North and South

It's almost spring break!!!  All I have left for the week is Macro today and Australian History tomorrow and then it's a full week off of school...yesssss.  This post is called North and South because for spring break, our group is going to be heading north to Broome, and then south to Margaret River.

Broome

So at 7:30 on Saturday morning, our whole Notre Dame group is piling in a bus, heading to the airport, and flying up to Broome, Australia.  This trip is actually a field trip through our Australian History class, so it wasn't planned by us and we don't really know what to expect (besides blazing sunshine and temperatures in the low- to mid-90's throughout the week...eek).  The point of the trip is for us to be able to experience the Australian Outback and spend some time learning about Aborigines and Aboriginal culture, so that will definitely be part of it.  I think we're supposed to be camping in tents, and they told us to bring only old clothes because we're going to be getting really sweaty and dirty.  

We haven't gotten any kind of itinerary because the schedule is going to be very  spontaneous and dependent on the a lot of different factors that could change day-to-day, such as the schedules of the Aborigines we're supposed to visit, etc.  They even told us not to bring a watch so that we can relax and not feel like we have to keep to any kind of schedule.  I'm really excited for this trip, mostly because it sounds it will be a completely new experience (and I haven't been camping in forever lol).  AND Broome is supposed to have some of the world's most beautiful beaches, including Cable Beach, which I'm pretty sure we're going to be visiting.  My only concern is that my camera battery has to last me five days because I won't have any place to recharge it!

So we're going to be in Broome from Saturday until Thursday, when we'll fly back to Perth.  Then we'll have a night in Perth and leave Friday for our trip to Margaret River!

Margaret River

Margaret River is one of the top destinations in Western Australia, mostly because it's a famous wine region.  Kids from previous semesters told us that it's one of the places we need to go while we're here, so one of the girls in our group organized this trip through a travel company and pretty much all of the Notre Dame kids are going.

We're starting out Friday driving south from Perth, and during our drive there, we'll be making stops at several spots to swim (once with dolphins) and check out the scenery (and, of course, eat).  Friday night we're staying in Margaret River.

Then Saturday we'll be going to the forests to check out a 61-metre tree to climb and do a treetop canopy walk.  Then we're heading to another beach for a swim and driving to Albany, where we'll stay the night.

Sunday will be more time to check out the coastline and then to a winery before we head back to Perth.

The itinerary they gave us goes into wayyy more detail than that, but #1. I don't feel like typing it all out and #2. I figure I'll write a much more detailed post when I get back.

So basically, my spring break should be AMAZING and I'm so pumped for it! 

The end :)

Drowned Rat.

That's what I looked like by about 9:30 this morning.  When I left Port Lodge to go run this morning, I noticed the storm clouds gathering over the water but didn't think much of it because it hasn't rained that much here lately.  Well, I got literally halfway through my run - that is, a good mile or more away from the dorm - when the skies opened up and the rain and wind started up like I've never seen here before.  I was going to try to run through it, but when I turned around, the rain was pelting me in the face so hard that I couldn't see, so I ran over an area that was sort of sheltered by some trees.  Several older people were waiting there with their dogs (and raincoats) and I actually met a lady who was from Alabama but moved here years ago.  When the rain slowed down, they all left and I decided it wasn't worth waiting for it to stop, so I high-tailed it through the wind and the rain back to Port Lodge and by the time I got back, there was not a dry spot left on me.  Needless to say, a hot shower was the first order of business and I've spent the rest of the day indoors and in sweats.

