenty-five minutes, I actually did head back, because we were supposed to be boarding the boat.

Anyways.  That was a lot of fun!  On the way back, the crew put the sails up and we went sailing on our return to Cairns.

The night that followed was our last night on the tour, so we were making the most of it.  We started off by going to dinner at a restaurant called "Rattle 'n' Hum," which was really good!  And then, we moved on to a bar called the "Whoolshed", where it was (surprise, surprise!) ladies night!  haha, that entitled us to free glasses of champagne between ten and eleven (it was even served by good looking, shirt-less guys ;)).  Anyways, that was followed by a 'Wet Jock' competition, in which two of our fellow travellers entered.  And won first and second!  haha, of course, there was only a prize for first, but he had no clue as to what he had won, hahahaha!  Anyways, soon after that, we called it a night and headed back to the hotel...across the square (City Mall).

In the morning, after breakfast, we loaded Matilda (the bus, if you remember) and made our way to Port Douglas.  We began our day trip by trekking through the water and mud barefooted and with spears, in order to catch our tea...  erm, no thank you.  It was really gross, but it was alright, I guess.  hahah.  Quite an adventure!

After that, a little over half of us headed to the Wildlife Habitat Port Douglas in order to hand feed kangaroos and wallabies and cuddle a koala!  Lunch was first, and it was alright.  Would have been better with a fork...  Anyways, after that, we headed in to feed the kangaroos and wallabies.  And you know what?  They're incredibly cute and super soft.  It's a weird feeling to have the kangaroos and wallabies licking the pellets out of your hand like that.  I even had a random bird steal a few of the pellets out of my hand.  Ungh, I do not like those beasts.  (Which reminds me, we also saw Australia's second largest largest bird, the cassowary.  Google it and you will see the beast-osity-ness of that thing.  haha!  Also, you could look in my pictures, too, haha.)

This one time, when I was feeding this cutie of a kangaroo, one of the geese was trying to get the pellets from me, and it got between the kangaroo and me, and the kangaroo kind of pounced on it, and it landed (the bird) on my foot, which completely freaked me out.  haha, but it was alright, I just squawked and we moved on.  Obviously, the kangaroo wasn't impressed by the goose trying to take its afternoon tea.  :P

We saw a joey tree kangaroo.  Which was cool.  And we saw these huge kangaroos that I cannot remember the names of.  But they were very slobbery.  Haha.  And we were kind of chased down by an emu.  Which was just freaky.  THOSE THINGS ARE HUGE.  We saw a bunch of crocodiles, too.

And then we went and listened to the guy talk about Grizzly the cutie koala.  He was showing us Grizzly's bum and how it was white, and that woke the cutie, so it was picture time again!  Hahah, he was so cute when he woke and didn't know what was going on.

And then, we jumped in line, give our tickets, and got to hold Grizzly!  He was so amazingly soft!  And not very heavy.  Ah, I just wanted to cuddle him all day.

It was a great day and it was sad to see it come to an end.  After that, we headed back to Port Douglas and said our goodbyes.  Didn't realise we'd be seeing so many people afterwards, though, as I think the only people we didn't see were the people that we flying out that day, haha.

Anyways, that night, a couple of us sat around after dinner and watched the movie that was playing "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Since we started watching it part-way through, I was a bit lost...so I'll have to watch all of them again.  I'd been meaning to do that anyways, haha.

Anyways, after that, I talked with Mom on skype...but it was annoying as the hostel's internet was down and they were inconsiderate and couldn't tell me where I could find an internet cafe so I could use a computer.  Idiots.

In the morning, I found the mall (the real thing) as I had a dress to find and purchase.  Luckily, they had it, so I was very happy after that.  And, rather than the $15 I had seen it for at the store in Surfers Paradise, and the $20 that was on the tag, it was a very pleasant $10!  Woot!  Anyways, that day in Cairns was dedicated to shopping.  A lady at a souvenir shop decided that the price listed wasn't good enough and raised it when you went to make a purchase, so I told her to shove it and that she was an idiot and left, saving my pennies for someone who wasn't going to rip me off ($8.90 for one shirt, or $27 for three.  you do the math, my friend, you do the math.).  It was also my most expensive, as it was the only time I had actually really bought something.  I got a lot of stuff, too, so all was good.

I had a really yummy meal of chips (fries) covered in cheese and bacon (more like ham..) for dinner.  ah, it was yummy!  I wish I had been able to finish the cheesiest of the bunch, but I was sososo full.  After that, I headed back to the hostel, read some of one of the books I had bought in the Gold Coast (which turned out to have been Australian!), and called it a night, because I had to be up by four (FOUR!) in the morning to catch the shuttle to the airport to catch my flight back to Sydney so I could get back to Bathurst and school.

I did a bit of shopping while I waited to catch my train, and then we (Camilla and I) headed back to Bathurst, planning on ordering pizza once we arrived.  hahah, when we got to Lithgow in order to change to the bus that would get us the rest of the way to Bathurst, we realised Ida and Allen were on a other part of the same train carriage as we had been on.  haha, what are the odds?  We knew Ida was on the same train, and I had seen Allen in Sydney boarding the train, but we had lost them.

Ah, it was an amazing trip.  I was really sad for it to be over, as it meant having to go back to Bathurst and school and winter.  Bathurst by itself isn't all that bad, as it's home for the next while, but it's winter here (well, spring has reared its head) and it's school!  And who wants either of those?!  I surely don't.

I can't believe it's been a week seen the end of my trip.  It feels like longer and shorter all at once.  I would still like to be in Queensland, soaking up that sun!

Well, that's everything.  Talk soon!  xxx

ps; I realised the other day just how close Aussies are to eating poutine...  just change the cheese salt for cheese curds, and you've got our weird Canadian dish!  haha, Aussies also have gravy on EVERYTHING, it seems.  Not just the chips, but the main and all the veggies.  How interesting...and kind of gross.  haha, I'm getting the hang of telling them "just a little...ON THE CHIPS, ONLY!"  haha, it's pretty...different.  haha.  well, bye again! xxx

Queensland, Con't

Okay, where was I?  Oh right, so the next day we headed up to Brisbane, were we took a river tour.  And saw a big duck.  It was awesome.  (The duck, the tour was alright, too, but the duck was the best part.  It was HUGE!)

Then we had free time, where we could shop and get lunch.  That was good.  Then we boarded the bus and headed to Noosa.  Once we arrived in Noosa, we went on a walk along the beach, hoping to see koalas in the wild.  Nope.  But the view was incredible!

Afterwards, we went to for drinks and dinner at another hostel, I guess it was.  A bar, but at the hostel.  Whatever.  After dinner, we started talking to a couple of the guys staying at the hostel, and found out they were at the beach, kayaking, and that they had been waving at us, but no one had been paying attention to them.  Haha, we found them in a few of our pictures, too.  (They're in a few of mine.  Just look at the Noosa ones of the beach and you'll spot some kayakers in the distance.  Also, I ended up with one of them talking.  Just so they would really be in our pictures.  xP)

The next morning was really early.  And by early, I don't just mean seven or eight AM.  I mean five AM, so we could get going by six AM.  We were heading to Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island.  And while most people just found it very, well, sandy and bumpy, I really enjoyed being there and getting to see it for all it's beauty.  We went to Lake MacKenzie before lunch.  Wow, was the sand ever white and the water ever clear!  It was absolutely gorgeous.  It was a shame we only were there for an hour.

