Picture Upload!

So I decided to upload some more pictures because it is frustrating me so much that facebook won't let me upload any of them online. These are some pictures of the Bateman's Bay adventure! Also new fun fact update - one of the fashion trends here is Aladdin Pants. No joke, they are sequined or flowy colors and big and baggy and then end at your ankle in a tight elastic. Very interesting. I was not a fan at first but now I see them everywhere and I think it would be kind of fun to have Aladdin pants - I can just hear Michaela's comments already!

These were the wild kangaroos we came across in the wild. My friend Amanda got surprisingly close before they all noticed her and hopped off on their merry way!

Another kangaroo but this one had a JOEY! ahhh!! so cute! I couldn't get over it!

This was the beach before we went down and had a beach walk. It was such beautiful sand with awesome little coves to find little creatures in.

This was the sign on the framed picture of Princess Diana in the room I slept in - I know - unreal.

The boys - Adam and Pat with their weapons and wetsuits before going out on their epic fisherman adventure.

The boys and the fish they "speared"...We all got to watch them gut and clean them and then we got to eat them...mmm so tasty!! I should hire boys to hunt for my food all the time!

Kangaroos are both adorable and delicious!

This weekend, a group of eight of us took a trip down to Bateman's Bay which is about three hours south of where we live in Wollongong. One of the Australians I have met here is lovely and her name is Sophie. She's originally from Perth which is all the way across the country but her family has a vacation house in Bateman's Bay so she kindly enough invited some of us up for the weekend to get away for a bit. We arrived Friday night to the most beautiful house. As soon as you walk in, you take in the huge space of the living area/kitchen which is wide open and magnificently decorated. There was a long dinner table that faces out to the house wide glass windows facing the beach. The bedrooms were gorgeous and I actually got to sleep in the bedroom where it is said Princess Diana slept right before she announced her engagement! (There were about seven different tiaras in the room - it was awesome!)
The next morning, we leisurely got up and made a delicious breakfast of egg in a hole - you take a piece of bread and cut a circle into it. Then put it on the grill and crack on egg in the hole. Flip it both sides until cooked - egg-in-a-hole! Two of the boys went out snorkeling and the rest of us took a drive to McKenzie beach. We walked out to the water and I felt like I was in a movie or somewhere in the Caribbean. The water was glass clear and turquoise with pristine waves and the softest sand ever. The boogie boarding was so good and I had a great time teaching one of my friends Amanda how to do it. I felt like Big Dave a little bit yelling out - "okay get on your board, here's a good one" and then launching her off in front of the wave. We then regrouped and went on a kangaroo adventure. Sophie knew of a place where we could go see kangaroos in the wild and possibly feed them. Like idiots we forgot the apples so we didn't end up feeding them but they were EVERYWHERE! There were so many and you could get a good few feet near them before they all hopped away. And oh man were there legs looking powerful - it's almost like they have permanent crutches built in for legs. Afterwards we walked a little farther from where we were and had a beautiful scenic beach walk in and around rocks and beach.
That night - we were determined to try something a little adventurous - kangaroo meat. I know it sounds cynical to have just seen amazing kangaroo in the wild and then eat them but oh my goodness, kangaroo meat is so good. It's a very dark meat, almost like a flank steak but it's 98% fat free so it's a very lean meat. The boys came home with $90 worth of meat so we kind of had a feast. My roommate Pat fired up the grill and did a master job - it was so delicious! The next morning we even had kangaroo omelets with the left overs. My friend Adam from Indiana and Pat decided to go spear fishing for our meal on Sunday so they got all decked out in wet suits and weapons (not a fan - the spear gun freaks me out!). While they went spear fishing, we sunbathed and boogie boarded while watching them hunt hundreds of meters away. They came back with two huge fish and so we fired that up and ate it as a treat before our journey back to campus. Fresh fish is unbelievable. We also made friends at night with possums that we gave them apples and they let us pet them. It was unbelievable. All in all, it was a touch of heaven and the perfect get-away weekend!

I tried to upload photos yesterday but it was not letting me so today I decided to dedicate my blog to some pictures of this past weekend! enjoy!

My roommates Pat and Nikolai came and met us at the zoo to join us in our fun-filled day! This is Pat and myself at the parade!

This was just after we (Amanda, Myself and Mali) bartered a deal for those boas but oh man we're they fabulous!

This was the view from the Ferry boad on our way over to Taronga Zoo. I got to see the magnificent Sydney Opera House as well as the beautiful skyline in the background.

This was on our scenic walk in Coogee Bay - we got to see some of the coolest rocks and have a little expedition exploring them.

