Sawatdeeka!

Not sure if the spelling is right, but that is how a woman says hello in Thailand!  The 4 days I spent in Thailand were AMAZING-no regrets whatsoever.  It was so short though.  I recommend going to Phuket, Thailand, if you ever get a chance because it is amazing! So amazing in fact that the Bachelorette was there a couple months before we were there.

Anyway, onto what I actually did.

We left on Saturday night at like 10pm or so.  We flew from Perth, Australia into Singapore.  That flight was 5.5 hours; it was very long, and hard to sleep on because there were lights on the plane.  Everyone was really exhausted in the Singapore airport, and we had about a 3 hour layover there.  Amanda and I got drinks and just kind of hung out.  Then we boarded the plane to Phuket, and we finally got to Thailand around lunchtime or so Sunday (I think).

Sunday was spent relaxing and getting used to the hotel/surrounding area.  We walked to the beach, which was close, but the water wasn’t very clean and neither was the beach.  It was a beautiful view though! We decided to go back to the pool and swim there-which was great.  That night, we went to the Phuket FantaSea show, which was kind of like a small amusement park (with shows and stalls, no rides) with a big Las Vegas type show at the end.  It was amazing! I got to hold a baby tiger, and experience Thai culture a lot that night.

Monday, we got up early and went on a sea canoe trip to James Bond Island.  The island was featured in “The Man with the Golden Gun”; a helicopter landed on it, apparently.  The coolest part was the scenery and the canoeing. 

As you can see in the pictures, Thailand is unbelievable.  We went to three different locations on the big boat; we would then get into our sea canoes and go around.  We would paddle through these caves created by the tide that led into little lagoons; it was incredible inside, as well as going through the caves.  Our guide Deam said that at certain times, the tides were too high and you couldn’t get through into the lagoons, so they had to plan each place perfectly with the timing.  We also stopped at a little touristy place with James Bond Island that was cool.  We also got out and swam for a little while, jumping off the boat from up high!  It was super warm water and it was really nice.  I got stung a little bit by a jellyfish, which put a small damper in the end of the day, but it wasn’t too bad.  It was the weirdest feeling ever!

Tuesday, Amanda and I went scuba diving.  Not really sure where the locations were, other than out in the ocean quite a ways.  The boat was nice, and there weren’t many people on it, so we got to spread out a bit and lay down, which was great because we were tired.  We went deeper on the dives than we had ever gone before, which was really cool.  The first place we went was a small, tall island (like the ones in the pictures) and we just hung out in the current and watched the wall as we went.  There were lots of cool fish and coral around, and we went in some caves.  The second place we went was a shipwreck, which was really cool, but it had a lot of stuff growing on it making it harder to see.  The third place we went was a reef of sorts, with lots of tropical fish and cool coral.

Wednesday, we went on an elephant safari thing with lots of activities.  There were ox carts we rode in, and we saw a monkey show and an elephant show.  We also got to ride on elephants, which was sweet! 

That night, we went into town and did some shopping, which was more like bartering and getting yelled at to come back to certain stalls.  We didn’t buy much because there was a lot of the same stuff at each place, but it was pretty cheap once you argued it down.

Thursday we left in the morning, and travelled all day, getting back to Perth at 9pm.  I got a little cold on Wednesday, which made flying not very fun.  The last week or so has been the start of studying and preparing to go home, which is coming fast but not fast enough.  I really want to be home because everyone else is out of school, and it is now getting cold and rainy here and lots of studying by all is taking place.  The final celebrations and stuff will be fun though!

Underwater

Hello everyone.  I said I would blog about scuba diving, so here it is.  The past two weekends (not this one), Amanda and I were working through our “open water” scuba dive course.  This allows us to be able to scuba dive in the ocean, as well as lakes, etc. without an instructor up to 18 meters deep in favourable conditions.  We really enjoyed our time in Cairns at the Great Barrier Reef diving, so we thought getting certified was the next step.