Before we got to the lake, or ever to Fraser Island, we found an animal.  A dingo!  Awesome, and incredibly gorgeous animal.  Actually, it looking like a larger version of Chloe, just a little more red.  We discovered it was a male, as all the dingoes in the area are tagged in one ear or the other (to determine the gender) in order to keep track of their dwindling population.  Ah!  He just remained so still and posed for us so we could take pictures of him.  Such a good model! :3  haha

At lunch, we ran into a kookaburra!  haha, it stole the sausage of one of the girls, it was THAT aggressive.  And then, we watched it while it ate.  So weird.  But kind of cool.  You could get really close, as it wasn't paying attention to you, only the food.

We walked through the rain forest on the island next.  Kind of cool, kind of boring.  Just your average walk, to be honest.  Nothing special.  I mean, we did see lizards, but I really couldn't care less about those weirdos.

The next morning, we got to sleep in a bit later, six AM, as we had to get on the road to Kroombit Park, seven hours away.  We had a bunch of stops along the way, I sent most of my post cards, got some food for lunch, and then we finished our trek to the farm!  Ah, the farm was so much fun, you would not believe!

First, when we got there, we had the option to spend A$10 and buy both a ringer (cowboy) hat and bandanna, which would not only keep the sun off your face, etc, it would also get you cheaper drinks at the bar.  I was just excited by the idea of having a new, cool hat, and not spending a fortune on it!  (haha, I just realised I should have bought an extra bandanna for Chloe...she would have loved that! :3  Meh, I'll get her something Aussie, not that she's going to know or anything.... xP)  Anyways, we found our rooms, changed into something we wouldn't care if it got dirty, then headed to do some lassoing and to have a goat rodeo!  woo!  So much fun!  I actually got the lasso to go around the target about a half dozen times! yey, so exciting.  And then, it was time for the rodeo!  haha, everyone had to have a team of three, and a name for said team with a word related to 'goats'.  It could be anything.  I teamed up with the fellow Canadian, Dan, and one of the many Germans, Dori, and we were "The Goats Show"!  haha, it was fun.  I got to 'brand' the goat.  The best part of the rodeo was when Dwaineo caught three goats and then got knocked to the ground by them (or so we thought... it later turned out that one of the other guys on his team, Chris, had accidentally pushed him down.  But no one noticed until the video was shown, haha!).  It was so funny and so much fun!

We headed back to our rooms or the pub after that.  At the pub before dinner, we tried a mystery meat, which we were told by Deano (or Dino (depends on my mood...), the driver of our bus) that it was koala.... It was really goat.  Anyways.  We had dinner after that, then did some bush dancing, and we even learned how to crack a whip!  Ah, that was sososososo much fun!  I had a lot of trouble at first, and then the girl who was helping me called the main guy over and he tried a few things, and then gave me a different whip, and then, shortly after that, I was breaking the sound barrier!  Woo!  And then, I caught myself up the back, so that was the end of that.  Hahah, but I loved it anyways!

In the morning, we did some activities.  Some people didn't do anything, and just hung around the farm or whatever, some went and did horse riding and a goat muster, and the rest of us went quad biking!  ah, that was a lot of work but oh so worth it!  so much fun to be had on those beasts!  haha!

After that, we headed to Emu Park for the night.  Bleh, and then it was to Arlie Beach!  Yeah!  We boarded the British Defender and went sailing for 24hrs.  A lot of fun to be had there!  The Whitsundays are incredibly beautiful.  Ah.  In the morning, we went to Whitsunday Island and to Whitehaven beach, which is even WHITER than Lake MacKenzie's beach.  ah, that was incredible!  I didn't want to leave.

Then we went snorkelling after lunch.  I figured it'd give it a go, even though it freaked me out.  Eh, didn't like that though.  Less than a minute after I was in the water, I hit my heel on the coral as the tide was so low and it was RIGHT UNDER THE WATER LEVEL.  And then, less than a minute after that, as I was trying to fix my mask and snorkel so I could see and breathe without having salt water everywhere, I scraped the other foot across them.  So, of course, now I'm all panicked and wanting to get away from the reef and everything that has to do with it.  It turned out I cut both feet, just the one on the heel wasn't quite so noticeable...

Anyways, shortly after THAT, we went sailing.  Kind of, sort of.  If only the wind then was as strong as it is today...or was today.  40+kms/h!  (Sydney's airport is apparently only opperating on one runway because of these winds.  And, no wonder I was having such a hard time moving while I was outside...wow!)  Anyways, then we arrived at South Molle Island!

We were able to sleep in a relax during our day on South Molle.  There were activities that we could do if we wanted, but we didn't have to.  Most of us went on the hike to the kop, where the view was so amazing that...that, I don't even know.  I was just really glad I didn't miss out on that.  haha, we spent the rest of the day around the pool (it was nicer than the beach, in all honesty) and just relaxed.  The first night, we had a Plastic Fantastic party, where everyone was to dress up using coloured bags.  haha, interesting...  The next night, we had karaoke, which was fun!  I sang "Don't Stop Me Now" by Queen with Kata.  And everyone sang Grease's "Summer Lovin'"!

The following morning, we caught a boat back to Arlie Beach, where we once again boarded the bus, Matilda, and headed on a 9-hour drive, this time to Cairns (pronounced, so you know, as 'cans')!  Long drive, many stops, plenty of games (okay, two), and lots of napping.  It was our last real trip on we would be spending on the bus, so we had to have a good time, haha.  The first game we played, Alan (tour guide) asked us questions about Australia and things we'd learnt while on the tour.  The second game consisted of Dino playing a song from a movie or TV show that kind of defined whichever.  Dan and I played together as we were sitting together and it was just easier.  It was a good thing, too, as I didn't know very many of them, and a bunch of the ones I DID know, Dan didn't, so I got to give those answers...the two three of them... Sorry, six!  haah, I just counted.  (Shrek, Cars, The Love Guru (had a small argument about this one, just about how I thought it was a bad movie, and how Dino thought it was alright, haha; but we were the only ones to get it! haha, go Mike Myers!), Slumdog Millionaire, The Wedding Singer (thanks, Heather!), the Lion King, and the Sound of Music.  That was seven, I know...I forgot about the Sound of Music, and I think he knew the Lion King, haha.)  It was fun.

I'll tell you about all the large objects we stopped at, and the few we simply drove by, later.  We stopped at a couple on the way to Cairns.  I can't remember the order of them right now, or I'd just tell you now.  haha

Anyways, we arrived in Cairns a while later.  And it was bound to be a good time, even though I had signed up for a Great Barrier Reef day trip and was having second thoughts about it, as I wasn't a fan of snorkelling after the last time I had been.... haha, anyways, I'll tell you about that tomorrow, as I've been writing this for a LONG time now.

ttyt! xx

Queensland

I've been meaning to do this for almost a week now.  I was sitting in my room Sunday night, thinking I should update, but then deciding that I was too tired to do it then.  And every other day of this past week, the only times that I've thought about writing an update, I have about a half hour to an hour-ish until I have to be somewhere.

