A Land Down Under

Last Few Weeks in Australia

2009-09-09T15:34:00.000-07:00

This is the fountain from the famous movie, The Matrix. We realized what it was and had to take a picture!

I spent the last week or so in Australia just hanging out with the friends I made and spending as much time as possible in the city.

We went to the largest IMAX theatre in the world to see Transformers II.

We got there two and a half hours early to wait in line. This is Kristen holding our spot!

We were actually the only people in line for the first hour and a half.

The black wall in the background of this picture is only part of the screen. It was so big that some people felt sick during the movie. I had to turn my head from left to right to see the whole screen, it was awesome!

A bunch of nights everyone brought all of the food in their houses and made these huge, conglomerate meals. Since we were trying to get rid of the food we had accumulated over the past months, we had a little bit of everything.

This is William making some Indonesian sitr-fry.

Jawaan tried to make a huge bowl of noodles in the microwave, but they turned out horribly.

One night, after the big meal, we hosted our own Olympics. This is the three-legged race.

Another night we all decided to go into the city and play some lazer-tag!

It was just like lazer-tag in the states. Our team did pretty well!

We also played some arcade games.

This night we all decided to go into the city and watch the Wallabies rugby game.

Right as we were walking across the bridge to the restaurant, fireworks started going off right over our heads! It was a pretty good ending to one of our last nights in the city.

This is really random, but I thought I should include a picture of my friend Brittany. We were the only two Americans in my extremely hard Physics class so we ended up working together a lot. She was great!

I also realized that I hadn't posted any pictures from where I lived while I was there. This was my house, #55.

This is our kitchen where we cooked every meal.

..and our dining room where we sat around and ate.

This is the living room and back screen door.

And where I spent a lot of my time, my room! I tried to make it look nice even though I only had what I packed in my suitcase. I ended up buying a bunch of poster-boards and taping pictures that I had brought with me up to decorate.

This is my desk.

And, most importantly, this is all of the mail I received while I was over there. I posted it all up on a bulletin board and I looked at it every day! Getting mail was one of the many highlights I had while over there. Thank you so much for sending it!

This is my closet.

.. and finally my bathroom.

Last but definitely not least I decided to sum up my trip with a picture of my housemates who I spent the majority of my time with. From left to right is Erika and Kristen (from New York), Phillip from Germany, Tillie from Colorado, and me! I had a blast living with these people and will never forget them.

All in all my time in Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia was an unforgettable 5 months. I learned so much about other cultures and made tons of amazing memories.

And finally, after a very long time, I arrived back in the good old South where my family and friends were waiting for me.

The End =D

Sydney, Museum, Chinese Garden, and Skytower!

2009-09-09T15:21:00.000-07:00

Sarah Beth and I headed back into Sydney to finish walking around and seeing more sights. It was a rainy day so we hopped on the monorail that circled the inner city and rode in circles until the rain stopped.

Since it was still kind of dreary outside, we decided to visit the Sydney Maritime Museum. This is us posing outside with the random statues of children.

This museum was actually really boring, so we just walked around and took silly pictures.

Sarah Beth decided to take a nap on one of the exhibits.

Finally we got out of that museum and we stumbled upon my favorite fountain!

Then we stopped along the beautiful Sydney Harbor for a photo shoot.

Sarah Beth had been wanting to go into the Chinese Gardens in Sydney, so we decided to go in them. This is us at the entrance.

The gardens looked like a scene right out of a Chinese book or movie. They were beautiful and we took tons and tons of pictures!

I was in bonsai tree heaven. There were so many of them.

We also stopped to buy a bag of fish food and fed the fish.

I liked this picture. You could see the big Ferris Wheel from the gardens and its reflection in the pond.

Finally, after quite a while of circling the small gardens, we bought our souvenirs and left. It was technically called the Chinese Garden of Friendship, so even though it sounds kind of corny, it was cool to go in it with one of my best friends!

Finally, the last day before Sarah Beth went home, we had lunch at the famous Sydney Sky Tower Restaurant. It was on top of a tall building and it revolved so you got a 360 degree view of the city.

Erika and Kristen, my housemates, went with us. It was $50 per person for the buffet, but with the view and all the good food it was worth it.

The restaurant was beautiful on top and it had tons of art and scenes to take pictures in front of.

You can see how high up we were!

After the lunch we went home and Sarah Beth packed up and left the next day. We had a great trip and, as always, had a lot of fun together.

Featherdale Wildlife Park and Blue Mountains

2009-09-09T15:14:00.000-07:00

I had already been to on a bus tour to the Featherdale Wildlife Park and the Blue Mountains, but this time we decided to take the train!

After about an hour or so of travel we arrived at the Wildlife Park.

This park had a great area where we were able to walk through and see the kangaroos.

I bonded with this one.. actually I think he really just liked the food we bought for them.

Close-up!

Sarah Beth was a little bit more timid around the kangaroos..

The zoos in Sydney were not allowed to have exhibits where you can touch the koalas. However, since Featherdale was outside of Sydney, we actually got to walk right up to them and touch them!

Finally we hopped back on the train heading up to the Blue Mountains. After about two hours of travel we jumped off the train and thought we were there.... but found out that we still had another hour to go. That was alright though because we were able to console ourselves with some Australian ice cream while we waited to get back on the train.

Finally we got to the Blue Mountains!

This time there were these random parrots that climbed all over us. Sarah Beth was scared to death of them, it was hilarious. I liked them though!

We also met up with this lovely couple that Sarah Beth is posing with and decided to take the train-ride down the mountain instead of walking down. Everyone looks happy enough to begin with...

... but they soon realized that the ride was a little bit scarier than they thought it would be! I had done it before so I had my camera ready! The one man looks especially concerned.

The mountains still looked blue the second time around!

It was growing dark fast and we didn't realize how long it took us to get there, so we ended up getting back to my house pretty late.

Shark Tank, Wine Tour, and Bondi Beach

2009-09-09T14:53:00.000-07:00

One night my program had its Farewell Dinner at the Sydney Aquarium.

There were a bunch of tables and a buffet set up in the private dining room. It had a huge glass wall that backed right up to the shark tank!

These are all the girls in my program, which was AIFS (American Institute for Foreign Study). I was the only one from the South!

We liked the sharks!

The next morning Sarah Beth and I woke up early and headed off for the famous Hunter Valley in wine country.

We booked a wine tour which included a bus tour through the Hunter Valley to 5 different wineries, a gourmet lunch, and a few other stops.

At each place we got to taste the wines.

We saw some wild kangaroos on the way!

This is all the girls from our bus tour, we all became friends!

We also stopped at the Smelly Cheese Shop and got to sample the cheeses. They were actually really good!

I thought the wine-making process was extremely interesting. The wine makers had their vineyards separated according to which types of wines they were making. Certain grapes were used to make certain types of wines.

At our lunch we were served different types of wines. Each wine had a certain number which matched up to the foods that we were supposed to eat with it.

I always like to get a group shot!

Finally, at the end of the tour, our bus driver stopped at a famous gelato place.. which was my personal favorite of course.

The next day Sarah Beth and I headed to the famous Bondi beach (which I have written about numerous times in this blog).