Yesterday was not nearly as lazy though.  Me, Katie, and Andria decided we wanted to finally go find King's Park (since our last try was basically a failure), so we packed lunches and took the 12:15 train to Perth.  Once we got there, we just had to hop on a bus and then walk a little ways to get to the park, and it was definitely worth it.  We sat on one of the lawns overlooking the city and ate our lunch, then spent a couple of hours just walking around and taking pictures (which I am uploading to Picasa as I type).  The park is GORGEOUS - amazing views, beautiful flowers and trees, and just a really peaceful atmosphere.  Some parts of it, like the big lawn with the duck pond, really reminded me of something from a Jane Austen novel.  After a few hours of walking, we were pretty tired, so we were really relieved to find a bus stop a lot closer to the park than the one we were dropped off at.  Our reward for all our walking was McDonald's $0.50 ice cream when we got back to Perth, and we were actually on the way out the door when we were stopped in our tracks by an amazing-looking chocolate concoction called a mud muffin, which we proceeded to split.  All in all definitely a successful trip :)

Saturday night was spent watching the first Lord of the Rings with the guys in my New Zealand road trip group.  Seeing all the ridiculous scenery in that movie just made me even more excited to go there, and we're watching the second movie tonight so I'll be even more excited after that!

Friday was a great day too, actually.  In Australian History we watched an Australian movie from the 80's called Galipolli (staring a very young Mel Gibson) about Australia's role in the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during WWI.  It was a really interesting movie, and since we didn't have tutorial I was done with class at 10:30.  After lunch I went shopping for cheap clothes and shoes for our trip to Broome (the Outback) next week during Spring Break and was able to find everything I needed, which was a relief!  But THEN, I found some other kind of cheap clothes...Katie and Andria had told me about this store that just opened that was having a huge sale and had some really cute clothes, so about half of the Port Lodge girls went to check it out that afternoon.  All I have to say is AMAZING.  This store is amazing.  It had loads of really cute shirts and almost everything was under $15.  I tried on nothing over $10 and bought two shirts for a total of $14.  I think literally all the girls now own something from there.  We're in love.

After that discovery, a few of us went to footy practice, but there was hardly anyone there so we just did a lot of kicking again.  I'm pretty proud to say I haven't missed a single practice yet.  Later that night was the Uni ball, which a lot of us decided not to go to since it was so expensive ($130...yeah it's an open bar but I think if I tried to drink $130 worth of alcohol I would die).  So, we dressed up anyway and went out to a really nice restaurant called Char Char Bull.  I got a fancy gourmet-ish pizza which was delicious, but honestly I'm happy with Pizza Hut cheese pizza so it doesn't take much to please me.  The experience was fun though.  Later we went out to the bar where the after-party for the bar was held, so we got to meet up with all the kids who went.  

Alright, well I think we're about to watch Lord of the Rings, so I better go.  Only one more week of class before Spring Break!  I'll try to post again before I leave.  Hope y'all have a great week!

<3

BOO.

THIS IS ME BEING MAD.

"Why?", you ask (and even if you don't I'm going to tell you anyway).  BECAUSE I found out my final exam schedule today, and here's how it looks:

Monday, November 10: Christology at 2 PM

Tuesday, November 11: Asia Culture at 2 PM

Wednesday, November 12: Australian History at 9 AM

Friday, November 14: Business in Asia at 9 AM

Wednesday, November 19: Macroecon at 2 PM

If you're wondering why I bolded, italicized, and basically made obnoxious November 11, it's because that's my birthday.  My 21st, to be exact.  Not only do I have an exam on my 21st birthday, I also have one the next morning at 9 AM.  9 AM.

I'm aware that you can probably hear my whining voice right now from all the way on the other side of the world, but seriously? SERIOUSLY?!

Boo. Boo. Boo.

2-0 Baby!

...2-0 not as in how old I am, but in the current win-loss record of the Fighting Irish!  Staying up to watch the game last night just wasn't going to happen, so I went to bed a little pessimistic (yeah, I admit it) about how we would do against the Wolverines.  But at 7 am I was woken up by the screams of Andria and Katie (who actually managed to stay up to watch it) that we had beaten Michigan!!  Even though it was 7 in the morning and therefore much too early for me to even contemplate being awake, I was so glad to hear that news that I didn't even care.  I then promptly went back to sleep and woke up at 10 to watch the highlights on NBC's website.  SO AWESOME.  It feels so good to be a winning team again!

