A New Zealand post... One year later

Surprised to see me? I am too. Better late than never. (If anyone still reads this)

When I went on my adventure to New Zealand, I took an old fashioned journal with me- no computer. I pretty much brought the bare minimum, a backpack and a small bag worth of stuff, to get through 2 weeks in the land of Kiwis. I have my journal but none of you know about anything that happened! I kept a pretty detailed journal of the North Island but when we hit the South Island I got distracted by everything, so I'll try and give a vague overview of what I remember in my next post. But until we get to there it's all straight from the horse's mouth! (I'll put it in quotes) And ps. This is gonna be a long one.

"I am thankful for hot showers. And for good people, I have met quite a few of those. My trip started out Saturday morning after the longest all-nighter I've ever pulled. I should win an award for procrastination. I spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday working on Anthropology and History. I managed to finish just in time to print it off, turn it in, get ready and then head to Waiting for Godot. The play was beautiful, but definitely a mind trip. I think I've become a bit immune to the magic that I once found while watching a show. The unfortunate side effects of working backstage for a few years, I suppose. The magic seems to happen backstage now. It's my turn to create the magic for the audience.

Anyway! My trip so far... All my flights went really smoothly. A friend took me to the airport to catch my flight to Melbourne. Probably the quickest plane ride I've ever been on. We were seated (I got an emergency exit seat- woohoo leg room!), were given drinks and food soon after we took off and pretty much started the descent soon after. After getting off in Melbourne, I walked straight to the gate, which was a little room off to the side. Since I was early, not many people were there so I curled up on the bench and fell asleep. When I woke up, there were plenty of people there. On a quick run to the bathroom I passed a store with Kangaroo jerky. It took all my resistance NOT to buy it. I'm such a tourist :) Boarded my plane after a quick wait and had a short 6 hour plane ride. I think after that 14 hour flight, anything seems short I suppose. When we landed, it was dark and rainy. There's about a 2 hour time difference, so what was 8pm Australian time was really 10pm here in New Zealand. I got through customs pretty quickly and got some cash before catching a cab to the hostel. The hostel was far away and the cab ended up being 74$. Ridiculous. But at that point I just wanted to sleep. I got in and proceeded to drop all of my money on the ground because I had left my zippered part open on my wallet. Headed upstairs and was greeted by the warmest looking blanket. It was pitch black so I used my phone light to hunt for a towel. Didn't know that you had to put down a deposit to get one at the front desk, so I asked a girl still awake and she gave me a little towel of her own. Small, but a towel. So I was able to take a nice hot shower before huddling in my bed. Have I mentioned it's freezing here? I must be used to the heat- this weather is a bit of a shock to my system. I definitely don't have enough layers. Fail. Anyway, got in bed, set my alarm and didn't realize my phone had set itself ahead an extra hour. So when I woke up at 7, it was really 6 am. I'm a genius. Thought pick up was at 8 so after waking up early and sitting around I realized the tour was picking me up at 1 (and by realized I mean the receptionist told me) Unchecked out (it's a thing, I swear) and went back to sleep for a few hours before actually checking out and going to hang out in the cafe/tv room.

I saw a bunch of kids on couches and beanbags so I went and sat down and watched a movie with them. Ended up meeting this girl named Jen (along with two guys- one British and one American) who was on my tour. In some weird coincidence, she is from Connecticut too. So at 1 we both headed for the bus and along with 6 others we joined a group of 18 who had been on the tour for 3 days already. We spent a couple of hours on the bus before making a quick stop in Hobbiton, home of the movie The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Got back on the bus and drove to a Maori village where we got a chance to spend the night in one of the Maori buildings. We had a welcoming ceremony in the traditional Maori style.