We mainly just walked around and went in the shops because it was really too cold to be on the beach.

We also took the hike around the coastline and saw this man who lives on the rocks. I saw him there every time I went to Bondi.

This is my housemate Kristen and Keara, they went with us and we took jumping pictures.

I have about one hundred pictures from this walk up along the coast.

It was so beautiful.

Finally, at the end of our walk, we stopped and made our marks on the beach... this was Sarah Beth's!

Sarah Beth Comes!

2009-09-08T12:48:00.000-07:00

Alright, so even though I have been back in America for a month or two now, I wanted to finish describing my big trip and bid this Blog farewell.

I last left off where Elizabeth had just flown home and my friend, Sarah Beth, was due to arrive in a few days.

Before she arrived, though, it was my housemate Erika's 21st birthday so we made a cake and spaghetti and threw her a little party!

This is the group in our living room.

Finally, the next day, I went and picked up Sarah Beth from the airport and we had a very happy reunion! That night some of my friends were having an "International Dinner" where everyone made food from their homes and brought it to share.

This is Sarah Beth and Jawaan at the dinner!

This is Obed from Guatemala and Sacha from Australia ...

..and Pablo from Columbia..

.. and finally a group shot!

The next day I took Sarah Beth into the big city of Sydney for the first time. On the way she took me to my first sushi restaurant. This particular one was a sushi train and the dishes came by our table on a conveyor belt and we just picked what we wanted, I loved it!

That is my arm and you can see the conveyor belt where the dishes came right by our table.

Then we took the train into the city and saw the Opera House.

We had to stop and listen to some Aboriginal music and pose with this guy!

After more walking around and taking in the sights we stumbled upon a jet-boat. We didn't really know what to expect, but we figured we might as well try it so we hopped on!

It ended up taking us all around the Sydney Harbor at ridiculous speeds and we got soaked, it was awesome!

This was our driver, we liked him and he told us we should definitely come back and do it again (which we did later on).

Finally, after a long day we got on our dinner cruise that we scheduled the night before and set off for a relaxing meal. We also got some beautiful pictures of the sun setting over the harbor from the back of the boat.

We got home that night and were exhausted from all the walking and sightseeing!

Finally, We Made It!

2009-06-07T04:36:00.000-07:00

This is the next morning, after we woke up and were about to head out of Greymouth. We had parked here for the night.

From Greymouth, we planned to go through Arthur's Pass and into Christchurch where we would fly out the next day. Arthur's Pass is a famous drive in the South island of New Zealand and it goes over a mountain. When we got to the pass, though, we were told we had to put snow chains on our van if we wanted to continue driving because it was snowing on the top of the mountain.

So Eliz and I parked our van and started putting the snow chains on. We had a brief demonstration on how to use them when we first picked up our van, but it was still difficult because it was freezing and windy.

Finally, after a slight struggle, we got the chains on!

When we finally got back into our van to continue up the mountain, though, our van wouldn't crank. We were pretty aggravated at this point because we were on the side of a mountain and not many cars were passing on the two lane road. We figured we needed to get jumped off, though, so we started flagging people down.

Finally this nice guy came along and jumped our van off, so we started heading up the mountain again.. with our snow chains on this time.

As we drove, though, we noticed that no other cars had snow chains on and we were getting passed by everybody! Apparently, by the time we had gotten jumped off, it had stopped snowing so we didn't even need the chains anymore... but we couldn't stop driving because we didn't know if the van would crank back or not.

Finally, after about 1/2 an hour of getting passed and angry looks (because you have to drive slow with the chains on), we stopped and took off the chains without turning off the van.

This is further down the road on the way to Christchurch, I don't know what the purpose of this large doughnut was, but I had to get a quick picture with it.

Last time I was in Christchurch it was pouring down rain, and this time was no different. It down-poured the entire time we were there and it was freezing!

I also tried to get money out of an ATM and a machine ate my card there, so that wasn't good. Furthermore, at one point we were walking around Christchurch and couldn't find our way back to our van. So, after an hour or so of walking around in the rain and in the dark, we got a taxi to drive us around to find it for us.

Then, after we found our van, we realized that it wouldn't crank again. So we went to the police station and fire department, but nobody could help. Finally we ended up flagging down another couple and they were able to give us a jump start and we made it to the airport.

Rainbow in Christchurch.

This is the Christ Church. I think it is the only touristy place Elizabeth and I went inside of the whole trip.

Finally, though, after all of the headache, we made it to the airport and spent the night in our camper van there. The next morning we had to wake up at 4am for our flight, so we turned in our van keys and flew out.

Despite the difficulties we had along the way, I definitely have to say that this was the best trip I have ever had. It was such an adventure and so much fun!

Since Elizabeth has been gone I have just mainly been hanging out and finishing up with my classes. Now I am in the final few weeks of my stay in Australia and I have 3 exams to go until I am finished for good. My friend Sarah Beth arrives in two days to visit, and after she leaves I will have only a week until I fly home.

Road Trippin'

2009-05-25T23:46:00.001-07:00

The next morning we got up early and drove in our pajamas towards Glacier Country. We stopped in the small town of Fox Glacier and filled up with gas.

We then drove to the Fox Glacier and took a little walk up to the view point. It was freezing there!

We then got back in our van and drove to the other glacier, the Franz Joseph glacier. This is me walking towards the view point.

This is the Franz Joseph glacier!

Then we left glacier country and headed on up the road to a town called Hokitika. It was known for it's Jade, which is a green stone, and there were Jade shops all over. We walked around this town for a little while and experienced our first Walnut Crumble ever from a small bakery...and it was delicious.

We then found this little beach and decided to have a picnic for lunch. We had the whole place to ourselves and it was really neat. Eliz made us some ramen noodles on our little cooker in the back our van and we ate it on the beach!

Finally we pulled ourselves from our cool picnic area and got back on the road.

I liked how you could see the reflection of the mountains in this picture.

We thought this was funny. This cow was trying to escape!

Not quite sure what these animals were... but we definitely had to take a closer look at them.

That evening we got to Greymouth and walked around for a while. This was the biggest town we had come to so far. After visiting the information center, we decided to take a walk that would lead down to a waterfall. It was supposed to be a lot like what you would see on Lord of the Rings (it was filmed in New Zealand).

It was getting dark pretty fast so we ended up running back through the trail so we could get to the coast and watch the sunset. We liked this beach area, so we ended up camping there that night after a good meal of seafood pizza in town.

This is what the back of our campa van looked like when the bed was all made up. We would just park, button up all the windows, and got to bed every night! Here we were watching our DVDs from our bungy jump.

New Zealand - Juicy Style

2009-05-23T20:48:00.001-07:00

On a Tuesday Elizabeth and I headed to the South island of New Zealand. We had planned on flying into Queenstown (the adventure-seeker's town of NZ) and then picking up our camper van that we would drive and live in for the next few days.

The weather was bad, however, so we ended up getting to Queenstown later than planned and missing our van pickup. We ended up walking around the town that night and eating at Fergburger, a delicious place that served these massive hamburgers. We also stayed that night in the Black Sheep hostel, it was Elizabeth's first one ever!

