Well if you guys didn't know already, I'm no longer in the fabulous land of Oz. But I figured maybe a few of you still check this out of desperation so I decided to give a quick little (pictured! yayy!) update about my time home so far.

Mostly, I have just slept. And not on purpose! I first thought it was just jet-lag because of the sudden change of seasons and the fact that when I left Oz it was dark at 6 and I get here and it's light until after 8:30. But actually I still feel comatose, so I'm not quite sure what that deal is. "Maybe it's bc you drink too many Red Bulls," says my Dad. Thanks Dad.

No but it's been nice to relax, as if that's not all I was doing while I was there haha. My sister graduated THS and looked completely gorgeous doing it. :) We had a crazy family party for her afterward which was nuts bc my family is all nuts, but fun too I suppose. Andra actually spent most of her time down at her friend Rebecca's to escape the insanity. Lol. One of the highlights was playing like a mad woman with my little cousin Ryan, shown on the left here in this picture with my nephew Justin who had this mask on all day thinking he was Batman.. I'm surprised it's not on him now, haha. But really, it's so weird to think that I remember my highschool graduation so clearly and that these last three years of college have been largely a blur, almost as if they didn't even happen. Or maybe it just extra feels like that because I've been hanging out with a lot of my old school friends lately. Who really knows. But I'm real excited for the upcoming semester. I feel like this will be the year that sticks with me the most throughout my life.

In other news, we had the fourth of July in Albany, which was a little bit disastrous. Well no, it was fine, just that we started out on the top of this Albany garage bc my sister's friend was there, but it was hard to see anything and my Dad really wanted a kebab. So the two of us decided to try to make it up to the plaza where the huge crowd always is. I knew we were in for trouble when, in the car, we're driving with our backs to the fireworks.. I was like "Dad, they're over theeeere! Turn down this side street!" Nope, we pass out. "Ok, turn down this one!" Nope, pass that one too. Oops. Finally we turn around and park at the Greyhound terminal and hike our way up, after other various setbacks including getting lost in the building of the Plaza. we make it there riiiight after the finale. Good. But at least I got a few really amazing pictures from the night: And at least Dad got his kebab.

And so now onto LATVIANS!! WOOOOT! Every weekend has been spent up at my Latvian camp. First we had Jani, which is the summer solstice pagan festival, which includes lots of special cheese, beer, jumping over fires, and flower wreaths. Aaaand with that brief mention, I am all written out. I'm sure you hear me talk enough about Latvian camp that you don't really need the details anyways. I hope you all have a nice summer, who knows when or even if I may update again.

Peace love and jelly beans, Austra

"I'd like, totally go to war with the Southern states again..."

Thank you Leah Leavitt for the title quote. lol.

Well it's been one ball of a World Cup week with half the group here staying up until ungodly hours of the morning and then sleeping well into the afternoon. Fun if I were interested in sports at all, not so fun if all I wanna do is DANCE! through my last week of Australia. Haha, but no, a lot of funny things have been happening as I try to make this last week memorable.

We did go out Friday night and that was great. Apparently it was the only club in Melbourne to let you actually dance on the bar? A few people took diggers off it. Eups, but they were all ok in the end. Other memorable moments from the night: Leah and her dance moves. I love it when that girl shakes her thang. Haha.

So, as I said, one week left in this land down under. Or down undaah. and here's what I've got left to do:
1) Take advantage everyday of this gym we have downstairs (check, went running today)
2) Write a paper by Friday on the book "The two worlds of Jimmie Barker" on either how the ideologies and structures of colonialism shaped his life, or, more broadly, how he describes and lived his Aboriginal identity. Which topic should I pick?? Naw, it'll be fine..
3) Send flowers to the great aunt I've discovered here in Melbourne but who refuses to meet with me because she's very elderly and doesn't want to relive the past
4) HAVE TONS OF FUN WITH MY GROUP BECAUSE I LOVE THEM TO DEATH!
and I think that's about it.

Oh and hang out with Colin once while I'm here if he ever decides to forget about boys for a minute. In his words, "booyah, grandma."

But, yayy, I did get to hang out with Vera and that was tonnns of fun! I joined her on her karaoke night, although I missed her apparently excellent rendition of some cheesy 80s song. I was kinda panicky when I first got there and I couldn't find her anywhere, but luckily she'd only been in the bathroom. Why did I just share that?

Also, Sally put me in charge of rationing Nessie's TimTams while she's away in Sydney for the long weekend. I'm trying my best and while it's keeping Nessie under control, I've bought TimTam Fingers from the vending machine twice now. Sooo delicious! I'm definitely bringing lots home to share.

Ok, nothing else is leaping to mind. I'm going to try to update a few times this week, just so I can look back myself on the last week here, it'll help me cope with leaving. So until next time...

Back from the fieldtrip!

Hey guys, just in from the three day fieldtrip. We went around the Grampians, hiking and speaking with aborigines. Earlier this year about 50% the area was ravaged by forest fires and it was almost eerie looking out into the forest. But more cool than eerie. :) After these trees burn, they don't quite die. The tops are irreparable for a long time, but from inside the bark there are little shoots that emerge, sprouting leaves to help give the tree the photosynthetic energy it needs to regenerate. It was completely beautiful the way the trunks of these crisp, black trees just sprouted these thin, wispy green leaves. I loved it.

But beyond this, the area was special for many other reasons. Millions on years ago, the continent of Australia was very different than today. About 400 millions years ago, the southern area of Australia had a much higher coastline than it does now, as the world was warmer and water levels were high. The area of the Grampians was one part that was underwater and through compaction and compression,this resulted in massive rock structures of sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone. The area also happened to be located on a fault line, and the combination of the water retreating and the land folding and tilting, the Grampians were formed. Of course, the whole process was a lot more complicated than this, but those are the basics.

Another feature that makes this area famous is the huge amount of aboriginal art that's been discovered in the area. About 60 rock art sites have been discovered, including stick figure paintings, hand prints, and etchings. Here is a site describing many of the more famous sites, of which we visited the Ngamadjidj Shelter and the Manja Shelter with the help of two aboriginal tour guides, Brendan and Trevor (who Brendan kept calling Popeye, lol).

Brendan gave a really heart wrenching tale of modern Aborigines and how the struggle to cope with modernization and urbanism, sometimes resulting drugs, alcohol, and extended stints in prison. But the way he spoke, with such passion and conviction and frankness, really moved a bunch of us. But for others it seemed to go right over their heads... but what can you do. Brendan's daughter died in a car accident earlier in the year, and medical reports showed alcohol and cocaine in the bodies of her and her boyfriend. Brendan's actually the head of the local outreach center, which is actual revolutionary in its theories of combining both the aboriginal community and the surrounding white community, which is something not many areas can yet fully come to terms with.

Well gee, this is getting really deep and I need to write a paper on this and don't feel like fully typing this all out now. But I certainly think this was one of if not the most significant fieldtrips we've been on this whole time. The others were amaaazing-- the fieldtrips are totally what make this program-- but this one had real meaning behind it. And it was great.

Also, I ate some kangaroo today. We had a "bush tucker" BBQ at Brendan and Trevor's center before we came home today. Tasted like... cubed steak. You thought I was gonna say chicken hahah. But supposedly one of the most healthiest types of meat due to extremely low fat content. Took a little minute to convince myself to just bite it, but I'm glad I did hahaha.