The first day, two Saturdays ago from today, was our first day.  We had to get up at 7:00 every morning we went scuba diving.  Our class started at 8:00, and we got picked up at 7:45 by our friend, who was also in the class, named Nick.  Class started with knowledge review, in which we went over the questions from our study guides in our scuba dive book.  Essentially, it felt like a class, and apparently you can try to get college credit from it...but we aren’t going to worry about that.  It was a lot of information to go over, and we did about 60% of it the first day.  That lasted until about 10 or so, and then we went to the pool.  The first day, we had a swimming test of sorts, where we had to swim 200m as well as float for 10 minutes.  This did not seem too hard on paper, but all of us in the class (4 of us that day) were super winded from it.  After this, we got our scuba stuff on and went in.  I remembered the sensation from the Reef about what it felt like to breathe underwater, but it was still a little weird at first.  Amanda and I also had wetsuit problems the first day-our wetsuits were too small, thus it didn’t go so well getting those in, and I got tired just from pulling it on.  We practiced basic skills that day, like flooding your mask, and taking your “second stage” (your breathing device) out and finding it.  Pretty simple stuff.

The second day (Sunday), it was very hard to get up.  We were very sore from the day before; putting together the equipment, carrying it, etc., is quite heavy.  That day, we did more knowledge review, finishing it off.  We got all of our stuff and drove to the pool again.  This day, we practiced a lot more stuff, like going to the deep end and practicing descents and ascents.  We felt pretty confident after day 2 to go put our skills into the ocean, which was good.

The third day, we took our final exam; we both passed, Amanda being an ultra nerd and acing it...haha.  We then drove down to Rockingham, about 30 minutes south, to go to a cool beach with lots of wrecks off it.  We got in, and the water was freezing!  To convert the temp it was to Fahrenheit, it was...66 degrees or so.  That doesn’t sound too cold, but it was freezing.  We were all shivering right after we got in.  We were on the surface treading water for a while because there was a strong current, and one of our group members had a hard time swimming over to us.  We finally went underwater, and the visibility was about 3 meters, which is not very far.  It was very difficult because we couldn’t see everyone in our group, and our instructor Phil had to keep swimming back and forth making sure we were all there.  We did see a blue swimmer crab (yes they are blue); that was pretty cool!  We saw a couple wrecks, but with the bad vis., it was hard to actually appreciate it.  We were going to do a couple skills, but it was too hard to see, so we just swam around.  After the first dive, we drove to a different site to try to get better visibility.  It was just as cold, but the current was not as strong.  We went under and did most of our skills; the problem this time was that the bottom was a silt type, meaning when we moved around, the bottom did too.  We had to keep moving around to get to a new place without the dirty cloud we kicked up.  After practicing our skills a little more (p.s. salt water in the mask/eyes is not cool!), we swam around and saw a couple cool things.  Then we got out because we were freezing.

The fourth day, we went to Rottnest Island.  It is about a 40 minute boat drive off the coast of Fremantle, and it was definitely worth it!  The water out there was around 70 degrees or so, which felt a lot warmer.  The visibility was also great, probably around 10 meters. There was a little bit of current, but definitely not as bad.  There, we practiced a couple skills, but it was mostly trying to be a little more independent and just swim around and observe.  We saw a lot of fish, and the second dive we had out there was at a fun place with lots of holes in the coral and such that you could swim through.  We also had an awesome BBQ lunch on the boat, with Heinz ketchup!  How I missed that ketchup-here they have “tomato sauce,” which is not the same.  After that, we went back to the classroom, and filled out our dive book things and got signed off.  We were officially certified!  It was an awesome experience, and I am glad that we did it.  We are planning on doing at least one more dive with the company-only 40 dollars a day, which is a great deal.  We are also doing three dives in Thailand for 120 dollars, where it is a lot warmer, and hopefully we will see some neat stuff.  So far we have spent about 2 hours underwater, and are aching for more! 

That is pretty much all I have in my brain right now.  We have two more weeks of classes left, and everything is winding down.  I only have one paper and two presentations left, which is nothing compared to what I had the last week-3 papers, a part of a paper, and a presentation.  That’s Australian classes for you!  I believe I am doing pretty well grade-wise, but we will see at the end of the semester.  I hope everyone is doing well!  My next post will probably not be until after Thailand, which is from June 5^th through 9^th or so.

Broome

Hello everyone!  I just realized I hadn't posted in a couple months...woops.  But honestly, not much exciting is going on-going to class, doing homework, going to sleep, repeat.  That is basically it.  However, about a month ago, we went to Broome, up north in Australia, to spend 5 days with Aboriginal people, and it was amazing.  I am going to post what I wrote in my journal because that is in much more detail than what I can actually remember from that week.

