Well, it took a week of constant sunscreen application to avoid a sun burn, but I knew the hot Aussie sun would get me eventually. Yesterday we went to Scarboro Beach and even though I put sunscreen before we got there and reapplied it once while there, I got burned. Luckily, I got less burned than many other people, but still. Mostly it's the back of my knees, the lines around the backside of my where my bikini bottom was and most of the top part of my back. Owz.

Thursday night we officially deemed Ladies Night, and let me tell you it was a scene out of that Dane Cook skit: "Screw guys, I just wanna dance!" We went to The Shed which was supposedly "Backpackers Night" but apparently the backpackers were way too tired after a long day of backpacking and instead there weren't too many people there. Eventually we decided to go to our ol' standby The Mustang and met up with some of the other IC kids. And just danced! Highlights: some Swiss guy trying to get with Maria all night, Jessa (not Jenessa, lol) dropping her glass and TJ slipping on it and falling and smashing his arm right into the broken glass and having to go to the hospital (he's ok now, just a bandage around his arm), and just overall tons of fun. No, but really, as afwul as that sounds, it really has been the best night I've had here so far.

Last night was supposed to be the night our whole group went out to Metro City, this club that's supposed to have three floors of dancing and yaddahyaddah.. but when we walked all the way there it was closed. So, we went to go to the Deen (short for Aberdeen, or however you spell it) but you couldn't get in with flip flops, which some of the girls were wearing. So guess where we ended up? The Mustang. I had borrowed shoes from Morgan, and although I could walk fine in them, they were way too tall to dance comfortably in. Luckily, she carries flip flops with her and I just borrowed those instead. The night was not too much fun until after I changed those shoes. We saw Swiss guy again, but this time we had our whole group to watch out for him (aka the guys were the bodyguards). But really, there weren't any problems at all. He tried to come over like oncec but I think he understood the deal. Overall, a fun night again, but didn't top Thursday night.

So now I'm in a bit of pain from my sunburn and the two blisters that I popped from Morgan's shoes. Tonight's a full day in. Probably do some grocery shopping and make a nice dinner later tonight and just relax. I'm both sun and danced out for a few days. School starts on Monday!

<3

Bike ride and the Aquarium

Well, we just got back from a rather long bike ride today. Our hotel has bikes you can borrow, but the guy who gave us the keys for the bike locks freaked us out telling us no one rides around here and that we have to wear helmets or else we will die. He really said that. However, I refused to take my picture in it, so here's me living dangerously:Also worth mentioning, Jeff has been telling me about this building that he saw around here called "Australand" and although we've been talking about finding it again, until now we hadn't really tried. But alas, it has been found! Although apparently under construction:The park was of course beautiful and we'll have to return to check it out again soon. We did find this gigantic tree that I was just dying to climb, but we settled for a picture instead:
There are some more cool pictures, but you can check them out on my webshots at the link provided at right.


Yesterday was cool and rainy.. and by rainy I mean really only low, thick clouds that produced an air of mist. Much better than real rain, any day. So, given the crappy conditions we decided to head out to the Aquarium of Western Australia, aka AQWA. The museum had exhibits that were recreations of the underwater habitats of all the surrounding beaches, all which were very differant. Also, there was an under water walk where not only did all the fish and sea turtles swim over you but also about five differant sharks. Yum.
Those pictures, while interesting and good, are not entertaining enough for me to bother to post them here. But definitely go check them out sometime. But before I go, I will leave you with one last picture. Me petting a sting ray.


<3

I said, NO BOMBIES!!

Right, so yesterday: D-R-A-M-A. But not any of us, luckily. But whooo-boy. So here goes.

Maria, Jenessa, and I were chilling out on the deck by the pool area reading some girly mags and soaking up the dwindling rays of the evening. There were only two other women in the pool area, at a table across the way. And the one was traaashed. She was fine for a while while we got there but soon we heard sobbing and yelling, but then like two seconds later she would sound fine. Basically the story we nosely construed was that her husband/boyfriend/etc had an affair/cheated/etc and they got a divorce/broke up/etc and he got custody of their daughter. they were kinda far away, and she was drunk, and had a heavy Australian accent so the exact details are sketchy. Also, this was over the course of about a half hour. Ok so..

Soon, two teenage boys, probly like age 16-17, came down to the pool and were doing belly flops and cannon balls into it (called bombies, in Australia) even though the signs specifically said "No Bombies!". Jenessa got sprayed once although luckily we were far enough away from most of the water. The crazy drunk woman also got hit once and she freaked out at them, saying she was going to call 111, the Australian version of 911 or the police hotline or something. But eventually she calmed down.

Then. Then the mom of the two boys came down, also bring her two daughters. The four played in the pool, chicken fighting and whatnot. After a while, the girls came back up to their mother. And here begins the real drama.

We hear the crazy woman go, "Is that my ShayShay? Is that my ShayShay??!" and then she RAN OVER TO THE GIRL AND GRABBED HER. Just wrapped her arms right around her sobbing and yelling "My ShayShay! My ShayShay!" until the mom was like "Um, you are scaring my daughter, please let go." The friend came over telling her it wasn't her ShayShay and finally pulled her off. The mom told the sons to take the girls back upstairs to the room. The kids got outside the gate and the woman freaked out being like "Where are you taking my ShayShay?!!?" And ran after them.