Ok, well a lot happened and I wish I had photos to accompany this story, bc so much was visual, but alas no camera. Sally did take a bunch for me and she said I can have a copy of all of hers, so I'm sure many more stories will come once I'm able to look back on the three days and refresh my memory. I love you all and hope you're doing well. Drop a line and let me know what's up! Byeeee

It's time for the weekly update, kiddies!

Thursday: class and then nothing.

Friday: almost nothing. Did lotsa laundry and girly beauty stuff. I wasn't going to go out until I popped by Jenessa's room and they all were so silly and Sally literally fell to her knees at my feet begging me to go. I love that girl. We made a sweet deal and I got dressed and started getting excited to go out. We're downstairs waiting for the cab to the city when a certain someone decides she doesn't think she can physically go out anymore, if ya know what I mean, so I helped her to the bathroom. So I get back and everyone's gone. Vaguely miffed because I had gotten all ready and stuff, but glad it saved me the money, haha. And I guess their night turned out miserable and confusing anyways, so overall the night for me was good :P Morgan and I chatted until it was time for bed.

Saturday: Huzzah! I dragged Morgo to the Latvian House! Ivars was making copies over the week for me of these two volumes of tautas dejas written by Australians. He bought us some DELISH piragi from the cafe/straight from vecmamina's oven. Then we had this whole crazy episode where I discovered I have a great aunt who is still alive in Melbourne and that the pastor of the local church had my grandfather for a primary school teacher back in Latvij. No matter how big the world is, there's always Latvians to make it feel more cozy. We went to the art gallery in the city after that.

Sunday: Lots of sleeping in. Dinner was the best - chicken schnitzel! Although the food here is "free," rarely is it good. And while some say I shouldn't be complaining bc at least they're giving it to us, the truth is that I feel validated in my whining because I really am actually paying for it. But! Tonight's was good and I should have probably snuck a few pieces out to save for the next inevitably horrible dinner ;)

Monday: class again and then non-stop studying for the test. I almost forgot those skills. Haha There was also non-stop watching Big Brother during study breaks because it's on all the freakin time here and I'm addicted. Then I finished reading You Shall Know Our Velocity. Which yes, has characters who travel to Latvia, but this is not why I was reading it, I swear. I just like Dave Eggers as an author, ok?

Today: The big test! I haven't had one in over five months!! Some may call that lucky, who knows. Haha. But I think I did fairly well. Also, I got two more grades back, and I'm doing pretty well here. They tend to grade on a slightly lower scale, so getting an 83 can almost be depressing but then I remember that when they send the grades back to the states it's an added ten points. That makes the 95 I got for my last assignment really amazing! However, as I'm leaving class I realized that on the way out of my room this morning I'd throw the remains of my cheese-and-cracker breakfast (haha I had cereal too, I was just still hungry!) into the front pocket of my white sweatshirt... and so I didn't remember it until after class when I discovered the cheese had left big grease stains on the pocket of my shirt. I don't know why I'm telling you this.

THEN! Then I almost got hit by a car!!! Really, it was all my fault, but it was really scary too! I was about a block and a half from the tram when it pulled up so I ran to catch it.. and right before there's one lane of a street (the tram runs down the middle). I saw people waiting so I stopped for a minute, but the freaking crossing signs here start this weird beeping noise when you can cross and I heard it go off and started across the street bc the tram was still there! But it was the wrong side!! And cars started driving right at me! woiiii. I guess this story does not sound as slightly not my fault as it would if you were here and knew what that crossing noise sounded like. What is it for anyways? Can't be for blind people because you can't for which side of the street the noise is for! Other than that I don't see any necessary reason! Bah. Oh well. I'll still blame it on the noise and not my own stupidity ;) lol

Ok, but that's about all. not quite sure what I'm doing the rest of the day, but we have tomorrow off school so I'm sure something fun will turn up eventually. Just wanted to update. See yaaa.

Good ole procrastination update!

Yeah, so I'm finishing up a short essay and decided to take a break and update. Of course.

The whole Cairns trip was great. The weather was great, even when there was an occasional sprinkle it was still warm and quickly cleared up. There was a lot of beach laying since we needed to keep costs down after the expensive reef trip. Which brings me to the next topic:

The Great Barrier Reef was amaaazing! I know I said that in the last post, but seriously, it was one of the best things ever. We went out twice and the first time I was reallly scared. Out there in the middle of the ocean seeing nothing but more water out on the horizons. There was definitely some mild hyperventilating going on, haha, as neither my sister nor I were ever really the ones to enjoy submerging our heads under water for some strange, unknown reason. But once I relaxed and just practiced breathing with the snorkel I was fine. If you tip your head too far down you do suck in a little water though. Haha. The first place was the most beautiful color wise. Exactly what you'd imagine - neon purple and vibrant red plants, neon blue fish.. everything neon really. The second place had a lot of caves and stuff that probably was cooler for the scubadivers, although it was still really cool from the top. Also near us was an island made entirely of sand. Just a huge sandbar that sticks out above the water. We didn't get to go check it out or anything, but that's all right because we were busy enough checking out the reef. The waves were crazzyyy. That's probably what was the scariest of it all. The supervisor woman said that some days the water is as flat as glass and she could let people go as far away as they wanted. But visibility was crap that day bc of the waves so she had to keep us in a bit tighter confines. Which was apparently a problem for Steve because after we were called to come back in there was one person way out far in the distance and she had to go out and get him and I was like crap, that's one of us. Haha. There was a professional photographer swimming around and while I'm usually reluctant to buy those types of pictures bc they're typically ridiculously expensive, the ones were priceless and Morgan and I each got two for a pretty good deal.

Other fun things: watching fire dancers on the sand, tango and making up our own dances at the lagoon, sunbathing in the 85 degree weather, random didgeridoo lesson (I can now circularly breath!), 10pm nights in, free massage for booking the hostel for five days, etc.

One bad thing: the huge bar downstairs owned by the hostel that was pumping until 3am. And then the screaming drunk people returning after that. But that was generally forgiven since I knew in advance it was going to be that kind of place. Cairns is pretty much the Mrytle Beach of Australia and Gilligan's where we stayed is literally the place for people my age.

Back in Melbourne, we've started our History of Indigenous Australia class. Reeeally cool. First half is from an archeology POV and the other half is regular historical POV. Some people are bored because archeology is mostly "bones and rocks" but I love it and find it relatively easy to apply concepts I've learned in my anthro classes. Back home arch and anth aren't really as separated fields as they are here.

Today we went on a nature walk in the school's reserve. There was a tree scared by aborigines taking the bark for a canoe. Pretty cooool. I also got to talk to one of the coordinators about her specialties. We have our main guy who is a professor and archeologist, and we have a woman who is an older doctoral student. She was also asking about the professors I've had in Ithaca for anthro to see if she's heard of any of them. Made me think of how talented they really are, as I was telling her about the studies some of them have done all over the world. Oo gets my blood pumping. I really love it.

Ok but I guess this is enough of a break. Time to wrap up this assignment I'm doing. See you all laterrrrr.

And then I snorkled in the Great Barrier Reef.