The first day we were up there, we had to leave at 4:45 in the morning, way too early for all of us.  We finally got up to Broome in the afternoon, and went to Cable Beach, a famous beach up there.  It started pouring, however, but we didn't care at that point, and played games and ran around in the rain.  It was a lot of fun, and our group bonded a lot that day.

Day 2
Today was a lot of fun and I was filled with knowledge from Colin (the Aboriginal host for our trip).  He leads such a simple life and is completely happy-no money, no technology.  I am not sure, however, if I could live like that, unless I grew up that way.  Also, learning about the Dreamtime was cool.  I like the analysis of the dreams, and how you have to tell someone if you dreamt about them, and it is significant to tell them so that what happened in the dream doesn't happen to them.  It was fun to play didgeridoos and hang out as a group.  I also really liked riding the camels-it was fun to see Shane (our "professor")'s face as we got up on the camels, which was kind of scary.

This picture is us on our camel ride!

Day 3
Today, we went to a park.  While we were there, we heard about the spiritual views of Aboriginal people, such as the totems they have when they are born, including the birthmarks and the fact that they go back into the animals after they die.  We also discussed the fact that we don't really know much about what happens when we are born in our culture, which is interesting.  We learned how to throw spears, which was a lot harder than it looked.  It was amazing to think about the precision Aboriginal people must have to throw them accurately.  At night, we discussed U.S. and Australia likes/dislikes as a group.

Day 4
Today was amazing.  We went to a beach in an Aboriginal community.  The drive was pretty long and bumpy, but it was fine.  We were at a beach that less than 50 white people had ever been to.  It was like a place from a dream-the sand was super white, with lots of cool shells, and the water was very blue.

This is the beach!

At the beach, we learned how to fish with just a line and no rod.  We also talked with Aboriginal people from that community.  It was very hot, but the experience was worth it.  We heard stories of spirits on the ride home, and I am not sure that I believe in ghosts, but I am more open to believing than I was before.

Day 5
Today, we went crab fishing.  It was a fun day, but it was REALLY hot.  I did not really like the mud either.  You had to walk around in the mud to find the crabs.  It was a good day for a swim, and we did go to the pool after.  It was a day of hanging out, pretty much.  At night, Colin talked about spirits with the entire group, and we thanked everyone for a great week.

Day 6
This morning we discussed Stolen Generation a bit more, and packed up the tents.  We drove to the airport, took a group photo, and said goodbye to Colin and Maria.

This is us with Colin!

We boarded the plane, but were unable to take off due to electrical problems, and the plane was delayed for 5.5 hours...that was not very much fun.  However, I wrote my reflection for class during that time, so that I could get ahead on it.

My next post will probably be about spring break/scuba diving because that is what has been going on the past couple of weeks!

New Experiences

I have just realized that I haven't posted in a LONG time, so here it is.  This is a summary of orientation week, as well as the first day of class.  New experiences is a good way to put it because that is exactly what has been happening.

This post will start with our travel to school.  On Feb. 21st, we woke up at the awesome hour of 2:00 in the morning to catch the shuttle bus to the airport.  It was REALLY early.  Our shuttle bus left at 2:55 and we got to the airport around 3:30 or so, but the check-in didn't open until 4:00.  So we sat around and waited.  Our first flight left at 6:00 from Cairns and we flew to Sydney.  Sydney's airport was really delayed for some reason, so our next flight was delayed an hour or so.  We were freaked out the entire time because our connecting flight was going to leave before we got there, but they kept reassuring us that we would make the connection.  So, we took advantage of the free internet and posted our pictures and such.  This flight was from Sydney to Melbourne, connecting to Perth.  We realized that they were holding the plane in Melbourne because 30+ people were connecting, and that would be more of a headache to reschedule everyone than to delay a plane 30 minutes.  We were happy.  We finally landed in Perth, and made it to school around 6pm or so.  We settled in, finally unpacking our suitcases, and checked everything out.  We went to buy groceries and such.

Orientation week (the rest of that week) wasn't too exciting.  We had a lot of different talks about academics and the like, which I had heard most of before.  Friday was my birthday, which was fine, nothing too crazy.  There was an Amazing Race type thing in the morning, which was fun, but super exhausting.  We probably walked like 4 miles during the whole thing, mostly in the 99 degree sunny areas.  I drank like 48 oz of water in 6 hours.  My group came in third, so we apparently are getting bookstore vouchers or something.  I had a big headache from the sun/exhaustion, so I wasn't really in the mood to do much celebrating.  We did go out for a little while though.  Drinks are way too expensive here, and I haven't really found anything I would buy because I liked it.  So I haven't done any more of that.  The weekend was filled with relaxing and such.

