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Published: August 4th 2008
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SO, I HAVE OFFICIALLY BEGUN THIS TRAVEL BLOG! I will start with a general overview on what I've been up to & what my location is like.
My roommates are great. There are 2 guys (Kenji & Clay) & 2 girls (Casey & Amanda) and they are all awesome in their own way. We are getting along really well, everyone cooks, most of us take turns cleaning up the kitchen & doing all the dishes, and we all like each other. We have been watching Matt Damon movies like every night. Every night we aren't drinking that is. Which is becoming more frequent now that school has started. We live in a complex with 5 other apartments and all of them are international. There is a good mix of European and American students, which makes it a little more interesting. I like almost everyone in the building, though there are a couple drama queens.
We are hooked up, full kitchen, some main utensils, microwave, fridge, stove & oven (no dishwasher), we have a laundry washer & dryer in the main hall, two couches, a tv & dvd player & no heat. They sorta dropped the ball there. Actually, it's
funny- NONE of my classrooms are heated either. Apparently Aussies don't believe in heating. They are very energy efficient. 4 minute showers b/c of the drought, very water & recycling conscious, and all of the outlets in our house have a switch above them so they can be turned off completely when not in use. I have a single room too, which is even better. Wood floors, white walls, blue curtains and lots of light. No closets or drawers though, just a rack.
I also really like COFA. The campus is really cool. All of my professors are really interesting and all of my (5) classes seem pretty sweet too. I am overloading a little.. I'm taking etching (for fun), web design & interface (to get a job), responsive objects or spaces (a follow up to processing, which i took last semester & besides, the professor asked me to be in the class), intro to flash design (which looks so awesome) & art history: gender, sexuality & the body (also looking pretty cool). The school is really small, with 2000 undergrads, and I already love being around all art majors. It's in the middle of Paddington, a really neat
artsy suburb of Sydney & is only 25 min. away by bus. It's so much better than the 45 minute commute to main campus, so thank goodness all of my classes are there. Now that classes are starting, I'm getting to meet some more people too, which is really nice. However, we only have class once a week so I haven't really talked to anyone outside of class yet.
two weekends ago I went to see one of the biggest rugby games I could possibly find & hope to see: The New Zealand All Blacks vs. the Qantas Wallabies (Australia). I was cheering for the All Blacks and they lost, but I still think they're the best. The game was huge- 80,000 people were there in the stadium. Very cool experience overall.
I also bought a surfboard, wetsuit, and all of the things that come with it (grip, ankle strap, fins, wax comb, etc) all for 450 with the promise that they will buy the board back at half in the end. Not a bad deal. I'm looking for a similar one on a guitar.
Finally, I just spent the last weekend on the Blue Mountains excursion
led by Arcadia. One day was spent visiting this wildlife reserve where we got to see & touch kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, emu's, sheep & goats. There were some beautiful birds there too & an amphibian house with all the poisonous stuff. There was also a huge crocodile & dingos and these crazy looking flying foxes (which are really furry, big bats). We then stopped at an Aboriginal community & one Aboriginal man & his sons/family gave a performance including a dance & playing the yakama (or diggeridoo) in full formal cultural garb & paint. We saw some ancient sites & he talked about the infiltration of settlers/modern culture moving ever closer to these places. Then we threw around some boomerangs. The aboriginal man & I started talking and by the end, he gave me a big hug & told me I had "great energy". That was definitely a compliment and a very cool experience 😊. We stayed at this really nice hostel and watched the rugby game on TV. I went for a walk around the area... the stars were absolutely stunning out in the mountains where there isn't any light pollution. In the morning we all got up at
6:30 AM and drove a little deeper up into the mountains to this Absailing (or repelling) site. This means an outdoor group took us all & got us suited up in harnesses & helmets and took us repelling down rocks that were 9ft, 18ft, 80ft and 180ft (YES, ONE HUNDRED & EIGHTY FEET). The cliff was enormous and there were some intense rope systems going on, using the redundant system which backs every rope up with at least one other rope. We started small to get comfortable but everyone repelled the huge cliff in the end. There was about 10m of rock and then it was freefall the rest of the way. Talk about an incredible view of the valley. We ended the day by going to the rainforest & walking around an old miner's site, then crossing the valley in a gondola and walking to see the 3 sisters- 3 rock formations with a mythical aboriginal story about 3 sisters turned to stone. I will have to post pictures when I get them. Unfortunately, my camera battery died and I am relying on group photos to surface on facebook. When that happens, I'll post them here.
I've also
signed up for a trip to go to the Great Barrier Reef in Cairns over my spring break and am working on finding some friends to go to New Zealand. My roommates are doing NZ over spring break, so I might try to switch some things around and go with them then, but I HAVE to make it to the GBR. I am also on a trip to go to Tasmania over Halloween weekend.
Finally, I LIVE ON THE BEACH.
😊
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