Anyways, enough of my ramplings.  You're not here for them, you're here because you want to know about my adventures.  Here goes:

I spent about 14 days in Queensland.  I wasn't just in your typical destination places (capital: Brisbane) or Queensland places (the Great Barrier Reef).  Yes, I visited those, too, but just for a couple of days each.

My trip started around 5AM on the Saturday, as I had to get up to get to catch my bus to Sydney just before 7AM and I had to repack a little and catch a taxi to get there.  It was a pretty cold morning, and while I was on the bus, I wished I had of brought a blanket since it was so cold and there didn't seem to be any heat on the bus (air con, yes, heat, no.  geez, and it's still winter!).  (While I was waiting for the bus, which was late (I'll explain this in a moment), I wished I had my mittens, and my fingers were starting to go numb.)  You know, it doesn't feel like winter, no matter how cold it is, until there's snow, on the ground or in the air, doesn't matter.  This is why the bus was later.  Aussies don't know what to do when they get about one to two centimetres of the fluffy white stuff.  haha, of course, the main highway (The Great Western Highway) was covered in slush, but still!  Anyways, that was quite a sight to see.  (All of the area had snow in the forecast, and it actually came.  Canberra had snow the day before, and Sydney got unexceptionally cold, too.)

Anyways, when I got to Sydney, I explored a bit, as my flight wasn't for a few hours (I would have taken something a little later, except there wasn't anything).  Then, I caught my flight to Brisbane at 2PM.  By the time I landed in Brisbane, collected my bag and got to the hostel, it was almost three hours later.

I explored Brisbane a bit that night.  Had a random conversation with someone who was headed in the same direction as me about my choice of shirt (I was wearing my All Time Low one), and that moved on to Soundwave, which he was looking forward to.  (All Time Low are going to be at Soundwave next year! yey! Can't wait!)  I ended up finding out where everything was, but couldn't find anywhere I wanted to eat (and there were a lot of options, too), so I just headed back to where I was staying to look for something around there.  I settled on a place called "Pie Face" (Letterman had them on his show once, when they were opening a location in New York City, if the name rings a bell?), and was rather satisfied with my choice.

Anyways, that night I kind of planned out my next day.  And then, when it came around, I went to Fortitude Valley and Chinatown, where a market was to be starting around 9AM.  I bought some earrings.  (One of the pairs I'm planning on using for Cindy Ball at the end of the month.)  And then I headed to South Bank, planning on going to the beach.  Except, the beach was closed when I got there.  Which was just so pleasant, as it was the perfect day for the beach and a dip in the water.  Anyways, I checked out the market there, too, as it was another reason for my going.  I also got lunch, got scared by the big freaky birds (damn kids wouldn't stop scaring them even though their parents told them not to, goes to show you just how much the parents were paying attention. <_<), and had an all around good day.  I also crossed the Story Bridge (not knowing you could climb it like you can climb the Sydney Harbour Bridge) and walked back to South Bank and then back to the hostel (nice long walk... but was beautiful!).

I also planned on going on a walking tour of the city, but that didn't work out.  I was thinking of doing it the next day, but I just explored the area a bit by myself.  I also got myself lost, too, but I found where I was going and how to get out of the gardens I had wandered into.

I did a bit of shopping at Queen St. Mall, too.  Mostly browsing, actually, but I did get Mom a nice birthday present (a key ring).  And then, when I was bored of Brisbane, I boarded a train southbound and arrived in the Gold Coast, Surfer's Paradise to be exact.  All I can say about that place is that it's really pretty, beach-wise, and it's definitely a tourist trap.  It's also a party place.  I enjoyed spending some time on the beach, and shopping, where I found my Cindy Ball dress (but didn't buy it out of fear I wouldn't have space for it in my bags while I travelled, telling myself that if it was meant to be, then it would be in Cairns or Sydney), and some postcards.

The next day, I took a tour where the bus can go into the water, too.  A Ducks tour.  I don't know.  It was kind of boring, and would have been better if 1) they had of actually talked about what was around us as we passed more than the cost of it, and 2) it hadn't been so kid-oriented.  Sure it's something for parents to take their kids on, but the kids aren't the only ones on the tour, guys.

Anyways, I also met up with my tour while I was in the GC, and we went bowling and for dinner before going to a bar and then to a nightclub.  The bowling was pretty fun, and I got to meet a whole bunch of people whose names baffled me at the time.  haha, dinner was good and I met even more of the people there.  We played a game at the bar, in which you had to drink the drink and if you finished it, the person before you had to buy the next drink.  We were drinking beer, which I really don't like, so that was just pleasant.  haha, besides the beer, it was pretty fun.

We then headed down the street to the nightclub, Sin City, where it was ladies night, so we got our first cocktail free and all the others after it for $2.50, as long as we brought our glass back with us when we went.  And that was nice, trying a few of the drinks.

It was a nice night, too.  And the view from our room was just incredible!  I love balconies.  Only thing that could have made the hotel any better was if it was on the ocean and not just the river.  But it was awesome either way!

And I'm going to continue this tomorrow.  It's fourteen days, so it'll take me a while.  And I'm really getting tired...and I've already been writing for a hour. >.<  Anyways, good night (for now)! xx

My Holidays!

I'm not supposed to be here right now.  I have a 2500 word research report due at the end of next week that I'm trying to have done by tomorrow around 3pm that I've barely started on, but I figured since my mind was already wondering, why not give a little update.

So, while I'm still working out the finer details, it looks like I'm going to be in Queensland for my two week break that starts at the end of this week.  I'm super excited!  I can't wait to see all that the state has to offer, like sun and sand and fishies!  yey!  If everything works out properly, I'll be on a tour of the coast from the Gold Coast to Cairns, stopping in a bunch of cool places along the way, such as the Whitsundays (gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous!), and a day trip to Fraser Island.  Yay!  I'm so excited.

I'm also going to go on a tour of the Great Barrier Reef.  That's going to be so cool, and it'll give me the perfect opportunity to try out my new camcorder under water!  yey!  I'm looking at doing on with a scuba dive, as well as the snorkelling.  I'm not a fan of either right now, but maybe with the right motivation, I'll go for it?  Haha, who knows! :P

Anyways, I've bludgering all day, and I stressed out a little when I realised that I really don't know what I'm doing and this paper won't be as easy to pull the information out of... thin air, like I did with my Australian Lit paper, which I did surprisingly well on! (yes!)  So I kind of gave up at that point.  And then, after calming down for a little while, I went and found more information on what we needed to do, and printed it so it would be easier to read and focus on, and now I'm supposed to be reading stuff, but I think I can do that in a bit, since I only have one more journal article to read before bed, and then it'll be 2500 words tomorrow! (Which I KNOW I can do!)

Anyways, I've been eating Tim Tams this evening.  I forgot I even had them, but they're a lot better than I remember from my first tasting of them all those weeks ago.  I'll make sure I bring some home with me when I return for Christmas, haha! :P  Good Australian cookies are good.  (And I'll bring the Vegemite, too.  I haven't tried that yet, but I'm sure I will at some point, haha.)