Monday was the first day of class (finally).  I had Eschatology at 9:30, which is a theology class about the afterlife and such.  I am pretty excited for the subject matter, although my professor (called lecturer here) was discussing a chapter I hadn't read yet because I didn't know we had to read it/where to get the reading.  I caught up that afternoon and remembered lots of what he said, which was good.  I didn't have any more class that day.

Today is Tuesday, and I don't have class on Tuesdays, yay!  Unfortunately, my day started at 7:15 or so this morning with a lovely fire drill.  Our building all got out really fast, so thank God we won't have to do it again.  It was kind of a buzzkill because I was planning on sleeping in, which I ended up doing.  I woke up and went to the bookstore to get more books.  Then I went to the library to work on some homework for Thursday's class, and am now just hanging out, writing this blog.

Some things I have noticed that are different here (good and bad):
-Rice Krispies are called Rice Bubbles
-Refrigeration is weird here.  Amanda and I store our stuff in a walk-in color type thing, but it is never very cold.  Thus, things get moldy fast and gross fast.  We have decided not to buy milk anymore because you can't drink it before it spoils.  You have to put lots of things in the fridge so they don't get moldy/melt, like bread and chocolate.
-Cockroaches will invade the kitchen if it isn't clean, so someone has kitchen duty every night to make sure no food is left out.
-Everything is more expensive except college.  Tuition at the school we are at is like 5 grand at the most; not sure of the exact number.  Everyone here basically lives at home and comes here during the day.
-They start uni (college) here at 17/18 years old, and it is only for 3 years.  Lots of people here are thus younger than our group, which is 20/21.
-The library is louder than Clemens, which I didn't think was possible.  There are quiet study rooms, but I haven't tried them yet.  Amanda said they aren't much better.
-The library is the place to hang in between classes since it has A/C.

I will post more of these as I think about them.

Coming up: The rest of week 1 classes

Hot, Hot, Hot

The title of this post may give it away, but it is very HOT in Cairns.  The problem is more humidity than temperature.  Cairns is located in the tropics area of Australia, the Northeast.  The humidity is usually around 80-90 percent every day, and the temperature is probably around 85-90 degrees F every day.  We are sweating a lot.  I think of it as good practice for Perth, but try not to complain.  Perth is hotter, but less humid.  We arrived here on Wednesday, and got in around dinner time.  There is a free meal every night for those in our hostel, which is cool.  However, they mostly have the same thing, and don’t give you enough to only eat that.  For example, I have had spaghetti every night that I have eaten the meal.  We ate that and went up to our room, which is very nice compared to our room in Sydney.  This is a 4-person room with an attached bathroom.  It is also nice and clean, and a huge place.  The hostel (Gilligan’s) is somewhat of a nightclub with a hostel attached, which is okay.  We aren’t really into the partying stuff, so we usually just read and watch movies at night.  That night we went to sleep because we were exhausted.  First, though, we went to the mall here which has a grocery store attached; there we bought snacks to eat.

Thursday was another day with nothing planned, so we explored quite a bit more.  The mall closes around 5 every day, so we went back there to check it out and to eat.  The food court was very nice with lots of options.  We then went back to the grocery store and got a couple more things.  Amanda and I made guacamole for the first time since we have been here, and it was good.  We also watched the movie “Daddy Day Care,” which I highly recommend if you haven’t seen it.

Friday was the day we went scuba diving.  It was AWESOME.  I was a little nervous at first because I didn’t know what it would be like to be underwater for so long, but it was fine.  It just took a little getting used to.  We had hand signals and everything that we had to learn, which was cool.  The packs were really heavy walking around on the boat, but not so much in the water.  We got wetsuits to wear as well.  Our first dive was very introductory; mostly, it was practicing being underwater, and we all linked arms the entire time.  Luckily, Amanda and I had signed up for 3 dives, so we got to do a lot more.  The second dive was more independent; we got to learn how to move around by ourselves and we saw a lot more.  I saw a sea turtle!  There was also a huge fish, probably 3 feet long, named Wally that was very friendly.  He likes to hang around the dive sites and get attention.  Our third dive was fun as well.  It was great to be able to swim around independently, not having to link arms with everyone the entire time.  I definitely want to be able to scuba dive again, if I get the chance.

