Port Douglas/cairns/Sydney/fiji

Well so since last time I blogged I've done a lot. Since then I've been to port douglas, cairns, and Sydney in Australia and am now in Fiji.  In port Douglas we got to go out on a big research boat to the great barrier reef. I got to finally dive the great barrier reef!!! The first day the visibility was really poor because it had rained so I was disappointed but the second day the diving was amazing! I got super annoyed though because there were two other certified divers on our trip but they just got certified and had never been diving except for their certification dives. One girl couldn't figure out her bouancy control and this girl just couldn't stay under water. In the middle of our 80 foot dive, this chick just soared to the surface. So dumb. It turns out that she couldn't figure out how to empty her vest of air. I laughed so hard at her because she could remember how to put all her equipment together, which I can't remember to save my life, but she couldn't remember how to empty her vest of air which is one of the most important parts!!! We helped the people on the boat with research and were giving an area to snorkel and we had to count certain types of fish in that area. Probably a terrible idea having us do this because half of us had no idea what type of fish we were looking for so we just made up numbers. So fun fact, research isn't right always. Especially when they have volunteers like us helping them. We were too busy looking at everything to stop and count the fish.  Port Douglas was really cool. We went cane toad racing. A cane toad is a frog that was introduced to Australia to eat the cane beetle when  sugar cane was brought over to farm. Only certain people got to cane road race. If your name was drawn you could. Of course, I got called to race this frog thing. So they put a hair tie around the frog so you know which is yours and you get a party blow thing. Like the things you use at birthday parties or new years when you blow into it the end unrolls and it makes a noise. You have to blow this to where is expands to hit the frog. The frog has to move to the end of the table and jump off and you have to catch it and run to put it in a bucket and then you win. So here I go blowing this freaking thing so it's jumps to the end of the table and I'm running around frantically trying to grab this damn frog. Well duh, I grab the frog and win of course! I won a free day trip on a catamaran to the reef and then a pass to some crocodile place! So that was entertaining and fun.  Then we went to cairns (pronounced cans). There we had our final exam, which was easy since it was open note. Other than that, we had free time the whole time. We went to the beach and just walked around. It's the backpacking capital of Australia so that's where I'm going back to when I start backpacking. It's a really neat place. It has a city centre area that has all the hostels, bars, and restaurants all there.  Now onto Sydney. I love Sydney. We went to the zoo and it was awesome! The zoo had every type of animal possible. Even a snow leapord. They had a sky rail type deal since the zoo is on a mountain/hill. We got to ride up and down it and it overlooked sydney harbor. We then ferried to the harbor and sat outside and ate lunch overlooking the opera house. Sydney was pretty much like new York city though. It was exactly the same but instead of the statue of liberty, it was the opera house.  Fiji. My favorite place ever. This place is just great. We are staying at hostels but they are sooo nice. We did a village stay where we stayed in the village with families. This place is so third world it's unreal. We sat on the floor to eat our meals and they don't even use silverware. The honored guests get to eat first so while we were eating, the women would walk around with towels and swat the flies away from our food. It was extremely awkward. Then the males get to eat and then the women get to eat. They shower at least three times a day...let me tell you, this is because their "showers" are not showers. They fill up a five gallon bucket with the coldest water on earth and the use a bowl to scoop the water out and pour it over your head. Oh, and the bathroom isn't even attached to the house so you have to go outside to use it. It's really funny and disgusting at the same time. They all have huge TVs and cell phones but they can't even invest in a proper shower or shoes. They don't wear shoes ever. We did a kava ceremony. Kava is like their alcohol. It's made from a root and mixed with water. It's considered a mild narcotic and is illegal in America. I asked our mom how much she drank of it and she said she drinks a little so I asked how much a little was and she told me about 30 bowls. I drank 7 and my whole face was numb. I don't know how they do it. Plus it tastes TERRIBLE. like muddy water. It's so gross. Then they all came out in costumes and did a dance. Oh, the houses. These are practically huts. They are one room and have curtains Seperating the "rooms". This was an experience for sure. And the food that they made has me running to the bathroom every 30 minutes now. Today, we ferried to an island called bounty island. It's so cool. You can walk around it in about 15 minutes, it's so little. We are at the only resort here. Today we kayaked and played beach volleyball so it's been a lot of fun and tomorrow I think that we are going on a boat to snorkel and do more research. 

Done

I am sick of blogging if you can't tell. So I'm not anymore!