Be jealous. Be verrry jealous. Because it was definitely one of the top things I've done on my entire trip here. I wish I could do this for the next three days that we're still here. It was great visibility but it was pretty rough seas so as I stare at this computer screen my whole body is kind of bobbing up and down. My ears are filllled with sea water, there's salt residue in my ears despite a long hot shower, and I'm about $200 in the hole from the day ($140 for the trip, renting an underwater digital camera for the day (I hadddd to!), and two spectacular professional photos (I know, those are usually a huge rip off)) but really, it was priceless. That was so spectacular if I had an extra 200 bucks I'd do it again in two seconds. Ok, but! hostel internet, which means limited time, but I wanted to give a quick update. I love you alllllll

Finally some action!

Well I finally have something interesting to say! A bunch have things have finally happened that are in any way worth mentioning! Lol, you guys are shocked, aren't you.

Well, let's see. Today Morgan, Taylor, and I went to the science museum and saw a great planetarium show! It was really a lot of fun, very hands on, and mostly for kids aged 3-8. Hahah. the sports section was the best, you got to do all these assessments, like check your balance, reflexes, how high you could jump. Pretty cool.. woulda been dream land if I were one of those little kiddies running around. We couldn't help but feel a little guilty not having a little child with us. We also saw a lightning show, which was not as amazing as it seemed, mostly because it smelled a lot like BO and was housed in what looked a little like a junk shed. But ah well, the planetarium show "Are We Alone" definitely made up for it. Tomorrow we might check out the IMax theater.

Last night we threw a surprise party for Chris, Loic, and Jason because their birthdays are all coming up next week. It was a tonnn of fun. We rented out this section of the huge bar-room down the road from us and for about $10 each we got the jukebox and continuous finger foods all night. Non-stop dancing, just what I've been craving. Some got a little too drunk (cough, Chris) and there was an accident involving Nate's shoulder being dislocated, it was a really fun night. But hey, it was his 21st, even if that doesn't mean anything in this country. The other two only just turned 20! Seems so young to me these days. Le sigh. lolol. It was even extra funny because all I had to drink all night was Red Bull, all I wanted to do was dance. Nessie didn't believe me since we were being pretty crazy and even were doing ballet in the middle of the room of which Sally took many the hilarious pics. But it was great. Definitely the night out I've been needing.

Other than that, nothing. Class has been a snooze fest. The guy's great and takes an almost excruciating care not to offend anyone, EVER, but in doing so makes one sentence last the length of five. Here is a typical sentence: "Think of a man, or a woman it doesn't really matter, not that women don't matter I just mean gender is irrelevant in this case, who is walking down the road, or it could be a path.." Oh man, my eyes droop just trying to make that sentence, I can't even finish it. One time he literally said "There was a garage behind the house, not that I need to tell you guys it was behind the house because I know you know garages are usually behind the house.." I was like are you serious.... We really don't offend that easy.. I really hate to say it but this month of class I really feel was almost a wasted month of my life, but I know at least I'm in Australia wasting it rather than Ithaca. But still, you know me. I like school, I like learning new things, and I can get pretty frustrated when I go and then don't learn anything. But enough complaining about that! I do love it here, I swear! I hope no one is reading this to decide whether or not to go on this program: DO IT! Don't listen to me! lolol

Tuesday is our last day of class and then we leave for Cairns that same afternoon for the week! Hurrah! The weather report says sunny all week in the 80s! Just what I need!

Oh, but I did lose my camera and it's never coming back.

So, ups and downs, but they do seem to level themselves out. That's all I got for ya. Happy early mother's day, Mom. I hope you liked and were surprised by the flowers ;) Xoxo

Laterrr

Do you hear the people sing...

Dear god today was pretty horrendous. I can't really get into details, but let's just say Jenessa turned 20 yesterday and we celebrated. We were going to go out to the Metro, but upon rumors that it was closed down we decided to stay in. Crazy.

But! Me, Morgan and Jeff went to go see Les Miserables! I love that show! We just got home on the verrry last train and it's now about 1:15 and I'm exhausted as crap but I felt like updating real quick. Hopefully we're also going to see STOMP and Fiddler on the Roof (with the real Toplov!) before we leave here too. Makes me excited to finally start making use of this big city we're in. We have Monday off, so I think more touristy things will be included. Which is good for you too, because they make for more interesting stories and goofy pictures.

Best new of the day: my brother and his wife had their baby! A little redheaded boy, who they named Aidan. Congrats and love you and wish I was there. For those who don't know, my brother and sister are in their 30s and now each have three kids. I just pray that two girls and then a boy is only a trend with them and isn't something that runs in the family. Haha. Because I'll only be able to handle about two at best. Haha. I'm certainly in noooo rush whatsoever, even though celebrities make it seem tempting. Hah!

Also, the Latvian group here emailed me back inviting me to some folk dance classes to see if I wanted to pick up anything. The younger group (my age) practises on Tuesdays and I told Morgan I was going to drag her along. Yayyy!

Ok, that is all. I am exhausted and need to go to bed. If only housekeeping would get my new blanket I've been waiting for. Maybe I'll ring them again. Laterrrr

This one time at Latvian camp... and other non-Australian things.

You knew it wouldn't last long before I burst out into something Latvian on here. It's that time of year when camp fever really starts to set in. We get the applications in the mail, fill them out, send them in, and then have to waiitttt. And frankly it's making me stir crazily excited and I can't hold it inside.

Krista can't come which is terribly sad. We were gonna be working with the oldest kids together! They kinda scare me without her! Haha jk. But really, it's for an great cause - so that she can graduate early - so I can only be proud of her. I talked to her for over an hour the other day and it really was great, she's an amazing chick and I think it helps both our spirits the way we just click and can understand each others every concern, even if we haven't talked in a few months.

As for me, I've been thinking about this Teach for America thing more and more for after I graduate. Has anyone ever heard of it enough to form a solid opinion? Or know anyone who's done it? I would love to stay in the north east, more inner city than rural, maybe Philly or NJ or something. I know, I know, the parents are a little freaked out about it being dangerous, but if it was that bad they wouldn't have this program. I think it's a great idea. I would love to do the Peace Corps, but I don't think I'm quite that hardcore. Maybe if Andrej came with me tho.. haha. But so, any suggestions on this would be helpful.

Melbourne is still pretty low key. Well, the city's not, I'm sure, but we still are. I can't wait to go out dancing! We did it so much in Perth and it really was great bc you all know what a little moverandshaker I can be, but then in Hobart it was always cold and pretty much only smaller pubs, so we didn't do that much at all. Now here we are in the second biggest city in Australia and no one wants to go out?? Craapppp. I'm sure we'll get into a groove soon, money's just been tight for a bunch of people, so I understand. It doesn't help that the freggin Metcard was a hundred bucks, but we do put it to good use.

Speaking of money, I locked myself out of my room on accident this morning, trying to ask Morgan if she had any milk I could steal (I know, I sound a mess, but really I'm fine :P ). And I went down to the front desk to ask for a spare, and she said I have $375 that I need to pay and I was like "Uhh... why?" And she looked at me like I had two heads and was like "Well, phone use is included in the balance." ... "Well, I've been using my phone card, and it's 25 cents to call out, so I should only have a charge of about two or three dollars." Like she really wasn't going to give me a lock-out key until I paid this or something.. "Ohhh are you part of a group?" Yesssss, I ammmm. Haha. Only then would she give me a key.

Ok, time to go, I just wanted to chat. Catch you all laterrr

<3

I just get tired of my own voice sometimes.