At the hostel..

That next morning we had an appointment at the Nevis Bungy at 8:00AM so we headed down to our meeting place pretty early. It was our first time seeing Queenstown in the daylight, there were snow-covered mountains all around us and it was unbelievable!

Finally, after a 45 minute drive up a mountain, we arrived at our jump-site and did the bungy, it was the 3rd longest in the world (3 times as high as the one I did last time in NZ).

It was freezing when we got up there and the wind was blowing like crazy. Although tensions were high for a little while, we both got through it successfully and loved it! This jump has a free fall of 6 and 1/2 seconds, so it was much smoother than the short one I did before. Elizabeth also took the jump like a champ and did a massive dive, it was very impressive (especially since her 1st one was so high)!

This is a picture from Queenstown when we got back from the Bungy, we liked the yellow tree!

After the jump we got things sorted out with Juicy Rentals, picked up our camper van, and headed on up the road.

New Zealanders call them "campa vans", so this is our awesome campa van and home for those next few days!

We switched off driving. It was a little difficult at first to get used to driving on the left side of the road, also the steering wheel is on the right side of the car.. but we got used to it eventually!

Our first stop was Lake Wanaka.

We had no time schedule to speak of, so we just drove and stopped whenever we felt the need. This was one random spot where we stopped and took a little walk to this waterfall, some Asians took our picture here. After we were done, Eliz and I just started running back up the path to get in our van, mainly because it was getting so cold.. and these Asians just started running right along with us, like they were racing us. It was so funny.

Finally, when the sun started to set, we ended up in a little town called Haast where we decided to stay for the night. Just to give you an idea of the size of Haast, it made Clinton look like a big city!

We parked in a lot with this sign for the night! There was another camper parked there too, though, so we figured it would be ok.

The next morning we woke up really early, at 6:00 am, and started heading down the road again. We drove while the sun rose, along the coast and it was beautiful!

Sand Dunes, Camels, and Dolphins

2009-05-17T17:51:00.001-07:00

Elizabeth and I booked a dolphin watching tour with 3 of my housemates and one other girl. The tour also came with camel riding and sand-dune sliding.

This is on the bus on the way!

From left to right are: Erika, Tillie, Kristen, and Keara. I live with the first three.

We first stopped at some massive sand dunes on the beach.

This is Eliz and I with our camel, Ruby. She played in the movie Nim's Island that recently was released in the States, so she was kind of famous!

Ruby liked her close-ups.

The camels walked over the sand dunes and onto the beach. It was pretty cool. This is the other girls on their camels.

Elizabeth and I on Ruby, taking the lead!

Also at the dunes we did perhaps my favorite thing I have done so far, sand-dune sliding. They give you these board type things, and you put wax on the back of them and slide down the giant dunes. This is us at the top of the hill!

We raced down!

I almost ran into Eliz at the bottom!

The only bad part about this whole thing was the walk back up the hill after you slid down!

Anyway, finally we got to Port Douglas and got on our dolphin-watching boat.

We saw a bunch of dolphins and they were much bigger than the ones I saw in New Zealand. I think I saw Flipper!

I thought this man was so cute with his 2 dogs and their matching lifejackets, I think they were Beagles.

I took a few pictures of him, he really didn't want those dogs to drown!

This was such a great day, we had a ton of fun!

A Little Sister Time

2009-05-16T13:17:00.001-07:00

One night Elizabeth went to see the Nutcracker at the Sydney Opera House. I only had one ticket and, since I have already seen some similar shows and operas, Elizabeth went in my place! She liked it but said the actual ballet was kind of boring.

The next morning we woke up and headed out for Manly Beach. There is a famous walk in Sydney called 'Spit to Manly' that goes from the Spit Bridge to Manly Beach, so we decided to do it .. but backwards, so we started in Manly.

This is at the beginning of our walk, the walk that we did is the Manly Scenic Walkway (the sign says that). It was 10 km and took us right under 4 hours.

This is on the trail. Some parts were easier than others. Needless to say, though, at the end we were exhausted!

The walk took us along the Harbour so we passed by a bunch of warfs and bays where people docked their boats.

We stopped here and and rested while we ate our lunch.

It was also pretty neat because across the harbor you could see the city of Sydney.

At one point we saw a sign for a 800 meter detour down to a lighthouse so we headed off the path to check it out. We were picturing some beautiful structure on the water and wanted to get a picture of it for Nan because she loves lighthouses.

Well, it turned out that it was quite a hike downhill and the lighthouse ended up being pretty small. We still took a picture for you though Nan!

Anyway, but we did end up staying down there, close to the water, to take pictures and to just relax.

We just kind of sat there for forever until we realized that it was getting dark and there were no lights on the trail. Also we had quite a little ways to go!

Finally, after leaving the pretty view, we got back on the trail and eventually finished our walk! We were tired when we got home and so we cooked and went to bed. (This seems to be the reoccurring theme of the trip)

That night it was poppy-seed chicken, broccoli, and pumpkin. I have been eating pumpkin all the time here and wanted to try cooking one... and it turned out great!

The next day we were still tired from out walk and I had classes and labs, so we stayed around the house. Later that night, though, we decided to try out Hillsong Church's Wednesday night service. It is the famous, more contemporary church in Sydney that is on tv.

We took a bus from the city to the church and back. It was an extremely good service and we liked it a lot! The music was especially good!

Somehow it got kind of late and we were still making our way back home. We ended up having to wait 45 minutes for a bus back to school, so we ran into a store and got some groceries... then ate them on the bus on the way home!

Since Elizabeth has been here we have gone through 4 boxes of Weet-Bix.. which is a type of cereal here, 4 things of milk, and 4 jars of crunchy peanut butter!

Finally, after our feast on the bus, we made it home and put up what was left of our groceries.

The next day we went to the Sydney Olympic Park and walked around. It was kind of like a deserted ghost-town, we thought it was kind of weird. Apparently they still do have athletic events in the huge arenas and fields though, and it was easy to picture how the area used to be packed with athletes and spectators!

There was a giant fountain and Eliz and I found some benches and sat there for a while just enjoying the weather.. we also fell asleep for a few minutes =)

That night we came home and made a mexican creation consisting of rice, beans, chicken and tortillas.. yum!

The next day we woke up and went to Paddy's Markets to get some souvenirs for Eliz to take back home. The markets are indoors in this massive warehouse type building and it is stall after stall of stuff.
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We did some shopping and walking around, but most importantly Elizabeth got to try her first meat pie and ginger beer (just an Australian soft-drink). These are both famous to Australia and she liked them a lot!

Toronga Zoo

2009-05-15T16:44:00.000-07:00

My program had a trip planned to go to the Toronga Zoo, located on the Sydney Harbor. One of my friend's decided not to go because her parents are in town, so Eliz took her place... and we called her Kailyn all day =)

The Zoo is fairly self-explanatory. We just walked around and took silly pictures.

Elizabeth spotted this guy in the bushes and she took pictures of him while I chased him out!

Yes we did pose with this giant Koala.

And climbed on things.

These kangaroos were so lazy. This one looked pretty cute though, sleeping on his front arms like that.

