Finally an update of "reading week"

Friday April 10th
Last day of classes until next week! so basically Dana and I planned a trip to the east coast and we are starting in Sydney and taking a greyhound bus up the east coast to Brisbane. On friday my flight took off in Perth and I landed 4 hours later in Sydney...at 1030 pm, on good Friday. Aka everything is closed and nothing is open, it is pitch black outside and I am alone trying to find my hostel. I took a train from the airport to central station in the city because the hostel we were staying at, Wake Up, was right there. It was the scariest thing of my life because the streets were soooo deserted and I was really lost. I decided to call my mom because I wanted to be on the phone in case one of the 5 homeless people i walked by decided to attack. haha not that she would be able to help me so far away. whatever. I found my hostel after like 20 min. and that was the end of my adventurous night. Never Ever go to central Sydney alone on a holiday when nothing is open. ok?

Saturday April 11th
Dana arrives early in the morning. woohoo. we put our stuff in the hostel and we are off to explore the city...by foot. So we start off by looking for a cafe to eat some breakfast. After a few blocks we find a nice spot where we got some yummy fruit and pancakes. then its off to the Fish Market. We don't know where to go but we see a road sign and follow it and the cars. After about an hour of walking we arrive. The place is so cool and there are many many venues each selling many many fish. its funny. I have never seen so many fish/types of fishes in my life and they were all just chilling on some ice for anyone to pick up an purchase. No glass windows or anything. Who needs sanitation right?
Ok the fish market was pretty neat so we decided to make our way to the bridge. Again, following signs and walking seemed appropriate at the time. Well, eventually we made it there. We only got lost like 2 times and saw the entire city in the meantime. I took about 2 hours to get there. A map would of been helpful but we resorted to the Lonely Planet book with a mini map and had trouble reading it...obvisouly. The bridge was neat but nothing spectacular. Just a bunch of wire in the air. Took some pics and decided to go to the opera house. Could we be anymore touristy? haha. well we walked around again (following car signs) and make it to the opera house! on the way we passed some really sweet stores and street performers. Saw some old ships and really nice apartments. The opera house was neat but not what I was expecting either. It looked much cooler on TV during the 1996 olympics. Dana and I were tired after walking around the city for over 5 hours so we took a stroll through the botanical gardens and by stroll i mean lay on the grass for an hour. haha sooo tired. We decided to head back because our Hostel was doing some dinner deal.
On the way back we ended up in some really cool shopping area. I found a ROXY store. Literally, 100% roxy. it was amazing. I didnt buy anything though (low budget). There were some really nice stores there as well like gucci and LV. anyways we spend some time shopping and ended up taking another 2 hour stroll to get back fromt the time we left the gardens. As you can see it was a long freakin day and we walked like 15 miles we estimated. haha. might be true.
We got back to our Hostel and headed down for dinner at SIDE BAR. The dinner looked lousy so some denmark/sweden (i forget) girl we met took us to a sports bar where I had to eat fish and chips becuase nothing else was vegetarian friendly. keepin it healthy... At the table we ended up sitting next to some guy and girl who live in Figi. i was reppin PENN STATE the whole day and he noticed my shirt. Turns out he used to live in Downingtown which is 1 hour from my house. How wierd. what a small world.
Ok after dinner we headed to SIDE BAR to party/ not party because we were tired. We were only going to stay a little but D and I started dancing rediculously becuase we thought it was funny and somehow managed having a super fun time. There were points when we were just surounded by guys who made us the center fo their circles. It was hilarious. It was a great night but time for bed at about 1 am. another busy day tomorrow.

