Oh Look a Sheep

After about 2 long months of strenuous nights of studying and writing essays break was finally on the horizon... this would be how I would describe the weeks leading up to American spring break, but in Australia I essentially do nothing. So for my two week spring/fall break I decided to visit Middle Earth... aka New Zealand! I spent the last 7 days on a bus tour all around the north island... here are some highlights: I'm also gonna throw in a map so you can attempt to keep track:


Day 1: we boarded the Stray bus in Auckland to head out on our 7 day New Zealand adventure. We headed south east towards Hahei Beach, but first we stopped off at a different beach where there are really hot stones underneath the surface and if you dig a little you can create your hot pool. It was pretty popular location the day we went as you can see here:

As you can see it was a pretty popular spot.... after we got to the beach hiked up to Cathedral Cove and camp back down just in time for a barbie :) if you don't know what a barbie is... its a bbq and clearly you'be never seen an Outback steakhouse commercial.

Day 2: We left rainy Hahei and headed all the way to the other side of the island to the beautiful Raglan. Raglan is like the surf capital of New Zealand and apparently it has the longest left-hand break in the world. Since you only live once I decided to try surfing (I'm pretty terrified of deep ocean water, something about not being able to stand after wading in like 10 ft freaks me out), I slipped on my water sausage casing, i.e. wetsuit, and headed out to catch some rad waves. I eventually stood but it wasn't without numerous knockouts and a couple surfboard smacks to the face. All in all I think I may stick to snow sports.

Day 3: We left beautiful Raglan and went through Waitomo to Maketu. Waitomo is famous for their caves, which have sorts of neato geology things in them. I get claustrophobic easily and the thought of roaming around caves in the dark freaked me out, so instead I wandered around some nature trails and wandered into a few caves. I also saw cows! I was a little too excited to see the cows, I secretly really want to tip one one... but so you can live in my joy here's a picture of a cow:

I know your jealous that you didn't get up close to these beauties...

After Waitomo we drove to Maketu, where we went to Maori lodge and learned something about the Maori culture. We performed the haka and poi, well I only performed the poi because I'm a woman. It was pretty fun, although the Maori are really good at making these scary faces which they make during the dances, I can't make the face.... I just look like an angry fish... I'm glad I can just intimidate my enemies with my sheer strength.

Day 4: We ;left the Maori behind and drove to Rotorua... which is the smelliest place I have ever been. Rotorua is the biggest geothermal spot in New Zealand. There are geysers everywhere, it'd be pretty easy to roast someone here, get pissed and just throw them in. We spent a little time in the city, mostly souvenir shops, and then drove to a boiling mud pit, that was extra smelly. We also went a "secret" place and swam in a pool where hot and cold water met. After Rotorua we drove to Taupo and spent the night there. Taupo was really cool and laid back, we hit the town that night. Hostels do discount drinks which if your poor like me are a life saver. Going out in New Zealand is a lot more laid back then in Sydney, for starters the bouncers are actually friendly... and its more of a hang out then dancing. I made some new friends and had heaps of fun.

Day 5: We left civilization and drove out to the Blue Duck Lodge which is up in the middle of nowhere. The goal of the lodge is to help save two endangered species: the kiwi and the blue duck. The lodge is also situated on land that was originally given to returning soldiers from World War I to thank them for their services. However, the land is out in the middle of nowhere and almost impossible to get anything to and from it. Its no surprise that the success rate was very low. The property was beautiful even though it was pouring rain outside. I made a facial out of the mud, and I think my friend and I would have scared an unsuspecting passer by... that night my trip and I congregated around the fire and enjoyed each others company, no ones electronics worked so we actually had to talk to each other... weird right?

Day 6: We left Blue Duck lodge to go to Tangareo crossing, which is about an 8 hour hike, and another hour and half if you want to try and summit. Being me I never turn down the opportunity to make a mountain my bitch, but it was pouring rain and visibility would have been nada so I whimped out and did a short 2 hour hike around instead. Did I mention that everything looks like Middle Earth?? Well they filmed where I was hiking around and I could have summited Mount Doom, ya I'm that cool... Instead I hid out and watched Lord of the Rings instead, I had a nightmare about Orcs... it was terrifying.