After we made our beds, we went to a bar for a drink and I got a chance to really talk to everyone. It truly is a good group of people. Took a short walk back and had dinner at the village. One of the girls asked me about where I was sleeping and I told her I was in the corner and she asked if I had had a death in the family recently. Of course I said yes, my aunt had died a few weeks ago. She said that one of the Maori leaders had said people who picked that spot to sleep had usually had a recent death in the family or were on a spiritual journey. Both of which I feel apply to me. It was just really eerie. We played cards after dinner and finally headed to bed where we slept in this big room all together. Cold, but almost cozy. Woke up the next morning, got dressed, rolled up our sleeping bags, had breakfast and were on our way.

The bus trips, I have to mention now are gorgeous. New Zealand is stunning and I seriously wish I could live here. Especially Wellington. I could live in Wellington the rest of my life and be totally happy. Anyways. We drove from there to our motel and the thermal springs village.

It's a Maori village with tons of hot springs and geisers which they use to cook food, bathe and keep their homes heated. Afterward we had an hour to grab lunch before we went to some afternoon activities. Myself and 3 other girls went to a spa where we had mudbaths (followed by the coldest shower ever) and then got to sit in some of the hot springs (well the water anyways)and met a large group of Mediterranean people who didn't really speak English. The water was nice but by the end we all smelled like rotten eggs (thanks sulfur) and I still haven't quite managed to get the smell out. We all headed back before a group dinner at a bar. It was a good night out with good people.

The next morning we woke up early, had a short breakfast and were on our way. The day was really mainly for traveling. Took a few detours when we ran into a snowstorm.

Not what I was expecting but some people had never seen snow before so it was fun to see their reactions. We stopped for lunch at one point but we really spent a lot of time on the bus and checking out the scenery. We rocked up to Wellington about 5:30 where we checked into our hostel and had a free dinner. Not the best, but any chance to save money is great. I then spent 15 dollars at the bar, so I kind of ruined that. Ran into a guy I had met at the hostel in Auckland when I went to watch the movie the morning I left for the tour. We were both shocked to see each other but talked a bit and ended up plotting a glacier museum. Had a great night out and left right before New Zealand played in the world cup. Tried washing the rotten eggs smell out of my hair, but it's still faintly there. Ah well, eventually it will come out. No ones complained yet so I think I'm good.

Got an early breakfast and had 3 hours to kill in Wellington

before we had to be on the bus, so myself and 6 others paid 20 dollars to go on a short tour to

WETA and a little around Wellington. WETA is the studio where they filmed some of Lord of the Rings and Narnia. Basically every Peter Jackson awesome New Zealand movie.

It was a cute tour, we killed 3 hours and just had fun. Afterward we boarded the bus and headed to

the ferry which I'm currently on. It's an absolutely beautiful day today. A bit chilly, but it's winter and I'm on a boat, so I'm not too bothered.

I mean, I'm I'm sitting on the deck of a ferry headed from the North Island to the South Island of New Zealand and the sun is shining. I am absolutely beyond content right now."

I've Returned!

In lieu of not having posted for more than a month, I've redone the entire layout just for you. Not really, it was more for me than you, but its a bonus. In addition, I'm actually updating my blog.
I have absolutely no excuse for not having written here aside from my ability to be easily distracted and the fact that there's nothing really interesting going on. I may be in Australia, but I still have to go to school. I could tell you whats going on in my classes, but I'd rather not. I already have to live through them once, doing it twice is just asking for me to fall asleep halfway through a sentence. Basically, all classes here are more about working on your own and they all follow the same format. You have your lecture with a large group and then your tutorials with smaller groups of 20 or fewer people to discuss readings and lectures.

