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.