I thought you'd like to know that my head's been feeling better today.  The past couple of days have been torture.  With the exception of Thursday (for obvious reasons), Saturday was the worst, and Friday was pretty bad itself.  Saturday, I felt like my head was going to explode, which wasn't fun, and that was after a relatively good day of not having much troubles with it.  And yesterday, about an hour before my Psych test, I got a massive headache, so that was just such a pleasant test!  (As long as I can go really well on my Case Study, which I'm pretty happy about so far, and I still have 2 halves of questions to go, I'll be golden and won't have to worry about how bad I did on that test....)  Even though I haven't been to see a doctor (whoops, probably should have after that bump!), I've been treating it like a concussion, seeing as that makes sense.  No alcohol, nothing too loud, nothing too bright, not too much reading in a go (haha, try studying the day before your big test like that!), etc.  A nice and relatively relaxed weekend was a good way to go about it, too, which is just what I had, besides writing my proposal for my Com class and studying for my test.

If I can get my assignment done by tomorrow afternoon, then I'll probably go out to the Olympic party tomorrow night.  I love the Olympics, so it'd be an awesome way to celebrate both that and being done my assignments.  I hope I can get everything done.

Well, I'm going to go eat cookies and read up on this boring stuff so I can write my paper tomorrow (good thing I have no classes!).  TTFN! xx

Upsets and Downfalls

Today's going to the dogs.  I have a pounding headache and all I want to do is sleep.  But, I thought, since I'm even having trouble doing that, I'd give everyone at home an update.  But as I was trying to figure out a way to tell you about what I've gone and done this past week, especially about what happened last night, I figured I'd write about all the slips and mishaps that I've had this past week (with the exception of one). So, here goes....

The Thursday before I went to Sydney, there was this event called Beef Brothers, where the guys put on costumes, get up on stage, dance, and strip and dance some more.  It was fun.  Mostly, a lot of the events at the UniBar are just preambles for drinking, haha, but anyways.  A few hour after we came back to our dorm, and an hour after I had decided to call it a night, I went down because I heard noises and I was kind of bored, so I hung out with a few of the guys that were hanging out there.  Yeah, one of them decided he wanted to do a handstand and....ended up coming down and kicking me in the arm.  It was so funny and it hurt so much that I didn't know whether to laugh or to cry.  So I just stood there, on the verge of tears, but also about to laugh.  So, for parts of my weekend in Sydney, my arm would suddenly feel really tight or heavy or like I couldn't hold it anymore, so I had to awkwardly carry it around so I wouldn't be in any real pain.

Last Thursday (August 2) was the Pirate Party at the UniBar.  (It wasn't as much fun as the pre we had, however.)  I had decided to go out with a few friends from another dorm, since we had been wanting to have a night out, and we still had yet to actually do so.  So, I decided to curl my hair using my new, uber hot curling iron.  All was going smoothly, until I was about 2-4 curls from finishing.  That was when I startled (or something) and the hot rod was briefly brought to my cheek.  Now, I've been burnt by curling irons and straighteners before, but I don't normally do anything about it because they're never hot enough to actually cause any damage, and it's just my ear....  But this time, I screeched and ran down the hall to the bathroom to try to cool the mark.  Of course, when I was going out, I had a bit of a burn mark, but that was alright, it just helped the costume...in a way.  haah.

My weekend was uneventful.  An uneventful weekend that should have been spent doing work so I didn't have so much to do this weekend, but oh well.

Monday.  Monday.  Monday was the first day this week I whacked my head.  I had been roped into playing dorm sports again this week, as I had been two weeks earlier, and since I didn't have any other pocket except for the one in my hoodie, which isn't much of a pocket, I was just putting my key in my shoes in the cupboard across the hall from my door, when, BANG.  I was standing up, not realising I was still in the cupboard, and whacked the top of my head on the top of the cupboard.  Ehhhh, at least I was fine enough to play netball (where we lost).  And then, as the game was going on, kangaroos raced by and started eating grass nearby.  SO AWESOME.  There was even a little kangaroo with them (not a joey in the pouch, just a little one hopping about on their own).

Also on Monday, I was just finishing straightening my hair, mostly to dry it as it was about 11:30pm, and I ...no, I was seeing if I could curl my hair with the straightener.  The answer at that time, was no.  Anyways, I accidentally put my finger by the plates and...had a shiny burnish mark on my finger.  It hurt, but was fine by morning.

Tuesday was my Australian Literature presentation... meh.  And Mr. CSU.  Fun times.  Wednesday...was boring.  I worked on one of my assignments, I still need to finish 3 more questions (15 marks, out of 50...), I even went and stayed at the library until late on Wednesday night.

Now, Thursday.  Thursday was a good day turned bad.  I had a pleasant morning, where I actually got down and did the nitty gritty of my work in my class and tutorial and only got distracted a couple of times.  I curled my hair again, this time with straightener, and tried figuring out what I was going to be at the DK party happening later that night that I wouldn't have to go to town to get anything for.  In the end, I decided on an Greek/Roman woman, and made my sheet into a toga.  Heheh, it was kind of lame, but it was better than the nothing I had initially been.  (The theme was "When I Grow Up".)  We had a pre (very common, less money spent at the bars...) in our common room, and after a while, I decided to fix my fallen curls...and wound up with an annoying burn on my finger.  Ung, and as I was running it under the cold water for a second time, the fire alarms sounded.... grr, and it was freezing outside!  Of course, there was't an actual fire, it was just some idjit smoking in their room... again.

Anyways, a little while after we went back in, we went over to the UniBar for the party.  There, there were penguins, cows, bears, giraffes, kangaroos, lions, gorillas...etc, as well as Batman and Robin, the Joker, Santas, fairies, etc, and a lot of other things.  Heh, I spent a lot of my night walking around, mingling with a bunch of people I just met, as well as people I had met at previous evenings out or during classes (or, maybe not so much....) or wherever.  At one point, I was talking with this one guy, and we ran into another guy, and the first guy was all, "I'll just take my jacket" (he had given it to me, because it was so cold... :3) "and leave yous to it."  Yeah, then they both kind of walked off, and I was all "Okay, I'll just go find that bear that I know" since I had met the guy dressed in the bear costume the week before.  Yeah, that was a bad idea....  I was just telling this other guy that I couldn't remember his name and asking him if he had enough drinks (3 rums and cokes enough for you?) and talking with them and Ida... when someone dressed in a gorilla costume came over.  I was all "Hi.  Who is that?" when I was suddenly no longer on my feet anymore...which I really didn't want, I was struggling as he was moving to lift me.  And this, just as I wasn't on my feet anymore, I was falling backwards, his grip still on me...and then I whacked my head on the floor.

As he started pulling me back up off the floor, all I wanted to do was lay back down and scream.  I was crying before gorilla-man placed my back down on the floor, and still crying as they helped me sit up.  They helped move me over to the wall so I wasn't in the middle of the room, and it felt like the biggest few steps...ever.  While I didn't recognise a few of the people, I knew that Ida was there and that the guy whose name I couldn't remember with all the drinks (he told me a bit later his name's Tyler) was there.  After a girl helped calm me down, Tyler asked me some basic questions (name and date), and then, "Who's the prime minister of Australia?"