I told you I sucked at this updating thing, but you didn't believe me.

I just get tired of my own voice sometimes.

But! I did put all my pictures up online, so now I'm completely up to date there at least. All the New Zealand ones are there too so you can finish the story I started below on your own I suppose.

Melbourne's great, but we've been extremely low key this week. And by low key I really do mean doing almost nothing. We went to go out on the town Friday night and it ended up terribly with us just turning around and coming home. That kind of low key. No that's not completely true, yesterday we did go to the zoo. And I rode an elephant! But it was only a statue, unfortunately. The Asian/India village (which was it, really?) we my favorite part. But other than that, not tooo much at all. But it's all good. A month and a half left!

<3

New Zealand! Yippie!!

Well, we've arrived in Melbourne (*nudgenudge to Colin and Vera) two days ago and I finally have internet working! Time to tell all the goodness of my New Zealand trip because I know some of you are so exited you're riding the seat of your chair with faces glued to the internet to hear about my latest adventures... or something. haha, ok here goes:

Day 1: Travel.
Lots of airports and flying. You heard a little about this in the Blue Room post, so I won't get too much into that. The flight to Auckland was about 4 hours, with a two hour layover, and then another two hour flight to Christchurch. On which I got to watch Memoirs of a Geisha!! which I've been dying to see since Laila gave me the book for Xmas. I arrived in the Christchurch airport to this:
Yayy!! We then drove in our amazing, wonderful rented Honda CRV to the Rolleston hostel and after a rousing game of NZ version Monopoly (which I SUCKED at) just went to sleep.

Day 2: Greymouth.
Sunday was mostly driving to Greymouth, soaking in the breathtaking views of NZ. We stopped at a place that looked a lot like the pinnacles that we visited back in Perth and took a hike to a waterfall that was called "The Devil's Punchbowl." We continued on to our Grey- mouth hostel, where we stayed in a room that used to be an old chapel and I literally had an etching of an old man watching me sleep from the window next to my top bunk. Not my favorite. We also met two girls from Colby college and after they introduced themselves I was like "Oh, I have an old boyfriend who goes to Colby" and they asked who, and I told them Tom Testo, and she goes "No way!! He just got elected class president!!!" ...small world...? Then we played yet another rousing game of Monopoly which I again blew at. Oh, and this was the random, unsettling cover of a garbage can: completely unnecessary if you ask me. Caught my eye, but for all the wrong reasons. Who even notices or understands the fine lettering?

Day 3: the glaciers.
From Greymouth we woke up early to drive to the glaciers. The drive was beautiful yet again, mostly temperate rainforest all around. And we discovered it was another World Heritage area! Check another off the list! Well, we found our hostel at Franz Josef (which was by far our favorite) and unpacked before we drove another 20 minutes to Fox Glacier, where we had our guided hike. First of all, Fox is one of the only glaciers to connect to a rainforest. It's about 1000ft thick and the tongue ends only 3 miles from town and is one of the fastest moving glaciers today. We had to wear special waterproof boots of which one shoes was always too small, and once we got to the glacier we had to attach crampons, or special spikes, onto those boots. Our guide carried a special pick axe to pick away at the ice, and which almost hit me in the face a few times climbing through the rainforest. We travelled on a series of one-plank bridges and narrow passage ways, but finally got onto the glacier. We hiked around for about an hour seeing some amazing scenery and were generally freezing to death. The rainforest hike we had even been getting hot on, but the second you step onto the glacier you immediately notice the temperature change. We saw big holes of ice filled with near-frozen water,
Midway through we got to go through this ice hole someone had carved out, which was totally cool.


Well, sorry, but it's dinner time now. Will finish more tomorrow. Byeeeee.

The Blue Room

So here I am spending my first night alone in an airport. We got into Melbourne at 9:30am and right now it's about 8pm... I've done well so far. The other girls left around 5, I'd tried to see if I could get a vacancy on their flight but since I had gotten a super cheap ticket to begin with I would have had to almost buy another one to switch flights. But really, I think out of the bunch of us, I really lucked out: The Blue Room. Before I explain what this means, let me just give some back story.. All those other kids are having to spend the night in Wellington, NZ before their 6am flight to Christchurch, where I 'm meeting the rest of my four girls. But we found out that all airports in NZ have "curfews" for whatever reason and close after the last flight. So they're going to have to mosey around Wellington for about five hours. I, on the other hand, am in pretty good comfort. When we arrived we had decided to check out the city during the girls' long layover. Unfortunately, we forgot that today was Good Friday and the reception desk told us that most of the city would be closed and would be pretty pointless to go check out. So we whined and moaned for a minute before she remembered the Blue Room. Virgin is the only other real major airline here besides Qantas, and they bought the former VIP lounge and turned it into the Blue Room. For five bucks a day you can come and go as you please here.. the room's got a pool table, a small theater, a "Tech Deck" which I am sitting at right now, a mini putt-putt, PlayStation, and many random LCD TVs playing a variety of things. This does unfortunately close from 9pm-5:30am, but really, a freakin great deal. And it feels much safer alone here in this sparsely populated lounge area then out in the big airport with thousands of people milling around. Hopefully I can get some kind of sleep out there when this place closes, but until then I'm reaping the benefits. Hahah. Ok, I'm going to get going. Will try to update sometime in New Zealand (if I'm not busy having the time of my life!). MUAH.

New pics of Hobart on Webshots!! Click here!
Uploading more very soon!

<3 aussie

With pictures!

So I do feel bad about not posting, but really I'm just so uninspired most of the time. Not that anyone COMMENTs on it except for my dad in a phone conversation. Life in Tassie is really pretty boring, I can't say that enough. Not much excitement aaaat aall. But better than another semester in the tundra Ithaca ;). Actually though, this week was pretty eventful, so I felt it was my duty to post a little. So what I did, to make it easier to read, was go back and post two other posts as well about our adventures at the Cadbury chocolate factory and the day we rented a car. So go back two posts and start there. Now, for our four day fieldtrip:

Monday. We wake up bright and early and excited, only for poor Nessie to call home and find out her kitty died because it had stopped eating. So sad, and what and awful way to start out the four days away from "home." Say a prayer for Lily Fisk, I hear you were a great cat.
But the bus was nice, not like the ones we were forced to travel in at Perth, lol. We went to the Tasman National Park Lookout.........

You know what, we did sooo many things on this fieldtrip that I really don't think I can go through it all. I'll just upload the pictures to webshots soon (I know I'm behind on that too, but hey. With crappy internet like me, you'd be behind too) and you can go through that. Because seriously, we just did so ridiculously many things that it would take pages and hours to write about it all. In short: lots of blowholes, a few national parks, a bunch of hiking, visiting this hippie guy Peter and his awesome house and surrounding land, a lecture by the head of a national park, Port Arthur, a ghost tour of Port Arthur, Remarkable Cave, Coles bay, pine tree plucking, haunted field centers, a cute hostel, and Wineglass bay and the accompanying three hour hike. Look how much I just had to type and that's simply the names of places!! lolol. But I promise to get those pictures up soon.. in the meantime, enjoy the previous two posts and that should keep you satiated for a while. heheheh. But I will leave you with one awesome picture of me.

Rental Car Day!

