Where Did April Go??

Oi! Where do I even begin! Its been quite a while since I have updated you, sorry! I’ve been busy! I have 12 days until I leave the land down under… its going to be very bittersweet. But I really don’t want to talk about that, so I will tell you what has been going on!

Well, on April 4^th, I went with Dana and Scottie to the Maroon 5 concert. It was amazing!! Brandi Carlisle opened, and then One Republic came on. They were absolutely fantastic, but definitely did not play for long enough! After One Republic, Maroon 5 came and gave a fantastic concert! We had a ton of fun and it was definitely worth it!

The next my family arrived in Sydney. I met them in the evening for a bit to say a quick hello. Their hotel, the Marriott in Circular Quay (pronounced “key”) was beautiful! I went home so that MJ and I could get up early the next morning to meet them in the city. We had a big day of showing them around the city. The whole week with them was a pretty big blurr, so I am just going to tell you what we did throughout the week, instead of a day-by-day play-by-play. MJ and I took them shopping at the Rocks, the oldest part of Sydney, at a market that they have their every weekend. While we were there we took them to Pancakes on the Rocks and they really enjoyed it! We also went shopping at Paddy’s Market, a really big flea market type place with good shopping deals. We also took them to the Powerhouse Museum, which is the museum of Science and Design, and was supposed to be really interactive and sweet, but ended up being quite boring and a slight waste of time, but oh well. We got fish and chips for dinner at a place called the Blackbird Café in Darling Harbour. It was quite delicious and a very fun atmosphere. The next night they took the ferry over to meet us in Manly and we took them to Ribs and Rumps and tried KANGAROO! It was actually quite delicious, and its fun to say that we have tried it. We got the kangaroo as an entrée (aka appetizer in the US) and all got other main meals, I had a burger that was absolutely delicious! We then walked them to the ferry where we had a fun dessert at this place called Max Brenner’s “chocolate by the bald man.” To share we got two desserts. We got a delicious warm fudge brownie with vanilla ice cream and also a “fondue for two” that we shared between the 5 of us. It was a cute little fondue set that came with strawberries, banana, marshmallows, and banana bread to dip in either milk or dark chocolate. It was a lot of fun!

I stayed at the Marriott with them one night because I had to be at the city early the next morning to work a tour desk for a conference at the Shangri-La in Sydney Harbour. It was a good experience, but a little bit of a boring day. The Shangri-La was beautiful! Later in the week MJ and I had fun playing tourist with the fam and went to Centrepointe Tower, the tallest tower in Sydney. It is twice as high as the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The tower was very cool with some really great views of the city. We got our silhouettes cut out by the 90 year old man from Detroit. He was definitely a character! Paige’s and MJ’s turned out pretty well, but mine looks like I am 4 years old. We got some pretty good deals on a couple souvenirs and then proceeded to the base of the tower to do the Oz Trek. It began with a carousel type theater where it showed the 4 main aspects of Australia: The Rainforest, The Great Barrier Reef, The Outback, and The City. It was pretty neat, and then we went into a virtual ride where the seats moved and everything. It was pretty cool, but hurt my neck a little bit. We went and took a little walk around Hyde Park and then did a little more shopping near the Opera House and had a late lunch in the harbour. That was the last time that I saw my family before they left Oz, so we said our goodbyes and MJ and I headed back to Manly.

Our friend Jeff picked us up at the wharf when we got off the ferry and took us over to our friend Myles’ house for a bit of a barbeque. It ended up being a Bandicoots (the boys’ footy team) team party, which they did not tell us before they invited us, so it ended up being us two girls and about 20 (mostly Aussie guys.) They were pretty entertaining to say the least. The next day we were supposed to go on our tour to Hunter Valley but it didn’t work out, and we were both pretty bummed. We were supposed to have a level two VIP tour, but we had no way to get there! It was going to be way too difficult and expensive to get there, so it unfortunately just didn’t work out. :-\

Last week was our last week of classes and such. We all had to give our big marketing pitches that we have been working on allll term. Sunday night was VERY stressful and I slept for not even three hours! Our ads and such turned out pretty well, and I was quite proud of them since I was the only one who designed them. Out of a group of 7 only 2 of us really did anything (and there was one other girl that did stuff when asked but that was about it). It was quite frustrating and I am just glad it is over with. A couple hours after that presentation, I gave another group presentation of a wedding storyboard that we had to put together. It went well. After that I got to finally go to bed and sleep. On Tuesday I handed in yet another group assignment and then my friend Chris took both me and MJ to the doctors. The bottom line is that I have been sick pretty much since I arrived in Australia, but the last couple weeks it has been getting drastically worse. I have had a horrible cough, a really stuffy nose with a sinus infection and all I want to is sleep. The doctor gave me a prescription that was supposed to help. From Tuesday until Thursday night I pretty much just got worse, and I seriously slept ALL the time, I was awake for like 3 hours total on Wednesday and pretty much the same on Thursday. I started to get bad stomach aches and had no appetite and got dizzy and such. After I tried to eat dinner on Thursday it was pretty unbearable. We figured I was having side effects from the antibiotic, so MJ took me to the hospital across the street and the doctor told me to, obviously, stop taking the previous antibiotic and gave me something new to take. I think that one is finally helping and I am able to actually have some energy.

On Friday I went on a Blue Mountain Tour with MJ, Dana, Kari, Jillian and Joanie. We were joking about it because one of the Aussie blokes called us “the standard six” the other day, which we found pretty funny. A couple of the girls were excited to hear that we have been given such a nickname! Ha! Anyways, the day started with us getting up at 6am to catch a 6:30 taxi (that didn’t show up) so we called and ended up getting picked up halfway down the hill. The taxi took us to Circular Quay where we got picked up by our tour bus, the Wonderbus! First stop: Featherdale Wildlife Park. It was a lot of fun because we got to pet koalas and feed and pet kangaroos! I loved it. It was nice just to walk around and see some of the animals up close. We spent about an hour there and then continued on our journey to a little town called Leura (pronounced like “Loorah”). It was a cute little town that reminded me a little bit of the quaintness of Elk Rapids. It was really interesting because the trees there were not native to Australia and were changing their colors for fall and were loosing their leaves! Since all of us girls are from Michigan, we felt like we were back home! It was a very cute little town. We got lunch and walked around the town for a little bit and then were on our way again. Next stop: Scenic World. We had a couple of options of what to do. Most of the girls hiked down the hill to get to the bottom, but because I was still pretty weak and tired, I chose a different one and MJ accompanied me on. We took a Scenic Skyway that took us very high across the Jamison Valley. It was very cool (but a little nerve-racking for me with the whole heights thing). We got some pretty great pictures tho, especially because we were able to see Katoomba Falls, a really big and pretty waterfall. After going across that, we took a cable car (Australia’s steepest cable car, to be exact!) down to the bottom and did a little nature walk and took some pretty pictures. It was a World Heritage listed rainforest down in the valley. We walked around and were able to get a few good pictures of the Three Sisters, the most visited spot in Australia! To get back up to the top we took the steepest incline railway in the world! It felt like we were almost at a 90 degree angle! After leaving Scenic World, we drove for a minute or two and got out and took a few more pictures of the Three Sisters at a lookout point. From there we continued on to a winery. It was a pretty old, small, but cute winery. We were there for a little under an hour and then continued on to the last bit of our trip. We stopped at the Olympic Showground so we could see the Olympic Stadium and take a couple of pictures. From there we took a ferry cruise to Circular Quay to end our journey and get on our last ferry back to Manly. We missed our last ferry by less than two minutes, so we waited for another 40 minutes to get back and arrived back in Manly at 7:30. It was a very nice day, even if it was a long one!