And finally Elizabeth loves Elephants and took pictures with all of them we saw!

The Zoo was gorgeous because it overlooked the harbor and you could see the city of Sydney across the water. We also watched a seal show kind of similar to one at Sea World, and we took a cable-car ride from one end of the Zoo to the other.

When we got home we were pretty tired and hungry, so we made spagetti and dedicated it to Mom for Mother's Day and went to bed early.

Elizabeth is Here!

2009-05-09T03:55:00.001-07:00

I had been anticipating Elizabeth's trip for weeks and it finally came time for me to pick her up in the airport! After a few hours I realized that nothing had changed and Eliz is still the exact same as I remember her (according to this picture). Actually though, she was tired from her long plane ride and slept while I studied and took my midterm in Economics.

We decided to hit the beach on Eliz's first morning in Sydney. I took her to one of my favorites, Bondi Beach, and we walked around and attempted to get some sun. The weather is perfect these days, but just a tiny bit too cold to lay on the beach, you can see that the actual beach isn't that crowded.

We took a walk up the rocks and around the harbor and Elizabeth loved it. She reminded me of the first time I had ever been to Bondi because she just kept taking picture after picture, it's so beautiful!

We also enjoyed watching the surfers.

After the beach and our walk we ended up plopping down in the park area on some grass and eating some pasta and pumpkin salad that we bought in one of the shops. We also took about a million jumping pictures!

The next day we went into the city with two of my friends, Kristen and Keara, and showed Elizabeth around. This is us in front of the Opera House. I love watching people's first reactions when they get into the city and see the amazing buildings. Eliz loved it all!

After walking around the city for a while, we ended up in the Royal Botanical Gardens. We were pretty tired and decided to take the lazy way and ride the train through the gardens. It was a nice and informative train ride though, and we got our money's worth by sneaking onto it a second time! So we know our way around the gardens pretty well now!

The largest bats in the world live in these gardens. They looked like leaves on the trees there were so many of them!

I had a field day taking pictures of these fascinating little animals. It made Eliz and I remember when Mom used to read Stellaluna to us!

Finally the sun went down and we watched fireworks on Darling Harbor for it's 21st Anniversary Celebration. They had the fireworks coming out of an island in the middle of the harbor and also from 4 jet-skis. It was great!

Finally we got home and Eliz and I made some lovely card dresses for my roommates to go out in that night. I believe the theme was "anything but clothes."

Katie's School!

2009-04-30T16:58:00.000-07:00

After New Zealand I flew back to Bond University where Kaite spent this semester studying. It is in the Gold Coast, which is known in Australia for the magnificent weather and beaches. This is Surfer's Paradise, and the tall building is the tallest residential building in the Southern Hemisphere.

After Kaite and I hung out at Surfer's for a while, we took a 2 hour walk down the coast to the next beach, Broad Beach. It was the longest walk I've ever taken on a beach, but I really liked it!

Bond had just finished up its semester, it is on the American system, so Katie and all of her friends had a farewell dinner at The Lake, this kind-of fancy restaurant with incredible food.

I got a pig belly. This guy suggested it for me because I am from the south.. which I'm not sure what exactly he was implying by that, but I got it anyway and it was delicious!

This is the whole group!

Min, the girl to the left of me, was celebrating her birthday that night as well!

Finally, on one of the last days there, a bunch of us met at this pancakes place where Katie and her friends had yet another last meal.

I finally left and came back to Sydney. I had been gone for almost a month so I was glad to get back, although I had a lot of work to catch up on. One afternoon my roommates and I were kind of bored and we had all of this Easter candy that their moms had sent. So we put this peep.. well really it was a little marshmallow bunny, into the microwave and blew it up!

That next week, before Katie flew back to the states, she flew to Sydney first for a last visit! We met up with Courtney and Marie, two of the girls we went to New Zealand with, and walked around the city!

Finally we went to another pancakes place in Sydney one night. This is Katie and I waiting for our food, we were starving!

Finally Katie left and I had a week before Elizabeth flew in!

New Zealand 6 - The End

2009-04-21T17:48:00.001-07:00

When Kaite and her friends left I hoped on a backpacker's bus network called Stray Bus. Mostly students and younger people on holiday (vacation) use this bus system because it is inexpensive and it makes stops along the way to certian desinations. It goes all over New Zealand.

I decided to head further North, where the weather is a bit nicer, to the Bay of Islands for the next day or so until my flight. The busdrivers all have nicknames on Stray and mine was just called #2. So #2, on the way to the Bay of Islands, made 3 stops along the way.

We first stopped at this place where they had these huge trees. They are famous in New Zealand apparantly and he told us the ancient legend behind them. So - this is me hugging the famous tree.

#2 also stopped at Goat Island. The Kiwis (New Zealanders) named their islands after whatever happened to be on that particular island. He said there used to be a bunch of goats here, so they just called it Goat Island.. simple enough. We hopped in the water here, it was freezing, and did some snorkeling before hitting the road again.

Finally, we stopped at place where this guy takes in hurt birds for a while until they are ready to go back into the wild.

The Kiwi bird is the huge thing in New Zealand, it is why the people are called Kiwis. However, the Kiwi is extremely extinct and nobody ever gets to see them. Only a few wildlife parks have them and they are behind glass and expensive to see. There was a New Zealand girl on our Stray bus and she said she had never seen them or knows anybody that has ever seen them...and she has been in NZ her entire life.

Well amazingly enough, this one man has the only lisence in all of NZ to actually keep a Kiwi bird and we were lucky enough to meet him.

This is Sparkey, the 1-legged Kiwi, and #2 sat us down in a circle and the man came and just put him right in the middle of us. Sparkey lost his leg in a trap so this one man takes him around and shows him to elementary schools and nursing homes. We actually got to take pictures with and pet Sparkey, it was really neat and I felt like it was kind of a privaledge.

This is the bird guy with an injured Hawk. I thought it was interesting because he has had no formal training at all with birds, he just has been working with them forever and knows a ton about them! It was pretty neat to watch him pick them up and deal with them.

Finally I got to the Bay of Islands and went to a Moauri Culture show that night. The Mauri people were the first people on the islands and they have tons of heritage and special ceremonies they do. I hadn't learned anything about Mauri culture up until that point, so this show was extremely informative and entertaining.

This is the Bay of Islands.. I tried to get a picture of them. It is basically what it sounds like.. a bunch of little tiny islands that you can go to and snorkle, fish, parasail, kayak, boat around, and just relax on. It was really beautiful. Here are 2 little islands.

Finally, before I hopped back on the bus to catch my flight, I had to get a famous ice cream hamburger that I had been hearing so much about. It was excellent!

And that concludes the trip to New Zealand!

New Zealand 5 - ...3...2...1....Bungy!!

2009-04-21T06:39:00.000-07:00

This is our transportation we took all through New Zealand. We wore clothes though, don't worry!

Ok so we finally made it back to Auckland near the top of the North Island (our whole trip started here first, then we flew south.. then slowly made our way back north). Katie and her friends flew back to their school this day, but before they left a few of us just decided to jump off the harbor bridge! Since bungy jumping originated in New Zealand and is a pretty big deal, it was neccessary for us to try it. So, that morning 4 of us began making our way to the bridge.

