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 4th 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 5th 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!
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