I'm in AUSTRALIA!!

It finally hit me this weekend that I'm actually in Australia! To start off Thursday night was a fiasco. At 12 a girl in my apartment and I heard this clanging noise from outside in the hallway so we went out to investigate and it was coming from the 2nd floor it sounded like. And the light on the fire alarm was going off outside, but there was no siren. So while the clanging and pushing sounds were coming, the walls were also vibrating slightly. For fear that the building was going to collapse or something we walked around to the other side of the building where the stairs are and went downstairs to the front desk. When the front desk guy came upstairs the noise was dying down and he said don't worry it will probably disappear. Well no sooner had he left, the noise came back. So we went down to get him again and he was like hmm that's not normal. Well NO SHIT! He then went upstairs to check the other floors and came back down to tell us that he couldn't hear it on the floors above us. Weird right? So he called his supervisor who then called the fire brigade to check out the noise. In the end the noises were caused by a slight leak in the water main room, no damage was done, but it still kept us up until 2 AM.
Friday afternoon Molly and I took the train to Aunt Barb and Helen's house in Robina, which is kinda near the Gold Coast/Surfer's Paradise. When they met us at the train station, it finally hit me. Wow I'm in Australia, cause I'm seeing my Aunts for the first time in at least 5 years!! So we spent Friday night at their place, just hanging out and catching up. We had delicious steak and potatoes...mmm. Saturday Barb drove Molly and I to the beach, which is 10 minutes away from their house, while Helen stayed at home preparing herself to make dinner. We stayed down at the beach for about 2 hours and then walked around and looked in the shops for a bit. When we returned, Barb got in her bathing suit and we all got in the pool which was fabulously warm! Then we all just relaxed until Barbara Mary, Helen's sister, showed up and then it was time to start dinner. We had delicious pork ribs with a salad on the side. Finally some greens in my diet! For those who are reading this and haven't met Barbara Mary yet, she is a mix between Helen and Aunt Barb. She looks more like Barb, but acts and speaks like Helen. I can't wait to meet the rest of the family next time I go down to visit! Today we just hungout around the house in the morning and then went out to Currumba and ate at a very exclusive surfer/live saving club...I think that's what it was called. There was a nice large rock next to the club area which is called Elephant Rock and there is a place on top where you can see out for miles. Well Barb, Molly, and I climbed up it and took some gorgeous pictures...which will be uploaded to facebook shortly, no worries. Lunch their was delicious, I had a chicken caesar salad, yes more greens I know. But after that sadly, Molly and I had to leave their gorgeous house to come back to the apartments.
It was a wonderful weekend and I can't wait to go back and hangout with the family!!

Market Day

Yesterday was Market Day at UQ. This is when all of the clubs and groups come out onto the great court/any open space on campus and try to get people to sign up. They had everything from different sports clubs to all sorts of religious/nationality groups it was crazy! There were like 8 different Christian organizations! Jamie would have had a field day!! I was going to sign up for a few clubs but they all cost money! Beach volleyball is $55 a semester. Even the groups that offer discounts to different places around the city were $5-10. I guess that's how they earn their money. Oh well. I'm probably just going to sign up for an exercise class instead. A friend and I want to sign up for a dance class, either hip/hop or another sort of class. There were also different venders giving out all this free stuff, I think I have 4 different wall calendars I could use, all sorts of different lotions, oh and even some food. They have lifesavers here, obviously, but the flavor they have is "fruity tingles". Yep it tastes just like it sounds, it's fizzy in your mouth, kinda like pop rocks but in a smaller condensed form. I'm also still looking for a pool with diving boards to practice at because UQ's pool was destroyed by the flooding, and they don't have diving boards.
I'm doing my first load of laundry since being here, It's only been 12 days since I got here but I already have so much laundry thanks to the orientation in Cairns. The clothes were starting to smell up my room so I figured I should take care of that sometime soon. I think my laundry is actually finished so I should probably go get that...more later I promise!