Also, I am staying here three extra weeks to travel. Yayauayayayay

Daintree/Cape Tribulation

yesterday we left tyrconnel to come to the daintree rainforest in cape tribulation. yesterday was the day from hell. we got on the bus at 9 am to leave and we literally stopped every 30 minutes for no reason. we stopped outside of cape trib to get groceries because there are none on this island. but then our professor told us not to get naythign that cant be refrigerated because we are stoppign on the way for outdoor lectures. so that results in me eating peanut butter AGAIN. what should have taken about 30 minutes from the grocery store to our hostel was actually a 5 hour venture. we got to stop at all these spots in the rainforest and the guy, small paul, who was giving us all our elctures talked for freaking hours and most of it wasnt about anything to do with teh rainforest. its really frustrating sometimes because taking notes is making it to where we cant look around and enjoy the rain forests. finally we got to our hostel and then were supposed to go on a night walk to animal spot. thank goodness our professor realized that none of us were going to do it so she postponed it until tonight. so of course, we all just went to the bar.

this morning we went to the rainforest discovery centre. it was really neat. they built pathways to walk through certain parts of the forest and there were different levels. we got to walk on teh bottom, then the middle, then we got to go up high above the canopys. it was really neat. the rest of the afternoon has been a free day so we went to the beach but it was kinda cloudy so we didnt stay for long.

uhmmm nothing else really exciting going on right now besides the MASSIVE spiders that are here. they are the size of my hand, if not bigger, and im not exagerrating. they are everywhere and even in the hostel showers.

Camping

For the past two days we have been in Tyrconnell. It's in the outback. With, I don't think really looks like the outback because it's hilly and it has trees and shrubs everywhere. Not the type of outback I was expecting. I think Disney has put wrong ideas in my head. This place we stayed at was literally in the middle of nowhere. It's on the top of a hill and this persons house is made of tin. It's like they are living in the 1940's. They barely even have electricity and have to run a generator if they want to toast a piece of bread. We stayed down the hill from these people's house. We stayed in tents. It was two people to a tent but we thought it was a good idea to use one tent for our changing room and then five of us stayed in one tent. Me, Joey, Andrew, tally, and Becky all slept in one tent and we hung my iPad up on a string to the top of the tent and watched movies both nights. I say we watched movies but we watched Thor both nights and fell asleep ten minutes in. The place we stayed at has an old gold mine on it. It's from the 1800's and still works. They turned it on for us and everything. It was pretty cool. Other than that we did nothing but write our paper. It was pretty boring. Really boring actually.  Now we are on the bus on the way to cape tribulation/daintree. Another rainforest. This one is supposed to be like the tropical rainforest type, like in the Disney movies. Disney really just messes with your head and then you are disappointed when you don't get what they portray in the movies.  Supposedly, the outback doesn't get much water but it rained the whole time we were here. I swear the rain is following us everywhere we go. It rained so hard in cairns and port Douglas (both places I would go diving) that the dive boats didn't even go out. If that happens while I'm here I'm definitely not getting on the plane to LA from Fiji and coming back so I can go diving. I talked to the guy at Tyrconnell that knows all this stuff about gold and he told me where I could get a gold Australian kangaroo coin and how much they would be and stuff, so that would be something cool to bring home.  Hope it doesn't rain!!  Tata