Fat Tuesday!

This past weekend I took a journey to Sydney to go to the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade! I first went down Thursday because I didn't have anything to do on Friday and my friend Carter from S.U. is studying at University of New South Wales in Sydney so I decided to stay for an extra night. My friend Matt didn't have Friday classes either so he took the hike down with me. The train was only $4.80 to Sydney but Carter lives about two miles from the city so we had to take a bus which stopped a gazillion times (yes, I know, gazillion is a lot exaggerated but that's what if felt like) and we got there in good time. We grabbed some food and went to a neighborhood cookout where we cooked our own burgers which I don't know why, but tasted amazing.
The next day was beautiful so Matt and I stayed at Coogee beach and soaked up some amazing rays. We decided to take a scenic walk to a different beach which ended up being a really cool walk where we saw all these awesome rocks and plants. We ended up taking a lot of kodak moment photos so the walk there took about an hour and a half and then we had to walk all the way back once we got there. When we got back, our other three friends from UoW had arrived at Coogee so we checked into our hostel and went out for dinner and drinks.
Saturday morning we woke up super early (my friend Amanda and I were the drill sergeants getting the other three out of bed) to catch the earliest ferry to Taronga Zoo. We ended up catching the ferry - miracle of miracles - and got to the zoo where it was basically empty. We got to see such awesome animals and attend a seal penguin, elephant and koala show! The chimpanzees were quite addictive to watch because they were all riled up playing with each other and the baby one even got a piggy back ride - I think we stayed in front of them a solid half hour. But I got to see my first koala and kangaroo which was so cool (but it will be even better if I get to see them in the wild so we'll see about that). Koalas eat leaves that have eucalyptus in them which is basically like a drug so the reason why koalas don't move a lot is because they are in a natural drunken state. Pretty awesome. After the zoo, we caught the ferry back and got some dinner before the parade. Already there were huge amounts of people but in the most ridiculous costumes ever. Rainbows galore were everyone and the floats were decorated and lining up. Apparently people got there at the crack of dawn to line up on the street corners so where we were was about 12 people deep so I didn't get to see most of the parade which is a bummer (but rumor has it I guess a lot of the floats were nude - hilarious...so I missed out on all the nakies...oh well!) But when we first got there and saw all the outfits we decided we needed to get decked out so I bought this ridiculous headdress of pink feathers and my friends bought boas. We felt a little bad ass but just enough to fit in. But it was a lot of fun to just be around the environment where everyone was just united in a free and open response of togetherness. Some woman who took our group photo yelled out "everyone say penis!" I mean honestly, how much better can it get!? haha But it was also really great to go back to a hostel and fall asleep for the night.

Time is Flying!

So I just noticed that I have not posted in almost a week - slap me in the face and call me Susan, I am so sorry! This weekend, I visited Sydney and a friend in Coogee beach in right outside the city but that is a whole big adventure that I need some serious sit down writing to describe so I might wait until tomorrow to fill you in on the details! I'll just tell you about some new happenings that are pretty boring but hey, I think they're fun.

So I got a new camera. I had one at the blue mountains trip but it decided to be a jerk and not function. So the lens got stuck out and wouldn't go back in and refused to take pictures so I aggressively shut it and it worked sporadically from there. The lens however was messed up in some other way, so the only time it would clearly focus was on a magnification of 3x or more - stupid. I figured since one of my orientation trips got canceled, I would just use the money to scope it out and buy one. Within minutes, I was able to find a camera with a sweet deal on an 8 mega pixel camera and without question I purchased it and have been playing with all the fun options! One of my roommates opened his eyes super wide so we could examine the red eye effect. There's also a feature where even if your hand is being very shaky or your for some reason bouncing up and down (aka pogo stick and taking a picture) the camera will straighten the shot out - wicked cool! It also has a feature that can magnify just one color on a picture and put everything else as black and white so that one object pops out beautifully - so moral of the story I'm completely in love with my new camera!

I started school last week which was interesting. I also discovered Syracuse is stupid and didn't tell me I didn't have enough credits until enrollment was over. So I got an email saying I needed to take another class to stay valid as a student at Syracuse. So my perfect little schedule of three classes was shattered and I had to go on a wild goose egg hunt to try and fit something together. It turns out the only class that could potentially transfer over to credits is an analysis of skill themes (target games, striking games and aquatics) which lucky for me conflicted with one of my tutorials. But with a little coaxing, I was able to get in so now I won't be deported. The only really terrible thing is that I now have a friday class - thank you Syracuse University. My dreams of having a three day weekend to travel are ruined and I am not a fan. The good part is, the class actually looks really fantastic so at least I'm giving my Friday's up for an awesome class.