Day 7: We left Middle Earth behind and drove to Wellington. Wellington was a cool city its pretty small compared to American and Australian cities but it still has a vibrant city life. We went out that night and had a pretty grand time. 

The end of the adventure: so I can't read schedules and I thought the trip ended on Saturday, funny story is it ended on Friday. Our flight back to Australia was bright and early Sunday morning. Being poor college students we ruled out paying for another hostel... so we explored Wellington during the day. There's a free museum Te Papau and it was SO COOL! It was completely free which is so rare, and it was HUGE. We spent hours there and then putzed around some more and then went to the airport. It is technically illegal to sleep in the Wellington airport because it closes at 1am. You can sleep there if you can prove that you have an early flight. So we crashed on some lounge chairs that we pushed together and slept for about 3 hours. Sleeping in the airport is not ideal and I would recommend avoiding it as much as possible. But we didn't get kicked out and we all made our flights the next morning.

That's the end of my New Zealand adventure... a couple of remaining thoughts:

1) fun fact: small New Zealand towns build a statue of what their known for, so there was ton with a huge carrot statue, it was pretty funny.

2) I ate an obscene amount of mackers(McDonalds)... I'm still disgusted with myself

3) I suffered some causalities on the trip, my ray bans and nook are no longer with us

4) if you're Canadian, I just have one question: why do you wear your flag on your bags and sweaters?? Can someone please explain that to me.

Adios!

It's good to leave the Village

Its week 5 or 6 of Aussieland, if this were a high school relationship we'd be moving into the serious relationship... you know facebook official that kinda thing...

But I'm not in high school, I'm in college, and I'm not in a relationship and but Oz and I are defs facebook official. And we've got a pretty solid routine going right now, Monday I have a super scary tutorial and Tuesday and Wednesday, I pretend to be productive during the day, but it really amounts in nothing. Wednesday night is the start of my weekend which usually is like a roller coaster of successes and fails... its a new pattern every week.

So Wednesday night is for the Ranch and Thursday is Ubar, I still haven't made it there... I don't know I guess Thursday isn't my night. Friday is always a toss up, this Friday me and some of the girls headed to this place in Kings Cross called "the Club", I know its a creative title. Usually I roll up in the party bus, but this week we got a lift... lift there was comfy... lift back was terrible, 5 people don't belong in the backseat of a 5 seater, ever. I've never missed my SUV more. "the Club" is a cool place, however I think I may need to move on.

Saturday was the best day tho, I went with some of my neighbors and their friends and my friend up to the Blue Mountains. it  was a day filled with mud, trash talking, lots of walking, good food and good company. The Blue Mountains are beautiful, and a great place to hike around in. There's talk of renting a house for a weekend and then climbing all around the mountains, forging our own trail... maybe we'll see a koala... or we'll die by snake bite. But I'm excited none the less....

Well I;m off to go be a hip kid and fall asleep before midnight with my hipster music playing. If you want to see pictures, then you should check my facebook. And I realized because of the blog title people probably think its some sort of porn, so sorry, but I'm no porn stat. All my photos are G rated. I would try Vegas for the reak "Thunder Down Under".

Later Gator!

A very early spring break

Ah its been quite the week... and I'm not sure where to begin... Jake got in on Saturday, I was expecting an extremely jet-lagged American, I was wrong... it was beach time. We had a bus adventure, the train was closed for repairs. We hit up Manly beach, I thought after a month in Sydney I could go sun screen free... nope I burnt like paper, and once again was a lobster troll, with better tan lines. Sunday was a nature hike which was a lot closer to my campus then I thought. Google maps said it was an hour away, maybe people crawl to get to places at Google cause it defs only took like 10-15 minutes to get there.

My attendance of lectures this week was pretty poor, good thing there's ilecture. I went to the Sydney Aquarium on Monday, We saw the BIGGEST crabs... personally I'm more scared of these things then any shark

I'm pretty sure that thing could easily snap my leg off. But I truly love fish and going to the aquarium it was like being a 5 year old in a candy store. I think Jake was equally fascinated...