All very slowly as his words reach me, and then after a pause, I replied, speaking rather Australian, "How the **** would I know?!"  To which, he laughed and told me that was a very good response.  After that, some guy got me a glass of water, and someone else got me ice, and I sat with Ida while the pain started to subside... a little anyways.  Later, bear guy was telling me that he wasn't sure if I should be sleeping, since I hit my head so hard and could have a concussion.  And while I hadn't exactly been tired before I hit my head and I was really tired afterwards, with a massive headache, I knew that wasn't much, seeing as I had had a long day.  I also wanted and didn't want to sleep....

So, that was my night.  I realised today that you can tell who is genuine and will help you when you're in need, and who to just stay away from, period.  Gorilla-man is one of those people (to stay away from), I'm just going to put that out there...I know he's apologised for both dropping on my head, and for insulting me as a Canadian, and maybe he's a great guy when he hasn't been drinking, but I've only seen him when he's drunk, and I don't particularly like what I've been subject to.

Also, after having told a couple of the guys in my dorm about missing Flume because I was busy being dropped (HOW FUN!), one of them was all, "Why didn't you come get me?" and "Next time, come get me."  (All said with a very serious face.)  Yes, Pat, you'll be at the top of my list the next time I whack my head on the floor.  And also, THERE'S GOING TO BE A NEXT TIME?!?!!?

That's my week in a nutshell.  I'm thinking of going to town to get some stuff, like something for my headache, and some snacks, and doing some work today, and maybe not.  I've got a bug bump on the back of my head and writing this has seemed to help ease my headache considerably (so much so that I don't want to stop writing it right now... :/).  I think I'm going to have a very chill and relaxed weekend where I just do school work, watch movies, and read.

Oh, I'm going to upload my pictures (that are on Facebook, and some of which are on Flickr) to another site tonight, so anyone can see them, since Flickr isn't going to let anyone see all of them at once.

TTFN, talk to yas when I'm feeling better (maybe before, during, or after my trip to Queensland in a week!). xxx

Video!

Hi there!  I was in Sydney over the weekend.  It was a lot of fun.  I took about 1500 pictures and videos over the course of the two days.  So there's going to be lots that you can all see.  Once I get everything uploaded, that is.  I have all the videos loaded onto my YouTube page, so feel free to jump over there (really, who am I to stop you from doing what you want? :P).

Anyways, rather than me writing everything here and telling you and making you read every little detail, I made a video while I was in Sydney last night (Sunday 29 July 2012) detailing those two days.

Part 1:  I thought I had to get off, but it turned out my stop wasn't for a while yet.

Part 2: A bit longer.  I forgot to tell you that I also visited Sydney Tower, which is why I was able to point it out.  And the name of the ice cream parlor I was at was called "Royal Copenhagen", which is probably where I got the idea of "D" from... Denmark?

Anyways, there's a lot more videos of my weekend, including, but not limited to, the ferry from Circular Quay to Manly, my walk along Bondi Beach (two or three videos), my short walk along Manly Beach, my walk across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and 360 views of where I was looking and what was around me at that very moment.

Pictures will be uploaded in the next few days onto both my Facebook page and my Flickr account, so look out for those.  Oh yeah, and because I was using two cameras, there are a bunch of both pictures and videos out of order, but since there are so many, I'm not being bothered to correct that.  Also, I'm much too lazy and tired to have anything to do with renaming the videos.  haha.

I was up at about 6AM this morning in order to catch my train.  And it was late.  So, that's really annoying.  But, I made it in time for my class.  Which is good.

Anyways, I've put more into this than I had planned.  I'll talk to you later!  xx

Hey, Hey, Hey!

I've had a rather accomplished day today, and it feels great!

Today, I woke up with my alarm at 7:50AM, pressed snooze, and woke again just before 8:00AM.  Where I decided it was time to get out of bed and put my slippers on.  After a moment's thought and remembrance that I don't have class on Monday's until 1:00PM and breakfast is on until 9:30, I decided it would be fine if I used the extra time to sleep.  So I reset my alarm for 9, and went back to sleep, waking promptly at 9AM.

After that, I hurried to get ready and to breakfast before the dinning hall closed.  Had the usual, with a slight twist: english muffin with honey (the twist, I usually have either an english muffin or toast with butter) and corn flakes with skim milk and sugar (I really only like frosted flakes or something like that, so I really need the sugar, haha!), and this morning, I had to have water instead of orange juice as there wasn't any juice in the machine and it tasted like extremely watered down orange juice.

Anyways, when I was done, I headed back to my dorm, where I began studying.  I realised that I learned a lot of the information during a class I had to take last year, so I ended up skimming through the notes.  When I was about three pages into the textbook reading, my phone rang, and Mom was calling.  yey!

I talked with Mom for a while, found out that she switched my blackberry over to an iPhone4, as she thought that I liked iPhones.  I'm an android girl, but it doesn't really matter to me.  I have my nice new phone here, and that's fine with me. :D  I don't really remember what else we talked about.  A little about the F1 race that was on last night and some other stuff.

I returned to studying after I hung up with Mom, and then headed to lunch, where I had my usual wrap there: plain wrap, with turkey, ham, chicken tenders, cheese, and two slices of cucumber.  haha, the girl remembers it, which is really awesome and why I always try to go to her. :)  I was almost finished eating when I was called over to come sit at a different table... so I moved over there and finished eating with them.  I recognised one of the guys from a night I was out at the bars, and a couple others looks familiar, as in I had seen them around campus and around the dorms, but nothing more.

Anyway, after lunch, I headed to my tutorial and that was kind of boring, but whatever.  I went back to my dorm after that and decided that since I had such a gluttonous weekend that I would hit the gym in an hour.  And so I did.  And it was awesome.  I came back, showered, went to dinner, put on some laundry, as I noticed a mark on the back of my favourite jacket (D:), and then ended up playing dorm sports!  Hahah!

Dorm sports.  Whoever's playing is either playing European Hand Ball or Net Ball.  This week, we played Net Ball, which has roots in basketball, but is still very different.  All I was really told about it (which was enough to get by, haha) was that when you have the ball, you can't move, you can only pass the ball.  And whatever position you play, you have to stay in certain areas and out of others.  I played three positions throughout the game, so I got a bit confused after the first switch and since I was going back to almost the same position with the next, it was a bit easier.  Hahah.  Sadly, part way through the game, one of the girls on our team heard her ankle snap and had to be taken to the hospital.  Yikes!  I really hope she's okay!

The other team gave us one of their many players and we continued the game.  And we ended up winning, 8-6!  Alright!  That's not bad!  haha!

I also forgot about my laundry and it's still mostly wet, but I'm much too lazy and tired to go bring it back down to the laundry room and throw it back in the dryer.  -__-  It's two floors down....  yeah.

So that was today.  Oh right!  We got interviewed at dinner today about ResLife and campus life and the food and all that.  It was kind of weird but alright.  haha!