Homestay

Tonight is the last night in our home stays. We have been here for almost two days now. My family is so great. It was never awkward for us and they made us feel right at home. They have a 3 year old daughter, Ava, and a 10 year old son, Luke. They live on a farm but not to sell the animals but just to provide food for their own family. It's pretty cool.the father is paralyzed from the waist down but he has these braces on his legs that let him stand up and he can walk with these crutches type things. He used to fly helicopters and his crashed and that is why he is paralyzed now  It's actually pretty remarkable. I haven't seen him use a wheelchair once. This was an amazing experience. We got to learn what life is for an Australian and not just the tourist aspect of it.  We finally got breakfast, lunch, and dinner provided for us for two days. This is the first time that we have had every meal for the entire day provided. Thank goodness. It was nice to actually have a home cooked meal for us. All the ,eat was great. Obviously, it was so fresh, coming straight from their backyard. We did activities that I would never have dreamed of doing. We had to herd the goats into the pens first. We had to feed each goat their medicine with a syringe and then tag their ears. They definitely didn't like us much after that. Then we had to herd the sheep into the pens. We had to do their medicine as well. Next, was the baby lamb. This next part is not for the nauseous type. In all my excitement I Said I would cut off the lambs tail. Who knew that the lambs tails just weren't that short to begin with. I'm thinking that I get to use a big butcher  knife or something and can just whack the thing off. Oh no. David, the dad, gives me his pocket knife. I look at him and tell him that this better be the sharpest pocket knife I've ever seen or else this won't be working out so well. so David and Becky, his wife, pick up the lamb and hold him still for me. I have to pull his tail really hard to make the joint that I have to cut through as thin as possible. Next, I think that I supposed to saw this tail off but really I just sliced right through the thing. The knife got stuck like half way through because of the joint and I freaked out thinking that I was going to have to stop but I managed it... I got squirted everywhere with blood and definitely ruined my rain jacket. After that we had to saws off some of the horns on the cow. We had to here the cows into the pens without a horse so here we all go running through the fields like a bunch of chickens with out heads cut off trying to herd about 39 cows into the pens. It took us a good 45 minutes to get every cow in. David is just laughing at us the entire time telling us he could do it faster being paralyzed.  finally, we get all the cows in. Then once in the pen, we have to separate the ones with horns so that we can lock their heads in the holding thing and saw them off. David saws the first cows horns. He cuts too low. It's like a dogs toe nails, if you cut too short then they will start to bleed. Will this poor cow. Blood is squirting everywhere. I don't mean just oozing out, I mean freaking squirting, like it does in the movies, a steady squirting of blood. I have pictures to prove it. Becky is running to get the spray to stop the squirting so I had to use my finger to plug the hole so that it wouldn't keep on going. I have decided at this point that farm life might not be for me. Ava has a little Shetland pony that she rides to do horse shows. The ground here is too soft so that it doesn't need horse shoes but they have to go and clean the hooves and cut and file the hooves. So got Panda, the pony, and have to clean those. It was pretty easy and nothing exciting happened. Which i would consider exciting because I was over the blood and stuff. That's about it for my  farm work. Definitely glad to say I experienced that and hat I will never be doing it again.  Tomorrow they take us to the bus at 9 am and then we bus to Tyrconnell and camp in the outback for two nights. It's frickin freezing here though so we went to the big W (their version of Walmart) and had to buy sweatpants and jackets for camping.  All I want is ice in my soda and to chew on. Nobody here has any ice. It's infinitely not okay.  I also discovered what cordial is over the two days. It's like a flavor that you put in your water. They have like, berry, cola, lemonade, sport flavored, and a Thousand more. Most Australians like it better than soda because they thing soda is too sweet. David and Becky has coke for dinner and they out water in it to make it not as sweet.  They also have barely any fast food here. They have been to America and are appalled at how many fast food restaurants we have and our all you can eat buffets. Cheerio mates. Hope I don't get eaten by a dingo!

Waterfall swimming

So, last night like I said, I was really looking forward to the night canoeing. Instead of getting to go night canoeing, I got sick. I swear it was something I ate but the boys ate the same thing as me and didn't get sick. So I have no idea what it was. I felt terrible all night and slept with a bucket by my bed. But when I woke up I felt fine.

Today, we went on what they call a bus tour. But it really wasnt much of a bus tour. The first stop we went to look at these massive fig trees. I wish I could put up pictures to show you all how cool everything is but it wont let me. So I will have to make an online photo album when I get home to show everyone. After the trees, we got to go to another waterfall. But this time we could swim under it. It was so cool. This was the waterfall that the herbel essence commercial was filmed at. The one with the girl and the waterfall, that flips her hair up and the water sprays everywhere. Paul, the hostel owner and our guide, took our pictures while doing this and it looks exactly like the commercial. Getting so close to a 150 foot waterfall and swimming under it was breath taking. Not only the view was breath taking, but you literally could not breathe because of how fast the water was flowing down. Probably one of the coolest things I have done and seen in my life..besides the 700 foot waterfall yesterday.

The rest of today is a free day and tonight is the state of origin rugby game. Which is North Queensland vs. new South Wales. This is supposed to be the biggest game of the year in rugby. We all went and bought maroon shirts (they say 'marone' and not maroon) to wear tonight. We are going to go to the only pub in Yungburra and try to understand the rugby match.

Tomorrow, we go to our homestays. I have a family that has all these farm animals and supposedly we have to shave and cut off sheeps tails? Interesting. I met the young 3 year old girl today and all she says is 'bloody bastard' might be the most comical thing I have ever listened to. I can't wait! We will be there for 2 days and then off to camp in the outback. I probabyl won't have internet for the next four days unless my family has interent. Obviously, I will not have it while camping.

cheers.