We have had some pretty crappy weather the last few weeks. It’s been a bit rainy and chilly (its been nicer in Michigan!). But we finally had a nice yesterday! It was almost 25 degrees, so about 75 degrees Fahrenheit, so we got to spend a couple of hours at the beach! Yay! Today is Sunday and it is time to get back to reality. I need to really start studying! I have two exams on Thursday, one on Friday, and one the following Thursday. I am really not looking forward to this, but it has to be done. I have a couple of different albums to post for you so here they are:

First off, I realized that my last album didn’t really work for you so here are pictures from the Outback and such:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2191962&l=30808&id=22411794

Here is the album with pictures from when my family was here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2195289&l=c5f28&id=22411794

Pictures from our Blue Mountains Tour:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2197959&l=0e400&id=22411794

This one is just the beginning of a random album for you to peek at:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2196031&l=ebe80&id=22411794

Also here are MJ’s pictures from :
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2195287&l=0c21a&id=22414798

Lastly, MJ and I are also very excited because we finally booked our hotels for New Zealand and Fiji and they look very nice! We are going to Auckland, New Zealand from May 9 to May 13, then Fiji from May 13 to May 16, and then Hawaii from May 16 to May 20! We have some beautiful travels ahead of us! And for those of you who are wondering, we arrive into Grand Rapids around 9am on Wednesday, May 21. Here are the links to where we are staying:

New Zealand hotel

http://www.thequadrant.com

Fiji Hotel

http://www.outrigger.com/hotels-resorts/fiji/outrigger-on-the-lagoon-fiji

That’s all for now! Cheers!

134 meters above sea level??

When I arrived back from the Outback on Saturday night before Easter I walked and met my Aunt Sharon and Uncle Bill at their hotel. They were staying at the Old Sydney Holiday Inn. It was so nice to see them! I liked having the familiar face around. We went to a late dinner at a cute little Italian place called Amo Roma. I had some delicious gnocchi! After dinner we walked back to the wharf where I caught the last ferry back to Manly and then had walked the wonderful walk up the hill.

I got up early Easter morning and caught the first ferry back to the city. I met up with Sharon and Bill at a little breaky café by their hotel. I had some delicious pancakes. We then went to the Opera House and took a tour which was very nice to see everything. You got a little different point of view than when we went to the show there a few weeks ago. We then went over to George Street and did a little shopping and got a bite to eat. Later that afternoon we went and did the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb!! It was so fun and SO scary! My heart was racing the whole time and there were different points during the climb that my whole body, especially my legs, were shaking! We had 11 people in our group because one lady changed her mind at the last minute and didn’t want to do the climb. The very top was probably the least scary part of all of it. I felt really safe, and it was absolutely beautiful! We could see Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban’s apartment from where we were! There was someone out on the porch, and it quite possibly could have been one of them! Our guide for the climb was nice and pretty funny. It was definitely a big accomplishment!! I was very glad we did it.

After the bridge climb we went to a really nice dinner at a place right by the Opera House called The Aria. It was definitely a 5 star restaurant! We had an amazing meal! For my main meal I tried Blue Eyed Tarella, a fish that I have never heard of, and it was delicious. Everything was plated very nice and pretty as well. The chef’s name was Matt Moran and for those of you who know… Anthony Bourdain gave him a really good rating! After dinner I took them on the ferry over to Manly to show them around. It was a nice evening to take the ferry over and they really enjoyed the sight of the city. We walked down the corso and then were supposed to go up to the school so they could see it, but we ran out of time because they had to make sure to catch the last ferry back to Sydney so we said goodbye and they went home.

Since we had Monday off of school as well, we got some nice time at the beach. It was another beautiful day. I was sick all week and had a really bad headache so I did a lot of sleeping. We had fun this week having some photo shoots for Diesel ads that we have to put together for our Marketing classes. The winner from each class will get displayed on one of the walls of the school. We had a party to raise money for Breast Cancer last night called the Pink Party and it was a ton of fun! My parents and sister were supposed to arrive last Saturday, but their flight was delayed out of Chicago because of a big snowstorm so they wouldn’t arrive until Sunday. MJ and I were supposed to go to Gold Coast and Brisbane with them for the weekend and then fly back Monday, but we didn’t get to do that because of time so that was a little bit of a bummer. They are up there for the week and then coming back down tomorrow to stay in Sydney for the next week. It will be nice having them here and show them around. They are very excited so it will be fun.

We spent a good portion of our day last Sunday at the beach. While we were there the alarms went off to tell us there was a shark in the water! (This is the second or third time that a shark got through the "shark nets" while we've been down at the beach.) We sat for half an hour thinking there was a shark in the water, when a lifeguard went by and mentioned that it turned out only to be a school of fish that was just changing directions. That seems to be a bit of a difference to me! ha! On Tuesday I got to try my hand at surfing! My friend Chris, an Australian from Sydney, took me down for a couple hours before class. It was so much fun even though I did not do well. I didn't make it into the standing position, which I am ok with since it was my first time trying. I did get better at just staying on the board and balancing throughout the time. We are going to go again sometime soon and I cannot wait!

Tuesday night I ended up going with my friend Andy to watch his water polo match. He played in the same pool that they played during the Sydney Olympics in 2000, which was cool to see. We got there early enough to watch the game before his so he could explain some of the rules to me, and then I watched his game. I got the basics down and it was a lot of fun! One small side note since I brought up the Olympics, something kind of cool was that my friend Andrew swam in the Olympic trials for Beijing a week of so ago. He has been training for a very long time. He swam 2 events (I believe the 200 and the 400), but unfortunately just missed the spot by only one or two spots. It was still a very nice accomplishment!

Yesterday was my friend, Chad's 21st birthday. A few of us went out for Chinese food at this nice place called Pheonix by the wharf. It was delicious, especially since I was looking forward to it all day (and the dinner option at the school ended up being Veal Schnitzel). Last night after dinner the SRC (student organization) put on an auction... for people. It was kind of a joke date auction to raise money for a children's hospital nearby. It consisted of 12 acts of people to be "bid on" some people did it on their own and some went up in pairs. Everyone had coordinated routines and it was pretty funny. Afterwards we went out to our normal Thursday night place for a night full of dancing. I am SO excited for tonight because Dana, Scotty, and I, plus some others who are sitting close nearby, are going to the Maroon 5 with One Republic and Brandi Carlisle concert at Acer Area (near the Olympic Stadium).