Saturday (today) was spent on the Kuranda Skyrail/in Kuranda, the town.  We drove to a more remote part of Cairns (we are in the city) and took a gondola up into the rainforest.  We took a guided tour around the rainforest floor and were taught about the different types of plants.  There are some strangling figs that strangle a host tree and get nutrients from it, eventually killing it.  There were also these cool ferns that collect their own soil base up in the air and form a source of nutrients for themselves 50 feet above ground, forming what looks like a nest kind of.  We then got to look over the Barron Falls, which was a natural waterfall formed by a gorge.  It was running super strong, which was cool to see.  We then went up to Kuranda, the town.  In this town, Amanda and I went to three main attractions.

First, we went to Kuranda Koala Garden.  It was a mini zoo type area with koalas being the focus, obviously.  We each paid $16.00 to hold a koala and get pictures.  They are super cute, and heavier than I thought.  The koala we got to hold was very used to being passed around, and didn’t really care.  She was sweet.  There was also an open kangaroo enclosure, and we got to feed the kangaroos.  That was a lot of fun.  The second place we went was Bird World.  It was essentially a big aviary with 50 different kinds of birds in it.  There were some huge parrots, and also ducks and parakeets, etc.  They had an exhibit in the back with cassowaries, which are amazing.  They look like emus kind of, but they are a weird blue color, and have a dinosaur-like protrusion off the top of their head.  Sadly, they are super endangered, and the cyclone didn’t help.  Although it didn’t directly affect the rainforest, the winds did shake lots of the fruit off the trees.  This is the cassowary’s main food source, and it will thus rot before they can eat it all.  They might have to drop food for them to survive in the wild (there are only about 1500 wild cassowaries left).  The third place we went was the Australian Venom Zoo.  It was a bunch of venomous snakes and spiders.  It was cool as well.  As we went to leave, the rainforest decided it needed some more moisture; it dumped rain on us for about 20 minutes.  It was the hardest rainfall I had ever seen; it soaked Amanda and I in about 15 seconds.  We got really wet, but it was fine; we were super hot anyway.  Then we took the Skyrail back down and went back to the hostel.  For dinner, Amanda and I made quesadillas and guacamole, which we love eating.  And now we are going to sleep, since it is 23:21.

Tomorrow: Crocodile Zoo and Cairns Zoo, Monday: Travel Day to School!

Koalas, Shark, Pirates, and Three Sisters

Sorry for the delay-I wrote this 2 days ago, but was trying to add pictures that kept failing...This is a very short, brief way of describing the last two days.  It has been pretty sunny, with short rain showers (around 15 minutes or so), which isn’t bad compared to Minnesota!  I feel for you all!  It was probably around 80 degrees here today.  Yesterday (Thursday) we went to Sydney Wildlife World, Sydney Aquarium, and the Sydney Tower.  Sydney Wildlife World is a really neat mini-zoo right in downtown Sydney.  It is filled with Australian animals.  We got a 4-pass thing that lets us into the three attractions mentioned above, plus another aquarium, for $49.00; this is a great deal.  At Wildlife World, they had all the venomous spiders and snakes from Australia; I didn’t care for the spiders.  They also had kangaroos, and they were the first kangaroos I had ever seen in my life (I think).  They were mostly lying down, and I read that they have no sweat glands; thus, when it is hot, they lie on the ground and sleep.  We did see two of them eating, and got to watch them hop away.  Another big attraction at SWW is the crocodile.  They have an Estuarian crocodile there; they are HUGE.  I think he was around 3 meters long-no joke.  He was cool, but I was glad he was behind a lot of glass.  My favorite part about SWW was seeing the koalas!  There were about 6 of them, and they were adorable!   They were all sleeping in their trees, but one of them kept waking up and looking around.  I think koalas might be my favorite Australian animal, if not my favorite animal ever.

We next went to the Sydney Aquarium.  It was a standard aquarium; lots of different fish and anemones, etc.  This aquarium had dugongs as one of their main exhibits; they are fascinating.  They look kind of like manatees, but smaller.  There were also some enormous stingrays that were fun to watch.  This aquarium also had jellyfish and some gigantic lobsters and crabs.  Amanda and I went up in a glass-bottom boat over one of the exhibits with sharks in it; this was really cool.  We got to feed the fish in the exhibit too.  After the Aquarium, we went to Sydney Tower.  It is the tallest building in Sydney, and it has a great observation deck.  We got to see the entire Sydney from almost 2,000 feet up.  That was awesome!  We took lots of pictures, and then went back down to the street.