Hiking in the Rainforest

its only 2:30 today and i am the most tired i have ever been. we left on the wallaby to go on a hike this morning. this was not just a hike, we were mountain hiking. it was rainy (duh were in the rainforest) and insanely muddy. we have to hike through these huge puddles of water and mud, super slippery. people were falling and it was hysterical. but the steepness got pretty intense and was making me a little bit winded. we got close to the waterfall to where we could here it and our guide made us look down the rest of the time so we could all look up together and be like ohhh ahhhh. looking up....MOST AMAZING THING I HAVE EVER SEEN. we were on the top of the waterfall and it was about an 800 foot drop to the bottom of it. i wish i could post pictures on here (i cant upload them right now) so you all could see how amazing it was. we got to walk to the edge of the waterfall and take pictures like we were on top of the world. it was freaking beautiful. totally worth the getting attacked by leeches and my feet being raw from being so wet. you cant even see my tennis shoes ebcause the mud has caked them over. on the hike back we went way up the mountain because a lot of the hike there was downhill. I WAS DYING. i was winded. some girl stepped in the mud and lost her shoes..quite comical..but she didnt think so hahah. we got back to teh bus and it was stuck in the mud, of course. so everyone else was pushing the front while our driver was trying to get it out. i was video taping. duh. the term burning rubber is actually true. there was literally rubber burns on the mud from the tires. they were smoking too. people had leeches everywhere. who knew that they secreted some kind of something that makes your white blood cells not clot so you just keep bleeding like a fountain. people were bleeding everywhere. on the bus ride back there were leeches just crawling everywhere so we got out my pocket knife and started cutting them in half. you have to cut them perfectly at the head or else you make two leeches. they squirted blood...it was gross. the whole bus had blood on the floor at the end. we are paranoid now and think that everytime something moves that it is a leech. so our driver took us to this volcanic lake and we all jumped in in our clothes and he told us it was about 80 degrees in it...it was about 65. frozen. now we have free time for about 4 hours and then we get to go night canoeing and wildlife spotting. hopefully there arent leeches there. i have never seen so many. disgusting. the guides dog had them all over his paws and on his nose.

thunder up.

On the Wallaby

Yesterday, we bussed from Townsville to Yungaburra. Lets skip the bus ride because obviously that was just plain boring. Once we got to our hostel, On the Wallaby, we took a platypus sighting walk. Of course, we saw no platypusses while with the big group so us (and by us i always mean me, tally, joey, andrew, and sean) decided to run ahead. then joey and tally got scared because it was getting dark and we didnt know hwere the trail ended...so of course they turned back like a bunch of pansies. andrew and i kept going and saw a platypus and we saw a waterfall...but it was like 4 feet so they call it a weir.. plus is was man made. woopsy. then we had a debate. let me tell you, that was jsut dumb. we were all getting mad at each other and it was just ridiculous. i wasnt expecting to have to do actual school work on this trip but apparently i was wrong.

Today, we got up and went on a "hike" through the rainforest. Jack, our tour guide, stopped every 3 feet to tell us about a different plant and what it does. We really dont care. All we wanted to do was keep walking and look at the rainforest. LEECHES EVERYWHERE! they were falling out onto us from the trees. i left one on my ankle so we could see how big it got from suckin the blood. after a while though i had to take it off because it started to hurt. then we ate luncha nd went to pick weeds for a service project. and by weeds, i dont mean the weeds in moms garden. these are huge gigantic weeds that are growing in the part of the rainforest that they are trying to rebuild. it ruined my shoes, rainjacket, and definitely my pants. now they are all covered in red mud. oh and then we had a quiz over everything that we had learned today. i sat in the back and cheated off of everyone in front of me because i was too busy playing with the leeches to listen to anything that jack was saying. i did get an 8 out of 8 though!! its realyl bullshit that we have this much school work. im in australia, i dont want to have to read modules and take quizes and write papers. its just dumb. why would i spend my time inside in australia?? they are crazy.

next we have a aboriginal australian coming to talk to us and tell them about their "dreaming"stories. its been pouring here all day but i guess thats what you have to expect when you are in the rainforest.


so in our hostel we haev spiders everywhere. i looked up from my top bunk last night to see 3 spider webs so i made the boy come up and get it. all night i had dreams that there was a huge spider above me.


this is a joke that the oqwner of the hostel made for us today when we were picking weeds because he could tell we were getting a little unhappy. it isnt PG so momo, you can stop reading right here.

"what do people having sex in a canoe and american beer have in common?"
"they are both f*cking close to water"

dad i hope you appreciate that one. its funny.

love to you all!!!!

Ozone

I have been graciously warned by OCD Andrew that there is an ozone warning out today so to be very careful while I'm at the beach. The ozone layer is thinner here than in America. Just from one day I already have the most awesome watch tanking ever and th e best Chaco sandal tan,ine. I am thoroughly proud of it. Positives about global warming....smaller ozone layer...better tan

Remember

Don't forget I am typing on mykpad so it's all mumbo jumbo and hard to do. And I'm paying for Internet so im trying to talk really fast. Sorry if you don't understand it!!!