Two weeks ago, I had my first big night out in Australia.  Harry Potter night.  It was a lot of fun.  We went out the Saturday that followed, too, and that wasn't quite as fun, but still lots of fun, too.  haha.  I really don't know why I went out when I was exhausted before then, but I still did.  Before that, we watch Atonement and ordered pizza.  But I seem to recall I've mentioned this before?  Anyways.

Thursday was a huge night!  One of the guys had his 21st birthday at a bar in town, so we went to that and got free drinks, as he had a tab going.  It was really only supposed to be for beer or wine, but someone convinced him to buy seven of us vodka and whatevers.  So I had one of those with lemonade, haha.  When we left, we headed back to the dorms, drank a bit more, before headed over to the real party: Drs and Nurses!  Hahah, We went over just before 10PM, I met a whole bunch of people, danced, had an alright time, and then tired to escape from this guy who wouldn't leave me be.  Ungh.  I was in my room around 12:45PM, but didn't go to be for another while.

But I was abruptly awoken by a huge crowd.  I could hear them outside my door, so I was thinking that they were just passing.  And then I heard one of the guys yelling at them to shut up, and was half-asleep-thinking, "You go, Ben!  That'll do the trick!"  So I went to go back to sleep completely, but of course it didn't do anything, so I stumbled out of bed and into the hall, where the top floor of our dorm was gathered.  I noticed that it was about 4AM.  This went on for a while.  Security was called, but was in effective, I got into a heated argument with a douche in the common common room who was trying to take the chairs from there and bring them to the breezy outside to sit on.  RAs were called, but it still went on for a while longer.  Finally around 20 to 5, everyone was finally gone (I don't know how it happened, as the door was locked so they couldn't get in and hurt anyone else, as they had already attacked a few people in the dorm), and we were able to go to bed.  Finally!  Of course, I couldn't really fall back to sleep...  And luckily, I didn't have any classes on Friday, so I didn't have to worry about missing anything if I did sleep in or all day.

On Saturday, I decided to watch Mr Bean and Mr Bean's Holiday.  Both really funny.  And then watched an episode of a show to kill the time before having to head over to see a movie with some friends at another dorm and order pizza.  We watched 10 Things I Hate About You.  When I got back to my dorm, I was invited to watch another movie, American Pie: Band Camp, so joined in on that, too.  Haha, I also decided to start re-watching Hart of Dixie, so did that all weekend (I'm now up to the 11th episode, which is just shy of half way through....there are 22 episodes....  haha, whoops!).  I spent all day Sunday watching Hart of Dixie (if you haven't seen it or heard of it, you should check it out!  It's a really great show, and I really love it!), and snacking on leftover pizza, cookies, chocolate, and Pringles.  Ungh. (Which is why I had to go to the guy today...and I'll probably be there as much as possible throughout the rest of this week, too.  haha!)

Well, I'm rambling now, and I have nothing else to say, really, so I'll go.
TTFN, xx

Mini Update

I just have one itty bitty thing to say: if you want to stop by and say hi, sure, fine, whatever, I don't really care. But, when I do care, it's because it's like 12:30, and I'm trying to sleep!  Gack!

Anyways, all is going well here.  A little exhausted this morning (thanks lion guy and friends) but good.

I got my first piece of mail at my new Australian address. So exciting! Now I can go shopping a bit, as I was starting to run out if money and it was my bank card. yey!

I had a link shared with me this morning about catching a kangaroo! Oh, was it ever funny. I loved it!  I was even laughing before I even watched, as the title just made my brek.  Haha, thanks Sarah!

Well, I'm going to go now. I have lunch to get and eat and then class at one. Sorry, I meant a tutorial at one. I don't have class until tomorrow, and it's a different subject, haha.  Then I have to go get a few groceries as the sale ends tomorrow and and I want to stock up a bit.  And either today, tomorrow, or Wednesday, I'm going to see another play (we saw one on Friday, and it was pretty good. :)), mostly because I've met someone who's in it (met him at the train station in Lithgow, and have been seeing him around a lot).  Plus it kind of sounds like it'll be fun and funny. My favourite kind, haha!!

Okay, TTFN! xx

First Day of Classes

I had my first class today.  It was fine.  He gave us a copy of the sides that he had prepared so that we could follow along, which was wonderful.  I could listen to what he had to say and what his examples were without having to worry about coping the notes down.

I also found out that, with the exception of class on Wednesday, there will only be tutorials until after the mid-session break.  So that means no Psychological Testing classes until the beginning of September.  But he also gave us a CD that contains the next weeks of lectures, so that we can learn it on our own terms, as apparently it's a little tricky.  We'll be expected to know the stuff by the tutorials, so that'll keep me motivated to actually do the work.  Plus, there will be a massive test on it when we do have classes again.

However, I don't have a CD player or a disc drive on my lap top.  So I either have to buy one, borrow one, or see if someone with a disc drive can rip the CD for me and send them to me.  Haha, I'm hoping for the third option, actually...  We'll see how it goes, though. :)

He also told us that we should sign up for a tutorial, and put our preference down for whichever time slot we'd like.  Of course, even though I picked one, it doesn't mean that I'll be getting it.  But you know what?  Even if I don't get the one I'd like, it doesn't really matter.  If I got the later tutorial, it would just give me more time to study before class.

So, with not having classes most of the time in this subject, it means that there are weeks when I'll only have classes on Tuesday and Thursday, and a tutorial on Monday afternoon.  Which will be really nice!

Other than that, at lunch I thought I would try something new and got the 'sweet chili and chicken stir fry'.  Yeah, I won't be getting that again.  The chicken and rice were fine, I just didn't like some of the vegetables that were in it, nor did I like the sauce stuff.  (Bleck, there was baby corn!)

After lunch, I headed to town in order to set up a bank account.  But when I got there, one of the two people able to do so was at lunch and the other was with a customer.  So, I went and did my shopping and it was while I was on my way back to the bank that I realised I wasn't sure about what my postbox number was.  And because my phone doesn't work here, I couldn't find the email I had sent off to Mom with it.  Whoops!

After that, I headed back to campus, decided that I could either go back later today or go back tomorrow.  I went with the latter, seeing as it's about 4pm now and that's when the bank closes.  Haha.

At least I did some shopping and got a couple things I had decided I didn't need yesterday.  Oh well.  At least it's good excise!  Haha.

Well, I'm going to go.  I need to get sugar (it's only $0.50 from the Mini Mart, whereas in town it's about $2 more for the same size), and the store closes at 5pm.

TTFN! xx

Australia!

So I made it to Australia!

I'm a little late on getting an update on here, but since when am I ever on time with anything?  Unless it's an important assignment that's worth most of my grade, then I try to be, but other wise... not so much.

The past couple days have been orientation.  While I had planned on doing something yesterday, I bludgered and didn't, so I had to do it all today.  But I didn't do that either.

Anyways, let's start from the beginning and do a quick recap of this past week.

Saturday afternoon, I said good-buy to Mom and Dad and boarded my plane to Los Angeles.  That was a relatively uneventful flight, besides the fact that I got to see the desert for the first time, as well as getting to see parts of the Rockies that I had never seen before.  I also got to see the desert quickly turn into the mountainous landscape that is part of LA. Which was really cool!