It was a much longer walk than we had anticipated, so we ran into a shop to see what we should do, either catch a taxi or a bus or something, so we could make our jump time. There were no busses or taxis around though, so people just said to hitchhike! Well, none of us had ever really done that before, but some nicely dressed business people assured us that it was perfectly safe and that we wouldn't have a problem flagging down someone.

So... we started walking down the road and holding out our thumbs and eventually it worked! This New Zealand courrier, Leon, stopped his big red truck and said hop on in... well there were 4 of us and we felt safe and could see the bridge in the distance.. so we did.

Leon - our ride

This is us piled into the back of Leon's van among all of his packages.

So we made it to the bridge finally and geared up to go. It got a little bit more scary as we walked up the bridge and actually got to the top where we were supposed to jump from, but all in all it wasn't that bad. I absolutely loved it and definitely want to do it again very soon.. but from higher up!

This is pre-jump, with our harnesses on. Tensions were high here...

This is Ashley post-jump. I absolutely love this picture of her. She and I both got dunked in the water. This is after they just pulled her up, she absolutely loved it too! It's an exhilarating feeling.. this photo captures it pretty well I think!

Here is the video of my first bungy. It pretty much sums it all up!

After our jump we headed back down the bridge and found a nice harbor-side restaurant for lunch to celebrate! We got these amazing seafood chowder bread towers. They were soo delicious! I also had a fun time playing with the little sea creatures they put in there =)

Finally Kaite and her friends left and I began my few days in NZ alone. This first day I just relaxed, wrote some postcards, enjoyed a chai-tea late from Starbucks, and walked around the city. This is the famous Auckland City Skytower.

New Zealand 4 - Easter Family Fun

2009-04-20T23:22:00.001-07:00

On Easter Sunday we traveled all day, we called it "Easter Family Fun". We first missed our bus in the morning because we thought it came at 8 instead of 7, so after working it out with a kind bus driver, we were on the road again (after about an hour of panic).

We then hopped on a ferry that took us from the South Island to the North Island called the Interislander. It was a nice ride and we played cards and just mainly relaxed.

That night we stayed in Wellington. This is our hostel room and what we stayed in everywhere we went in New Zealand. Some were nicer than others, this one was pretty nice and spacious compared to some we stayed in that resembled shoe boxes.

The next morning we woke up early to explore the city of Wellington. This is Courtney and Kaite on the beautiful harbor.

We then hopped on another bus which us took us further up the North Island to Hamilton. I tried to take some pictures out the window of some sheep. This picture really doens't even do it justice though, the sheep are literally Everywhere in New Zealand! (All those little white things are sheep)

The next day we rented an 8 seater van and headed up towards the Aranui and Waitomo Caves. Ashley, in the driver's seat on the right, did an excellent job driving on the opposite side of the road and we all felt extremely safe (well after the first 5 or 10 minutes=)

This is more beautiful scenery. The snow from a week before still hadn't melted off the mountain tops.

Us with our van!

We finally made it to the caves. This is the first cave, the Aranui Cave, that we walked through. These are some stalagmites and weird cave spider things.

After the first cave we took a nature walk up to some lookouts and saw some waterfalls.

This is the last cave we went through, the Waitomo Cave. This Kiwi lady was our tourguide and kept saying "Ok people come this way" and "People look at this".. Right here she is saying, "Goodbye people!" We thought that was pretty funny.

The Waitomo cave is the famous glowworm cave. We took that boat through the this pitch-black dark cave and there were millions of these tiny glowworms on the ceiling. It looked like stars when you looked up, it was an amazing experience.

"Goodbye People!"

New Zealand 3 - Akaroa and the Dolphins

2009-04-20T00:57:00.000-07:00

This morning we hopped on a bus to Akaroa with plans to swim with Hector Dolphins. The ride to Akaroa was beautiful and we stopped at a little cafe on the way. We finally got to get up close and personal with some sheep and were able to pose for a few pictures with the scenery.

In Akaroa we put on wetsuits and hopped on a boat to look for the famous Hector dolphins. These are extinct miniature dolphins and are only a few feeet long. There are only 7,000 left of them in the entire world!

These wetsuits were a good inch or two thick and they were soo tight, but apparently they were supposed to keep us warm in the freezing water.

This is us on the boatride out to look for the dolphins. The plan was to swim with them if we found some "suitable, friendly ones". It is illigal to swim with the dolphins who are either feeding or that have babies with them.

Well, as it turned out, none of the dolphins weres suitable enough for us to swim with. We did get to see a whole bunch of them though. It was a slight dissapointment (especially to Katie who is in love with these little creatures), but the water was freezing and we got a partial refund.. so I was alright with it.

Anyway, I tried to take some pictures of them, but it was extremely hard because they moved so fast! We also saw penguins, eels, and a bunch of birds in the water. I was mostly fascinated with the Albatross, which is the great, mythical bird that you read about in all of the legends and stories (like the Rime of the Ancient Mariner). I would have put up a picture, but since it is from so far away it looks like a seagull... and I just didn't think that would be appropriate for such a grandoise bird.. they deserve much more than a simple seagull status!

Finally we got back to the little town and got out of those wetsuits. When we could finally breathe again we stopped at a Mr. Whippey's ice cream van and got some dipped cones. They were amazing!

We spent the rest of that day walking around Akaroa. Katie and I bought a bunch of fudge that we sharred with everyone when we got back to our hostel that night in Christchurch. We got flavors that included Bailey's Irish Cream Liquor, Caramel, Rocky-Road, Passionfruit, Andes Mint, and just chocolate.

This is Ashley and I in our matching New Zealand jackets. It was really cold in Christchurch and I got plenty of wear out of mine for the rest of the trip!

New Zealand 2 - Quad Bikes and Hamner Springs

2009-04-19T23:34:00.000-07:00

After a long night's rest in Christchurch, we got up early the next morning and got picked up by our guide, Vailma, in her van. She first took us to Thrillseekers Canyon where we rented Quad Bikes (4-wheelers) and drove them around for a while.

We went through the water and mud and were very messy after it was all over. At one point, when the guide went ahead of us, I attempted to do a doughnut with my 4-wheeler.. but I ended up flipping it over. Although I had a hard time getting it flipped back right-side up and cranking it up again, it was still very worth it

The scenery was absolutely incredible. It had snowed in the mountains a few days earlier and so the tips were still white!

We then got dropped off at Hamner Springs, a town known for its natural thermal pools, and met Vailma in the park for a picnic. She prepared a delicious barbeque for us in the back of her van and we had a lovely lunch.

Katie and I in the little park with the mountains in the background.

After lunch we walked to ther thermal pools. The three hottest pools were sulphur pools and they smelled like sulphur (rotten eggs). They were still really nice to sit in though because the scenery around them was beautiful and it was cold outside, so the hot water felt great!

Courtney and Kaite in one of the pools.

We also got some delicious gelato in Hamner Springs at the Pickled Pig. I got mandarin and lime flavored, so it was very interesting but I loved it!

Vailma finally dropped us back off in Christchurch in the Botanical Gardens so we walked around and took some silly pictures.