That night, we went on a dinner cruise on a tall ship.  For those of you not knowing what a tall ship is, it’s essentially a pirate ship.  This was a lot of fun, and the food was good as well.  That night, we were pretty exhausted and headed back to the room, since we had to get up early the next morning.

Today, we went to the Blue Mountains.  The Blue Mountains are a mountainous region (duh) about two hours outside Sydney, with waterfalls, national parks, and the like.  We had to get up at 5:45 this morning, since we weren’t exactly sure where the shuttle was picking us up.  We started toward the mountains around 7:30 or so, after picking up more people.  We first went into a national park to try to find some wild kangaroos.  We saw 4 of them!  We got to see a mom with her joey outside of the pouch, which is apparently super rare.  We also saw two males bounding around.  I was happy because it was a really neat experience and we were really close!  After that, we went on our first hike.  It was pretty rough terrain, although we were technically on a path.  There were lots of rocks and roots to step over.  One person commented that they were only seeing their feet the entire hike, which was mostly true.  We stopped at a few overlooks to take pictures, which was good.  When we got as far down as we were going, we had to go back up.  Definitely not as fun, since we went down about 300 meters or so according to our guide.  We got back up to the top, and had lunch.  I didn’t eat much of it because it was ham sandwiches, and I don’t like ham very much.  The bananas were good though!  We then went to our second hike, which was at a place called Scenic World.  We hiked down these stairs that were originally the path miners took to work in the area.  There were a LOT of stairs.  I was relieved because we did not have to go back up this time.  Scenic World has a number of means of transportation around, including a railway that had a 52 degree incline.  We took that on the way up.  It was pretty intense; you felt like you were falling over the entire time.  There was some cool information about mine shafts and the different plants along the path, which was interesting.  During this hike, we saw a formation called the Three Sisters, which has an Aboriginal story behind it.  You should look it up if interested because I don’t remember all the details.  We got to take a closer look at the formation after the second hike, which was cool. 


We then traveled back to Sydney, and we went to Hungry Jack’s for dinner.  It seems similar to a Burger King, but not the exact same.  We then came back to the room, and Amanda and I threw in a load of laundry so we didn’t have to do 3 at the end of the trip.  And now I am sitting here typing this blog.  We are happy that the Internet works today on our laptops; it didn’t work yesterday for some reason.

Next up: Opera House, Australian Museum.  Sunday-Sydney Bridge Climb!

Lucky

Although most of this post will not sound lucky at all, I think that we were very lucky the last couple of days; it could have been a lot worse.  On Monday, we went up to Kaikoura for whale watching.  We had to leave our room at like 6:00, which was pretty early for us, but we were excited.  The shuttle ride was like 3 hours long, so we all pretty much slept.  It was literally our driver’s first day, so he didn’t really know what was going on.  Therefore, we had to walk a couple blocks to the whale place, which was fine.  We got there, and it was drizzling-ish outside, but it was getting better.  So, we decided to go get lunch at the café and wait.  Our departure time was 2 hours out.  Lunch was pretty good, but not amazing.  The trip before ours was cancelled, so we were a little anxious about that.  Turns out, ours was cancelled too.  Good thing is, we got a full refund for it.  Bad news, we had three hours to do nothing.  So, we frantically looked through brochures so we could do something.  We ended up going to the “Seal Colony,” which only had about 5 seals at it.  There was a hiking trail that we took for about an hour and a half that had some scenic views of the coastline and such.  It was drizzling the entire time, however, which was a bummer.  We got back into town, and Amanda and I went and looked in the shops around.  We got a snack in a café, and waited for our shuttle.