Saturday we rented a car to go drive down to the Tahune Air Walk and other random adventures. Also gave Maria a chance to try driving on the other side before our week long trip to New Zealand. She said the main problem wasn't even driving on the other side of the road, but on the other side of the car. It probably didn't help that the car was a standard, even though she drives one at home, especially since the shifter was on the left-hand side too. We only had one short stall out luckily, and she seemed to get the hang of it relatively quickly, although she was still a little nervous. Don't worry guys, this picture is a fake scream. There were no accidents ;)

Unfortunately also, it was a verrrry rainy day, which is not exactly the best weather for a tree-top canopy walk in the rainforest. But somehow we managed, some of us better than others.
Yes, Morgan and I were wearing $4 raincoats that look like garbage bags with hoods. And I wish I could say these faces were made up, but those two were really petrified! Lol. It's because we were out on the very end of the airwalk, which was this like 50 foot jet out over the forest.

Later, we drove back to Hobart and on a whim ended up driving halfway up Mt.Wellington, only to find out that the top half was closed off because they were having a snow storm. Hah. I had actually been sleeping at this point and didn't particularly feel like being out in torrential rain so I stayed in the car while the other three went into the woods for about ten minutes. Upon their return it started hailing, like buckets and buckets of hail. It was completely crazy! I was certainly glad I stayed in the car!

From Mt. Wellington, we decided "Heck, since we have a car for once in our lives here, why not make the most of it!" And proceeded to drive another hour north to the historic village if Richmond to see the semi-famous bridge and old church. While checking out the random bridge, Morgan found it hard not to resist feeding the ducks that were standing nearby. Unfortunately for her, there were about a billion! ducks and other birds standing nearby who promptly began to chase her around the little field.
When we finally broke free from the crazed fowls, we went to see the old church up the road. That was pretty sweet, although the best part was when Morgan and I went behind the church exploring the old graveyard. There were graves there from the beginning of colonization, and there were many of younger people among these. Lots of whole families were buried there too, only a few years apart. Parents right down to small children. Sad. Mysterious. TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. Yes, again, the unreliable Tasmanian weather. Do the skies in the duck pictures look any kind of dark and rainy? Nope. Maybe this one of the church looks slightly cloud-covered, but certainly not dark and imminent. Nevertheless, torrential downpour is what we were caught in and we took a mad dash back to the car. But we were locked out! So we had to go stand under the bridge and wait for Maria and Jenessa to return from inside the church. Haha.

The last stop on our journey was:
Notice the old English spelling of jail. And the footnote. hahah. This jail is supposed to rival Port Arthur, which we're going to visit on our four day fieldtrip. Lemme tell you, this was nothing too exciting. But I was incarcerated. If you look closely you can see how drenched my hair still was from that downpour. Not too attractive, let me tell you. haha.

We rounded off our trip with a stop at a local gourmet pizza shop where I ate the most fabulous pizza I've tasted in a long time. It was owned and operated by the big, tall, burly Swiss-Australian.. try to imagine that accent... haha. But he was sweet and the pizza was amazing. Sitting in that restaurant before we left we managed to witness bright sun, rain, hail, sun, rain, sun, hail, sun all in about twenty minutes. When the sun broke for the last time, we made a run for it to the car. The end!

Cadbury!

So Friday Maria, Morgan, Kendall and I went on a cruise/tour of the Cadbury factory. We learned about the many steps of making chocolate in general, from fruit-like thing to cocoa butter to actual chocolate (with other steps in between). Not much really to talk about, but here's our photo narrative of the trip:

1) I've got a golden ticket!!


2) On the boat there was a joke made by the older captain reminding us that in the factory you have to wear closed-toed shoes and what you had to remove all jewelry, hats, or anything else that moved that wasn't part of your body, including dentures. This rendered a laugh from the elderly population, which was everyone else except us.


3) Directly upon entering the factory, you are immediately fed chocolate. Here's me eating my chocolate.

4) We weren't allowed to take pictures in the factory itself, but here's a taste of what we looked like walking around in it, hair nets and all, with even more chocolate that we were given out of a treasure chest.










5) The boat ride home, with our chocolate postcards!

6) Finally, the end scene in this photo narrative.. Morgan with her "chocolate hangover." Hahahaha

It's over!!

Okkkkkk

Okkkk I'll update, I suppose. It's just been not very exciting around here at all. The weather's been pretty chilly.. like 60s.. we're conserving money while we're here so we can spend more during spring break... class isn't too exciting, although certainly not bad... yeah.. just generally a lack of things to bother updating about. But my dad has been harassing me, so I guess I'll try to. Haha.

Umm... class. We're doing an environmental studies class here. Supposedly about sustainable development, but mostly about World Heritage areas and tourism and how to reconcile the two. Some days if it's really nice out our professor, Lorne, will say "Let's stuff class and go for a hike!" Which is fun to do, but not very exciting to write about. He does try and trick us a bit and say it's just a "short walk" but then suddenly we're bushwalking straight up a mountain.. in jeans... lol. And he says this is only training for our big fieldtrip! That's coming up this Monday until Thursday.

I'm supposed to be registering for classes next Wednesday while we're away but not only does the hostel not get any internet connection, the ENTIRE TOWN doesn't. So I had to email Rachel and she offered to try to sign me up on my day. Hopefully this will go well because since I'll be a senior I only have a few choices to finish my degree. I also am registering for my Anthro minor and hopefully switching my TV-Radio concentration from video production to international communication. Same major, just a slightly different focus. My advisor is supposed to do that for me and let me know if I need to actually apply for it.. hopefully I won't since as I said it's the same major. Secretly, it'll be nice to have a different advisor, because the one I have now was never very helpfully and also very scary most of the time. He needs to learn not to respond to emails in all caps because it sounds like shouting.

Last weekend was a lot of fun, there were some golfers here from the Queensland Academy of Sports (or something like that) in Brisbane competing in a tournament. They were staying here at Grosvenor Court and were lots of fun. Kept us from boredom for a few days, which was nice. We exchanged emails with three of them and hope to keep in touch. Two of them are going to schools in the states next year, one in Texas and one in Minneapolis. However, Monday night, Maria and I were hanging out with the last three of them (well two, one had gone to bed) and they wanted to make a list of all the states they knew.. they had about 23 names total.. but Alaska was listed twice, as was Milwaukee and "New England." Haha. And at one point we heard them go, "What's that one with the big bridge... San Diego!! Yeah! Write that down!" and even though we had said we couldn't help out til the end we had to be like "First of all, the Golden Gate? Yeah, that's in San Francisco... and second of all, they're both cities..." Hahaha.

Another interesting fact: there's the Commonwealth Games that just finished being hosted in Melbourne this year.. like the Olympics, but for all the countries that have been part of the English Commonwealth.. But so, there was supposed to be daylight savings here last weekend, but the prime minister didn't want to disrupt the games. So he postponed daylight savings. Most Americans would freeeeak out if that happened! Freakin Aussies.

Ok I'm gonna go. Don't wanna bore you, bc trust me, that was boring talking about. Haahajkjk. Oh! And I went on a tour of the Cadbury factory today! But Maria has most of the good pics on her camera, so I'll write about that when I get them. Soon, I promise ;) Tomorrow we're renting a car to go visit a town about two hours away to go on a canopy AirWalk tour and check out some caves. This weekend is turbo-charged tourism since we've been so boooreeed. Will write again soon. Love yas.