Upon arriving in LA, I found my luggage, hulled it around with me while I took a couple pictures, and then got lost.  When I reach the Air France area, I asked the guy, and he sent me back the way I came, passed where I had started and to the opposite end of the building.  Luckily, it wasn't a super huge terminal!  haha!

And then, of course, the Air New Zealand people were on a break.  So I had to wait.  And so I rearranged my luggage.  And rearrange it I did.  And then, when it came time to check in - finially! - she had me rearrange it a bit more so my carryon wasn't quite so heavy.

Then it was on to security.  For that, I had to go through the body scanner thing, something I hoped I'd never have to do, as I feel it's an invasion of my personal space, thank you very much.

Anyways, after that, I found the gate that my plane was leaving from, and then headed around to see what there was to do for my four-plus hour layover in Los Angeles.  I bought a key chain, and found someplace to have something to eat (a place called Nate'n'Als Beverly Hills) which was really good and super fast.  And wasn't too expensive, either.

And then it was the wait.  I wrote an email (which I couldn't send) to my parents and listened to music while I waited.  And then, I realised I was at the wrong gate.  I was at gate 23 when I should have been at gate 23A, whoops, my bad.  haha, no biggie, I'm sure lots of people were all mixed up between the two gates.

On the flight over to Auckland, NZ, I sat in seat 55B, between two older men, Tony at the window, Paul on the isle.  They fed us shortly after take off, so.... yeah.  And then they dimmed the lights, and that was spectacular, as they went from pink to purple to blue before going dark.  I tired watching a movie, but my headset was half broken, so it was just uncomfortable.  And then, I fell asleep, and when I woke, it was still dark.  I found out my screen had stopped working so that I couldn't track the flight and how much longer we had, but that I could still watch movies, etc.  I ended up watching This Means War, which was pretty good.

When we came within seeing distance of Auckland, Tony pointed it out and let me lean over him to snap a few pictures of what we could see of the lights.  The pictures seemed to have turned out to be not much more than a few blurs in a black screen.  Oh well.  My suggestion is to use your imagination, haha!

Anyways, when I landed, since my bag was already checked through to Sydney, all I had to do was head to the international connection security area.  On the way, I started talking with someone who had been sitting somewhere nearby.  He had been coming from San Francisco, where the weather in the summer was about the same as the weather in the winter where he's from, Brisbane.  Which is kind of weird and kind of cool at the same time.  I was kind of surprised to find out that he knew of CSU, seeing as the few Australians we had previously mentioned to that I was coming here had no idea of the school at all.  Which is kind of funny, seeing at it's apparently one of the largest Universities in New South Wales.

Anyways, the security guys very very friendly, especially for before 6AM.  But it helped keep me going.  When I had finished collecting my things, I ended up a little lost, seeing as I had gone up the wrong stairs without knowing.  I asked someone where to go, and found it after a few minutes of walking.  Shortly after I arrived, they started boarding the plane.  This time, I didn't get to go in the first couple sets as I didn't have a seat at the very back of the plane, but I didn't care.  It gave me a bit more time without being cramped in the small plane seat again....

On the flight to Sydney, I was thinking of catching a nap, as I was still very sleepy, but it didn't happen.  I ended up waking up while I was watching The Lorax and eating the second breakfast I had been served on a plane in just over two hours.  (Did I forget to mention that they gave us breakfast on the flight to Auckland, too?  Well, they did.)  So I had the fruit and muffin from that and not the main part, as it didn't look appetizing.

And then, I decided that I might be able to finish another movie, as I had a little less than an hour and a half, so I ended up watching I Don't Know How She Does It, which was the first movie I had tried to watch, but had stopped.  It was pretty good, though, and I'm glad I did finish watching.  (I'm glad I watched The Lorax, too, as it too was alright.)  Soon after, we landed, and then it was off to customs and immigration.  Since they give you a card to fill out on the airplane, I was wall ready to go when I got there, so I jumped right in line and was good to go.  When I got to the front of the line, the only problem I had was that my passport wasn't reading.  But once that was cleared up, I went and found my bag, so then I was hulling the two of them again along with my backpack.  I didn't have to get my bags searched any more than with the scanner, so I was good to go after that, so then I headed through the airport, finding out where I needed to go in order to catch the train,

And then, once I found that, it was pretty easy.  Once I got to Sydney Central, I got a little lost, as nothing was really marked that well, but asking someone sent me in the right direction.  After checking my bags, I went to see about exploring Sydney a little.  But I didn't want to get lost, so I didn't.  A while later, I boarded my train after I saw that my bags were on the train.  Only, a little while later, they switched tracks, so I was wondering if my bags got onto the right train.

I found out in Lithgow, after not worrying about them, that they didn't.  They were on the wrong part of the right train, so they were still at Central Station after the train had left.  Which meant that when I got to Bathurst, I wouldn't be able to go straight to bed.
I found my room once I was taken to campus (I had sent in an arrival request form which meant that someone would pick me up from the station, which is awesome) and.... it wasn't ready for me.  There were no curtains, and there wasn't any sheets or bedding.  And there also wasn't a mattress or a deadbolt on the door.  I met one of the RAs and she helped me with most of that, as well as took me to dinner at the dinning hall.
At six, I re-met-up with the guy who had originally picked me up at the train station so that I could get my bags and so that he could pick up some more international students, who are also on exchange from their school (they're all from the same one) in China.  I met Adam (his English name, :)) before leaving.
Once I was back in my room, I made up the bed, and fell asleep, even without a pillow....  I sent an email off to my parents when I woke in the middle of the night, and then played around before deciding to go back to sleep.


When I woke, I explored campus a bit.  And then I moved rooms.  A couple of the cleaning ladies helped me get my room situation all straightened out and found me a better room that I'd be able to move into.  And they got me a pillow.  Which made my liking of the place improve quite a bit.

Later, at lunch, I saw Adam again and sat with him.  We got to know each other a little while we ate, and then we spent some time walking around and talking.  His English is rather broken, as he doesn't get that much of a chance to use it in China, but for the most part, I can figure out what he's trying to say.

The next day was the start of Orientation, where I found out that the other three from China English names are Claire (not sure if that's how she spells it...), Erin (she's spelled it a few times so we would know what she was saying), and Allen (I saw that him writing it one time). I also met Ida and Camilla, who are both from Norway.


As part of Orientation, we got to see Mount Panorama, a large hill where you can see the whole town and into the mountains.  It's absolutely magnificent.  We were told that it's even better at night.  I can't wait.

We went shopping and were given a tour of the town to show us where some of the things were.  When we got back to campus, we went to dinner with a couple of the RAs from... a dorm that I can't remember.  haha, it doesn't really matter.

Thursday, was the Orientation for anyone new, not just the international students.  So there were quite a few more people.  I found out one of them lives downstairs.  But I don't know his name, haha.

But anyways.  We had a tour of the campus and the library.  I was asked if I was American on two occasions, which I didn't like, but I don't think I showed it, just corrected them.

And like I already mentioned, I bludgered rather than doing anything.  By the time I was about to go get a mailbox, the Mini Mart was already closed.  And by the time I was going to see about getting a book from the library so I could read it before my class next week (where were not talking about it or anything yet, but I wanted to get a jump start on the reading so I could be a little ahead of where I'm normally), it too was closed.  So I just read my book and did a little bot of laundry.  All was good.