Here is the link to my newest photo album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2191962&l=30808&id=22411794

MAKIN’ BANANA PANCAKES

Well! It has been a long time since I have gotten the chance to update you all! I will start with the Jack Johnson concert… which was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!! We could not have asked for a better show. On Saturday, March 15^th, we (meaning, MJ, Joanie, Kurt, and Maria) left and took the ferry and 2 trains to get to Bondi Junction which is near where the concert was, which was being held at Centennial Park. We wandered around a few of the shops and decided we definitely need to make our way back there because it seemed to be quite a bit of nice shopping! We walked for about 20 minutes and arrived at the venue at 3 and noticed there was practically anybody there. The gates opened at 4 so we sat and played some cards, napped and waited. Centennial Park is an outdoor venue and the stage was set up similar to how it is at Cherry Festival, the grounds are just a little bit bigger. Once the gates opened we made our way near the stage, and since there weren’t many people there yet we got up really close. Joanie brought her sheet with her so we spread that out and waited. Slowly throughout the afternoon more and more people started to show up. Leela and Chad joined us. There were a few different opening acts before JJ played. Will Conner and Dave Rastovich played together and we really enjoyed them. After they played, Matt Costa came out and played his guitar and sang. He did a really good job! After Matt Costa, JJ came out and announced a special guest, which was G Love and Special Sauce. There were four of them and they played a bit of folk-ish music while G Love sang/rapped. I’d kind of heard of them before, but didn’t really know much about them, but Chad got really excited because he’s a big fan. I was very impressed by them.

After G Love was done we took a look around and there were sooo many people there! They were expecting about 30,000 people to show up, and there really was close to that many. I was very glad we had arrived when we did. Jack Johnson came out at about 7:30 and was incredible. He is even better live! We were all seriously floating on cloud 9 towards the end of his show. He played all our favorites and some of his new songs which we really enjoyed as well. Matt Costa and G Love both came out and played with him at different points throughout the show. JJ put on a very good show. He even messed up his lyrics at one point during the show and joked about it and started over again, which was actually pretty cool because it shows he is just a normal guy (with an amazing voice, of course!) JJ came out after he was done for an encore with G Love and played a few more songs, and then we were herded like sheep out of the park and took the train, then another train, then the ferry back to Manly. We got really lucky with the weather as well. From what you’ve been hearing, I am sure you can tell that we haven’t had very good luck when it comes to the weather on days we plan things. We definitely had a beautiful day.

We ended up getting lucky two days in a row with the weather, because on Sunday Dana, MJ and I went out to play tourist and we had another beautiful day. It was the first day for all of us to really get to explore the city. We started off the day going to the Royal Botanic Gardens. It was very beautiful. We took our time and explored and took lots of fun pictures. At one point we saw people looking up and taking pictures and we looked up and saw hundreds of bats (that apparently are actually called flying foxes… but they were definitely bats to me!) and I did not like that so much!! They were gross… and everywhere! We decided at that point to go into the little gift shop and take a look around, they had a few cute things there. After walking a bit we saw a woman setting up for a wedding. That spot was definitely a beautiful place for a wedding. After that we realized we were running low on time so we left the gardens and made our way down to Darling Harbor. We wandered around for a little bit and saw the Real World: Sydney house which was cool because I’d seen it a couple times on TV (because it was cool to see the Sydney sights!) We walked a bit more looking for some shopping, because that was definitely on the agenda for the day. We found this place called Paddy’s Market which I have heard of a few times. The base floor is a huge flea market, the second floor is a real mall (a bit on the expensive side of course), and on the top floor was some cheaper, outlet type stores. It was fun to do a bit of shopping and we were all able to buy something that day to bring home (maybe a couple of presents ;-) ).

After we were very tired from all our walking and a bit hungry so the next stop was Pancakes on the Rocks. Its similar to an IHOP… but Aussie style. Its in the area of Old Sydney called The Rocks and it is open 24 hours. You can pretty much get any type of pancake you want. I got a chocolate and a vanilla one with strawberries… delicious! But very sweet… we all had a bit of a stomach ache afterwards. It was a fun end to a beautiful, fun-filled weekend.

The following week (week 6 of classes) I finally got my uniform… go figure HALFWAY through the term we get them? We also had the stress of a couple tests for midterms (which I did fine on) and presentations and my favorite (*please note the sarcasm*) … group projects.

The following weekend was Easter so we had Friday and Monday off from school. We decided to take a little roadtrip to our friend Jeff’s family farm in Woodstock, near Cowra (pronounced more like Kara). It was about a 3.5 hour car trip straight west of Sydney. We left Thursday night after I got out of my class at 6:30. They picked MJ and I up from the school and Jeff, Myles, Ally, MJ and I loaded into Jeff’s car and had to make a quick stop at Jeff’s city house on the way and then a stop to do some shopping at the grocery store to stock up for the weekend. All three of us girls fell asleep on the way. We met Jeff’s friend, Mitch, on the way there so he could join us at the farm. We arrived at the farm at about 1am and got ourselves all situated in the guest house which was nice and cozy.

Friday morning, lovely Myles woke Ally, MJ, and me up by telling us that we had to shower right then or there would not be enough hot water and only had about 10 minutes left of water pressure. Well, this was just Myles’ attempt to get us up so we could go out and play, but us girls decided to not shower since we were going to get dirty anyways! When I looked outside I definitely could tell I was in the outback!! It was absolutely beautiful! To me it actually looked more like Africa then what I pictured the Australian Outback to look like. We all worked together and made breaky on the barbie. We toasted bread and made bacon and eggs on the Barbie. It was delicious! The worst part was there was a HUGE spider in the kitchen. It was probably the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life. It had to have been at least 4 inches wide. I ran outside (and yes I know there was probably more spiders outside than inside.) Jeff caught it in a glass and thought he’d be funny by bringing it out to show me. He threw it outside, but I was sure there had to be more, but I got my courage up and went back inside. It was then time to go dirt biking! Jeff’s family had 5 dirt bikes and a quad (four-wheeler). Ally and MJ learned to drive the bikes while had a go at the quad. I figured I’d start big and work my way down. Ally didn’t like the bike so much so she joined me on the quad, but MJ did very well on the bike. A bit shaky at first, she really got the hang of it! I really enjoyed driving the quad, its not as fun riding on the back, because it made me a bit nervous not feeling like I had any control. Although, I was proud of myself at how I good I got at driving it! Once we got the hang of things we rode all over Jeff’s property. His family owns over 860 acres! It was soo much fun and it was definitely stunning. You could see all the divisions of property with the different paddocks fenced off. We also saw lots of sheep because Jeff’s family owns around 1000 sheep. There was a point of the land that they called “the top of the world” and you could see everything! I could have stood up there for hours!