Anyway, when last I left you, I was about to go into our 2 week break. Holidays were fun. Two weeks off of school? How could it not be? I did a bit of traveling around South Australia. My friend was driving to his hometown in Whyalla so I hitched a ride to spend some time there for the weekend, if anything to just get out of Adelaide for a bit. Its about a 5 hour trip so I got to see a bit of the countryside. And its a lot of nothing. Haha, some areas are really pretty. But some areas look like if someone was going to kill you, that's where they would bury the body. Anyway, to explain the picture I've added- this is one of my favorite Australian ideas, it's called a Driver Reviver. It's these stands they set up on holiday weekends when a lot of people are traveling. Basically you're supposed to take a break from driving every two hours and you can stop at these driver revivers to rest and have free coffee/juice/water/biscuits. We stopped and got to talk to some of the locals. I enjoy the little things :)

Spent a couple of days in Whyalla before coming back. A couple of days later I headed out on my actual trip. A friend and I went to Kangaroo Island. Its this little island about 3 hours away from Adelaide. It's a 2 hour drive and then about an hour ferry ride to get there. Then the beach house we were staying in was another hours drive from the ferry. I'd also like to mention at this point that there will be quite a few pictures involved in this post. The first couple of pictures are from the drive to the ferry. But continuing on.













We didn't actually get to Kangaroo island until pretty late at night so we had to find our way in the dark and had absolutely no idea what the place looked like until the next morning. We spent 4 days there and it was meant to rain the entire time but we got lucky and the times it did rain it really only rained at night. There was a couple of times when it got pretty overcast but it didn't stay like that for long and didn't stop us from exploring the area of the island we were on. The first picture is probably one of my favorite pictures. It wasn't honestly as stormy as it looks, but the way the sun hit the clouds and the rocks it makes it look really cool. The beach is the 'private' beach we had access to a few hundred feet away from our beach house. The picture to the right is a view from the beach house and you can see the path that leads to a hidden path which took us right down to the beach. We really just spent the days on the island hanging out and enjoying the beach. One day we went for a drive to a honey farm in the area that was supposedly famous and got some honey ice cream, which was delicious. However, I and my friend suspect I may have been allergic to the honey because I ended up with what I thought was ant bites but turned out to be hives later on.

Then, one day we went to this place called Magic Beach which was about 5-10 minutes down the road from us by car. It is quite possibly one of the most beautiful beaches I have seen here. It was this little cove surrounded by trees. Shady at parts, but sunny where it mattered and few waves. The area looked like not many people went to it. The water was blue, shallow and clear and the day was sunny and warm. We spent quite a bit of time there enjoying the beach. There was no one else around save for a small boat in the distance and it was a lot of fun. We stumbled on a couple of holes in the rocks surrounding the area which had water inside and what turned out to be a treasured trove of things from the ocean. There was the shell of a sea urchin, a crab, some beautiful shells and the absolute best part- a purple starfish of sorts. We're not entirely sure what it is although I did try to google it and the best I can describe it as is a purple cryptic star. It had 6 points and didn't look like anything I'd ever seen before.
On the last day we drove back to the ferry a few hours early so we ended up hanging out at a park in the town and getting some lunch. There was this outlook you could go walk out on that overlooked rocks where supposedly the penguins spend time. Oh, did I mention there are penguins on Kangaroo Island? Apparently there are, however we didn't have the fortune to see any. However! While we were checking out the ocean, we spotted dolphins. I'm including the picture and if you look close enough, you'll spot their fins sticking out of the water.

The rest of my break was spent not doing work even though I really meant to do that. Then once school started up again it was back to the daily grind. Last weekend, one of my friends and I went to a concert to see this awesome Australian band he had gotten me hooked on a while back. They were playing right around the corner and he got some kind of ticket that allowed us to hang out with the band for the night and so that was a lot of fun. I'm including the picture of us and the band to actually just show mom what my hair looks like. I dyed my hair again recently in an attempt to lighten it a bit and have been receiving weekly emails since I mentioned it requesting a picture of my hair. So here it is. You can stop asking. Love you :)

This all brings us to this weekend! Not much going on except some of the Americans decided to have a half year Halloween party since its autumn here. We all dressed up in costumes, had candy and enjoyed half Halloween, American style. I dressed up 80's and The Village People made an appearance. It was a blast. Adding a picture so, once again, mom can see my hair. Please ignore the largeness, that's just a side effect of the 80's. On a side note, I made the dress that Diana is wearing. It's a new spin on sheet chic! And don't you just love that epic gold jacket? 7 Dollars from Goodwill. Why anyone would give that thing up, God only knows.