Sunday April 12th
Blue Mountains- so we decided to take a train to the blue mountains which are located in Katoomba. Dana thought the train was 1 hour long to get there so about 1 hour into the train ride we decided to start listening for our stop. we couldnt hear the conductor very well over the loud speaker so when it hit an 1 hour and 15 minutes we began to get worried. We thought we missed the stop but turns out the train ride is actually 2 hours long. Nice one dana. We get to the blue mountains and it is amazing !! They are gorgeous and green and hilly. i"ts like the grand canyon...but green" (Dana Smariga 2009). We decided to walk down the steps to the bottom and then hike to the other side. Well, turns out their were a few hundred/thousands of steps and they were narrow and all different shapes and sized. It hurt my knee a lot going down so we took our time. thank goodness we didnt take them back up. I don't think I could have done it. Then we walked for like 2-3 miles across the mountains to the other side. To get back up to the top of the mountain we took the railroad that was there. The Katoomba railroad is the steepest in the WORLD and was basically a backword straight shot up. It was sooo neat, and kinda scary. Such a good time there but we still had more to do so we took the train back to sydney after a subway lunch.
AFter we got back we had to check out BONDI beach because we wouldnt be tourist unless we did. We got there pretty late and it was quite dark, but it was still really cool. A beachy atmosphere which of course I really liked. We got dinner there and headed back home. We had another night at SIDE BAR but not a long one because we had to catch the greyhound at 7 am the next day.

P.S there are Starbucks in Sydney and after we discovered that, we went there 2 times in less than 2 days. tried to go a third, but it was closed. lame.

Monday April 13th
Greyhound at 7am off to Port Maquarie. its been dreary all week and decided to pour today. So we get off the bus at 1pm and are dropped off in town in the rain. There is not much to do in port maquarie so we were planning on hopping on the 815pm bus to coffs harbour that day, which meant we were not staying in a Hostel and therefore were forced to lug around our bags in the pouring rain for the next 7 hours. wonderful. Well there was a koala hospital there which i wanted to check out. We decided to walk there and just get wet. I had an umbrella but it failed at covering both me and my bag. Anyways we walked the wrong way again and then started walking the correct way after like 20min. We were walking but the koala hospital was further than we thought. WE were cold, wet, and tired so we did the unthinkable...and called a cab. they took us there and we got to see some sick Koalas who were being treated by the volunteers there. So cute. It was neat to see. After that, we headed back into town in another cab and chilled at 2 places to occupy our time. Subway for dinner (of course) and then drinks at a hotel for awhile. In the process i lost my umbrella. good thing the rain was just a light mist now. We headed back to the bus station and boaded the Greyhound. Destination- coffs harbour.

Still monday- land in coffs harbour at like 12 am. we get a shuttle to the hostel and pass out in our beds. whatta long day.

Tuesday April 14th
Coffs Harbour. Not too much here either but they have a pet porpoise pool which is the highlight of the place. The pet porpoise pool was a dolphin and seal show. If we got there early we could have gotten dolphin and seal kisses but we missed out. Instead, we watched the show. Dana got chosen (over me) to feed the dolphins from the stage. it was sweet, they jumped in the air and ate food right off the stick she was holding. At the end of the show the dolphins swam backward along the side of the pool and we could pet their stomach. it was awesome! I wanted more though, so I said to dana that I wish I could hug the dolphins as I noticed a dolphin worker about to walk by (so he would hear me). It worked and he was like oh have you pet their mouth? and he motioned to the dolphin to open its mouth and we were allowed to scratch its tongue. I started to tear up because It was the best moment ever. ahhhh i love dolphins!!!
We decide to then go horseback riding. A guy came and picked us up and we were driven to these trails in the rainforest. As soon as we got there is started to rain. bugger. they provided rain jackets which was nice and we were soon mounting the horses. My last horse experience was not that great so I was nervous. Dana told me that someone she knew died horseback riding so that helped to calm my nerves...thanks d. Despite hurting my knee really bad getting on the horse, the ride was great. It took 2.5 hours and we literally rode throught the rainforest and it was raining. It was sooo nice and before it ended, the weather cleared up. The trails were quiet soggy but it was cool riding through the huge puddles. I don't think the horses liked it too much but too bad. wow.
We headed back to our Hostel and we needed to catch the greyhound at 1130pm to byron bay.

Wednesday April 15th
2:30 am- arrive in Byron Bay. We take a taxi to our hostel, The Arts Factory, and end up crashing as soon as we get their, it is late.

