The Back of Your Ankle Looks Ridiculous...

Just a little commentary of Jess's experience with lenny the leech

Katoombaaa

Hello Beautiful People!

I'm just wrapping up my seventh week in the land down unda! Australia just had daylight savings time yesterday and it's getting cooler and rainier here as move into the fall months (A chilly 66 this morning). Well, today is the first day of my two weeks break! This week I'm going to catch up on some homework, write a couple of papers, and explore sydney. On Sunday the 12th, I'm headed out to Magnetic Island with 5 other girls and Dave! Magnetic Island is right off the coast of Oz, next to townsville and it's in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef area. We're going to be staying in a house right on the beach! We're taking a day trip out to the reef to go snorkeling, hopefully do a little fishing, and of course, explore. It's going to be such a fun trip.
Well, Saturday morning I went to the Katoomba, where the Blue Mountains are, with Sarah, Jess, and Ty. It takes about two hours by train to get there. Jess and I sat across from perfume lady....She was on the train no more than 45min and sprintzed 28 sprays of nasty smelling-old baby powder perfume on her wrist (trust me, we were counting). After she got off the train she started spraying the perfume in the air. People are strange... Any how, When we initially got to the train station we waiting an hour. Within five minutes of the train coming, my three comrads decided to go get tickets. We missed the train. So we waited another hour. When we got to Katoomba we made our way past the quaint little town, down to echo point to check out the three sisters- three large rocks. But it was so misty we couldn't see a darn thing. We made our way down to the "giant stairway". This stairway was amazing- by far the coolest thing I've seen on the trip yet. We climbed down thousands of ridiculously steep steps that were built on cliffs in order to get down to the main hiking trails. It takes about an hour to get down and an hour to climb back up. No picture could truly capture how beautiful this area is. We bushwalked for a while, encountered a bunch of bloodsucking leeches, and fell...a lot (at least I did). The forest was like a tropical rainforest. Everything was wet with mist and the air was heavy; it was beautiful. I saw a couple of really cool birds- some blue and red ones and some type of beautiful wild pheasant. We were planning on camping overnight, but Jessie Cakes wasn't feeling well so we trekked back up the cliff before dark and headed home. We were pooped at the end and I'm still sore, but it was fabulous! I am definitely going back before my time in Oz is over!

Canberra

Helllllllooo EVERYONE!

YES. I know. It’s been a while!

So it’s time to update you on this past week in the Land down Unda.

Well, School has started to pick up. I’m starting to have projects and papers due which is always fun. The nursing home is pretty fun too. Most of the residents know me now and I am enjoying taking walks and going to exercise class with them.

So I’m having a hard time remembering all of the things that happened this week, so I’ll start with the most recent.

Friday and yesterday, our whole group went to Canberra (pronounced CAN-BRA), the capital. Our phrase of the weekend was “Canberra: it’s what you make it!” Most Australians will tell you that Canberra sucks. When I explained that I was going there for the week-end, I got responses like “God bless ya” and “I’m sorry to hear that”. Lol.

Let me give you a brief background on the city. Back in the day, Sydney and Melbourne were fighting over which city should become the capitol. So the government chose neither, and created a capital that was situated in between the two. Canberra is an extremely quiet city- it’s culture is nothing compared to Sydney’s, but all the same, it’s a great place contrary to what most Australians will tell you.

There is so much to do there and I learned so much from every place we visited. In the two days we were there, we went to the Old Parliament house, National Portrait Gallery, The Indonesian Embassy, the British High Commission, The Aboriginal embassy tent, The ANZAC war memorial, National Museum, and National Gallery of Australia.

It was such a great trip! I saw a bunch of kangaroos and even an emu on the 4hr bus ride there and back! Kangaroos are much more graceful than I imagined. The birds here are amazing too. I’ll look out the window of my room, and there’ll be a cockatoo sitting on the electric wire. Its so cool. I see lorikeets and other colorful birds on a daily basis. Australia truly is a beautiful country.

Well, I know this post is short, but I must get back to homework… hopefully I’ll be able to update you more this week!

The differences....

So if you say, I'm eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, this is what goes through an Australian's head...You must say peanut butter and JAM sandwich and even so, Australians will cringe. PB&J is not eaten here.

When I say Powerpoint, what do you think??

In the Land of Oz, Power point does reference Microsoft's Program, but more familiarly, it refers to an electrical outlet.

You see the switches above the outlets? They stop the flow of electricity. So instead of unplugging your appliances before you go on holiday, you just switch the power point off. How cool is that!? Come on USA, get on that.

Here in Australia, a biscuit is a cookie. Here are some of the best biscuits.

Tim Tams & Squiggles


Here are just a few of their fun abbreviated words!

brekky= breakfast
sunnies= sunglasses
cozzie/swimmers= bathing suit
Lollies=candy
Kinder=kindergarten
Mozzie= Mosquito
Vejjo= vegiterian
Truckie= truck driver
Chewie= gum

More to come. Hope you enjoyed. :)

Pics from the weekend

eatin lunch

beautiful

Doing a little hiking (very little)

Sun is coming up

Just Waking Up :)

Fun weekend!

Hello friends and family!
To be honest, there were a couple of days this week that were pretty difficult, but aside from that, I had a great week!
My week was actually pretty typical. I just went to class, came home for dinner, and went to bed. I ended up going to a couple extra classes because I needed to swap my schedule around. Other than the anxiety caused by classes, nothing too exciting happened this week.

This weekend was just what I needed! Me, Michelle, Sarah, Jess, Audrey, Ty, and Ben went to Palm Beach Friday night, about an hour bus ride from the city. We slept out on the beach, which was pretty sweet. In the morning, the guys and Michelle went hiking and the rest of us had a beach day. The water was A-Mazing. But the rips were pretty strong, so we couldn’t go out far. The Beach was b-e-a-utiful and there were barely any people there. I guess the pictures speak for themselves. On the way home we were stuck with a bunch of completely wasted teenagers going into the city for Mardi Gras. It was interesting to say the least. Overall this weekend has been an absolute blast.

Weekend Photos

A beautiful view from observatory park- an new city favourite- using the PAN-o-Ram


Me in front of the fountain at Hyde Park before Mass at St. Marys