Hopefully I will actually update again soon!
Love love love from Australia.

I've discovered that the most unfortunate thing about studying abroad in Australia is the actual studying part. Second on that list is getting sick. Both of which I've been doing.

So, a couple of weeks ago my computer decided to die. And by die I mean it chose to refuse to start up. After several hours of stressing, calling home and calling dell I had to reluctantly give in and have all my files moved to an external hard drive and then completely restore my computer to factory settings. A 220$ solution I wasn't too keen on. But I need my laptop and there was no other way around it. It's still a little wonky and I often have moments where I feel like the computer would be better off thrown out a window, but I'm stuck with it so I make do.

Since then I've just been doing the school thing. Classes, hanging out with friends, homework. One weekend our whole group got together and had an international night where everyone brought different food from their countries and we got to try a little bit of everything. Everyone had to get up and explain where their dish was from and the story behind it. We had so much food, it was crazy. The night was really fantastic.

Then, in my most recent stroke of bad luck, I happened to pick up some virus that was going around. I've just about gotten rid of it, but I've had it for a little over a week now. The first few days were the worst. Its honestly just a bad cough and some congestion but you cough enough and lose enough sleep that eventually your body is just worn out. I am lucky that I got that out of the way before vacation.

Starting Thursday afternoon, my 2 week vacation officially starts. I'm field tripping out to the second largest town/city thing in South Australia. And by large I mean, it's the size of Ridgefield. Population around 25,000. Nearly the entire population of South Australia is located in Adelaide. Anyway, I have a couple of friends who live there and there's a little festival going on so I'm hitching a ride with a friend and spending the weekend there for a bit of a mini vacation. I'll be coming back for a few days and then heading over to Kangaroo Island to explore with another friend. Kangaroo Island is a really gorgeous island about an hour and a half away from Adelaide that you have to take a ferry to get to. We're renting a beach house and spending a couple of days there just to enjoy some time off. This is where we're staying: http://www.blueseasbeachhouse.com.au/Default.shtml Check it out, it looks really beautiful.

I wanted to go to New Zealand over break but because of a holdup in finances I didn't get my scholarship until this past week. Around here, the closer you get to the date you want to book, the more expensive it is, not cheaper. So I'm just going to need to try and check out if I can fit New Zealand in at the end of my trip. I figure that my first week of break I'll take off and enjoy the beach and then the second half I'll buckle down, get a good chunk of my work done and then be able to take some weekend trips during the semester. At least that's the hope. Procrastination likes to rear its ugly head, gotta keep an eye out for him.

Anyways, nothing new to really report. Check in with me after break has started and I may have better stories for you :)

End of Break & Uni

It seems like this blog is going to turn into more of a weekly thing...with everything going on, by the time I get around to it, its late at night and I'm tired. We'll see what happens, but I have to give the warning not to expect this as frequently as it was.

I've also been asked by someone -ahem dad- to throw in some pictures of me from my week in Cairns when I held a python and went to the Great Barrier Reef. Please find those photos right here.




























So! Left off at O-Week. Really, there wasn't anything very notable about it after the first day. It's all your typical get everyone adjusted to the reality of school actually starting kind of thing.

Last Wednesday, the group of us international kids who regularly hang out, decided to have a barbecue. We're able to use the grills here in the village courtyard as long as we sign up that were using them. So, we all chipped in some money and got a bunch of food for about 20 or so of us. Good food, good friends, good conversations.

Thursday night was Skullduggery. Skullduggery is this massive party, thrown as a part of O-Week, at this club a few blocks away. A few of us girls got ready before meeting up with the rest of the village kids. We then walked over to meet some of our other friends at one of their places which was closer to the club. After a quick pit stop we headed over to what was quite possibly the biggest party I've ever been to. We were given strips of fabric that had the Skullduggery monogram on it to use as armbands/headbands/wristbands/etc and glowsticks. By the time we got there, there was already a ton of people and by the end of the night it was packed and they were turning people away. We spent the night dancing and just enjoying one of the last few days of break.