I have discovered the coolest toy ever that for some reason the United States or just massachusetts or maybe just me didn't know existed. They are called "Kinder Surprises" and they are the sweetest thing since sliced bread. It is a chocolate egg with the outside being milk chocolate and the inside as white. You crack it open and it the shell and inside is another "yellow" plastic roundish can that is supposed to be the yoke but instead holds a prize inside! So far I have a collection with two musical creatures, a robot that shoots arrows from his hands and a plastic flower that when the button attached is pushed becomes a spinning top - unreal! Needless to say, my five year old mind thinks these are the coolest things ever and I will keep up the tradition to trying to get as many different toys as possible. Also to introduce them to the united states because let's be honest, if POGs were a big hit, these would have been even bigger that's how cool they are.

I have booked my flight to Cairns for when Becca and M0llie visit - yay!! So I am super excited to go up and explore the reef. I also called the woman at the hostel where were staying and she was an absolute peach, telling me all the newest tours we could do and giving me outlined directions to our room because we'll be landing kind of late. I can't wait for break to begin but I just started classes - whew, I've got to buckle down because I still feel like I'm here on such a vacation-y adventure instead of it being real life. But so far I really like all my classes and I'm quite excited for the upcoming week :)

Hello everyone! I decided because I started school today and don't really have any fun stories to post some pictures up instead! The internet is really slow here so I attempted to post all of my pictures up on facebook and it malfunctioned a bit so I will just have to upload my whole lot on another day! But here are a couple from this weekend and earlier! I hope everyone back in Massachusetts is loving the snow - I just got back from the beach with some pretty crazy waves!

This was getting pulled up the hill from grass carting...I think already have some killer grass stains on my clothes from going down.

This is a view of the skyway cart going across the blue mountains and if you look really closely on the right hand side you can see three bumps which are actually the famous three sister rocks!

This was a group of us from the blue mountains tour after abseiling...I don't know why it won't let me flip it so my apologies if you have to turn your head!

This is me getting ready to abseil all decked out in my gear!

My roommate Nikolai and I went on a lighthouse walk -
look we're so creative with cameras!

These are my three roommates!
Nikolai, Pat and Amy!

Blue Mountains of Amazingness

So I traveled to the Blue Mountains this weekend for an orientation trip for University of Wollongong students run by Extreme Adventures Company. Wow, what a weekend! There was a group of 40 from all over the university (aka from all 4 different living campuses). We left on Friday evening to make the three hour drive to get to our Blue Mountains hostel for dinner time. We all hung out and had some drinks while playing cards and getting to know each other. In the morning, we woke up to take a trek in and abseil the mountains (they call repelling abseiling). We got our safety procedure and then went on a ten foot boulder to practice. I'm not gonna lie, I almost panicked going down on the rocks because I felt like I was so unprepared and just didn't know what I was doing. The woman leader said I was fine and I smiled and nodded but inside my head I was freaking out. I watched one of the Norwegian girls on the trip have her feet swing up over her head so she was almost upside down against the "test" rock and I just pictured myself doing the same thing. What you are supposed to do is keep your legs straight - which is quite hard to do going backwards down a rock because your instinct is to bend them into an athletic pose - then sit your bottom and almost make your body into an "L" shape as you move down the cliff. The scariest part was getting harnessed into the real drop line and just looking over the edge of what you need to potentially get down without freaking out. As I started my descent, I thought my heart was going to explode. My guide Patty noticed I was very jerky with the rope and he told me to just loosen my grip while I went down. Holy Smokes! That was so much easier! It turns out, we instinctively hold the rope tighter when we are scared so the rope gets pulled only a couple of inches instead of smoothly dropping you. I just imagined if my hand was loose on the ropes that I was just going to zip down and crash and burn at the bottom. But the ropes are tied in such a way that it causes enough friction to slowly release and let you gently soar down the cliff while building confidence. By the end of my first abseil down, I was dying to do it again because I had finally solved why I was so awkward before. I got to do the same mountain edge again before they moved us on to the largest cliff face - a 35-40 meter drop. This had more gaps and was a straight edge cut off which just makes for a scarier start haha. But it was awesome to zip down such a ridiculous mountain while bouncing off the face of the cliff and zig zagging here and there. So so cool.