We rode down from there and Ally took her turn at driving the quad while I rode on the back. We had a little issue of loosing control while going down the hill when we hit a crevasse that got our heart rates going quite a bit. And of course no one was around to save us… where were the boys when we needed them!? Now comes the story of the weekend… We were riding along and had to go around this pond that was not very big. Along the side of the pond was a strip of land that was just wide enough for the quad to go over, so we were inching our way across it. We had the idea that maybe we should step on it and go fast across it so we don’t slip and go into the water. So we did… and instead of turning to the left to get away from the water, we turned to the right and went down the incline toward the pond. We lost control and went strait into the water. It was pretty deep and the quad flipped on us. We were up to our necks in the pond. We both escaped not getting hurt, but as I got out of the water, I looked around and again, no one was in sight. They had sped up way ahead of us and missed what we had done. I stood there for a minute taking everything in as Ally crawled out of the pond. I finally could see the tops of their head and I waved them over. They thought we had just stalled it or something… boy were they wrong. Once they got closer and realized we were soaked you could see the looks on their faces changed to more of a questioning look. THEN they all realized that the quad was gone and look into the pond where all you could see was the tops of 2 tires sticking out. Their facial expressions definitely changed from confusion to astonishment, while Ally and I stood there looking sheepish. It was probably one of the most priceless moments I have ever been included on. After they realized what happened, Jeff and Mitch rode back to the house and got the truck while Ally and I stood there soaking wet. They came back and dove into the pond and pulled it to the embankment and then pulled it out the rest of the way with the truck. The water had obviously gotten inside (and into the engine since we hadn’t really thought to turn it off.) While Jeff and Mitch worked on the truck we just looked on hoping and praying that it would be ok. Ally and I were freezing because the wind had picked and we were soaked, so they drove us back to change while the drained the quad and worked on it. They couldn’t get it started so they towed it back up to the house. We showered and got into clean clothes while they worked on it some more. It eventually started so the quad was ok. We were sooo worried and felt SO bad that it was hard to laugh at what had just happened, but since the quad worked, we can laugh at what a ridiculous story that was!!!

Now that we were all dry we had some snacks and sat around on the porch for a bit. I fell asleep while we were all talking and I woke up a bit later and everyone was gone and I walked in the house and realized that they were all napping as well, so I went back to sleep and woke up about two and a half hours later. Jeff’s family and a few others joined us and we had some nachos before dinner. It was pretty fun sitting around and chatting with everyone. Jeff’s family was very nice and it was nice to be welcomed into their home like that. We felt like part of the family! After our second snack time of the day we went over to the big house to have a huge dinner prepared by Jeff’s mom, dad, and sister of steaks, ribs, salad, mushrooms, garlic bread, watermelon and cheesecake with ice cream. It was absolutely delicious! It was so nice to have a home-cooked meal! We helped clean up and by then it was after 10:00pm and we made our way back to the other house. Ally, Lydia (Myles’ girlfriend who had joined us just after our naps), and I stayed in the warm house while MJ and the boys went out kangaroo hunting, excuse me… “shining and shooting things.” They shot a bunch of rabbits and got one kangaroo. It would have been fun to go, but I barely had any clothes to wear since my jeans and everything were soaked from our adventures earlier that day and I would have been freezing. They came back and we played some games and MJ and I taught the Aussies how to make s’mores, which ended up not tasting anything like our s’mores do in the states. Their marshmallows are not as good as ours are… they are much to sweet and had a lot of confectionary sugar on the outside, and they do not have graham crackers here so we had to substitute a sort or shortbread biscuit.

Saturday morning we all slept in again, but MJ, Jeff, Mitch and I were up earlier than the rest. Jeff, MJ, and I went horseback riding. It was SO much fun! Jeff and Mitch taught us to do everything ourselves. We called the horses to us with carrots, brushed them down, put the reins on them, and saddled them up. My horse’s name was Cheeky and Jeff told me that “a two year old could ride her.” To that I said “gee thanks,” but it was probably a good thing with my luck! When I was putting her saddle on, she looked like she was falling asleep! For most of our ride I was a good couple meters behind Jeff and MJ, but it didn’t really matter. The ride was soo nice and completely beautiful!! It was a lot more relaxing then our rides on the bikes and quad. We rode for about 45 minutes and then returned and put all the equipment away, washed down the horses, and gave them their treat (hay.)

We went and got the rest of the group and went down to the field where I learned to drive a manual! I called it a stick-shift… and they laughed at me. It was so much fun! It was weird driving on that side of the car, let alone driving a manual truck. Also, it didn’t have power-steering and it was definitely a farm-only truck. You would have been proud of me! I got the hang of it really quickly and did not stall once! I was proud! J MJ and Ally both tried to learn as well and did a good job too. I’m excited to come home and try it again!

Next we went out to take some picture of the property. We drove the two Uts (utility trucks) to the top of the world. It was pretty funny because the manager of Jeff’s family’s farm had his kids at the farm with us and the younger one was only 12 years old and could drive the truck better than Jeff could. It was a little nerve-wrecking having a 12 year old sitting next to me in the driver’s seat. We went back to “the top of the world.” We got some fun pictures up there. One of the things I wanted to do most while at the farm was see a kangaroo in the wild. Before we got to go see the kangaroos we had to go take care of a sheep. It had flies that were eating away at its rear end. It was SO funny watching Jeff jump off the back of the truck, run and lunge and tackle the sheep and wrestle it to the ground. We then took a little drive to go find the kangaroos and I saw about 5 of them hopping away! It was very cool. I wish we could have gotten closer and gotten some pictures, but oh well. On the way back to pack up our stuff to leave we stopped off and saw the kangaroo that they shot the night before.

Our time at the Outback was pretty much up so we had to pack up our stuff. Jeff and Mitch drove MJ, Ally, and I to the train station, where we almost missed our train (surprise, surprise!) Our train ride was 4 hours long and then we got on another train to Circular Key. My Aunt Sharon and Uncle Bill were here so I went to visit them. Since I am tired and this is a very long entry, I will save the rest of the story for next time... which should be very soon when I have my pictures up!

While you are waiting for my pictures... take a look at the ones that MJ has posted so far:

Link to the Sydney photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2190736&l=1ec6e&id=22414798

Link to the Outback photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2190747&l=9fa19&id=22414798

Cheers!

Opera and Rugby!

Hello!

So I am trying to have a productive Sunday, but have not gotten all too far. I am not going to lie, I have not done very much schoolwork here. It has been very hard to concentrate on schoolwork where there are so many more interesting things to do (like the beach ;-) ). I have a project and a presentation due this week and I will get to them eventually… it’s just hard to put in a lot of effort when I only have to get a 70 or better to pass. I have been doing some reading… but it has been fun reading that I want to read. I’m on my fourth book since I’ve arrived. It’s nice to catch up on the books that have been getting dusty on my shelf at home.

Alright, on to the interesting stuff! On Wednesday night we went to the Opera. It is called La Boehm and it is what the Broadway show, Rent was based off of. It was all in Italian, and was absolutely beautiful. It was fun to get dressed up for a night out. We took the ferry into Sydney and then got dinner a little restaurant on the way to the Opera House. It was delicious! I definitely would like to go back. J After dinner we went to the Opera House and found our seats. There is honestly not a bad seat in the house. The Sydney Opera House is one of only two auditoriums in the world with perfect acoustics (the other one is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan!) The only issue with our seats that we found out halfway through the show was that there were subtitles being shown and if we would have been one row closer to the stage we would have been able to see them. We thought it was odd that there were so many people that could understand the words when most of the crowd would all laugh at the same time. Oh well. It did ruin things a tiny bit, but we got over it real fast because we were at the opera in Sydney! The show was very cool. At one point during a song the whole set started to rise into the air to show another set behind them. It took us by surprise a bit, but we loved it. I only was able to sneak one picture while inside. It is of the stage. I tried to take another, but was told that was not allowed. Oh well, I guess one is better than nothing. It really was beautiful inside with the round, curved sealing. After we left the opera house, we stood and listened to a little jazz band play at the Opera House Bar and we took in the sights of the city at night. I love it!