Full moon party

Yesterday was exhausting. We did so much. We had lectures in the morning (not sure what about since I wasn't listening). But after that was the fun. We went hiking up one of the mountains to the beach. The trail was up a big hill and it wasn't just like a slope, we were climbing up rocks that were positioned there like stairs. It wasn't hard but it was just long. Then we got to the beach. It was a nudey beach and I'm sure that when a group of 40 American tourists showed up that the old men were not happy. They all got up and moved farther away or put their clothes on and left. I still haven't figured out the point of a man tanning naked but whatever. The waves were massive so we attempted to body surf. It was more like me getting knocked down and then attempting to get back up and just get plowed over again. I tried to take my gopro but I accidentally turned it on in my backpack while hiking so I ran the battery out and filmed the inside of my backpack for an hour or so. After that we had to hike all the way back. Let me tell ya, hiking for an hour in a wet swimsuits, salt stuck to your body everywhere, and sand in your shoes Is not the most fun thing I have ever done. We got back to our hostel/hotel thingy and then it was time for the party. The half moon party is a huge deal at one of the hostels on the island. People ferry in from everywhere to come to this party. The tickets cost $30 and everywhere sold out of them. We all showered and got dressed and walked to the pizza place for dinner and to start the party. Most restaurants don't sell alcohol here so they are BYO (bring your own) and you have to pay a corkage fee. We payed $3 at the pizza place to have our own drinks. We stayed there for about 3 hours and just met the random people that kept coming. Then we walked to the party. This party was soooooo cool. It was outside at this hostel and was massive. There was a dance floor with a Dj and then face painting that was glow in the Dark and 4 bars. There was a camera crew there and they kept filming these guys and we had no idea who they were so of course we went up and asked them. This is how the conversation went... Me "why are you all getting filmed?" Them "we are bombs away" Me (with a dumbfounded look): "excuse me?" Them "the djs" Tally "uhm are you all supposed to be good?" Them "where are you all from?" Me "America" Them "do you not know who we are?" Tally "obviously not or we wouldn't be asking you who you are" Them "dumb Americans" Then we walked away. Supposedly, they are all the rave in Australia like avicci or Steve aoki but then they got on stage and started to 'Dj' and it was all Steve aoki so I just think that they stole his stuff. I'm not sure what was going on but we were like uhhhh they are terrible.  We were the stereotypical tourists that did everything that you should not do. We left and we didn't want to walk home so tally tried to hail a cab, they don't have cabs on this island because the bus system is so good. But we're didn't want to wait for the bus. So we stopped some car and asked them where they were going and we had them drop us off at the end of our street to walk the rest of the way. Luckily, we had two of our guys with us too so we weren't technically alone. Keep in mind how nice the people are here. Whoops The stars here are amazing. Last night on the way after the party, we just stopped and stared at the sky. It's amazing. I can't wait to camp in the outback and just lay on my back and stare in the air. Today is our last day in magnetic island so we are going to the beach again. After today, we go to yungaberra and won't have Internet for about a week. Go to onthewallaby.com and that's our hostel. Its supposed to be amazing. Random Australian things. They eat baked beans for breakfast on bread Their pepperoni is not American pepperoni They don't use ice They don't use salad dressing, they eat it plain 

Reef HQ

Today was amazing! We got up early (which wasn't raelly early since we are still so time confused) .. Breakfast started at 630 and we were ready to leave at 720. We ferried into Townsville to go to reef HQ. the aquarium here. First, we had a mini introduction video and then we hack a speaker come in and talk to us about great Barrie reef conservation.  They gave us all sorts of facts about the reef, which obviously I was obsessed with and intently listing in on. Fun fact, the great barrier reef is only 6% coral, which shocked me. I had assumed that most of it was coral reefs. It was so interesting. Next we had a lady come on that was an Aboriginal and she told us aout the aiustrlian aboriginals and their culture. I must admit i had NO idea whot she was saying. I can barely understand their accents. Plus, her thoughts were so unorganized that it was just a bunch of mumbo jumbo that was ridiculos. Im not sure anone got anything out of it  Then we got a tour of the aquarium. I've been To a lot of aquariums but this as by far the best. Not because of the intent of the aquarium but because of how informative it was. It was great to be able to have someone tell you each type of fish and all the little fun facts about it that you probably wouldn't know otherwise it s also nice to be able to ask all sorts of questions. Like they had lion fish, which are native to th GBR but are terrible for the Florida oceans because they have natural predators in Florida but in the GBr the cod eat them. I found that interesting because the sharks in Florida and Turks won't even eat lion fish but cod eat them here, which aren't a predatory fish really. just fun facts like that were nice to have and you don't get those in other aquariums. They also had the largest coral reef system in captivity in the world. After that we had some more lectures on water conservation and tourism sustainability. The water one was really interesting and I have officially decided that humans are my screwing up the earth. The tourism one...had about nothing to do with tourism...at least I thought so. It was weird.   Now onto the best part. We got to stay in townsville for a while. We decided to not shop and spend our money that way...so duh we went to the bar to spend our money there. We went to a bar an ahead a few drinks, well maybe more than a few for some people (not me) because duh I'm responsible. Then we took the ferry back home and ran to the swimming pool. Everyone jumped in but me because its fricking freezing!  Everything here is so expensive. A pizza is $20 and a bottle of waster is $4 in places. To put it in prospective, a 24 case of beer is $45 minimum. ridiculous. However, their minumu wage is around $30 an hour so they can afford how expensive everything is.  Everywhere we go we always complain how expensive it is and they say that is we multiplied our minimum wage and amount of whatever something cost by three then it would be about the same so really they are spending the same but it seems like a lot more. But being from America we are getting ripped off.  AUIP has program bloggers and i knew I was going to be blogging so I looked at what the requirements were to blog and then decided I wouldn't follow those, so I chose not to blog for them. Plus, I probably couldn't say mn things if I want to. But heather (my professor) told our AUIP representative that I was blogging so she asked me if she could look at it to use some of what I wrote n their website. I said yes before I actually thought about what I had written N probably what I will write. Whoops. Maybe they will get Somme constructive criticism from it? Hahah Tomorrow we have some lectures for an hor or two and then we go hike  mountain to a beach where we can body surf. I'm going to bring my toro so it should be cool..except my gopro won't have on the charge tonight so I'm nervous about that?  I can't let it die on my shark diving!!!! (mom, google how to charge it in australia and text me please) NERVOUS!  Australian money...so cool. It is made of plastic and all different plot. Will the coins are terrible. Their change is in coins but the $1 and $2 ae oth coins too. So your wallet gets really heavy. Each bill Is a different color and they are all different sizes! The smaller the bill, the smaller the size. It's so cool. They also have a little clear spot on the bill, or they call them notes, so it is much harder to counterfeit. They are just so much smarter than us!  The best part is is that tithing our politics are complete and total joke. It's funny.  Goodnight blokes.. I'm sleep again and it's 9:20. Plus tomorrow night is the half moon party which we paid $25 for our tickets and it's supposed to be "a heap of fun" and is from 5pm to 5am. So I need my beauty rest,  don't worry mom and dad, I am learning things, YOLO. 