Decided to bum around Friday and then Saturday got up early to go on a wine tour with the group. It was a beautiful day and we had a blast.

We got picked up around the corner at a hostel before heading to a couple of other locations to pick up the rest of the group. From there, we spent about half an hour on the road before stopping shortly at the world's largest rocking horse. No, I'm not kidding. None of us really knew that we were going to stop there and it was a bit of a surprise for us too. We think they threw it in just to break up the drive. (The picture is of me on a normal rocking horse, the giant one is next to it but not in the picture) Discovered something of a petting zoo in the back and went to play. There were kangaroos, peacocks, alpacas and more. We entertained ourselves for the break before heading over to the bus to continue on our way to the Barossa Valley.

So the first winery we went to was Jacob's Creek, which was by far the best winery of the day. We had a quick tour before tasting about 12 different wines. The best was the very last one, a sparkling white wine called a Moscato. I highly advise going out and buying it. It's delicious and here the price is about 12 or 13 dollars. I would be surprised if it cost very much more than that back in the states- that is if you can find it. I'm including the picture so you know what to look for. The other 3 wineries kind of paled in comparison to Jacob's Creek, but were fun nonetheless. By the end of the day we had had more than enough wine and were ready to go home. We managed another random stop at the Whispering Wall on the way back where you were able to talk normally and people on the other side, 100m away, were able to hear you clearly. All in all, it was a really great way to end the week.

















Monday was my first day of uni and also the first day of Autumn here in Australia! I had my first class, History of Australia, with some of the international kids so we all met up and headed in. The professor showed up, turned on the projector and suddenly we were looking at the American flag. A few seconds later and the American national anthem was playing softly in the background. We all just stared at each other wondering if we were in the right class. The first 5 minutes was discussing why Australia is sometimes seen as the 51st state. It seemed like a funny way to start our first Australian university experience.

That was my only class Monday and Tuesday I started the day off early with Latin and then went to a class on Games, Festivals and Leisure in Ancient Greece. Now, this week has been mainly for me to see what classes I actually want to take. I absolutely loved the Greek class and was sold when he mentioned the last part would be about theatre. I decided to drop my History of Australia class since, despite wanting to learn about Australia, the Greek class would fulfill the same gen ed requirement AND count towards 12 credits I need of classes outside the drama department but relating to drama. Didn't hurt that the Greek class seems far more interesting. In dropping that class, I didn't have to go to the tutorial so I headed back to my apartment for a quick break before going back to campus for my Greek tutorial. Got there early so I sat in one of my new favorite spots in a courtyard on campus. I'm throwing in a picture I took while I was there :) Anyways, tutorials are pretty much small discussion groups and every class has one along with a lecture. Showed up to my tutorial and so did another girl. But no one else did. We left confused and only did I discover today that the tutorial I was signed up for had been canceled and I had to pick a new one.

I should probably note at this point that campus is about a half hour walk away or a 15-20 minute bus ride or a 5 minute tram ride (but you have to walk 5-10 minutes to get to the tram then another 10 minute walk after you get off) Its not too horrible, considering all of my options are free. They do have buses you can pay for, but why pay for a bus when you can take the free city bus?

Today was supposed to be my general music class on 1960s music, which I was really excited for. However, after sitting in the lecture for 2 hours listening to a geography lesson on New York, I decided it wasn't what I thought it was. I skipped out an hour early and headed to another class that had been mentioned to me and I had written down as a back up. The class was Power, Greed and Passion in Georgian London. It was absolutely fascinating and the professor was really interesting. The best part about the whole class is that her and a colleague of hers in America have recreated Georgian London in a virtual reality program. Part of the course is a research project in which we create avatars to live in this virtual reality. The tutorials are for us to work in the world. It's going to be a completely different way of learning and seemed really exciting. I left that lecture, headed straight to the computer lab to drop the music class and enroll in the history class. I then discovered that UConn does not offer Latin 2 in the first semester. I want to do my languages in 2 sequential semesters so I had to drop my Latin class as well. I quickly picked up an Anthropology class on people and emotions which will fulfill a general education requirement. So now, not only is my schedule completely different then when I started, but I have Mondays off. So I could take a long weekend and go travel somewhere if I wanted.