Friday - the day I started writing this - was the last day of orientation.  Afterwards a bunch of us headed to town in order to get some stuff and get some stuff done.  Adam and I get a mailbox at the Mini Mart, so now I have an address.  And I looked at a couple more mobile phone stores, but I was overwhelmed a bit.  We shopped at Big W and the Reject Store and Woolworths (or as I heard a local call it, Wooly's).

During our shopping at Big W, we decided that we should have a pizza and movie night.  And we should have all the international students together for the night.  So we're going to see how it goes.

Once we returned back to campus, I found out that there isn't a fridge to keep some of the food I bought cold.  So I ended up with the option of eating it or letting it waste.  I chose the former.  It was alright.

But anyways, I'm going to go.  I've been ready to get into bed (after getting into my jammies, of course!) for quite a while now.  I've got a big birthday present to buy myself tomorrow - a mobile phone.  I think I picked out one online that I want to get a better look at and maybe purchase in store, at Dick Smith's.

Oh yeah, and I found out where the bank is that I wanted to go to.  After it was closed and we were on our way back to the campus.  Haha, oh well.  I'll just go on Monday after class to open an account and see about getting my scholarship transferred into it.  And then I'll have some money again.  Not that I don't have money.  Haha, I'm just running out of small bills, which comes natural when you forget about the fifties.  haha.

Anyways, TTFN!

ps: there are a few places you can see the pictures.  I'm going to try to keep both as up to date as possible.  Flickr is one, and Facebook is the other.  For my videos, there are a couple on Flickr, but all of them are on youtube.  okay.  byee!

To Dos

It's really just starting to dawn on me that I'll be in Australia in just a few days.  Every time I think about it, I get excited.  And I know that this excitement will just increase as the week progresses.

Of course, there is a touch of anxiety that comes along with the excitement, as I still need to pack and fit everything into my one suitcase, and I'm still not one-hundred percent sure what I need in some parts of packing. But that's just a small part of the emotions.

Anywhoo, last night was our 'barbecue'.  I had fun.  I was given an 'Australian Made' koala that plays a didgeridoo (of course, the didgeridoo fell off when I was adjusting it today...).  It's super cool.  I love it!

I made Pavlova for dessert, but since I was given an ice cream cake from Dairy Queen (it had the country, a koala, and a kangaroo!), it was forgotten until I went to open my cards.  Oh, Grandma asked me if I was going to get my bangs cut before I left.  ...I just got my hair cut, so.....  I don't think I'll be getting them cut anytime soon, considering both the length of my hair overall and my bangs is much too short for my personal liking, since I got about 5 inches cut off each... (yikes!).

Thinking about Grandma, she invited us over on Wednesday for pizza.  And while Grandma's apartment is small, it's always nice going over to hers for a visit with everyone.

Anyways.  I'm trying to give myself lots of things to do while I'm on the planes and waiting around in the airports.  I think the longest layover I have is in LA, seeing as I only have two layovers, and one is less than two hours and the other is almost five (haha!  oops...).  Then again....I do have to wait in Sydney for about four hours before I can catch my train onwards, but I'll get to go through customs....  (notice my use of 'get'? haha).

Back on track:  I've bought a couple books that are about the size of a photograph, filled with a variety of word games and puzzles to keep me entertained.  I also bought a book with short stories by five different authors, three of which I've read books by, so I'm pretty excited about reading that (I'm also really excited about the price.... $2!).  It called Vacations from Hell (hehe!).  And short stories are the best, methinks, for travelling, so I'm not tied down to one long story or another.  Of course, I am bringing two full-length books, too.  The Returners by Gemma Malley (author of my favourite series, The Declaration), and Thirteen Days to Midnight by Patrick Carman (I bought it while we were in the States a month ago).  I've also been downloading movies and music.  (I know, I know, bad, bad *slaps own wrist*.)  And I've been refraining from watching any of the movies (of course, most of the ones I already had before last week have been watched).  The music I really couldn't care less about.  I love listening to music so, as long as it's good, I'm happy.  I've also made close to two-hundred playlists by this point.  I haven't counted in a while, and the last time I did, it was almost at one-sixty, but that was last week, and I've made more since then, so maybe it's around one-seventy-five.  I'm not sure.  (These are iTunes Genius Playlists, by the way.  I would never go to the effort of making that many playlists, haha).

I've also been looking into mobile phones.  Again.  I can't decide if I should get one here or when I get there.  But I do think I'm leaning more towards getting one in Australia that will work when I return home for good next year.  I've been looking at the options in a bunch of stores in Australia, as well as the US, and a couple in Canada (but there are only two options that I've come across, and neither have more than about five options apiece).  And I've been looking at the prepaid options each provider in Australia has so I know kind of what I'm getting for what I'm paying.  Of course, as I've already mentioned, any phone I do buy must be able to work in both Australia and North America, so I'm not spending $100+ on a phone only not to be able to use it in the other area.  (That would just suck!)

Ooh!  I can't wait! yey!

Anyways, I should be off.  TTFN!

Ten Days

There are just ten days before I jet off to Australia for the next five months.  I'm uber excited, but everything's happening oh, so fast.  Just a few months ago, I was just thinking about going off and exploring the world that has always just been a daydream to me.  And now?  It's all about to happen.  I really can't wait!

With leaving being so close, there are so many things that still must be done.  Like figuring out what I'm going to bring, and packing it so I can still have lots of space so I can shop and find things in Australia that I want.  Like shoes and souvenirs.  And maybe a sweatshirt from the university I'll be attending for the next year.

And there's still finding out where I'll be living while there.  But I don't get to find out about that until next Wednesday.  So I'll just be left in the dark until then....

There's probably a lot more things that I still have to do, but I can't think of them.  I'm working out which books to bring, and I've got most of my iPod playlists ready to go (I only have about 150 of them....).

Anywhoo.  I had my last day at work yesterday, so now it's real.  I mean, it was real before then, but now it's feeling super close.  And I picked up my Australian and New Zealand money from the bank, too. (Why is it underlining "Zealand"? Not only is it a word, it's a proper noun! Geez!) That was very exciting.  (As he was bringing it over, I got that twisted feeling of excitement in the pit of my stomach.)

Today, Dad has the day off, so were going to get my piece of crap blackberry all ready for the trip over (I'll be getting a new one (not a blackberry, a cell phone) once I'm there and sending this one back). And I think we're getting some beer, wine, and possibly coolers (as I don't like wine or beer, blech). All varieties from Australia, for our Australian barbecue this weekend. And I have to stop by Mom's work to sign something for a bursary, and then go get my contacts and glasses. There's probably something else I'm planning on doing, but it's not coming to me right now.

Yesterday, I signed up for Skype. Tried adding people, but that wasn't working.  Nothing seems to to working for me technology-wise this week. sigh.

Whatever, though.  I should get going. I have to figure out what I'm supposed to be doing with Dad and where we were meeting and when (he's getting his truck all dolled up this afternoon, I believe).

Until later! xx