Free day on Magnetic Island

Today was a free day since we got here a day earlier than all the other groups. So we decided to go to the beach. Itwas tally, the three boys, and me. The rest of the group went on a hike but we figured we were hiking the whole trip that we should go enjoy the beach. We took the bus to the beach and it cost us a $2.30 in Australian money, of course. Ten we just layed out all day and got fried! Apparently the ozone layer here is a lot thinner than in the states.... We figured that out the wrong way. I have a raccoon tan line on my face from my sunglasses, like always. The Australian life guard was a hottie and tally and I tried to hit it off with him but he want having us sepos (Americans). After that we walked to go and feed the wallabys. If you have seen a wallaby, the way they explain it is a mini kangaroo. Well these things are uglier than kangaroos and don't really look like them, so google it. The sign in front of the rocks where they live said "please don't feed the wallabys. If you MUST feed them then only feed them apples or carrots, other vegetables may cause blindness." obviously, it was a must for me to feed them so I fed them an apple and they would eat pieces of it right out of your hand. There was even a baby wallaby in the moms pouch. I must say it looked disgusting in there. Freaked me out. We got back on the bus after that and came back to the hostel. The other students from brockport got here today. They are traveling with us the entire time. Super weird, new Yorker style people. All the accents. They say new Yorkers are snoty people and they definitely are from the fist impression..and artsy. They complained about the food we were served for dinner and it was chicken kabobs, steak burgers, and sausage links... Not really sure how you have "nothing to choose from" when you have three types of meat. Fun fact: instead of calories on the nutritional facts, it says energy, so it definitely makes you feel not as bad for eating so much "energy". Plus it's in kilojoules so I really have no idea. I've decided that Americans are self absorbed. W watched the Aussie news and it shows stuff from every country. It was doing the highlights on Obama today and then something else with Africa and what not. They know all the fifty united states and I didn't even know one of Australia's states til we have to do the quiz. Heck, I didn't even know they had states.  The dang birds again. The hotel people feed the kukaburras raw bacon every day so that's why they are here and they suck. All they do is squak and then when they fly it's like they are making a bee line for y head. If you don't know what one looks like, then google it. Their beaks are massive I and look like they can peck your eyes out. The lorakeets are beautiful though and such great colors, but duh they are loud too. I've decided, birds might be petty but boy they are annoying and it's only been two days and I'd be happy to never see or hear a bird again.  Tomorrow we have breakfast at 6:30 am. Usually I would complain about this but I'm already in bed and its 9 so I'm sure I'll be up early again. We are going to the reef headquarters in townsville and getting a tour of the aquarium and learning about the great barrier reef. This is so exciting!!! I wonder if I was supposed to buy something to packa luck tomorrow... I hope not. Woooopsy.  That's all for now. It is past my 8 pm bed time and I m exhausts to where I feel like it's 3 am! Oh! I charged my phone for the first time and got so excited when thadapt worked and didn't fry it!