Friday afternoon we went to a professional Australian rules rugby match. We had a blast!! It was the New South Wales Waratahs (which I learned is a type of flower) against the Queensland Brumbys (a kind of horse). There was quite a large group of us that went together. We left at about 4:45 and caught the 5:05 ferry to Circular Quay. We grabbed some dinner near the marina and then boarded a bus to take us to the Sydney Football Stadium. It was a pretty big stadium and there were TONS of people. We got a few free things on our way into the stadium to help us cheer. Lachy (one of my Aussie mates) and I went in ahead of everyone else so we could buy a jersey for one of our other mates for his birthday. A bunch of us all pitched in to surprise him and it was totally worth it. Nate said it was his best birthday present ever! J After we found our seats is started to sprinkle rain. The longer the match went on, the harder the rain fell. By the end of the game the rain was really pissing down and we were absolutely drenched. A rugby game consists of 2 40 minute halves and a 10 minute halftime. Our seats were really good and by the end of the game we were standing right up next to the field because a lot of people ran for cover when the rain started falling. Most of us didn’t care about the rain since we were already wet. It almost made it more fun being in the rain. And of course it rained; whenever we plan anything… it rains! The Waratahs (the team I was told to cheer for) won! The final score was 24-17. I learned quite a bit about the sport, so it was pretty interesting. The trip home was pretty miserable since we were soaked. My jeans are still not completely dry! We were shivering from the cold by the time we got off the ferry. Instead of walking up the hill we jumped into a few taxis to take us up to the school. My dry, warm clothes have never felt so good! I was exhausted and called it an early night after the game. We are planning another trip to one of the upcoming games, and I am looking forward to that one!

We got to have a nice beach day yesterday to make up for the rain that we have been experiencing. I had a lazy night and fell asleep pretty early, but it has been quite an eventful week and a half and I really need the catch-up! A couple of exciting things that are up coming:

We are going to the Opera again on Wednesday, but this time for a free showing of Carmen on an outside screen outside the Opera House.

Saturday night (St. Patty’s Day!) we are going to a Jack Johnson concert!! It is an outside concert that is general admission, so we are planning on getting there pretty early to get up close! Opening for him is Matt Costa, Will Conner and Dave Rastovich.

Lastly, Here are the links to my new pictures! The first and second are to slideshows of my pictures from the Great Barrier Reef. There were too many to fit in just one slideshow! The third is to MJ's album from pictures of the GBR... there are a couple of doubles in there, but there are also a couple of different ones. The fourth one is to my album full of our pictures from the Opera and the Rugby game. Enjoy! I miss you all and hope you are enjoying the tales of my adventures in Australia! Please let me know if you have any questions about anything that I can answer!!!

GBR:

MJs: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2185759&l=d61af&id=22414798 (The name on this album is what we were required to say instead of "Cheese" to take the pictures...)

Opera/Footy: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2185583&l=0197b&id=22411794

Cheers!

Great Barrier Reef... in the rain?

Gday!

So much has happened since my last blog! Obviously from my pictures you see that we went to the Taronga Zoo in Sydney. It was a lot of fun and we saw some great animals. The elephants and the giraffes were my favorites. We got to watch the feeding time so they were pretty entertaining. The elephants were so fun because they were really playing and trying to dunk each other and having a blast. There was a ton of us that all went to the zoo together, but once we got there we split off into small groups which was nice because I did not have the patience to wait for everyone else! The zoo was actually pretty small and we got there around 11am and were ready to leave at about 1, but we were not supposed to leave until 2. At this point I was with MJ and Kari and we figured we’d walk around and waste time until we had to meet by the penguins. Well by 2 we were ready to leave and sat and waited for almost 30 minutes and no one showed up… this is the point where a cell phone would have come in handy. We decided to leave and go home. We caught the ferry and decided to skip Pancakes on the Rocks and catch the other ferry. We find out after we arrived home that everyone else got bored and decided to just leave early… but oh well, we still all had a blast.

**As I am typing this I would just like to point out that we have discovered a cockroach the size of 3 quarters side-by-side (quite possibly bigger) and MJ was not even able to kill it by stepping on it (I am currently sitting cross-legged on the desk). OH YES! Thank God for boys… one of our studly Americans came to the rescue!**

So that brings me to my next topic. This School. It is honestly a joke. I have just finished my 4^th week (let me remind you that we only have 11 week of actual classes) and have yet to receive my uniform. I had a meeting with the lady that deals with all of us study abroad students today and she is working on getting us some sort of reimbursement for the money that we spent for those uniforms that we won’t even receive for a couple more weeks. Also I had not received all of my books for classes until TODAY. It is pretty difficult to plan a presentation when you don’t even have the material it is supposed to be on. In all my classes we do group projects more than anything else and it is so annoying tying to work out getting together outside class. One of my groups wants to meet at 2pm every Friday… (remember I don’t have Friday classes). That didn’t go over very well with me. The food also is not very good. There is more or less variety, but everything tastes the same. For being a school that is top 5 in the world for their hospitality program, you would think they would know how to teach their students to cook. Oh yeah, and lets not forget to mention that all we eat here are carbs and sugars. We also have this crazy PC points system, but I will save that story for another day.

More importantly we went to the Whitsunday Islands in the Great Barrier Reef. We started off having a crazy travel experience again trying to get there. I went with 9 other girls for the weekend, but MJ and I booked a flight that was a couple hours earlier than everyone else’s because apparently there weren’t seats available (which in reality was not true). We left just after 9am on Thursday and stopped for a couple errands on the way to the ferry. We got to the ferry early and had to wait about 25 minutes before we could board. After the 30 minute ferry ride, we caught a train from Circular Quay (pronounced “Key”) to the airport, which took about 20 or so minutes. We get to our gate about 45 minutes early where we wait and our flight ends up taking off an hour later than it was supposed to. We had a stop over so the flight was 1.5 hours long to get from Sydney to Brisbane where we were supposed to board a flight to Poscupine, but since we took off late and were only supposed to have a 30 minute layover, we missed our flight. We then had to wait an hour to board a plane to Mackay and then ride a bus for 2 hours to Airle Beach which was where our hostel was. So we end up arriving at about 7:30pm and check into our lovely (insert much sarcasm here) hostel. We both chose not to check our bags and Thank God we didn’t or else we would have been without luggage for the trip.