Well, that's it for now. More to come when I finish going to all my classes!

The Fringe & O-Week

Okay, so I'm not the best blogger out there. But I'm back now, see? Back to tell not so crazy stories about Australia :) Anyways...now to the stuff you want to hear.

So, The Fringe officially started this week. In preparation I went to see a preview of a Fringe show- King Lear. Pretty much, hands down, the worst staging of Shakespeare that I've ever seen. There were a couple of stand out actors that were way too good to be in a show like that but aside from that the lighting, costumes and set were just plain bad. They tried to be Brechtian about it...basically to show the bones of the production, which was a terrible idea. I left not pleased. However, I met a theatre critic who gave me some insight into other shows and another girl about my age who loves Shakespeare too and was just as appalled as I was by the performance.

Friday was the Fringe Parade to kick off the festival. We met up with some people,walked over to the street where it was being held and were met by thousands of people who were waiting for the parade to start. It seemed like everyone turned out for the parade. There were all kinds of floats and groups. There were a lot of roller derby girls and a lot of causes as well. There was a float about sun energy and a group whose theme was 'save your liver'. Overall, it was a really nice parade. After the parade finished, our group met up with more people and we attempted to go out despite the fact that pretty much the entire parade had descended upon the bars in the area. We wound up at one packed bar and decided to just stay and not have to fight another crowd of people elsewhere. We got some drinks and made friends with some of the Australians for a few hours before leaving. When we left, we walked over to Rundle Mall which was absolute chaos. The streets of Adelaide had turned into one giant party and the place had been trashed. I wasn't sure if I was in Australia or on the streets of New Orleans at Mardi Gras. A few of us decided we just wanted to get some food so we broke off from the group. We were able to find a place to eat and afterwards decided to call it a night on account of not wanting to deal with the craziness.

The next day I went to Amococo! I've been dying to go to this thing since I saw it on the fringe website when I first got here. Amococo is quite possibly the coolest art piece ever. Its this giant inflatable...tent of sorts. It deals with geometry and color and you can wander around inside. There are alcoves to sit in and rooms with different colors. So, the first chance I got I dragged a friend along and we went to go play in Amococo. The experience is honestly close to indescribable. It was a visual experience that can only be described visually, so please see the pictures below (the first is a picture of Amococo from the outside and yes thats me in the third picture)


That night I met up with my friend Brodie who I'd met back in Cairns. I mentioned him in an earlier post, he works as a theatre publicist for one of the shows in the fringe, The Vagina Monologues. We met up for dinner and talked about all the theatre things going on around here and he introduced me to his director. After we went to opening night of the show and it was really a well done piece. I've been meaning to see the show for a while and was glad that this was the first time I got to see it. The 5 actresses were extremely talented and it was a pleasure to watch. After the King Lear debacle, I was relieved to see a well done performance.

Monday kicked off the start of O-Week for the University of Adelaide. O-Week is essentially the week before classes where they set up booths and you can learn about different clubs, groups and the school in general. There are bands and games and at night there are parties and other activities. My roommate Sam and I got up and headed over Monday morning to check everything out. We went to the Vice Chancellor's speech where the speakers welcomed new students to the University. Afterwards, we headed to the booths and found they were giving out free stuff. We got 4 or 5 free goodie bags with info, food and other little things that we probably would never use but hey- free stuff. We ran into a group of our friends and walked around for a little while before settling in at the UniBar. Yes, there is a bar on campus. We watched the Olympics for a little bit before walking over to a park across the street to play frisbee and hang out. This was followed by lots of walking in an attempt to find an Olympic hockey game, which we found out wasn't being broadcast. We decided to end the day there and headed back.