Oh the time change

Getting used to this time change is going to be so hard. We went to bed last night at 8 and it's now 6 am and I'm up and ready to go. We have to be up and st breakfast at 730 anyways though. Today, the students from brockoort get here. They will be traveling with us the entire time and one of the girls is assigned to my room for the time we are on magnetic island, so I hope she is cool. We got assigned rooms for this part and it's four people to a condo thingy. There are two twin beds and a queen sized bed. I got a twin besuae I don't want to share a bed with anyone. My roommates are super quiet and aren't the girls that I'll be hanging out with most of the time. There are three girls that I like a lot and the boys on the trip are cool. We had to pick buddy's yesterday to do the buddy system when we load the buses and stuff. My buddy is a girl name tally, her real name is Natalia. She's the girl I met before the trip at salty dog, so of course we get along great.  Everyone has said that we shouldn't be buddies because if one of us is missing it is most likely tat the other one of us will be missing too.  I'm not quite sure what we will be doing today. Our free day starts at 10 am and there really isn't much to do on this island so we will either go hiking to find the koalas or to the Arcadia beach and feed the wallabys and snorkel!  Hopefully the Internet comes back today so I can post. We keep learning how Australia is almost even with the united states in all aspects and even better at sustainability so I'm not sure why nowhere has Internet... 

FINALLY!

I can't type on the iPad so my grammar and spelling is going to be terrible! 15 hours and 45 minute flight time....HELP ME This is the most ridiculous airline ever! The first thing I did when I saw the 747 plane was want to take a picture because it was so massive. Qantas is amazing. Of course, I am in economy so I'm in the very back of the plane and each type of seat is colored. So first class seats are tan. Business class was a dark brown. Premium economy red. Regular economy (me) is green. It's very ugly but amazing. Each seat has its own television with over 800 movies to choose from. There is a USB cord at each seat too so I can plus in my iPad and the screen pops up on the tv! It charges my iPhone but I guess the charge isn't strong enough to charge my iPad. In my seat waiting was a pillow , blanket, and earphones. Then once we all got seated they passed out a 'care package' which has an eye mask, socks, tooth brush, and Australian tooth paste. We also got a menu for our supper, snacks, and breakfast. I will post pictures when I can. We got sooooooo lucky because the flight isn't full at all and we each got our own row to ourselves. So I have four seats to myself! They are much more legit than American airlines because even when they show the safety video on the TVs, the flight attendants still get up and demonstrate, which they don't on american airlines . The guy even put the lifevest on himself, which we also don't do. We fly from Dallas order Hawaii and onto brisbane.  After sitting on the plane for what is now hour 15 and 10 minutes, I have decided that this wasnt nearly as bad as I thought. I slept for about ten hours so it actually hasn't been bad, plus having the whole row to myself always helps. I don't know how I'll make it on the way home if I have to share a row. They just came over the PA system and we only have 20 minutes left on our flight and it's 50 degrees fare height outside! Frickin freezing! They also said that it is now Tuesday may 15 which is so weird because right now at home it's 1 pm on Monday still. I lost a whole day do its odd to me. We still have another flight after we land in Brisbane. We have a five hour layover and then another 3 hours flight and then a 2 hour ferry ride to Magentic Island! I wish it was light outside right now to see Australia as we are flying over and we flew over Fiji which would've been awesome to see too.  The custom forms here are ridiculous. They ask you're name, passport number, birthday, and country and that's it. So easy. It took us five minutes for all thirteen of us to clear customs and another five to get our bags. Then we took a ferry over to Magnetic island. This is a very mountainous island that we are going to be able to hike and see all sorts of things.  Once we got over here we had about three hours to explore and grab some lunch before we had to meet back up with the group. The first thing we wanted to do was find some food. So we started walking. We start walking towards town when this guy who is moving his lawn stops us to talk and see what we are doing. He gave us all sorts of information and told us to come back to his house in the morning because he feeds the kukaburras and parrots outside his house at 7am every morning and that they will just come and land on you if you have the food in your hand. He is the cutest and nicest 74 year old man ever. He told us where to find the main part of town, which is not big at all, and what to eat. He said this town has been dead for about five years because people are stopping coming since the ferry has made its new schedule to where the rides are so far apart. So we wandered on to find a little bity restaurant called mia's cafe. After lunch we walked around and explored some more. We found one of the beaches on the island and right off the shore was a dead washed up reef.  So you could hop from rock to rock and go out probably 150 yards.  off we go hopping from rock to rock and of course I have no freaking balance skills what so ever and here I go falling into the water and scraping my knees. Of course.  Next was the scavenger hunt. They have all sorts of weird slang words and we got a list of things to do and had to run around town finding them. "two blokes in a ule" which is two guys in a truck or like "take a picture of a sep" which is an American because they say we are septic tanks. Of course on the way. Back from the hunt we find our 74 year old friend again. This time he has gotten us a coconut from his tree and offers to machete it open for us to try. So we follow him into his backyard (not smart but oh we'll it was worth it) and he pulls this big machete out of his barn and starts whacking at the coconut. Meanwhile he is telling us all of the things we need to do tomorrow since we have a free day to figure everything out on island. He tells us to get our togs and go to another bay and we can swim and play with the wallabys. Of course, we have no idea what togs are and he couldn't figure out what the word was in American English...come to figure out it means swimsuit.  Then his son came up and told us to be aware of the stingers (jellyfish) in the water and Wally said oh no they are fine, there are no stingers. His son told us that Wally was nuts and it's jellyfish season right now, so that is always good to know so that we can watch out for them.  Then we had the most boring orientation that I have ever sat through in my life. It took 1 hour and we were all sitting there thinking that they had to be kidding because it was so dumb.. "stay in groups" "don't leave your drink on the table and then come back and get it" just dumb stuff like that. Then they told us to have our professors number on emergency and I'm like hmmm because none of us are even carrying our phones so that's dumb too.  Ugh the birds are SOOOO annoying here. One of them sounds like someone is dying and duh that the nest is right outside my window. I hate birds. Oh it's weird because cockatoos fly around everywhere here since they are native here and they are huge compared to ours and it's just odd not seeing them in a cage.  Now off to our group dinner and going to bed since I'm exhausted and can't function already.  Ps it gets super cold here at night. Like in the 50s, so mom, I'll be buying a sweatshirt and sweatpants. 