The rest of the girls arrived about 45 minutes after us and checked in as well. The place we stayed at was called Beaches. We were all split up between 4 rooms. Each of the rooms had eight beds… all bunk beds. The people in the room MJ and I stayed in were from England and Canada. We got lucky and they were nice. We felt safe enough to leave our stuff in the room while they were there. Some of the other girls really were not too sure about the people they were sharing their rooms with. We also had other roommates as well. We called them Minnie and Mickey. And yes, they were mice. That really freaked us out quite a bit. So not only were we really worried about getting Bed Bugs (which is a huge issue over here), we had to worry about our “new friends” getting into our stuff. Needless to say, I slept on the top bunk with my suitcase on the bed with me. We grabbed a quick bit to eat and ended up going to bed around 10. The next morning (Friday) we all switched into a 10 person room so we could all be together. It was a bit nicer because not only did we felt safer about our stuff, but also the floor was tile and we did not see Minnie or Mickey that night. During the day we actually got a few hours of sunshine and we were able to layout by a nice lagoon (pool). We also got a good lunch of sandwiches and smoothies and walked throughout the (expensive) shops. While lying out you definitely could tell that we were closer to the equator. The sun felt very hot (don’t worry… I was wearing my sunscreen). It started to sprinkle and rain later in the afternoon so we went back to Beaches and took naps. Then we all got ready and went out to dinner together at a restaurant called Cactus Jack’s. It was a ton of fun and had some really good Mexican food. We all really enjoyed ourselves. We went out for a bit in Airlie that night, but most of us called it an early night again and I believe I was in bed by 11. The next morning we checked out of the hostel, got breakfast, and then met at the marina to get on our boat.

The boat we went on was called Powerplay. There were only 3 other passengers besides us (2 ladies from England and 1 girl from Israel) and 4 crew members. It turned out to be a nice size group. After getting a pre-board briefing we got on the boat to enjoy the only sunshine of the day for about 30 minutes. We were able to ride up on the bow of the boat and really take in the sights. Then it started to rain so we went inside and many of the girls fell asleep. Everyone started to feel seasick. I believe throughout the weekend there were only 2 people on the boat that did not get some form of seasick… even those of us whom had never been seasick before! One of our crew members that has been working on the boats for over 3 years said it was the first time that he has even felt seasick. We traveled for about 2 hours to Whitehaven Beach which is the #1 beach in the world! We got off the boat and went up to the other side of the beach. We had to trek through some sort of a rainforest to get to the pretty side of the beach, but let me remind you that it was still raining. Before we made it to the beach we stopped at a lookout over the beach that was the 5^th most photographed spot in the world, but by this point it was pouring down so hard that we could barely open our eyes and could not see more than 2 feet in front of our faces. We trek over to the beach where we played in the rain and waves in our wetsuits and exfoliated with the sand. Although it was raining, we still enjoyed ourselves and it is pretty cool to say that I have been to the #1 beach in the world… especially when not too many people can say they have been there in the pouring rain. Damien, our “hostee” (cook and helper crew member) told us it was the worst day he’d ever been there on it. After about 2 hours they took us back to the boat and we tried to dry off and had a delicious snack. We got to see quite a few sea turtles come up for air in the ocean and they were huge! That was a pretty cool sight. Then moved on to our next spot where we were mooring for the night and had a very tasty dinner. We had a slideshow after dinner where they taught us about some different fish and things that we could see while snorkeling or diving. Yet again we called it an early night and were in bed around 10:30. We got up around 8am on Sunday morning and had a good breakfast then had a scuba diving briefing. After we got our suits and rashys (wetsuits) on and I got ready to go scuba diving!! First we went into the shallow waters where we did a bit of breathing scenarios and such. Then it was time to actually dive. There were 4 of us with our instructor and because none of us were certified we were only able to go 30 feet deep. It was definitely one of the coolest things I have ever done. I seriously want to go again and again. We got to scuba for about 45 minutes and saw many pretty fish and were able to touch some of the coral. The soft coral felt very soft and velvety. After scuba we snorkeled a bit, but then got too cold. When we were fully under the water it was really warm, but since we were on top and it was raining a bit we started to shiver a bit. We got out and had some lunch and then moved to another location. On the ride we all fell asleep and took more naps. At the next location we snorkeled and saw even more beautiful fish. Some of them would swim right at our faces and then quickly dart away. There was this really big fish that we liked to call George that was very friendly and would always come up to the boat. While we were snorkeling he came up to us a few times and we got to touch him. After more snorkeling we got out and attempted to go in the hot tub for a while, but it was pretty small and cramped and the water wasn’t very high so I was freezing in it. I attempted to take a shower which was quite the feat in the tiny bathroom with the sink/shower, but it did the job and took another nap. We had a bit of a dance party and were able to watch the sunset and my friend that was an actual certified diver got to go on night dive which was very cool for her! We then ate another delicious dinner that evening and watched a slideshow of all of the pictures they had taken of us and of the different fish we actually got to see. Yet again we did not last very late that night and were in bed before 11. We were woken up at 6am for breakfast the next morning and were given the option to go scuba or snorkel again but it was rainy and we really didn’t like putting on the rashys. At about 8am we headed back to the marina. On the ride back the waves were huge and I got really dizzy.

Half of the girls were flying back to Manly Monday afternoon and half of us were flying back Tuesday night. (We are still not sure how we thought it would save us money to stay an extra day, but we did.) We got back and since Courtney got pink eye from the hostel and had a cold she ended up getting a motel room. It was apartment style with a queen bed, a single bed and a couch, so all 5 of us moved our stuff there and stayed there together. It was SO much nicer. It had a TV and we watched a bit of E! entertainment J because it was raining (of course) so we couldn’t lay out. It was really nice to just relax for a bit. We then played a few card games and then all ended up falling asleep for an hour or two. We then all finally got to shower which was fantastic and then went to find some food. I came back right after dinner and fell asleep early watching a movie. I ended up getting sick in the middle of the night which was absolutely horrible. I had a hard time laying down because whenever I closed my eyes I felt really dizzy (like I was still rocking on the boat). Tuesday was the longest day ever. It was raining and we had until 5:15 to catch our taxi that was going to take us to the airport so we could take off at 7. We did absolutely nothing all day and were really bored. Our flight ended up taking off on time which was an absolute surprise and we were back in Sydney at 10:30. It felt very nice to be back in Manly.

Overall it was definitely an interesting trip and we learned a few things about traveling. The boat was a lot of fun and was absolutely worth it. I have many pictures that I will be posting for you within the next couple of days. I have so much more to talk about because we went to the Opera and a footy (Australian rules rugby) game and had a blast, but I figure this entry is long enough. Keep checking in these next few days and I will have more pictures and more of my adventure to share with you! Hope all is well back in the States!!!

Cheers!

Photo time! (finally)

Ok, here's what you have been waiting for! Here is a link for the album with the pictures we took from the Taronga Zoo... the first link is for some pictures I put up and the second is for an album that MJ made because on many of the pictures we took turns:



http://gvsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2183964&l=e6b71&id=22411794



http://gvsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2183932&l=0de64&id=22414798



and here is a link to a slideshow that I put together of a bunch of our pictures so far... its not all of them, but you'll get the idea! :

"Lets have a bit of a chinwagger..."

G’day!

