For the past couple days, I have been at an intensive surf camp! I decided to go kind of on a whim, still fresh off my New Zealand trip “I can travel anywhere, and go by myself” attitude. My closest American friends here came with a study abroad program, and they were having a special trip this weekend, so they weren’t going to be here at all. And obviously I don’t have any problem exploring Sydney by myelf, but I remember one of the things I’d said in my pre-Australia days that I wanted to do was surf, not really knowing [View Full Entry]

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So, to continue the Tasmania adventure... On Saturday morning we had to be up at the bright and early hour of six thirty so we could be on the road by seven thirty. However, this was made slightly better by the fact that our room was next to the kitchen so we actually got to eat breakfast in our pajamas, which made me feel like I was at home. :) The first place we visited in the morning before heading out of Bicheno was this really cool blowhole down by the beach. I've never seen one of those before but it's [View Full Entry]

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First off, I just wanted to say thanks so much to those of you guys who have written me long emails about your lives…it just TOTALLY makes my day when I get back from a trip to emails in my inbox from you all. I just sit at my computer laughing my head off or talking back to the screen. (Because I am cool like that.) So, the past four days I had a wonderful and relaxing experience in Tasmania! For those of you who don’t know where it is, Tasmania is just the little heart shaped island to the south [View Full Entry]

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Day 7: Thursday, September 27 This morning was BAD. Dana and I didn’t get back till past 1:30 in the morning the previous night and we had to be up at the horrendous hour of 6:30 am! I was pretty groggy, but luckily we were doing a ton of driving that day, so I slept for several more hours on the bus. (Scotty had an amazing “sleepy mix” which literally made everyone conk out - the music was soooo mellow.) We had several stops along the way at (try to guess) LAKES, and this one beautiful waterfall called Thunder Creek Falls. [View Full Entry]

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In advance, congratulations to anyone who is not my parents who is actually reading all of this...hehe! Day 4: Monday, September 24 Today was our earliest start because we had a lot of driving to do. We were up at SIX AM. Even though I hadn’t gotten much sleep, it wasn’t terrible, because it was a beautiful clear morning and breakfast was really good. If it hadn’t been for the fact that we got a hearty breakfast every morning I would have had no motivation to get up whatsoever…haha. Once we got on the bus, everyone was pretty much asleep instantly. [View Full Entry]

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The past week of my life has seriously been a whirlwind of natural wonder upon natural wonder, added to even further by an amazing group of people, a lot of laughter, great songs, and general merriment. Two of the other girls I traveled with were writing in a travel journal every day, but since I didn’t bring any paper, I wanted to start writing about the trip as soon as I got home! I’ve only been back in Sydney for a couple hours (and yes, it most definitely feels like home), but I wanted to write about all of this while [View Full Entry]

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So, I just have two hours of class tomorrow and then I am OFFICIALLY on my mid semester break! (Yes, I have class Friday, but I am skipping it. hehe.) And it's not actually a mid semester break because when we get back we only have four weeks of class left! Yesss. The draft timetable for finals just came out too and I'm pretty pleased with when mine are scheduled - my first one is almost two weeks after classes end so that means I can do some weekend trips or random trips during the week! And my last one is [View Full Entry]

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So we got our pictures developed from our ridiculously overpriced disposable underwater camera, so here are some of them! It's totally worth it to see me looking like an alien underwater. These REALLY don't even come close to doing the coral justice - it wasn't too good a camera and I personally think that even the best cameras can't capture that ethereal, other-worldly quality of the AMAZING underwater world. :) Today, I woke up nice and late, walked all the way to Paddy's Market because it's a fun walk and it was BEAUTIFUL out, and got myself a big purse that [View Full Entry]

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Hey everyone! So here are just a few of the MANY photos I have from the trip this past weekend. If you have access to facebook, don't bother looking since they should all be up on facebook anyway and these are just my favorites. Enjoy! [View Full Entry]

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A short summary of what I did this past weekend: - Petted some kangaroos - Swam in a rainforest gorge - Played a digeridoo - Saw some crocodiles - Walked on a deserted beach in a town containing 500 people - SCUBA DIVED FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE GREAT BARRIER REEF (I'm kind of the most excited about that, in case you can't tell) - Went to a casino for the first time and played slot machines - Held a koala (sooooo touristy, I know, but it was still cute) Now I am going to commence an extremely long version [View Full Entry]

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