Fulfilling a life's goal

Since my last post I have achieved one of my life's goals before I die...almost getting struck by lightning! Today after our 3 long and boring orientation sessions in which we received dozens of handouts and maps a huge storm blew up! It was the kind of rain that led to the flooding last month. But anyways so a friend and I are walking back from getting our school supplies and are almost to the bus stop when lightning strikes a tree no more than 20 feet away from us! And then of course came the thunder which came after which made everyone jump a good foot off the ground. Well the tree didn't fall...sadly, but we got back soaking wet, but in one piece.
So over the past few days I've decided to make a scrapbook of my adventures in Australia, now I just need to find a place that sells the needed items to create it. Maybe I'll find some stuff this week in between the orientation sessions and the extreme heat! Oh I forgot to mention, before this lovely storm today it was 90 degrees!! I was fine with the weather, but there were these people wearing long pants and long sleeve shirts, who does that?! Speaking of lots of people, today in 1 of the orientation sessions they went through the 105 countries that are represented in this year's exchange/study abroad program. The largest amount? 669 from China + 99 from Hong Kong. Hong Kong isn't a country, it's a territory! Unless sporcle is wrong...just kidding. Anyways the US has 343 and Canada has 183. There were some other large numbers, but honestly I wasn't really paying attention. BUT I did win a pack of Tim Tams, which are chocolate covered cookies with caramel in the middle for answering a question correctly. BAM!
That's basically all the exciting things that I've done in the past few days, oh except I went shopping and there were so many sales! But I only bought 2 dresses and a top so no worries, I'm not breaking the bank yet. :)

Finally settling in!

What an adventure it has been so far! Yesterday we went on our Tropical Jungle tour. It first started off kinda slow, we went to the same type of "zoo" that we went for rainforestation day. However we got to walk around more freely and do what we wanted. There were birds of all different colors as well as kangaroos and their joeys!! There were a few female kangaroos that had joeys in their pouches and there was one that couldn't have been more than a few days old...pictures are on facebook! Next we went to the actual jungle and walked through a path to get a river. Everyone got about 10 new mosquito bites from this lovely walk. But once we jumped into the river, they obviously didn't itch anymore. I wasn't in a full bathing suit, just a bikini top so I didn't get all the way in, but those who had on bikinis/trunks swam or tried to swim to a large boulder in the middle of the river. Not gonna lie, coming from an experienced swimmer, it was quite entertaining to watch some of the people try to get out there. :) After this we had lunch at a little picnic area and we went on a water tour on the Daintree river. Here we saw several baby crocodiles and some orange crabs. Finally at the end of the day we went to a small shaded beach and just hungout for about an hour. All throughout the day we drove around windy roads and up and down the mountains. Ohh and I can't forget the ferry that we took to get across the river. Instead of a bridge, there is a ferry that drives people back and forth, but instead of an engine on the ferry, it was attached to steel cables on either side. So on either side of the river their were big wheels that pulled and released the cables to get the ferry across.
We got back just in time for our pasta dinner that night, which was delicious meat sauce (mostly meat, not sauce) and pasta! Most of the students stayed in because we had to get up so early this morning.
Today we got up early and took a plane from Cairns to Brisbane. Most of us are living in the Urbanest apartments. They are just like the Nebraska apartments at American except everyone gets their own bathroom in their room and there's a long hallway where we have our rooms and at the end of the hallway is our kitchen/living area. For dinner we just walked down by the river and ate along their. It was delicious! Classes don't start until the 28th, so we have until then to get oriented with the area and get ready, I can't wait! It still doesn't feel like I'm in Australia, and I don't think it will until classes start.

The Motion of the Ocean

Today we went down to the Great Barrier Reef and oh my gosh was it amazing! I went scuba diving and snorkeling. The view was amazing under the water...we found Nemo, Dory, and Gill! We also happened to see a few other fish and such creatures, which was fantastic. I just don't know how to put into words the marvals of what I saw today. Hopefully pictures can be uploaded to facebook shortly, but I don't want to waste time on this computer doing it. Thanks to the years of slapping on sunscreen, I didn't get burnt today at all! I got a few more freckles, which was fabulous as always.

First days in Australia

So my first few days in Australia have been fabulous! So let's start from the beginning. The 2 day airplane ride over here was dreadful, but I obviously made it through. We got to Cairns, where I thought we would be staying at a nice hotel...not so much, we're staying at a hostel. Which isn't so bad, I ended up lucking out and getting a room with just 1 other girl and we have our own bathroom. Other rooms have 5 people in them with a bathroom and shower in the hallway...it's like college dorms all over again. The first day we were here we did an orientation session at a real hotel and ate dinner here back at the hostel. We had an "Aussie Sausage Sizzle". The next day we went to Rainforestation, where we did a Duck tour through the rainforest, saw an aboriginal dance, and held snacks and a koala!! Pictures will be up on facebook as soon as I get to University of Queensland. Last night we walked around downtown and I crashed at 9! Today we did a volunteer day and dug holes for trees and had to water them...if I had wanted to do community service, I would have signed up for the volunteer adventure day. Oh well. And tomorrow I'm going to the Great Barrier Reef. So, so far it's been great!