Things have been going well down under. I am sitting on the balcony across the hall from my room in the 75 degree weather with a view of Manly Beach. Classes are underway and for the part are pretty boring. To all those of you who know of my experience as a server, you will find it interesting to know that the book for my Hospitality and Venue Operations class is called “Professional Waiter.” In the class we are tested on making coffee and spend two weeks (four classes) discussing and doing wine tastings. You’d think I was joking, but really I am not. In my marketing class we are in groups and doing things similar to the show the Apprentice by Donald Trump. Our professor takes activities from the show and we do them weekly with the group. This week we had to design a toy to market for Mattel. Our final project is doing a full Marketing plan for a popular bar connected to the number one hostel in Sydney that we have to try to sell to the owners. It should be interesting. I am not sure how I feel about my whole group… half is not bad, but we are having a bit of a language barrier issue with the others (from Japan and China).
The technology here is so different. We are limited with our internet time, and it seems to be slow (especially when I try to put my pictures online. So I am working on getting many of them up for all of you to see. We have taken some really beautiful ones so far! Along with limited internet time, its also been a bit difficult being without a cell phone… or as they call it here… a mobile. I have group projects in all of my classes and I have a hard time connecting with my groups because I do not have a mobile for them to contact me. I do have a room phone that we can easily call room to room with the few other residential students, but it doesn’t do me too much good since I am not in my room very often. People can leave me messages on that number but I really am not able to call them back. I am starting to give away some of my friends numbers when I go out and make friends! It makes communicating quite difficult with many of the friends I have made here. Lastly along the technology line it has been interesting that we do not watch TV at all here. The only time we have watched anything is when we watched a movie in one of the Australian resident’s rooms because they have a TV in their dorm room. I really don’t miss it, but it is strange to think we can’t just go and turn on the TV when we are bored in the evening or cannot sleep.
On a damper note, I have slightly sprained my ankle. I am not quite sure how I did it, but I think it is from a mixture of things. It has been swollen and has been bothering me for about a week. I had to go buy some different shoes to try to help. It is also making my back quite a bit sore and giving me trouble when I try to sleep. I am trying to not let the pain of it stop me from enjoying myself. It just makes me a bit slower at times since we walk everywhere and its usually uphill and we also seem to take a lot of stairs since I live on the third floor. I’d say we are going to be in great shape by the time we get back here, but the eating habits aren’t really helping with that! The food for on-campus residents is not too bad, but very boring … and all carbs. Noodles and bread is my usual meal, and we only have certain meal times so we eat a lot at a time so we don’t starve later, so we often end up getting hungry and walking down to the corso and get ice cream. We usually go to a place called Copenhagen and it is delicious! It is pretty reasonably priced unlike so many other things around here. I always am sneaking extra fruit up to my room after meals for my midnight, or early morning, snack.
I have made so many different great friends since I have been here. Not only have I met a few Australians, there are actually a lot of Americans here this term from all over the States that I have become very close with since we all live on campus together. I have been very surprised how many people there are from Michigan at ICMS… it is quite odd that we had to come all the way to the other side of the world to become friends. I could not have asked for a greater group of people to have this experience this with. Everyone gets along very well and brings a little something different to the group. Everyone is so different and come from such different backgrounds that I have learned so much from them already. Each time I right I will try to tell you about a different person. I will start this time with an Australian. He is 19 and in his first term (after taking a year off after finishing his HSC (high school curriculum). He grew up in a country home about two hours south of Sydney but also has an apartment just about 30 minutes from Manly. He has traveled to every country you can imagine and has been in boarding schools since he was eight years old. One was in England when he lived there for five years. He went to the same school that Prince William and Prince Harry went to and the first year he was there was Prince Harry’s last year there so he has met him and used to play squash and cricket with him sometimes while he was there. There is a lot more about him that I have learned… but I will save the time. Stay tuned for the story of a different friend.
There are some interesting things about the area that we have discovered. The birds are SO loud and obnoxious it is ridiculous. I am almost getting used to them, but you cannot even believe what they sound like. Some of them sound like monkeys, but they keep telling me that there are no monkeys here and they really are birds. Also the possums look nothing like the possums in America. They are actually cute and friendly. They are not scared of people at all and at times you can pet them. They also have Bandicoots that look like big rats to me, but some people think that they are cute. They are endangered, yet are everywhere around here. I have a couple pictures of them, so stay tuned and I will post one. The beaches here are absolutely beautiful as well. They sand is very soft and while and the water is not too chilly, at first it may be a bit, but you get used to it fast. One of these days I am going to learn to surf from a couple of locals we have met. We also met a couple locals at a pub the other day and played a few rounds of pool with them. It was interesting because they only have red and yellow balls (plus the black eight ball and the white cue ball). The balls are a little bit smaller then ours and the pockets are a bit narrower. It was a fun evening getting to know them.
Friday night we had a party at the school called the Ice Breaker with all of the students. It was a lot of fun and was the perfect weather out for it. We were able to get to know some of the other students that we have not yet met. On Sunday we went on a sunset cruise of Sydney Harbor that was very pretty, but a quite a bit long. We went back and forth across the harbor 3 or 4 times, but were able to get some great pictures.
We’ve been wanting to do some shopping, but everything thing here is very expensive. For those of you college students: be thankful for your alcohol prices! Everything here seems almost double, weather buying from the Bottle Shop or from the bar. This weekend we are going to go see the ship the QE2 for its last sail before it becomes a hotel. They will set off fireworks when it leaves Sydney Harbor and is supposed to be a cool display. We are also going to try to go have Pancakes on the Rocks in the part of Sydney called the Rocks and hopefully explore the city a bit more. I am also very excited because we are going to be going to a Maroon 5 and One Republic concert in Sydney in a few weeks. Jack Johnson is also coming here and we are deciding whether or not to attend that one too. We booked our plane tickets and boat for the Whitsunday Islands, so I will be heading to the Great Barrier Reef a week from tomorrow (Thursday for us… Wednesday for those of you in the States)
Overall I am loving it here. Australia really could not be much more beautiful. I am in love with Sydney and even more-so Manly. I wish you could be here to experience this with me. I should have pictures up soon, even though they cannot do this place justice. Keep checking in and I will be updating y’all again soon!

HAPPY DAYS

And then there was an Alligator

So I will start this off telling you that I did receive my luggage Wednesday evening! :) We ended up going to the airport to get money because our bags were lost for over 48 hours… and they gave us $350 each! It was pretty much worth not having the luggage, as annoying as it was. Also, a few of you have been asking for my address, so here it is:
International College of Management Sydney
Perri Neirman – #14158 – Room 216
151 Darley Road
Manly, NSW 2095
Australia