This all brings us to today! (I really need to stop going so long between posts) Went shopping for a little bit this afternoon. Probably need to stop that...not entirely sure how I'm going to get everything back. Oh well, I can deal with that a few months from now. Bought a couple of dresses in my attempt to blend into Adelaide society. Everyone dresses up here. When you go out, you can be turned away if you're not dressed up or not wearing closed toed shoes. My wardrobe was definitely lacking a bit of that class. At 7, the University was sponsoring a showing of a movie on the lawn and Sam and I decided to go and meet up with the group. We got there only to find out the event was definitely lacking and we were better off not staying. We left and walked back to the apartment complex where, after much debate and some obstacles, we ended up just sitting around talking for the rest of the night.

Think thats all for now! Going to try and post again soon :)

The Garden of Unearthly Delights

Adelaide is probably one of the most amazing cities on the face of the planet with so much to do. Everything is so clean, its a large city but easy to get around, and there's tons of free transportation around the city if you don't feel like walking.

Yesterday, our apartment complex, aka The Village, had a BBQ for the residents in the courtyard across from our apartment. So after I had my inspection (pretty much just to see if anything needed to be fixed in the apartment) I headed down for free food. I ended up spending a couple hours in the courtyard meeting and talking to people from all over. A couple of the girls and I decided to head out that afternoon to go shopping and check out the Garden of Unearthly Delights.

We took a free tram over to East Terrace and went shopping in an outdoor market that's put on every Saturday. It was on a street that had been blocked off and was basically goods that people had made and shops that were putting out discounted clothes. One of the first booths we stopped at was a magic shop selling tricks and in doing so, putting on a free show to display the tricks you could buy. We wandered around for a little bit before heading to the end of the street and the Garden of Unearthly Delights.

Now, coming up in Adelaide is something called the Adelaide Fringe Festival which is this giant arts festival held for 3 and a half weeks in the parks surrounding Adelaide. It's the second biggest Arts festival in the world and there's over 200 events going on every day. There's live music, theatre, puppetry, comedy, art, anything you could possibly think of that has to do with the visual arts pretty much. The Garden of Unearthly Delights is something like a precursor to the fringe. For about a week in a park in the east terrace is this great big circus of sorts. There's booths, carnival rides, bands and various sideshows. There's even something called a silent disco which was started in some European country. What they do is give you headphones and you're tuned into a frequency. Everyone dances to the music on their headphones so anyone walking by will just see a large group of people dancing in silence.

The weather has been absolutely beautiful around here- between 30 and 35 degrees Celsius which is something around 85 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit with a cool breeze that keeps it comfortable. Staying inside just seems like a crime.

Later that night, one of my apartment mates showed up. Shes from Indiana and is about American as they come and incredibly nice and friendly. We spent the night talking and watching Castle. We've also come to the definite conclusion that we're sharing the apartment with two boys and are now just awaiting their arrival.

Cairns & Adelaide!

So, its been a while. I'm going to try and update everything in this post! This one will at least have pictures now that I can upload.

Lets see what you've been missing.

I went white water rafting! It was so much fun! There were about 10 of us from the group and we were on the Barron River, which is a level 3. (They go up to 6 but 6 is more along the lines of a 'this water will kill you') We would go on some rapids and then get out of the boat and be able to float along the river. We alternated between the two for an hour and a half and then we all got back on the bus and went back to an outdoor bar for water, chips and just to hang out. There was even a couple from England on the trip who told us it'd taken them 24 hours of traveling just to get to Australia.

The next day we planted trees for Cassowaries (Giant Australian bird...just google it, they're hard to explain) And after a long shower, a bunch of us headed out. We went to a Greek restaurant and bought lamb gyros. Every so often you'd hear an 'opa!' from the back and the sound of a plate breaking. Following, we walked to a gelato shop where I got cinnamon gelato. It was just a nice night out.