After we did that, we had a quick lunch and packed up to go visit the three sisters. These are three amazing rock formations that aboriginal legend has it used to be three sisters whose tribe was about to be attacked. The witch doctor turned them all into stone - preserving them from any harm to be turned back when it was over. The witch doctor however was killed in the battle, leaving the three rocks to stay forever in this state. The views from the lookout were absolutely breathtaking - very similar to the grand canyon but with gum trees covering the whole valley. The eucalyptus inside the leaves of the gum trees produces an oil that in the humidity and sunshine of Australia makes a blue haze - hence the blue mountains. We then hiked a ten minute climb to cross a ladder and go inside one of the three sister formations. That was awesome because from the first lookout you could see the tiny people going through on the ladder on the mountain and then to actually be that speck for someone else was awesome. After site seeing obviously hitting up the gift shop (man, that craving for cheap souvenir things never goes away even when you get older) we boarded the bus and headed back to our hostel for dinner. We had a great steak dinner and while we were eating, a woman came over to our group. She was part of an irish dancing team that was doing a fundraiser for the Victoria Bush Fires so for $10 donation we could stay and learn how to do traditional Irish group dances. About 20 of us decided to stay and participate and man, I'm so glad I did. This was probably the highlight of my weekend and it was completely unintentional. We were so bad that it was just hilarious. We would attempt to learn the dances and after a bit got the flow to confidently dance around like we were straight from the heart land. We danced, drank and laughed all night. Our tour guide Pete was apparently being "too" loud for the leading dancer so after being scolded, the dancing was that much more hilarious. She then pointed him out later saying that his dancing was 'perfect' - I think she was trying to win brownie points. I was able to get our 60 year old bus driver up and dancing and we all just had a marvelous time messing up the dances but not caring because it was just so fun!

The next day we had an early morning wake up so we could start our hike down the blue mountains to see the Katoomba Falls. It was a beautiful hike down with rushing waterfalls, cockatoos flying everywhere and the most bizarre rock formations that were unbelievable. Once we got down to the bottom, we had our "kodak" moment sessions and headed back up the mountain on the steepest railway in the world - a 52 degree angle. My friends and I got the first and second row facing down which was pretty scary but excellent at the same time. Before we got on the train though, me being the idiot that I am decided to dismount the "display" horse they had for tourists and swing around the neck to the pathway. I didn't notice however that there was a big iron sign inbetween me and the path. I swung hip first into the sharp edge of the sign haha. It took my breath away for a moment and no one actually noticed that I did this stellar act until I was doubled over and trying to concentrate on something other than the pain. I have a pretty good pain tolerance so I just shook it off and kept on moving. I could feel my hip trying desperately to try and stop the internal bleeding that I had just inflicted in my body. I decided to show one of my friends on the trip to just make sure it didn't look to bad - the faces were not good haha. They both gasped and were like "oh my gosh Brenna, you need to get that checked out". I apparently had a big gash on my hip which was bleeding and a bruise of violet was already forming. I luckily got a tissue and plastered it on so I could get up the mountain. In the gift shop I was kindly helped by a man named Robert who took me in to the first aid "lounge" to fix me up. I forgot that alcohol wipes stung so that was another hit to the brain when I swabbed that on. Worst of all, after I was bandaged Robert wanted me to help him fill out an incident form so they could remove the hazardous sign. I didn't exactly know how to tell him that it was me that should be removed and not the sign as I swung into it (I just told him I wasn't looking and ran into the sign and not I guess the "whooole" truth) Oh goodness - but I'm totally fine - best of all it's going to be a sweet battle wound in a couple of days!

After the hike we packed up and went out to go grass carting. I was thinking in my head we would be in those caged little go carts going down a grass track. Yep, not the case. They were the most rickety metal contraptions with a tire attached for a seat and your steers were your feet on the front bar. A bunch of us missed the tutorial where they apparently went through how to break. A whole group of us launched off and when we got close to the stopping point, I suddenly realized I didn't know how to stop my careening cart. Flashbacks of me trying to ski and going straight down the mountain started filling my head. I ended up slowing down and then ramming into some poor girl on our trip - needless to say I was classified as a "people hitter" that people should watch out for. This was almost like back alley grass carting where at any moment I felt like I could flip over with a swerve of my feet or a loose bump in the grass. The carts also didn't look like they were going fast but ooo man, you could move! I ended up clipping another person on a different run but I slowly started getting the hang of slowing down. There were many spills and the numbers of participants dwindled with every go. Myself and five others were still going strong as we were told one more run. My friend Adam took some sweet videos which I got to upload on my computer to have. All in all it was a wicked jam packed with amazing experiences and a great way to start my adventure here! Oh yea speaking of, first class - tomorrow at 8:30 am...let's hope this goes well.