<3

Tasmanians have two heads. ;)

Hehejk. Well, we made it to Tasmania on Friday. Getting internet connection has been HELL. I've finally got a low, faint signal so I figured I'd update...

IT IS GORGEOUS HERE. I dare not upload pictures else my internet might decide to evaporate but really, it's adorable. First off, it's called Sandy Bay. Which is either a suburb or just the town next to Hobart. It totally looks like a quaint New England/faintly Irish-like town. A few of the guys were like, "This is exactly like the European countryside!! ....Although I've never really been to the European countryside..." Haha. It's just this little harbor in the middle of some big hills (I'd say mountains, but they're not really that big) with close, small houses cut into the hillsides. Unfortunately, the weather has been horrible, especially after sunny Perth, but there's been a huge rainbow both days I've been here. I could still do with about a 15 degrees higher temperature though.

The trip here was nice. Thursday night we basically stayed up until we were picked up from our apartments at 4:45am. yiikes. I had taken a nap around 8pm because I was too scared if I slept at night I wouldn't wake up in time to get out without panicking. But it was fine for me, although some people decided it would be a good idea to drink that night and were.. still drunk.. getting to the plane. Let's just say I had to guide two people around and hold their tickets so they wouldn't lose them. At security, Troy got stopped for a random explosives test, which was funny. The woman was just a riot. She said she'd lived in Tassie for six years and they had to chop off the second head she grew before she was allowed back onto the mainland. There's just a lot of jokes about how Tassie is the land of inbreeders and abnormalities that we've been hearing and this was just another to the list. Thank god we haven't experienced anything like that yet. Well, we had an hour stop-over in Sydney which was really pretty flying over. No time to leave the airport or anything, but I got a good picture in the air of the Opera House and the big bridge. Then a quick two hour flight to Tassie and here we are.

Friday we just did some grocery shopping, made some homemade pizza and hung out around here. Yesterday afternoon we went to this really cute open-air market that they have here every Saturday. I felt really jet lagged when we got back and slept most of the evening. We went to Irish Murphey's because they had a live band and met some crazy people but had a great time. Today Maria and I tried to be tourists but the jetlag has been really bad around here. It's worse adapting to the three hour time difference between Perth and here than it was getting to Perth in the first place. Weird. Ok, well I'm going to go, hopefully the internet lets me post this. Catch you all later.

<3 br="">
ps. Interesting fact: it's said that here in Hobart we're closer to Antarctica than we are to Perth. I haven't researched this, but I've heard it quite a few times by now. Hmmm..

Gah!

There. are. too. many. cockroaches. here.

There I was, minding my own business, drinking a milkshake at Fast Eddy's. When a cockroach fell off a pipe on the ceiling and on to my back, bouncing off to the floor. My friends lied to me, saying it was a leaf. Leaves do not go *thud* off your back and then scurry away. I will throw up if I have to see one more effing cockroach while I am here. This can not be normal.

On a better note, we went on a "torchlit" tour of the Freemantle Prison today. Now I know we only just went three days ago, but we had to try again. About 18 of our group came, which was very cool. It wasn't as scary as I imagined it would be, but it was very gloomy and eerie. But it was mostly just the heavy feelings, not much I can retell about here.

I just wanted to moan about the freakin cockroaches.

<3 br="">
ps. udaman2k2: better a cockroach than a fire spitting dragon

New pictures up!

Finally starting the long process of uploading more pictures. We've just been so busy and uploading them from this shitty wireless internet connection is a very laborious process. But I'm doing it!!

Tomorrow is our last day in Perth.. *tear. I've really enjoyed myself in this city.. the city centre, the nearby beaches, the excellent bus and train system.. I'm excited to check out what Tasmania has to offer (although most locals say it's an awful place, cold and full of inbreeding. LOL!) but I am a little nervous we've gotten a bit too used to all the conveniences Perth has to offer. But! I know plenty former Walkabout students who loved it, and Sona even told me it was her favorite place, so really I'm not worried at all. Knowing that I'm always on the move helps ease the homesickness too.

Oo! Great news! We're finally settling out what we want to do for spring break! Pretty much everyone is going to New Zealand, although in different numbers of groups and slightly different activities. Some are booking an entire guided tour for like $1200, some are renting out an RV and driving around, some are just taking extended hiking trips in the Alps. Maria, Morgan, Katie, and Colby and I are renting out a car for the nine days and traveling around the South Island, most likely on this route. We're planning on extending it down to Queenstown for a night or so as well tho. Some of the girls really want to go sky diving, but that's not even something my brain can conceive, so don't worry (MOM!). lol. I booked my flight already which was a big stupid production bc the flights were quickly getting booked out, but thankfully it's all settled now.

Alright, good times. Me and Jenessa are going to get our hairs trimmed. Catch you all on the flip siiidee

<3

Koalas, Aborigines, Kangadoo, and Pinnacles. Oh, and a busted knee.

Thursday and Friday was our last fieldtrip of Murdoch. With the same crazy tour guides of our last trip, we set off in our very-touristy looking vans at about 7am.

We drove for a bit until we arrived at our first stop, Yanchep National Park. Here we toured a Koala Park and also caught some crazy half-wild kangaroos hopping around freely, but spastically. Did you know that koalas sleep for nearly twenty hours a day and for the remaining four hours they just stuff their faces with leaves? Also, koalas don't drink water, or even really drink at all- they get all their hydration and water needs from the leaves that they eat. Alsoalso, they only feed on the leaves of the Eucalyptus tree, which is actually oddly enough a poisonous plant, and some think that this is one reason they sleep so much-- because the plant poison makes them drunk! Koalas are one out of only three species of animals that can survive on a Eucalyptus-tree leaf diet.

We then had a three hour long "aboriginal culture experience" in which we: learned how to throw spears, boomerangs, make tools, and learn about dance and the didgeredoo. The spear and boomerang throwing are pretty easily explained by these pictures (shoot, I'll insert pictures when I get them off Maria's computer).
As for the tools, we got to make little tomahawk-like objects. The glue-like substance used to put the sharp rock on the stick handle is made out of: charcoal, some type of seed or something from the grass trees, and... kangaroo poop! Which we also termed kangadoo. We had to crush up said ingredients with a large rock until it became a fine powder. Here's me and Jason attempting to crush up some kangadoo and charcoal:
After this we each got a stick for our handle. We held the stick in a fire until it got hot, put it in the mixture, heat the stick again, put on more mixture, etc. until there was a good glob of it on your stick. Then we had to mold the kangadoo mixture with our hands in order to stick the rock in. Siiickk. And the finished product?(look how long my hair has grown!)

Then it was time for "Didgeridoo and Dance" in which our tourguide dressed up in his aboriginal costume (which looked vaguely like a diaper) and special paint and did a few traditional story dances, such as fishing and one about searching for honey in the trees. I spur-of-the-moment-ly volunteered to help with this and acted out the part of the tree (a superb performance, I might add) in which mostly just stood there with my hands up ridiculously while he danced around me, until the stunning climax of the show where I was chopped down and had to lay down in a pile of sand. Hahah. Very fun tho. He then had us all get up and stand in two lines, one for boys and one for girls, and we each had our own section in which to dance. That was a riot. Lots of mimicking the butterfly with our legs, as he explained it. Then he played some very cool didgeridoo and told us that the females shouldn't play it because legend has that it can make a woman infertile. Huzzah for women's suffrage in the western world.