We got on the shuttle, no problem, but then there weren’t enough seats for everyone.  We had the same driver we did on the way out, so he wasn’t sure what to do.  Turns out, somehow our reservation got messed up, and our return shuttle was not booked.  We therefore got nicely kicked off the shuttle, and we walked to an I-site (an information type place).  We asked if there were any more shuttles or anything that day, and were told that there was nothing.  At this point, we all pretty much had the same thought: “Great.”  We decided to book a shuttle for the next morning, and try to find a place to stay that night.  This is where the luck starts coming in.  We were stuck in a city 3 hours away from Christchurch, and had nowhere to sleep or a method to get back.  Luckily, the I-Sites have lots of brochures, and they can help you book pretty much anything.  The lady helping us was super nice and felt really bad for us.  She got us a super nice room in this hostel called the “Lazy Shag.”  We got a private room with a bathroom for only 85 dollars total, which was quite a bargain.  We also got a shuttle that was leaving at 7 or so the next morning, which was great.  We got back to Christchurch around 11, and grabbed some lunch (baked potatoes).  It was very good.  Afterward, Amanda and I went shopping for souvenirs, and found some cool clothes as well.  Our bags are now SUPER full, and are now hard to close.  We are considering shipping a box to Perth at this point, if it will help us avoid extra bag charges.  That night, we did laundry and got Pizza Hut, since we had to leave super early the next morning for Sydney.  Laundry was interesting because it was $2.00 per load.  Wasn’t too bad, except the dryer only ran 20 minutes for 2 dollars.  We didn’t want to use more, so we hung out all our clothes under the fan in our room, hoping they would dry.  The rest of the night, while packing, was a continuous moving-around of clothes to make sure they would all get dry before we had to leave.  Luckily, they did.

The next morning, we woke up at 2:30.  Our shuttle was coming at 3:15, and we wanted to make sure we had enough time to eat breakfast and finish our suitcases.  The shuttle came early, so luckily we were done early.  Amanda and I accomplished quite a feat getting our suitcases to close.  We got on the shuttle, and got to the airport around 3:45.  Unfortunately, we had to sit around for like 20 minutes because the check-in area wasn’t open yet.  We checked in, and then went to go to the gate.  That section then wasn’t open-another 20 or so minute wait.  We finally got up to the gate, and we got some extra food to eat to hold us over until after the flight.  The flight left at 6:00, and was 3 hours long.  We got into Sydney at 7:15 (two hours behind NZ), and went through customs just fine.  We got on a shuttle, and waited for like 30 minutes for it to leave because the driver wanted a completely full cabin.  He was really nice though, which helped.  We got to our hostel at like 9 or so this morning, and went to our room.  Our room here is definitely not as nice-we were spoiled in Christchurch!  We are in a 6-person female room, and the three of us have the top bunks.  We have to lock everything in the lockers in our room, just for security measures.  Therefore, we can’t have anything out, which we are not used to.  Our past hostel was an 8-person room that we had for the three of us, and we used every bit of space in there to spread out our stuff.  So, it will be interesting to be actually living out of my suitcase, and repacking it every night.  After we put our suitcases away, we decided to get our bearings-Sydney is HUGE.  We found out how to get a train to the Circular Quay (pronounced Key), which is the main touristy area of Sydney.  It has the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House, as well as the ferries, etc. right there.  We were going to the Sydney Information Centre, but it took quite a while to find it.  In Christchurch, there are signs everywhere pointing to attractions/places of interest.  In Sydney, they aren’t as abundant.  We eventually found our way there, and spent about an hour finding things to do the rest of the week.  We went on a bus tour for a couple of hours around Sydney.  This was good because it helped us look around without having to walk aimlessly.  However, it started to rain about halfway through.  We wanted to go to the bottom deck of the bus, but the bus didn’t stop for about 15 minutes.  Therefore, we got pretty wet.  We decided after that to go back to our room and figure out what to do.  Amy went to get a phone, and we waited for her.  Then we went to dinner, which was delicious.  It was a little pricier than much of the stuff we have been eating, but it was worth it.  I got a pasta dish with chicken, mushrooms, and bacon in creamy garlicky sauce.  Amanda got a Caesar salad, and we shared.  After that, we went to the cinema, which is right next to our hostel, and checked the prices.  It is 15.50 for a movie with our student ID’s.  This isn’t horrible, but it is pricey.  We decided to wait for a rainy day or night where we have nothing planned.  We went back to the hostel, and I am now sitting here writing this blog.  Hope everyone is doing well!  Feel free to email or Facebook me; I am checking it pretty regularly.  Would love an email from someone other than a random club that I don’t want to read!

Coming up:  Sydney Aquarium and Sydney Tower, and a Dinner Cruise on a Pirate Ship type boat! Then going to the Blue Mountains.