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!