We were exhausted after that long day, made pasta for dinner, and went to bed early!

New Zealand 1 - Airport and Christchurch

2009-04-19T05:51:00.000-07:00

Well Easter Break (Spring Break) is finally here and I have 2 full weeks off of school! Katie Rehfuss, my friend from PC, is studying at a different University in Australia, so I met up with her and 4 of her friends in New Zealand. New Zealand is divided up into 2 islands, the North and the South. We met in Auckland, in the North Island, and stayed in the airport over night to catch another early flight down to the South Island. This is us in the airport.

From Left to Right: Courtney (Missouri), Katie (my friend from PC - she's from Atlanta), Ashley (Katie's friend from Atlanta, they came to Australia together), Marie (French-Canadian.. french accent =), Kelsey (Rhode Island), and me!

So we finally got to Christchurch in the South Island and were tired from the long night in the airport. This is Christchurch, we went to an Easter service here, and a massive chess board. Marie was on her phone and Ashley is just trying to fit into the picture I guess =)

That same day we took the Gondala up to a lookout point in Christchurch. This is Kaite and Valerie, a girl from Switzerland that we met. The wind was shaking the Cable Cars, but the ride was very nice. Here we saw our first of many sheep in New Zealand; they just roam free on the hills.

View from lookout point. It was so beautiful it almost looked fake!

It was Extremely cold and windy up there though because we were on the top of a mountain, so we had to run out on the balcony, snap a quick picture, and run back inside to warm up.

Valerie and I split a muffin.

Finally we got back to Christchurch and, since we were going to be staying there for a few days, went to the grocery store and bought some food (and a lot of peanut butter and jelly for sandwhiches on our day trips). We had vegetables and chicken this first night in our hostel. We look like a little family! Also that night, after dinner, some of us went to that church service which was very nice.

Rugby Game

2009-04-03T16:26:00.001-07:00

I went to my first Rugby Game! The Sydney Roosters were playing the Eels from another city. This is the rooster mascot, you can also see the field in the background!

Before the real game began they had the little kid's rugby game going on. They were actually wearing mouth guards and tackling each other! I was shocked but very entertained!

We had really close up seats which was good, we got to see all of the action!

I didn't really pick up much from the game, I couldn't follow it at all. I was expecting it to be similar to football, but it definitely isn't. It is very intense though!

I thought this little guy was especially cute with his big hand. Whenever the Roosters would do something good, he would point that finger up in the air and cheer.. it was really cute! Also you can kind of see, but he is wearing a rugby jersey. Almost every single Australian was wearing one and cheering on their team!

There was a bachelor party going on in the seats next to us, and they got quite rowdy. At one point they called in the police and security because they were throwing bags of chips at people. That actually might have been more entertaining than the game!

Bushwalk

2009-04-02T13:42:00.001-07:00

One day we decided to do a bushwalk. Before I left, Mom gave me a book on Sydney's 25 Best things to do and it has a bunch of random walks and hikes. This particular bushwalk was from Toronga Zoo (located on the harbor) and ended at Balmoral Beach and it took about 3 hours.

This type of spider is everywhere here. This one was particularly huge. They lure their prey into their webs and kill them, you can see them above her entangled in the web.

This is what the bushwalk looked like. It was all fairly shady, which was lucky for us because it was such a hot day! Some parts were steeper than others, but all in all it was a nice walk along the waters edge.

These flowers were on the hike, it's the first time I had seen any like them.. I thought they were so beautiful. I picked some and carried them around with me for the rest of the day, but by the time I got home they had died.

Here, the Sydney Harbor opens up to the Pacific Ocean. It's called The Gap. I thought that was a neat picture, it just kind of looks like a drop off into nothingness.

Our walk took us to several different little beaches and to various lookouts. There were lots of sailboats on the harbor this day, maybe because it was kind of windy. We finally arrived at the last beach and I fell asleep on my towel for a little while.

Finally, at the end of the day, we took the bus back to our train station and decided to get some Chinese food. This was the first real restaurant that I have been to since I left America where they sat us down and actually served us our food. It was very nice. This is what I ordered, it was delicious!

Blue Mountains

2009-03-29T23:19:00.000-07:00

Last weekend our group took a trip to the Blue Mountains which are located about 2 hours outside of Sydney. We first stopped by a Wildlife Park and saw more animals, one being that crocodile. We watched him get fed and heard a little bit about his life... apparently he was eating tourists, adults and children, and so he was taken out of the wild and put into a zoo. In this zoo, however, he began eating all of the crocodiles that were put into his cage with him (his mates), so they finally moved him to this particular park in a cage by himself. He was pretty ferocious I must say.

This little guy down here is an Echidna. It is a marsupial that lays eggs and native to Australia. This is the first time we have seen one of these fellas in real life, although they are one of the common animals in pictures that you see everywhere around here.

We saw a bunch more kangaroos, but the most interesting were the Albino Kangaroos. They looked so strange I thought. Also, they can't survive in the wild because there is no way for them to blend in.. so I guess they get eaten and die out.

Oh I almost forgot, we got to pet koalas here and get our picture taken with them! I can't get the picture to upload that I have of me with the koala, but just so you know - I do have one =)

After the Wildlife Park we drove to a place called Wentworth Falls and began the 1,000 Steps Walk down the mountain. Everyone was concerned about how we were going to get back up the steps, but as it turned out, we got to take a cable car type thing back up to the top.. thank goodness!

These three peaks are called the 'three sisters'. There is an Aboriginal legend about three sisters and their witch-doctor father. I can't exactly remember how it went, but they named these three mountains after the sisters!

This is Vanessa and I posing in front of the Blue Mountains. They appear blue because of the haze that comes off of the Eucalyptus trees. It was a tough little trek down the mountain, but definitely worth it because the views were amazing, the weather was also amazing there.. it was slightly more chilly than what it has been in Sydney!

On the hike, we stopped in this one cave and our tour guide showed us how to do an echo. She said that, from a young age, Australian children learn to say "Koooeeee!" if they get lost in the woods, so we all did it and it echoed back to us. I tried to upload a video of it on this blog, hopefully it will work! This is the short video clip of the group doing the echo... (just press play!)

Finally, we stopped at this little town called Lura for lunch. It was very quaint and had a bunch of neat little ships, including a candy shop that had candy from all over (including American candy!). So, needless to say, everyone from our group were buying their favorites that we cannot get here. I bought some Junior Mints, a Reeses Cup twix bar, and a Cadburry Easter Egg. It was all great, except they did not have Mr. Goodbars, so that made me sad.

The Blue Mountains trip was very nice over all and I thoroughly enjoyed it!

#3: Croc Hunt, Rain-Forest, Beach... The End.

2009-03-25T21:34:00.001-07:00

This is me in a shop in Cairns.. I'd like to think that I look like a real Australian!

After the Wildlife Preserve, we took a little drive up the mountain and hopped on this boat for a Crocodile Hunt! Our guide talked just like Crocodile Dundee and was pointing out various things, the first being this green tree frog. He said some special stuff about it.. that I cannot recall right now, but it was definitely green and in a tree. It had been a very long day and I, along with that girl in the picture, took advantage of the boat ride and took a little nap!