At this point, the three of us were like, maybe we should go.. And made towards the door. As the woman ran after the girl hysterically sobbing and yelling, one of the boys stood in the way and pushed her, saying, "Stay the fuck away from my sister." And somehow the woman ended up behind him and PUNCHED HIM SQUARE IN THE BACK. With her ENTIRE body weight. And we thought we saw the family starting to run towards the stairs (towards us) with the woman chasing after them and we booked it up the stairs, scared as hell.

It turns out later, the police came and took her away.

Wow.


<3

Day two.

Ok, can we just talk about the subtle differances between here and the US... clearly the driving on the opposite side, that one's obvious. But for less known differances, we'll start with our bathroom. The toilet paper looks like little tissues. As does the dispenser above the sink for hand drying. Haven't determined if this is normal for Australia or just for City Stay Apartments. Also, there are two buttons to flush the toilet. Apparently one uses less water and that means the other only needs to be used for serious flushing... ahem. lol. Also, the yield traffic signs instead say "Give Way." And the speed limit is only a black number inside a red circle. And of course, kilometers instead of miles, although that's not even written on the speed limit signs. And there's a Target in Centre Perth, except it's spelled "Target." as in Target-period. And that's definitely not normal, because no other shops had periods after their names. Anything else? Nothing that's jumping to mind.

My day: crazy. As they say, early to bed, early to rise, we woke up around 630-7am. The other two girls went to the gym while I chatted w a few people from home. There was a tour to Freemantle for international students at 12:30 that was leaving from campus and we planned on heading to the grocery store before. But it was closed. Because Sunday store hours are 12-5:30. Hah. The rest of the group apaprently went to check out campus before the tour and we were the only ones left who were planning on going. We figured out all the times and made all the busses and transfers perfectly. Until we got to campus. Because Sunday busses on drop you off at the campus shuttle hub, which is a few kilometers from the actual campus. We had 15 minutes to get to a parking lot on the other side of campus, and when we got off the Perth bus driver told us the next shuttle would be in ten minutes. Which we didn't have! So we decided to hot foot it over. And by hot-foot-it, i mean f'ing RUNNNING across the big gigantic campus. I freaking almost died! I am not a runner! hah, but surprisingly we made it with about 2 minutes to spare. Phew! Here's the picture of us crowding on to the bus, in which I am completely red-faced.

In Freemantle we split up and got some food. Some girls and I found a Mexican restaurant that although it first seemed pretty expensive (but the same price as all the other restaurants there) the servings we gigantic. And they say American servings are huge. Another differance: tipping is not that natural here.. you basically just literally tip for the service. The restuarant owner explained it. Regular service where you just get your food and that's about all doesn't need a tip, but if any waiter/ress is particularly helpful and prompt, then you leave a tip. Morgan and I had a debate on whether or not this was better than the customary 15% tip in the states, where I argued it certinaly was, but she argued that servers should get tipped a certain amount just for the basics too. Mehh. Whatevs.

From Freemantle we went to Cottesloe for the beach. Some of the guys heard it was the best beach around... it ended up being like Western Australia's version of Myrtle Beach. Not exaaactly my bag, but great if you like that kind of thing. Meaning: crowded with drunk, fashionably dressed college-aged kids. And when I say crowded I mean crowded. But whatevs. I laid out in the sun for most of the time, and thanks to some sunscreen didn't burn except for a little patch on my back where I missed a spot. Eups. But atleast I thought to lather myself! I knew if i didn't I would suffer. I knew that palepale white winter skin suddenly exposed to hot summer weather minus sunscreen=the most horrible time in Australia for weeks. So I was prepared. We bought cheap drinks at one of the less crowded places where there was cricket playing on a big screen TV and some Aussie explained to us a few of the rules.

We had to walk back to the train station (there was a free bus on the way there that only ran until 5pm), which was a freaking hike. But pretty; the main town of Cottesloe reminded me of when we went to Boca Raton to visit the Kriste. But we finally made it back here.

And now, all my joints are swollen. Hah. But I'm alright. I feel WAY better than I did most of yesterday so that's a relief. Just gotta get over this last little bit of jet lag and not think of back home and I'll be alright. I'll get too sad when I think about how I'll be away from the boyfriend for so long, so I just try my hardest to just NOT think about it. It's just what I gotta do. I got a real cute Skype message from him when I got back and I tried calling him but I knew it was like 6am there. All in all, a beautiful day. Very lovely. I'm not Myrtle beach-esque, and I defintely prefer Perth to Freemantle/Cottesloe no matter what other people say. Haha. Although Freemantle is defintely a hopping place and would be fun to check out another day when I'm not so achy.

Well alright, I'm terribly exhausted and it looks like no one's going out tonight after all (I was going to stay in and do relaxing stuff like take a long hot shower because my skin's all beachy feeling and after all that running/hiking my joints feel terribly swollen. But I could handle a slow night in too. Alright, I love you all.

<3