Wednesday evening we attended the Aussie party where some of the Aboriginal people came and performed a dance for us, and then there was a didgeridoo competition that only the blokes could participate in because in Australia custom only males are allowed to play it. After that a man came from the zoo with a bunch of reptiles. He brought a couple different lizards, some snakes, a huge spider, and a baby alligator! It was a cool show where we learned a few different things!
Thursday we had seminars all morning and it rained for most of the day. In the afternoon we did some teambuilding exercises in the rain which were pretty fun. We did a tug-of-war, a blow-up obstacle course, and this game similar to volleyball with a HUGE ball that could not be held up by one person alone. After dinner we went to an evening of wine and cheese with a bunch of other students. It was very nice because the rain had stopped and it was beautiful on the balcony where it was held.
Friday was a lot of fun! We participated in a scavenger hunt in Manly. MJ and I partnered with two guys (one from Kansas and one from LA) and we ended up winning! We won 10 movie tickets to share between the 4 of us to the local cinema. That evening we went to a couple of the local bars to just check them out, one of which had a acoustic guitarist playing and he played some really good songs. It was very nice.J Saturday it rained again while we went on a bus tour of Sydney. It put a little bit of a damper on the day, but it was still nice. We were able to see the Sydney Opera House and the Harbor Bridge from a place they call Mrs. Macquarie’s chair which is a tourist spot. We also saw many sites such as where the Art Museum and Aquarium are and drove through Chinatown which as really nice and seemed a lot cleaner than other ones I have seen pictures of. We also drove by King's Crossing and saw where Russel Crow lived. Also in Kings Crossing we saw where all the Naval Ships came in and I saw where my Grandpa would have pulled into Sydney after he arrived after (or during?) the war, which was a very cool thing. Sunday we all had a pretty lazy day and then we started classes on Monday. My classes schedule is as follows:
Mon: 8-10 Principles of Marketing
10-12 Consumer Behavior and Tourism Product Management
12:30-2:30 Venue and Event Operations Management
Tues: 12:30-2:30 Consumer Behavior
Wed: 10-12 Travel Industry Services
12:30-2:30 Event Mgt
3:30-5:30 Event Mgt
Thurs: 10-12 Travel Industry Services
2:30-4:30 Marketing
4:30-6:30 Event Mgt

All together I am taking 13 credits that transfer back credit or no-credit to GVSU, which is really nice because I don’t have to worry quite so much about what my grade is. So far I have had two of my classes… Events seems like it should be pretty easy (all stuff I have done before and am familiar with) and Consumer Behavior is similar to marketing and should not be too bad.

Last night we made friends with some Aussies. We played Australian pool with them. It is pretty much the same as American pool except the balls are a bit smaller and the pockets are a bit narrower. We have also been learning a lot of new Aussie words that I can't wait to teach you! :) I was able to go to the beach for the first time today, but only had sun for about an hour and a half before a storm cloud started to approach. We are in the midst of planning a trip to the Whitsunday Islands which is a group of about 75 islands right in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef, so I am getting very excited! I must go, but I hope all is well with you. To those of you in the snow… I will send picture of the beaches soon! :) So stay tuned because I have been taking tons of pictures so those should be up shortly!

Miss you all!

<3>

Luggage-less Down Under

G’day! I have arrived and am in love with Australia! It is BEAUTIFUL here! We are already taking lots of pictures! Everyone is SO nice and I am happy to be here! We have already noticed many culture differences. I’ll start from the beginning to tell you our flight stories…

For those of you who don’t know, I am traveling with a friend of mine named MJ that I work with at the JW and is now attending school here at ICMS with me. We were supposed be fly out of Grand Rapids at 3:30 pm on Saturday, but our flight ended up being delayed about 45+ minutes because of the flight before us was delayed to Chicago and so we couldn’t get out of the gate until they did. We flew into Dallas and literally had 7 minutes to catch our flight. We almost went to the wrong gate from what they told us, but we ended up checking just in case… and good thing because it was actually a different one. We caught a Skytram to take us to the right gate and we ran up and they had given our seats away so we were bumped up to first class which was amazing! I wish I could do that all the time! The seats had footrests and could recline completely into a bed. We were also served a very nice dinner of a choice between some sort of meat that I don’t remember or what I had being a ravioli dish and a salad. I will say I missed that on the last flight! We then arrived in LA and waited about 3 hours to board our flight to Sydney. We were supposed to fly out at what would have been 1:30 am Michigan time but didn’t end up leaving the runway until about 2:30 am. The plane was huge! (a double decker!) Every seat had its own TV. The seats were a bit tight, but it is what I would expect. MJ and I sat next to each other with about 3 rows of students that were also traveling to ICMS. They fed us 2 meals… dinner and breakfast (breakyJ).

Our flight was about 14 hours long. We landed in Sydney at 8:20 am Sydney time on Monday, February 4^th. It was quite a bumpy ride because we had a lot of turbulence… which apparently was cause by a cyclone that we were on the outskirts of! I slept on and off for the beginning of the flight… and we also watched two movies. We were very excited to land in Sydney… None of us had problems getting through customs… but we did have problems with our luggage! 9 of us (from our flight only) lost bags. 5 of us lost both bags (including both MJ and I) and 4 lost 1 of 2 bags. It was horrible! We waited hoping that it would come in on the next flight… but it didn’t. We had to claim our lost luggage… and we ended up being there for 3 hours after our flight landed. We went to find the bus that was to take us to the college and it was no where to be found. It left us for the school with the rest of the students who flew in with us on it. That left us to finding a ride which took a little bit, but someone let us use their phone and call the college and they told us to get an airport shuttle to take us… and we had to pay for it on our own! It wasn’t too bad since we split it between the 9 of us… but still a big inconvenience. So by the time we get to the shuttle it is raining in Sydney and quite foggy… which didn’t help anything for any of us. We arrived at ICMS after a 45 minute drive to Manly from the airport. Upon arrival everyone was very nice and helpful. We got our rooms and were taken to them luggage-less. By this time we were starving so we were able to grab some lunch and then we took probably one of the best showers of our lives! We had to borrow everything of course, but definitely needed the shower. Then they took us down into Manly to get a couple of things that we needed and we were able to explore a little bit.

Since the building that ICMS is in is an old monastery it is beautiful! The rooms are pretty small, but they are mostly single rooms. We are given a bed (with a single mattress covering sheet, a not real comfortable pillow, and a kind of comforter), a desk with a chair, lamp and phone, a wardrobe, and a shelf unit. It is very plain and we decided it probably looked pretty much the same when the people were here studying to become priests or nuns. Some of the views are Gorgeous… and some are ok. I’d like to pretend I have one of the pretty ones, but I don’t. They don’t have any screens in their windows either and of course no air conditioning. Monday night most of us went to bed around 8:00 pm because we were exhausted. It was an ok sleep, waking up a few times early because of not being used to the time difference yet. Tuesday I did not have much to do besides one study abroad meeting so I explored a little bit and took a college tour and we had a meeting for the study abroad students. In the evening we had a welcome cocktail party… which was hard for us because everyone looked so nice in their cocktail dresses and we had to borrow a shirt so we didn’t look so bad! But it was very fun and then we adventured downtown to a place called the Shark Bar and met a few locals. This morning I had a meeting (at which I won a hoodie!) and had my official enrollment. I will have one more session this afternoon and then we are having an Aussie Party where they will teach us some customs and different things so it should be fun.

We start classes on Monday and I get my timetables (schedule) tomorrow. On Saturday we get to go on a City of Sydney bus tour which will be fun and interesting as well. The weather is sunny and nice today and some of us were just told that our luggage has finally arrived in Sydney and we shall be getting it either tonight or tomorrow which is a huge relief because it has been horrible without it. I must go now, but will be checking in and have another update soon! As they say down under…

HAPPY DAYS

<3