But that's not all! No, in the same day we trekked to Nambung National Park, location of the famous Pinnacles desert!

Epochs earlier ago the land was once a sea. As most sand was formed, so too here, in which shells are eventually broken down into limestone particles and washed and blown ashore. Over epochs the sea and beachfront rescinded and vegetation grew where the former beach had been. Rain water would seep into the ground and carry the limestone from the sand deep below which eventually compacted into a soft limestone layer. The roots of the vegetation eventually bore down deep into the limestone layer and formed cracks in it. As the climate continued to change, as always, the vegetation began to die and the cracks become more apparent and the top most layer eroded away. The quartz sand that was underneath was sand swept for thousands of years until the crack became more apparent until you could start to see the eroded limestone in what seemed to be pillar-shaped objects rising from the ground. These are the pinnacles.Some are gigantic, both wide and tall, some are small as my knee. Here's me standing next to some pinnacles. Unfortunately, as we're all taking pictures pretending to be pinnacles in the landscape, Taylor's knee somehow dislocated and he collapses to the ground. One of the teachers who were taking us around had to run back to the tour guides who were taking the caravans to the end of our walk on the other side. Sadly, Taylor was incapacitated for the rest of our trip. He had to go to the doctors when we got back who told him that his knee in general was fine although there was a piece that chipped off and was floating around somewhere. But they said it shouldn't be a problem, heh.

After all this we camped at a trailer park, of all places, and then the next day went on a tour of a Catholic monastery which was interesting for its artwork, but generally pretty boring.

And I'm tired of typing, so I'll wish you all a grand farewell and hope you're doing well. Until next time!

Girls don't hunt kangaroos.

Thank god. lol.

But class today was pretty silly. :) It started off a little rough, because it's Labor Day here in Western Australia. Which meant that no busses were running from our bus station. So after some little confusion we called Mary-Anne and she told us to train to Fremantle and then take the bus from there to campus. We finally made it, although we were a half hour late. But it was fiiine.

Today was another Media Frenzy, this time about TV. Sally and I walked into the studio and looked at each other sighing, "Ahh, home.." haha. We split up into two groups again, one group staying in that studio and another group, my group, going to another studio to learn about field shooting. After a brief introduction he told us we would be making our own two minute movie that we had to write, shoot, act in, and edit all in about two hours.

So it was me, Maria, Jenessa, and Loic in one group and our story was about Kangaroo hunting and crossdressing. LOL. Well here's the deal. In aboriginal culture, females aren't allowed to go on hunts because the think we're bad luck (LAME). And Glen, our teacher for the class on aborigines had told us so, and had agreed with the philosophy. So, in our video we first had Loic come out of the center wearing Glen's kangaroo hide and carrying a spear and then begin bragging about the kill he just went on. Then we got all excited that we wanted to try too, and ran to Glen's office. But once inside, he turned us down saying women we bad luck on a hunt. So, getting some bright ideas, we ran to the bathroom to put on moustaches and our hair in hats. A very clever and believable disguise, I might add (psyyyche) (lol, I said psyche). We returned to Glen's office and miraculously fooling him into thinking we were men, he allowed us to go. The movie ends with us hunting kangers in the bushland that is the side parking lot of Murdoch Uni. Hahahaha. It was great.

Unfortunately the sound did not come out.

Which ruined the great speech Glen gave, but luckily we were able to make it work anyways. Good thing the projects themselves aren't graded, only the effort is. Although I was quite embarrassed since this is my major and all. But ah well, no worries.

Alright, that's about all since last night. I'm trying to update more often so I don't fall behind and feel overwhelmed. Tomorrow we're switching groups for media frenzy and doing a studio production, then we have Wednesday off wootwoot.

Until next time,

<3

Blahhh

So, the internet in my room crapped out and I'm forced to go to the public meeting room to get internet connection. Really, I just think whoever's internet I was mooching off of wizened up and blocked my ISP. Because it still says it's connected and Skype still works, but it won't load webpages or Instant Messenger. As if I was really using that much bandwidth please.

I'm really much too lazy/annoyed to post some long update about our South West fieldtrip, but you can read it on Jenessa's site if you want, here. (Sorry Jenessa, lol).

Also, yesterday was insane. We went on our wine tour and that was very cool. My favorite part wasn't even the wine so much as the people we met and the delicious cheese sampling platters at the second winery. I have some very pretty picture of the vineyards. Then Mary-Anne took us out to Subiaco (aka Subi) with some of her friends. Half the group was on the surfing trip, and although I kind of regret not going I would have been wayy too scared if I hadn't had my contacts so I don't even care. But yeah, we went to the Subi Hotel which had a really fun band playing, and they played RESPECT and some Beyonce and me and Jessa were belting them, and all the other songs, out and she started calling us her backup singers and actually said goodbye to us in the mic when we left. Because apparently Australians don't sing while they dance. lol. The Llama Bar was a little annoying. Just lots of people standing around in over-priced clothing talking. Apparently rich Australians don't even dance. Hah.

Ok well I'm pretty ticked at the computer situation, but I wanted to drop a quick line. Do read about the South West trip. Catch ya on the flip side.

<3

RE: Lack of posting.

I'm sorrrry guys!! lol. I knew this would happen too. I knew I'd get behind in updating, and then, feeling like I'd be doing something morally wrong if I skipped retelling any events, become too overwhelmed with the amount of writing that needed to be done and continue to put it off.

I never was any good at keep journals.

Maybe I can just give the brief update. I don't really know if I have the order of the days straight in my head so I'm just going to follow the pictures I have on my computer. Hahhaha.

Well, Wednesday we had some random lectures entitled: "Overview of Public Relations Theory and Practice" and "Overview of Media Industries in Australia." Both were alright, but stuff I've already heard about freshman year. Even in talking in Australian terms it wasn't much different. But it was fine.

Wednesday night, Fifty Cent, the rest of G-Unit, and Lil' John were in town. Two of our guys went to the show and said it was a riot.. tickets were AU$100.... and fifty cents!! I kid you not. After the show there was an afterparty.... THREE BLOCKS from out apartment! At Metro City, this three-story club that we had been dying to check out but that had been closed every time we went to it. ((Luckily(?) we never ended up actually going, largely because we had heard rumors of a shooting a year ago which the Australian former-captain Ben Cousins had reportedly been involved with. Ben Cousins also has been recently involved in some illegal activities. That's a whole other famous Aussie story.)) Nevertheless! Wednesday night there was some other serious drama involving the Mustang, Jenessa's ass, and some fighting boys, but we won't really get into that here. Let's just say our boys are very protective of us and I thank them profusely for that.

Anyways, Thursday was a great day. We had the morning off and then our afternoon was "Telling Indigenous Stories." Hot like whoa. Here's a picture of our professor for the day, Glen, and no, he's not joking. Let's not even talk about the kangaroo coat he's wearing (ok let's do). He calls it his "foreskin" because it's made out of four skins. Sick. But no, he was very cool and not a real sicko at all.
He lectured for about a half hour, talking in his native language. He is a large part aboriginal despite his white skin, his grandmother had been a pure blood aborigine and one of the, shall we say, "victims" of British colonialism. We ate traditional flat bread with some homemade jam, painted message sticks, and got to play with cool artifacts.