Unfortunately, we only ended up seeing 1 Crocodile on our boat ride (they were hiding from us I guess) ... but I took these pictures of the Crocodiles at the Wildlife Preserve.

After the Croc Hunt we got back on the bus and traveled further up the mountain into the tropical rain-forest. We first hiked up to a lookout point and I dropped 2 batteries out of my camera down a ravine and into a river. Hopefully they won't leak out and spoil the fresh water, I was kind of worried about that for a few minutes. This is us on the trail, it was incredibly humid and we all look pretty gross.

We then hiked back down to the river and were able to swim in the freezing water, which felt great because we were so hot. The current was fairly strong in the river, but some of us made it over to this rock that we climbed on. We were also able to swim upstream a little bit further and go down this waterfall type thing.

We ended this long (but great) day by going to the beach. You couldn't swim in it because of the box jellyfish, but we enjoyed just walking around and taking some 'jumping pictures'.

On the morning of our flight, a few of us went into the town of Cairns and got some breakfast. We wanted to see the Lagoon that is in the middle of the city.. this is a picture of it. You can see how it starts as a water fountain, and then progresses into a swimming pool, and finally to the ocean. It would be a fun spot to spend the day!

After the lagoon, we went back to our hostel for the last time, took a bus to the airport, and flew back to Sydney. When I got home I threw all of my luggage down and studied for 2 straight days for an Economics test that I had. I ended up doing pretty well on it, but I realized that school is just getting in the way of these other, more important, other things that I am doing (just kidding of course). Finally though, two days later, I was able to unpack and do some laundry. I loved the Great Barrier Reef and Cairns and would definitely recommend it to anyone!

#2: Rafting and Roos

2009-03-25T19:51:00.000-07:00

During the free day in Cairns I opted for Extreme White-Water Rafting. A bunch of people went Sky Diving and Bungee jumping, but I am saving those for New Zealand (which I am going to on April 8th during my Easter Break). Anyway though, the rafting was definitely the best I've ever done. Since we were the "extreme" group, our 6 rafts went ahead of the other large groups of rafts, and we were able to go at a faster pace and stop for swims and for jumping off rocks.

Within the first 5 minutes of the trip, our guide (Dave) flipped our raft over and one guy, Remy, fell out of the boat and got a bad nose bleed! It was pretty gross, but we washed it off and were able to get back on track. I was the only person, besides Dave, in the boat who had been rafting before.. so everybody else didn't really know what to expect. I think they all enjoyed it though!

At the end of the trip the company had pictures available for us to purchase that they took of us on the river, but they were expensive.. so that last picture is a picture that I took of their picture (if that makes sense). Anyway, but that was on one of the rapids.. I guess I thought I was going to drown because I was holding my breath in every picture!

The next day we hopped on a tour bus at 6:30 am and drove all over. The first stop was the Wildlife Park and I was finally able to see some kangaroos! The kangaroos were just walking around and we were able to touch and feed them. I even tried to pick one up.. unsuccessfully I might add.

This was the biggest kangaroo there I think, he mainly just stayed in the corner and ate all of our food.

A bunch of the kangaroos had little baby joeys in their pouches, it was fascinating! I felt like they were more reserved than the other kangaroos without babies.

I had to get a close-up

Also, I'm not sure what this animal was.. but it had a baby too!

We also saw some other animals at the Park including this bird, koalas, crocodiles, and ... some other animals... but the kangaroos were definitely my favorite!

We weren't able to touch the Koala's here because we would give them "brain damage" apparently... I thought that was pretty funny. Hopefully we'll be able to get closer to them at some point though. These particular ones just slept all of the time and seemed particularly lazy.. what a life.

#1: Cairns - The Great Barrier Reef

2009-03-24T00:06:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, these past three posts did not come out in order.. so the whole trip is kind of confusing. This is the first post, then the Rafting and Roos, and finally The End. I had to break up the trip because we did so much stuff!

Well, we took a 5-day trip to the city of Cairns, which is where the Great Barrier Reef is located. The plane ride took 3 hours and when we got there we checked into the Bohemia Resort Hostel. This is Mike and Liz in our hostel room..

The next morning we got up early and got on a boat heading out for the reef. The boat ride took 3 hours and it took us to a few little islands where we snorkeled and scuba-dove. I had a cheap underwater camera so my pictures aren't that great, but better than nothing!

This is the the first island we came to and the glass-bottomed-boat that we took over the reef. They had these suits you could rent for the day to protect you from jelly-fish and the sun, but I didn't get one (I was too cheap, plus I wanted the sun!) .. so I look a little out of place!

Sea turtle! You had to look close for them because they kind of blended in.

This is the front of our cruise boat that took us to and from the reef. The rides were long, but the weather was perfect and the scenery was beautiful. It was a good chance to relax and get some sun. The boat crew would also periodically throw big shrimp into the water and these gigantic black fish would come up and eat them right when they hit the surface. We also geared up on the boat, snorkeled right off the back, and ate lunch on it.

That night, when we got back from the reef, we were all exhausted and starving. We took quick showers and headed to this restaurant that served heaping plates of home-cooked food. It kind of reminded me of Cracker Barrel. I tried somebody's crocodile meat that they ordered but I ordered the chicken, which turned out to be an entire bird, it was great! We also ordered this massive desert, but we didn't have any trouble finishing it at all. The first day of our trip was a huge success.

Sydney - Tropfest, Beaches, and Mardi Gras

2009-03-19T15:50:00.001-07:00

I can't believe that I have been in Sydney for this long and haven't written anything about it yet! It is amazing! I have done and seen so many different things in such a short amount of time, I am just glad that I have a few more months here to do more. During the first week that we arrived, we mainly did tours of the city and got settled in. School hadn't started yet and it was extremely nice to relax and take in the sights. This is the famous Opera House located on the Sydney Harbor and also the Harbor Bridge. These are two of the main sights to see on the harbor, at night they are especially pretty. You can pay 200$ to walk across the top of the bridge, we saw some people crossing it while we were on a night cruise on the harbor.. however I am on a budget, so I'm not planning on doing that.

Also, during that first week or so in Sydney, a bunch of us went to the Independent Film Festival called Tropfest. It is one of the 2 biggest Independent Film Festivals held in the world. People bring blankets and food and spread out across this massive lawn. There are big movie screens set up and they play short films and they are judged. We got there around 11AM and stayed until 11PM that night. It wasn't crowded when we got there at all, but around 3PM or so it was packed, we had really good seats though!

Now to one of my favorite parts of Sydney... the beaches!! The beaches are amazing here. They are normally pretty crowded, but if you go at the right times, they are really nice. There are tons of different beaches to visit and some are they are all different! Bondai is one of the main beaches. It is a large beach and sometimes it gets so crowded that you almost cannot put a towel down. It's actually not that bad though because there are tons of people to see and meet. I also love watching the surfers and hope to try it out one of these days.

This beach also has an amazing salt-water swimming pool open to the public. It is built right beside the ocean, so waves come up over the sides of the pool and onto the swimmers! Also in this area there is a small hike that leads up to a place with a view of the beach and over the area of Bondai. The climb is over a bunch of rocks and cliffs where the waves come crashing into. It is all extremely beautiful.