Tuesday and Wednesday I don't have class, so we went down to Coogee beach to see a friend of mine from UNSW, Now I love Manly but Coogee is just better. Its smaller and its beautiful, its legit paradise. The water is blue green and the sand is white. Sorry America you have nothing on this:

That's right be jealous....

Wednesday I was domestic and made dinner for my neighbors and my housemates. I made some fried chicken. It was the first time I ever fried something and it turned out pretty well. I didn't like it but everyone else did. I was told it was better then KFC so I guess I have a future as a housewife after all. Wednesday night it was the usual Ranch shenanigans. No one got kicked out or barred entry so it was an over all success. The level of eye contact on the dance floor is still a little overwhelming for me...

Thursday is my long day, so it was lots of class and then out to Darling Harbor for dinner. It was easily the best dinner I've had since I've been here. I paid for none of it which may have made it even better. The company was pretty great as well. Darling Harbor is beautiful at night, I was a tard and forgot my camera so you'll just have to come see for yourself.

Friday, I have my 3 hour lecture. It was Jake's last night so we were going to go to King's Cross, but someone spent too much time in the sun and was too tired to go. King's Cross is kinda like Sydney's red light district. I've only been once, but I sure wanna go again. :)

Today is St. Patrick's day! And I'm off to find some green and see how the Aussies celebrate it :)

Some things I've learned the past few weeks:
Ice coffee has ice cream in it... gross
There's no such thing as drip coffee
And I have yet to meet someone that I can't pick up... maybe I'm secretly the Hulk :)

America's invading!

Hey-o!

Well my week has been pretty boring, I had 6 hours of class yesterday, it was terrible. Also its decided to monsoon here, I've never missed my hunters more. Mardi Gras was pretty fun last weekend, with the exception that I'm too short to see much. But some Asian tourists took our picture, and it wasn't just once it was like 10 and the posed with us, I felt like I was some sort of Disney character. Also while we were waiting for the train a group of Aussie teenagers who overheard us talking and wanted us to keep talking because our accents were "SO CUTE!". Since we love their's so much I suppose it makes sense that they'd like ours. Also they asked me if my life was like Jersey Shore... no fortunately/unfortunately my life is nothing like Jersey Shore, and neither is most of America. We're mostly boring with the exception of some crazy political antics, sorry kiddies.

This week was pretty mellow, our neighbors had my house over for a BBQ on Tuesday night, they grilled up some tasty chicken and had salad, it was a pretty classy affair. Apparently now I owe them food, so I'm cooking up a feast for them on Saturday night. There's been requests for mashed potatoes and cheesecake, they've clearly never seen my kitchen, its not capable of much. I feel that my housemate may horde some cooking utensils though... Wednesday is the big night at the Ranch, it was back to school night, which means nerd glasses, and plaid skirts. I retired my plaid skirt after Catholic school so I had to improvise. Never has been being visually impaired worked to my advantage. Still the old men were being too creepy so I peaced out early.

Since my week has been fairly boring, lots of studying... I'm gonna tell ya whats up for the weekend, the girls in my house are going to a farm this weekend, I'm supposed to go however, JAKE SNIDER is coming to visit so I can't really peace out on him. Tonight I'm gonna chill with my housemate, I'm pretty sure we're going to cook and watch Lord of the Rings, ya I'm cool. And then tomorrow Snider gets in and we're going to the beach and then we're (probably mostly me) cooking for the Turkish army that lives next door to me.

That's about it... Later!

Trying but mostly failing

Since I've started classes, I'm sure that my life is going to get progressively more and more boring. So I'll keep these to a weekly thing, unless something happens.

Monday was my first day and I only have one lecture... and there are 170 kids in my class! That's huge to me! But I wasn't too overwhelmed until the prof mentioned that he's does research on multiple choice tests in order to make them harder. Multiple choice has never been my strong suit, but at least its not fill in the blank. That's actually evil...