Friday was the long-awaited day of our Rottenest Island (or Rotto, as the Aussies call it) field trip. "Discovered" by the colonials in 1612, upon arrival they had seen what they thought to be was a beautiful island covered in bush forest... but infested with rats. They therefore dubbed it "Rats' Nest Island." However, the creatures turned out to be in fact the indigenous marsupial, the quokkas. Here's me petting a quokka: Sadly, in 1839, with the foundation of a British colony in Perth, came hostility between the colonialists and the natives, much like the exact situation in the Americas 200 years before. Many aborigines were taken captive and, deeming it more humane than prison, stowed them away on Rottnest Island. For the next thousand years (literally until the 1930s!) Rottnest was a prison colony, and by prison I mean a place to hold aborigines to keep them away from the "whites" of the city. It is now a holiday island and the former main prison has been turned, ironically, into a hotel. Go figure. Rotto was so freakin beautiful that words honestly can't even describe it and to get an idea of our time there it's best to just check out my webshots of that day. Because I could go on for hours about it. However, I will add one more picture of the near perfect BEACH there, just to tease you all ;) I look a little silly in it because Jeff had literally just dove into the picture, but hey. I'm in the Indian Ocean in 90 degree weather, and you're not. I deserve to be laughing. hahahahajk
After Rottnest we caught a rugby game in Subiaco (aka Subi.. the Aussies shorten all their words like that), a neigh- bor- hood of Perth. It was Western Force (the blue team, our team) against New Zealand's Chiefs. We lost pretty horribly but it was so much fun that it didn't even matter. Of course I knew nothing about rugby before going to the game, so I got the play by play explanations from Chris the whole game. The stadium was alot like what I'd imagined a Harry Potter quidditch game stadium to be like (of course, before I saw the movie and it's interpretation).

Saturday was the day we went on a surprise trip to the beach. We had been talking about going during the rugby game but in the morning it seemed no one was interested. That is, until I began posting and Chris and Jeff bounded into our apartment telling us to meet them downstairs in ten minutes so we could go to the beach. and it was glooorious! I'll just keep posting beach pictures to make you all jealous. hahaha. That night was a surprise party for Colby's 21st birthday. Cheers!

Sunday was a nothing day where I uploaded all my pictures, took a nap, and did lots of homework. Morgan, Steve, Jeff, Chris, and I played some British-style Monopoly which I completely bombed at. I had like two properties only and all the guys had all the rest. I was doomed to loose to I cut my losses and started to trade my two properties for good real-life favors. In the end I turned out to be the real winner of Monopoly that night because Steve traded me Northumberland Avenue for a home-cooked meal! Holllllerrr.


Monday was another Media Frenzy Day in which my half of the group got to do the journalism one. But, in reality, we did preeeetty much nothing because Mary-Anne was our professor for the day. We worked hard for the first hour but then had a ridiculously long lunch and gossiped most of the day. I guess Maria and I had it easier because the professor we were supposed to interview for the assignment was unavailable, so Mary-Anne just told us to make it up. Euuups, lol. But that was fun. Went grocery shopping, Steve cooked my dinner and invited my roommate along, and then people came over while he made crepes for everyone. Sooo gooood...

Almost done!

Today we only had a half day again, and in the morning we had "Documentary Theory." That was hella fun. I love all things documentary. Again, very much like my intro classes freshman year, but the professor, Martin, was amazing and brought everything to superb light whether it was old or new information. We got back and Jeff and I booked our wine tour (I had got a free one one night at the Mustang when they were giving them away) for this Saturday while half the group goes on the surfing trip. I do slightly regret not doing it, but as I haven't gotten the contacts my dad mailed to me there's not much I could do anyways if I wanted to see. Overall both a relaxing and productive day, although I desperately need to start my photo-narrative project.

Tomorrow begins our over night field trip to the South West. I would describe the itinerary but I'm tired of typing and I'm sure you're tired of reading. So I'll fill you in on the adventure when I return. Until then, au revoir, and I hope you've enjoyed.

Ok so I lied.

But only sort of! I will update more soon, but I need to do homework now. However! I did just spend about two hours uploading all my new pictures, so definitely check those out:

http://community.webshots.com/user/skaistajauniba-date

Will write more soon!

<3

How time flies.

Wow, I didn't even realize it's been so long since I last updated. Plenty of stories, I guess I've just been too lazy to tell them. Or more likely it's that I've told so many people already about my week that going over it again seems redundant. Well here goes. This'll be long.

We left off in the great saga of Austra's life at the first day of classes. The second day of class was alright, entitled "Media Frenzy: Radio." Which means we got a crash course in how to put together a radio show and then had to break into pairs and actually make a 15 minute long one. First we had to go out into "the field" aka "Bush Court" aka the school's main grassy square. We had to pick a question to interview people and they could be as serious or as silly as we wanted. One group asked people opinions about some crazy political speaker woman who said that with the high abortion rate in Australia that it would become a Muslim state in 15 years. Everyone just said she was a nutcase. Another asked people their opinions on American college students and recieved answers such as "cheerleaders," "dorm parties," and "American Pie." Apparently they know alot about us from that movie? Great..

The rest of the week was filled mostly by class and then exhaustion following class and early nights in. That night me and the roomies amused ourselves by stealing some paintings (jokingly, of course) from some of our friends rooms because we noticed we didn't have any of our own.

HOLD ON! I just got told we're leaving for the beach! Yayyy! We wanted to go but no one else was so we were just gonna stay in but yayyy! the beach! But I'll post this just to let you guys know I'm still alive ;). Will write more when I get back!
<3!

It's a scorcher!

Bumbat:

First day of class

So today was officially our first day of class. This class is "Spinning Yarns: Media and the Message in Australia." It seems pretty chill, but also honestly like five other intro to TV classes I've already taken. But that's alright, I'm hoping I'll learn enough about the Australian spin on the media. It's kinda weird too because I'm taking these classes with people from every major where in Park you really only have other Tv-Radio kids in class with you. Makes me feel like a real professional. :P

Class is generally from 10-12 and then 1-3, with the hour for a lunch break. Tomorrow is "Media Frenzy Day" which is listed in the syllabus as "all day" but I hope it's not too bad. Mary-Ann, the teaching assistant, said we'll be splitting up with one group doing newspaper journalism and the other group doing radio. Piece of cake, really. Lol.

The weekend was just pretty laid back. After the sunburn, my body wouldn't let me back on the beach. Saturday we really did nothing. We walked around the City Center a little bit, came back for some lunch, took naps, made dinner, watched the Olympics, and went to bed early. Exciting.

Yesterday started out much the same. Jenessa and I just went window shopping.. the style around here is mostly surfer apparel and fancily dressed girls. Some have commented that all the girls here are way skinny but I think it's just that they're all really well dressed that it doesn't matter. Bc for real, no one walks around here in sweats. It's always big belts cinched at the waist and high heeled shoes tied around the ankle many times. All day too, not just at night. Another popular fashion, besided the cinched waist belts, is dress-looking shorts. I. want. them. but at fifty dollars (which like 37 American dollars) it seems like a purchase that needs to wait til the end of the trip to see how my budget is fairing!

Then we had a BBQ in King's Park! Not too many big stories about that, besides that Steve makes killer kebobs and we saw a Kuckaburra. So, I'll just leave you with some fun pics.