These next pictures are of Manly Beach. It is one of the other more popular beaches and generally less-crowded than Bondai. I especially liked Manly because there are a bunch of beach volleyball courts on the water. Some people were playing more intensely, while others (like us) were just hitting around for fun. We also got some absolutely amazing gelato, italian icecream, at this beach... so that makes it probably my favorite! These are some of the people I went with..

Also, during the day we spent at Manly, I was lying on my towel eating my peanut butter sandwich (which I eat at least 5 to 8 a week) and I look up and this seagull is just standing there around 1 foot away watching me.... it was actually kind of creepy. He really wanted some, but it would have been a bad idea to feed one, because millions more would have flocked!

I know this is kind of a long post... I'll try to keep up with it better and make them shorter in the future. Right now I just have some time to sit down and do it because I am at a friend's house watching the movie Cars.. which I have seen before.

Anyway, but another noteworthy thing I did was attend the Mardi Gras parade (or the Gay and Lesbian Day Parade) in downtown Sydney. Apparently it is a pretty big deal and it and the one in New Orleans are world renown. I didn't really know what to expect with this parade... but it was absolutely crazy. I just mainly spent my time trying to figure out the gender of the people I was looking at! They lined the street with gates and you had to get there really early to get a spot on the railing, then people would come and crowd behind you. We got a pretty decent spot considering we didn't go that early. I found a crosswalk, where they had the gate propped open for people to get to the other side, and the security guys said they would close it eventually. So we claimed our spot on that gate, and when they finally closed it, we had a great spot!

I will load some more pictures from Mardi Gras on here when I get a better connection. This will do for now though! I just got back from a 5-day trip to the Great Barrier Reef, and once I get the pictures from my underwater camera developed, I will make a new post!

Last of Fiji

2009-02-18T02:41:00.000-08:00

My sincerest apologies for not updating this Blog sooner. I am finally in Sydney now, unpacked, and settled in for the next few months. Here are some final pictures from Fiji, however the majority of my pictures are accessible through facebook...so check them out there.

This is the Hindu temple that we visited. You can see the men and women in the background wearing the yellow outfits, marching around the temple, and worshiping the sun god.

This is from one of the islands that we went to in Fiji called Beachcomber. We jet-skied and rode horses on this particular island. We are standing on the front porch of one of the houses about to go sea-kayaking, this would be the most amazing stay in.

So I thoroughly enjoyed the trip to Fiji because we got to experience the island as a whole. I was just thinking about the luxury resorts and beautiful beaches, but the real day-to-day (non-touristy) Fiji was my favorite part. We stayed with Fijian families for the majority of our stay there and we got to experience their lives. I stayed in a house with 5 other girls, it was a fairly large house on a hill that overlooked Suva (the beautiful capital city) and in the distance you could see the ocean. Every morning I would come up for breakfast and just stand there on the porch (it wrapped around the whole house) and look out.

This is some of the family that I stayed with. Junior is the boy on the left, it was his house, and the other two girls live there during the week. There names are Windy-Mary and Una. That picture was right before they showed me how to crack open a coconut to get the milk and coconut flakes out. Junior just climbed right up into a tree and grabbed one, and then they banged it up against this iron rod thing and it cracked open. It was all extremely fascinating.

Many people had complaints about Fiji. Although the houses we stayed in were really nice by Fijian standards, to Americans they still were a little hard to adapt to. In my house there was no air conditioning at all, and although there was a nice breeze because it was on a hill, it was still extremely hot. We slept on a fitted sheet and that was it, they didn't really have blankets or anything. I got used to sweating 100% of the time I was there, even after getting out of the shower. Also there were mosquitos and you couldn't drink the water. Furthermore, we had tons of other roommates and we had to question if they were friendly or not. I took a quick picture of one of them, he was my favorite I would have to say, we became quite close during the trip. This is him...

All in all though, even though the living conditions were different than we are used to, it was a first-hand experience and I learned a ton. I would go back and stay with my family in a heartbeat, I loved every minute of it.

We did several things with the family in Fiji. Our "Ma" (which is what we called her) took us to the different markets and shops and cooked many amazing meals for us. We also attended one of her church services at her pastor's house and sang some hymns. We went to a 21st birthday party of a family friend and it was the biggest party I have ever seen. There were over 300 people there and they had entertainment and table after table of food. By far though, the best thing that we did was go to the waterfalls. It is this mountain type place, I really can't even explain it. As you walk down the mountain though there is just waterfall after waterfall. They flow into one another and create different pools. It was the most beautiful and exotic thing I have ever seen. We mainly stayed down at the bottom pool because there was a small waterfall, pool, and a rope-swing which we did over and over again. These are some of the girls that stayed in the house with me, you can see how the pools form and flow into each other. I am going to end it here with Fiji, hopefully I'll be able to put up more pictures from it later. My next post, though, will definitely be about what I have done and am doing in Sydney... it's Fabulous!

Fiji

2009-02-09T15:44:00.001-08:00

BULA! (Fijan greeting)

Ok, I know scenery pictures are no fun.. but on this particular occasion I felt that it was necessary to capture the essence of the situation.

We arrived in Fiji at 7AM in the morning, and by 7:30AM we were on a boat heading out towards the Pacific Islands in the so-blue-it-makes-you-want-to-cry-and-laugh (at the same time) water. It's amazing because you can walk around the perimeter of the whole island! It was very relaxing to sit on the beach in the shade of palm trees while looking at the mountains at the same time. (You can see the mountains in the background of this picture).

I had a lot more pictures to upload, but this is all I am able to do right now for some reason. We spent two days on the islands and I went horseback riding on the beach, jet-skiing, and kayaking. Most people are extremely sunburnt and eaten alive by mosquitos.. however I have been fortunate to avoid it all.. somehow. We also went to a Hindu temple the other day and an old man gave me a total of 10 bananas throughout the day. I didn't really know what to do, so I just thanked him (saying "venaka venaka") and ate 3 in front of him! Hopefully that was appropriate.

Now we are at the South Pacific University in Suva and our lectures have been canceled for the day (how unfortunate). We are staying with local Fijan families and will be here for 4 or 5 days. It is extremely hot.. way hotter than I have ever experienced. The houses do not have air conditioning or anything, but they are all open and breezy. My particular house is on a hill that overlooks the village, and you can see the ocean in the background. While the islands and luxury resorts are nice, Fiji is really very poor. Most people walk around barefoot and shouting "bula!" everywhere they go, very friendly. Alright I'm paying by the minute in this little cafe, so that is all for now!

(More pictures to come!)

Hit the Road Jack

2009-02-03T08:50:00.000-08:00

Ok! Tonight is the last night at my house and I have successfully not put anything into a suitcase yet. I am, however, focusing on the more important things right now such as preparing for my "last meals" and watching enough American Idol to last me for a while.

Really though, I am getting excited and will be in Fiji on Thursday.. so I will write again when I arrive!

Also, thanks again to all for the going away wishes and lovin, it all made me feel extra-special!