Tuesday and Wednesday I don't have class, so I just sat around all day and pretended to be productive. My housemate and I were productive on Wednesday, we took out the recycling and did our laundry. And got ready to go to the Ranch. The Ranch if I didn't mention before the closest bar/club and its where are all the students go on Wednesday nights. I made friends with my neighbors and lets just say the night went downhill from there...

Thursday I had two lectures. I had indigenous studies in the morning... its a 100 level, and it felt very odd to be back in the beginning again. We also watched a satirical film at the end of class... it seems that we'll be doing that for almost every class. I'm not complaining. I had my first Australian Econ lecture, it was pretty interesting. Except half way through I noticed a spider hanging off the window sill. If you've met me you know that I'm terribly afraid of spiders. I had a choice... I could kill it with my notebook and make a huge noise... or I could leave it and silently freak out. I didn't wanna make a bad impression on the hottie with a body at the end of my row... so I silently freaked out the entire class.

Friday I had my three hour. 2 hour lectures are long enough... 3 hours was hell. My attention span doesn't last that long. But the class seems super interesting. My housemate made us dinner and it was super tasty!. We hopped onto the party bus and partied it up at Kings Cross. It was pretty fun.

Today my friends from Wollongong are coming up... and we're gonna hit up Mardi Gras, should be quite the fiesta!

I'm a freshman again...

After almost 2 weeks of Australian vacation, it was finally time to start class. Since its been about two months since I've been in school, I was a little worried that I had forgotten how to do school, but I picked it right up like a champ. Granted I only have one lecture on Mondays and no class so far Tuesday and Wednesday so my classes aren't so bad. Classes meet once a week here which is pretty swell, cept the lectures are 2 hours long. My attention span doesn't really last over an hour so these 2 and 3 hour lectures are going to be a struggle.

Also I should point out that I'm covered in sweat, because its super hot and humid out and I wandered around like a freshman trying to find my class. I guess I looked pretty disorientated because people asked me if it was my first year. I have to say that despite my lack of height I'm pretty old... I'm just confused because all the buildings are some sort of letter.They break down like this:

E= east buildings
C= central buildings
W= west buildings
X= not sure... maybe extra far away

The buildings have a letter then a number so its like E7B T4... meaning east building 7B theater 4. Since I've been at a small school for the past three years I'm pretty lost and pretty confused. But luckily for me, lectures are online and I only actually have to show up two times a week for tutorial. Because you don't take attendance for a 100 person class... so we'll see how often I make it to class.

Well I'm off to go find a snack... I made some tasty enchiladas last night courtesy of the blog Tacoma Aroma Eats with an Essence of Curry... however my housemates and I had heaps of people over so unfortunately there are no leftovers... but they sure we're tasty :)
Adios!

A whole lot of Sydney

Howdy!

So on Friday we finally made it back to the beach. Ah it was heaven!!! I never really dug lying out, with sunscreen on of course, until I hit junior year of high school. But it was heavenly, also swimming in the water here is like bath water... its great. Except for the fact that we almost had a close encounter with the jelly fish. Right after we got out there was an announcement that a bunch of blue bottles were washing up on shore. Blue bottles are kind of like jellies except not exactly, but they still sting which isn't fun.

We made tacos for dinner, which were bomb, and got dressed for the tight and bright party, that my school supports. My school supports themed parties... its pretty rad... get on it Puge... Unfortunately we got home a little too late and missed the party which is totes fine with me... I dislike wearing things that are both tight and bright.

Today, Saturday, I went into Sydney with Otter and Wisconsin. We met up with Wisconsin's sister and brother in-law and checked out the Westfield tower. Which resembles a golden bucket, and its called the golden bucket by the Aussies. I think its probably better then the Space Needle, but I haven't been to the Needle since I was like 8. We also walked across the Sydney bridge, its a lot longer then it looks. My dress was blowing everywhere... I'm sure several locals got a nice or not so nice view...

That's it... I'm gonna to continue to hide from my housemate... and try to get some sleep.
Ta!