The last full day we were there, we went to the Great Barrier Reef. By far the best day of the trip. We left early on the boat and spent an hour and a half tanning before we got to the first site, Michaelmas Cay. There was a smaller boat that took us to an island where we put on flippers, goggles and snorkels and started swimming around the reef. There were these suits we had to wear called stinger suits, full out blue body suits that prevented us from being stung by little jellyfish that could kill us. Thanks, Australia, for more dangerous animals. There was a stingray and a turtle and tons of fish. After spending a couple hours on that part of the reef we got back on the boat, had lunch and headed to the second site. I decided right before lunch that I wanted to go scuba diving. I was technically supposed to have gone at the first site first, to learn scuba diving and I was also supposed to have listened to a safety talk...neither of which I did. I talked to the guys in charge and they said we could work something out...So at the second site one of the instructors briefed me on what I needed to know. I was taught how to equalize my ears, how to clear out water from my goggles, what the sign for shark was...etc. Because I was the only person going for the first time at the second site, the instructor took me by myself, so I basically got a private lesson, which was awesome. He held on to me for the first 10 minutes to get me adjusted and help me swim further down. Then he let go and we swam around the reef, he showed me a sea sponge that stuck when he put it on my hand! Then we found a starfish that he put on my goggles and it stayed. I also saw a family of clown fish (think finding nemo!) and a ton of other gorgeous fish that were all colors of the rainbow. We spent 40 minutes at the depth before heading back and I had enough time to get out of the scuba gear and go snorkeling for another 20 minutes. At the end we all got back on the boat and headed back for Cairns. That night I met a guy at the hostel we were staying at who was from Adelaide. We got to talking and it turned out he was a theatre publicist and promised me a free ticket for one of the shows at the upcoming Adelaide Fringe (http://tix.adelaidefringe.com.au/ticketing/home.aspx) It also turned out it was his birthday that day so a bunch of us got dressed up and went to the casino for a few hours.

The following day I left for Adelaide. I spent another 5 hours on a plane before finally arriving in Adelaide, was picked up by a car and taken to The Village, my apartment complex. After getting info I was taken to my room where I made my bed and immediately fell asleep. Woke up early the next morning and headed out to explore. My first stop was to the university and the international student centre. I filled out a form and they told me about an overview session later that day that I could attend. I headed out and across the street to the Rundel Mall. The Mall was absolutely gorgeous. Its basically a street full of shops with more streets off of it called arcades that are full of more shops. It took all my effort not to go shopping for clothes and just get the essentials. I got some lunch from an underground food court. On a side note, lamb is super easy to come by here, so I was able to get a lamb yiros, complete with fresh vegetables and a garlic tzatziki sauce from one of the food places. Absolutely delicious. After, I was able to hunt down what I needed and head back to the university in time for the info session. I met a guy from Boston and his roommate, who was from Giza. Its absolutely fascinating the melting pot of nationalities that Adelaide has attracted. After getting more information, a free bag and water bottle, I got on the free bus that makes a loop around Adelaide and got back to my apartment. After resting a bit, I headed back out to the Adelaide Central Market, which is a couple blocks down the street from me. Its basically this huge indoor market full of fresh produce and food. I was able to get a loaf of freshly baked wholegrain bread, turkey, cheese and all kinds of fruits (including passionfruit and star fruit) and some other things for under 35 dollars. Next to the market and closer to my apartment is Adelaide's Chinatown, which is much cleaner and nicer than New York's. I have yet to venture through, but be sure that is on my list.

This all brings us to today. I woke up early and hung around the apartment a little bit before getting ready and heading back out to the market where I picked up hangers and some other essentials that I've really been needing. Came back to the apartment and finally got a chance to clean. I'm only adding one picture of my room in my apartment but the place is large. I have my own room and down the hallway is another hallway. There are 4 rooms all together and there are 2 bathrooms. When you first walk in there's a kitchen, a dining area and a living area. Its more than enough room and all air conditioned. My apartment mates have yet to move in but I should meet them soon.

So that's about it for now! I should be updating again sometime this week.
xo