Itinerary!

Click on these links below to look at my itinerary for North Queensland and Fiji.

North Queensland
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yrA6H_0aKMtETKDDedkyhJ3EejK5NIxRKhxy7Afmr24/edit

Fiji
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uilxUcvkiia0A9j6sJP8Nmx-fggK3qJa-EAAncdW4wU/edit

Enjoy!

Pre-Departure Things

Meeeep! I am not really sure how to blog but I guess I will give it a shot so that you all can keep up with me during my travels this summer. I haven't figured out how to attach my itinerary yet, but I will soon...I hope.

This is not a normal study abroad trip. I go to North Queensland, Australia from May 13 to June 8 then to Sydney, Australia for a 24 hour stopover on my way to Fiji from June 10 to June 19. I am only in the same city for approximately 3 days. We travel the entire time and backpack through rain forests and the Outback. This is not the luxury type that you experience while in Europe or some other country. I am not even packing a computer, hair dryer, or straightener since I won't have electricity some of the time. Hence, the blog being a little bit random in timing because I won't always have internet and usually its always an internet cafe. We get to "go out" at night but every morning we have to be up about 7:30 or 8 a.m. Therefore, I don't think we will be doing that too much since I can barely get up that early without staying out late. I am studying sustainability while I am there. We rarely have any classroom interaction because most of our learning is in the field during our hikes and tours. At the end of the program, we have an exam from all of our field work and a group debate on the social divide between Indo-Fijians and Indigenous Fijians.

I have been attempting to pack in one suitcase that cannot weigh over 44 pounds, this has proved to me challenging than I imagined. I am a terrible packer as it is and now having to pack stuff for backpacking, camping, hiking, and nightlife is definitely not something I am good at. After countless hours wandering aimlessly through Target and Backwoods (our camping store), I think I am finally ready to start putting stuff in my suitcase. Another problem comes with trying to entertain myself on the plane with only stuff that can fit in my backpack. A 17 hour plane flight! 17 HOURS! On my flight to Oklahoma from Gainesville, which is only 2 two hour flights, I was twiddling my thumbs from boredom and looking at my watch every 15 minutes. I guess the only thing that is going to help me through this long flight is Benadryl. Without a computer, I am not sure what I am going to do. I hope the in-flight entertainment is good. If anyone has good book suggestions I would love to hear those too!!

After just recently receiving our itinerary, I finally looked at it today. The accommodations we are staying at range from actual hotels to hostels to camping in the Outback. I am most excited for our hostel called 'On the Wallaby' in Yungaburra. Google it! It is going to be so cool. I also get to dive the Great Barrier Reef, which I am so excited about I could scream. I even had a dream about it last night. I am diving a two-tank dive one morning and then in the afternoon I am cage diving with the Great White Sharks! I have been researching all sorts of underwater cameras so I can capture this on film!

My blog is going to be insanely scatter brained because I get way too excited about things and my mind can't stay focused on one thing longer than 2 minutes. So there will be just random stuff and definitely out of order. Especially since I am going to be paying to use the computers by the minute so I will be typing as fast as possible!! So apologies for being all over the place.

Only 8 more days until I depart!