Wake up early and head to the beach. It is gorgeous. The prettiest beach I have ever seen!!!!! (I have not seen hawaii yet though). but the sides were covered by rainforest/ green hills and the surf would of been amazing. too bad I can't surf with my knee : ( . The town was also pretty neat, lots of surfers (holler) and surf shops (double holler). It was quite hippy though so dana liked it but hippy style is not really for me. Our hostel is very hippy too. the smell of a certain illegal drug was not uncommon along with dread locks and tie-dye clothing. whatever, dana picked it out and I picked out the other Hostels. it was only fair.
At night it was time to go out. The only two places to go were "cheeky monkeys" and some other bar. we headed to the monkey place first. inside the place had a bunch of table for dancing on and not much dancing floor. kinda strange. we stayed a little bit and then headed to the other bar. I didnt like the other one that much either because it was a small dance floor filled with a small stage for dancing as well. we didnt stay out too long and headed back to hippe-town.

Thursday April 16th
We get the greyhound at 930 am and are off to Sufers Paradise.
At 11ish we arrive and check into our hostel, Surfers Beach Side Backpackers Resort. Its the coolest hostel yet because it isnt too big and each room has a TV. we share it with 4 other guys who were the coolest people we met so far. We chill at the beach all day and walk around the town for a little bit at night. food= subway and cold-rock ice cream. I am guessing that it is copying off of "cold-stone" the popular american store. it was soo good though. anyways at this point i decide that I love surfers and want to live there/vacation there for several months at a time. The beach isnt as nice as byron but the whole atmosphere was amazing. They had gorgeous condos and hotels that were over 60 stories tall. crazy. At night we watched a movie or 2 then went to sleep.

Friday April 17th
day 2- chill on the beach again. w dana. Walked around the town again. good times. ahh I love it. We got dinner at some resteraunt called central. The host guy let us get a free drink of champagne/wine and then we split a really good salad. We indulged in some super fancy cocktails because it was time to start Dana's birthday celebration. We went back to the Hostel and started talking to the americans that we met who are doing post-grad in Sydney. They were from Cali and colorado. We then joined in a game of pyramid with a bunch of the hostel backpackers. Everynight the hostel goes out to some place together so we decided to join in. We went to "the Bedroom" and all hostel people got a free drink voucher. it was sweet. We placed some weird cup coaster flip game at the table with the hostel guys and it was kinda fun. Then I managed to lose my purse but luckily found it at the reception. The only thing missing out of it was my $5o. thieves.... anyways that meant that I could not buy Dana any birthday shots becasue I had absolutely no money. (Sorry D) the american girls bought a shot though called chocolate cake and it was delicious. very nice of her. It was a fun night but we headed back not too late. Dana seemed to have a good birthday. haha. time for bed

Saturday April 18th
We chill on the beach again. So nice. Then eventually pack up our stuff and hop on the greyhound bus to our final destination...Brisbane.
We arrive at around 4 pm and its starting to get late. we try to find our hostel (Yellow Submarine )but get lost again. It was my fault this time. I read the map wrong. but we eventually found our hostel and checked in. Since we were living out of small bags all week we had to do laundry. It was necessary. So we finally had clean clothes and then decided to meet the other Hostel people. It was "german night" so for 10 bucks you got some shnitzel and potatoe salad along with alcoholic punch. I wanted none of that so didnt buy in but dana did. I got to eat some food for free at the end though. For some reason, everyone in this hostel smoked. like, everyone! except me and dana and this cool american from cali. It was gross, I tried to sit out their but my eyes started burning and i reaked! I don't understand why so many backpackers smoke? whatever. After a long time it was time to go out. I fell asleep early on my bed but dana woke me up and we went to a foam party. It was quiet gross because I didnt want to get foamy and wet cause I just showered. It prob. would of been a good idea not to go to a foam party then, but I am dumb sometimes. We also had to get a train at 6am the next morning and it was 2 am. We decided to go back and then we showered and fell asleep.

Sunday April 19th
Take a train to the airport in Brisbane and hope on a flight to Perth. did I mention that we didn't show our ID's once during the whole process of checking in and security. so different than the USA. It was a boring 5 hour flight but it was nice to be back in Perth. Really different than the East Coast. back to reality time because school starts back on monday. Dana came to spend the week here so hopefully she had fun.

I will update with more about our week in Perth but this post was too long and I my hands are tired from typing for the last hour straight. g-day

recent activites/ parties

So I have already been failing to update this thing regularly...my bad. Anyways...

Feb 27th- Scribble party

So we had another party...surprise. This time it was a scribble party which is very similar to a highlighter party except sharpies are allowed. Everyone was required to wear white (obviously) and it was a lot of fun. It took place right next door at the other residential college in their quad. Its so weird having parties and stuff out in the open. I am getting used to it but not quiet. Anyways, I ended up with a really cool scribbled shirt by the end of the night and since our rooms are so plain I am using it as art work. It is currently hanging on my wall filled with Canada rules and the USA stinks paraphernalia, along with other inappropriate stuff. All around though, the party was lots of fun and the drinks were super cheap which was good because bars are making me go poor.

March 6th- Toga Party

At the beginning of the week we were given a "secret friend". We knew their name and where they lived but we did not know who was our friend. Throughout the week we had to do something nice or not so nice to make our friend happy. I got Ed, the res club president so I felt that I needed to be a good friend because he is kinda a big deal. I bought a bunch of art supplies and made him a poster asking for his hand in marriage along with a bottle of wine and a self-painted bottle holder. I also went to this website where you can upload a person's face into a body of someone else. http://www.faceinhole.com/. its a miracle site.

I had to do something funny or creative so I put his face in a super model Calvin Klein add. I titled the page "Missing friend" and added some weird facts about him and then posted the pictures all around the residential college. It was lots of fun. Some people were super creative and had people come in and do lap dances (not real ones) to their secret friends during dinner in the dining hall.

Then on Friday of this week we all had to wear togas and go to the party that was taking place at trinity in the common room. At the party we had to reveal are secret friends. It was so much fun. My friend got me some champagne and wrote me a love note. hilarious. we do some weird stuff here.

Rubix Cube Party

Another party...surprise. This was just a cool party though. Everyone is a human Rubik cube. You must wear a bunch of different colored clothes to a party. Then during it you switch clothes with anyone and anything you want. The goal is to end up as one color...like solving a Rubik cube. hmmm. of course I went for the all yellow look because it my fav. I failed to end up as all yellow though because it was a very popular color choice (bc its the best). I did end up with some sweet duckie pajama pants at the end though, so i wasn't a complete failure. This party was held at the TAV the on-campus bar. Some people were absolutely crazy and we sooooooo much of one color. and many guys ended up wearing girls clothes at one point or another and vice-versa. it was a good time and a totally different type of party than one that I have ever been too.

Orientation/Disorientation

Our first week here we had international orientation where we met a lot of the exchange kids and learned about the school. During week 2 however, our residential area called Trinity had its own orientation for the freshies and exchangers. It was the craziest week ever with odd activities and stuff so I'll just give a rundown of what we did and stuff.
First off, the theme was called fallout and basically they pretended we were the last people remaining on earth and had to survive. redic.

Sun, Feb 15th-
~Ice breaker games which were insane. some examples included...
-musical boys- all girls walk in a circle while guys lay face up on ground, when music stops you must lay on top of a boy. If you dont have a boy, your out. I made it to the final 2 and lost. boo.
- pass the lifesaver- everyone is given a toothpick and your in a circle. you must pass the lifesaver from toothpick to toothpick without using hands or anything. crazy.

~ Speed dating
- everyone was served a glass of wine (on campus) and we had to meet a bunch of people in 2 min. intervals. I guesss the name explains it all.


MON FEB 16th
Quiz night- basic knowledge questions about Australia and the world. I knew nothing but my group was all aussies who did so that was good. After ever few questions they had a challenge. This is where australia became really weird to me. these games were...
1. Waxing- 1 boy from each group sat on a chair and got his legs waxed by a girl from their group. whoever had the most hair missing, won. It was hilarious.
2. Whippet eating contest- Whippets are really try cereal bars similar to saltines in dryness. For this activity, we had to eat to of them without any water or milk and then our partner from our group had to chug a liter a milk. whoever finished first won. I ate the whippets in this contest. Some people def. threw up milk all over the place. Very gross.
There were a ton of other contest but those stick out the most.

Tues FEB 17th-
Earth Rehabilitation- we planted around 2000 trees at this lake to help prevent further growth of other shrubery.

Doomsday party- Most awesome party in which everyone dressed in Neon colors and whites because there were going to be alot of blacklights. This was held at the Tavern which is the bar located on the school campus. It was soooooooo much fun and everyone was crazy.

below: pic from doomsday party

WED FEB 18th-
Fallout girls day- This was one of the strangest things I have ever had to do. All the girls went into the city for a normal tour of Perth...yeah right. We got seperated into groups of four and were tied together by the wrist. Each group had a member who had to wear a white shirt (I had to wear it) and our goal was to get as many guys numbers writen on the shirt as possible. keep in mind we had to wear this shirt too. We also got a list of other things we needed to accomplish. 5 points if you could get a picture with a "hot" guy and he had to take off his shirt. My group didnt win but we did pretty well. Overall, it actually was a lot of fun. We got soooo many wierd looks from people but whatever. After the trip though, we got a picture taken and while we posed for the photo, all the boys bombarded us with tons and tons of water balloons.


Thursday Feb 19th
Beach- we just spent the day at the beach...soooo nice.

Mr. Whippy competition- All contestants were given 2.5 liters of ice cream and had to eat as much as they could in 10 minutes. The winner actually ate all of the ice cream and finished in a record 9.5 minutes. insane.

FRI FEB 20th
Ice skating- pretty self-explanitory. It was around 95 degrees that day so the cold air of the ice rink felt amazing. Its funny that basically every Canadian was an amazing skater. They put the US to shame.

SAT FEB 21st
Adventure world- A day at an amusment like park. It was more ment for little kids but they had a bunch of water slides that were great. Some guy from Mauritous (island next to south africa) went on a turny ride and threw up on the ride, and all over himself. It was so so funny but not for him I guess. They had to close down the ride for over 15 min.

Rubix cube party- This party was hilarious. Everyone wore a bunch of crazy outfits of different colors. The goal was to swap clothes with other people and end up as 1 color. I tried to be yellow but so did a lot of other people. so i failed with some element but it was a good time.


Sun Feb 22
Disorientation- a chill day of bouncy rides and barbeque. Ended up going to the beach to get my tan on. I ended up really burnt but im semi tan now. you all would be impressed.

Surfing and Wildlife Park 14-02-09

Im starting to realize that Australia is prob. the strangest place in the entire world. Everyone is kinda crazy but its hilarious. I can't wait to share some of the stuff we have been doing during the last two weeks for orientation...its insane.

Here I am on the left with a kangaroo, yes!!!! We got to feed them and everything.ahhh. I wanna keep one! the park was amazing. My camera died right before the koalas (of course) so no pics of them : ( boo.

Ok so we went surfing and it was amazing beyond belief. I wanna go again soo bad but its kinda pricy to rent stuff/get lessons. Its wierd because everything is pretty expensive here. Bed sheets and towels are 25 dollars at least and the cheapest hair products or lotions are like $10 each.

I'll put more stuff up later about this crazy week.

p.s. we have a bar on campus?!!? say whattttttt

Aussie tip of the day:
Listen to the song "put your hands up for detroit" by Fedde Le Grand its HUGE at clubs and stuff. Its freakin sweet.

Hilary's Harbour and Fremantle 12-02-09

OK, so this is my first entry, yay!! I am not a big fan of picture taking or writing so I'll do what I can to inform you of my life.

On Thursday we went to this marina called Hilary's Harbour. Its a pretty popular tourist destination just outside of Perth. While we were there we just walked around the little shops there and explored the beach. I got to touch the Indian Ocean which is pretty cool, but the Indian ocean surrounds Perth so I will be touching it a lot more i guess. So at the Harbour we went to the AQUA, which is the aquarium of WA (Western Australia). Ill be putting pictures up soon but my camera and computer are being retarded right now.

After the Harbour we took another trip to Fremantle which is a little city about 20 min. from Perth. Its a really cute little town with gorgeous beaches and little shopping boutiques. On the way there we stopped at Kings Park. It is a gigantic national park here. The scenery from the top of the hill was unreal. You could see all of the city and swan river. My school is located right on the river which is amazing.

g-day. haha the accents and lingo here are kinda hard to understand even though I speak English. I have to ask them to repeat things alot.

Aussie tip of the day:
boxed wine here is very popular and is called GOON. Franzia=Goon and all other wines in boxes=GOON