Let's see, other fun things that happened this week...

I finally had some authentic Australian food!  On Saturday Katie and I went to the markets for lunch, which is something we've been talking about doing since the first time we went because they have a bunch of food vendors with food that looks sooo good.  But yesterday was the first time we actually went, so we split a meat pie and a sausage roll and they were DELICOUS.  Then we stopped by the Old Shanghai food court and split a banana berry smoothie on the recommendation of a girl who was in the Freo program last spring...again, delicious.  

I got my second piece of mail on Friday...a postcard from Ang of Notre Dame stadium :)  My first piece of mail was also a postcard from Ang from Hawaii.  I was way excited to actually get some mail; it definitely made my day.  And hopefully I'll be getting some more mail soon in the form of my Qantas voucher (my fingers are crossed).  Some of our group have gotten theirs, and I actually had a dream that I got mine, but somehow I think Qantas might prefer an actual paper voucher over a dream one.

On Thursday (I think) our New Zealand group started planning our itinerary for the week that we're going to be spending there and so far it's sounding amazing and I'm so so excited for it.  So far it looks like it's going to involve hiking, sea kayaking, camping, seeing volcanoes, white water rafting, skydiving, checking out the hot springs, zorbing, and you know, just being in awe of the amazing New Zealand landscape.  Cities/stops include Christchurch, Arthur's Pass National Park, Greymouth, Abel Tasman National Park, Tongariro, Taupo, Rotorua, and Auckland.  Basically we will have no time to sleep, but that's ok...I can sleep when I get back in the US :)

Speaking of travel plans, it's looking like I'm not going to be going anywhere during study week.  A bunch of us really want to go to Thailand, but with the political situation over there right now it's just not really an option.  Some kids are going to Bali for that week, but I just don't see it happening for me right now.  It's alright though because at least a few of my friends will still be in Freo for the week, so we'll probably just spend it going to the beach and doing fun things around here...and studying, of course :)

We had a really fun footy practice on Friday.  Only 7 of the girls showed up, so we just practiced with the boys.  I'm getting better at kicking, although I'm not too great at kicking long distances.  It was lightly raining for pretty much all of practice, which made the ball a lot harder to catch, but we still had a good time.  We were actually supposed to have a scrimmage today against another team, but it got cancelled, which was definitely for the best.  We still haven't even practiced any game-type situations in practice!  I want to make sure I bring a footy back with me when I go home so I can keep playing...it's seriously a lot of fun.

School work is actually really picking up now, so pretty much from now until the end of October I'm going to have a lot of work.  I guess that's what I get though for having basically no work since the beginning of class until now though.  

Also, I've been putting more pictures up on Picasa, so feel free to check them out!  I think that's about it for now...bye!

Christmas + Football = Good weekend

So the rest of my week went something like this:

- Wednesday: Study for my macroeconomics test.  Break for weekly $0.50 ice cream from McDonalds.

-Thursday: Study for my macroeconomics test.  Take my macroeconomics test.  I think it was definitely easier than what we had been preparing for, which was a nice change from ND.  Thursday night was community dinner, and then me and some of the group went out to a place called the Claremont Hotel, which is now probably one of my favorite places that we've been so far.  It's a shorter train ride, it's literally right next to the train station, the drinks were decently cheap, there was no cover, they played great music, and most importantly...it's where all the attractive Australians have been hiding! Lol.

-Friday: Went to Australian History and tutorial.  Tutorial was great this week because #1: our group won the "draw a typical Australian" contest from last week so we got Tim Tams and #2: it ended 30 minutes early.  After class I did laundry (FINALLY - my room was actually starting to smell...gross) and made sugar cookie dough for Christmas day!  We had footy practice at 4:30, which was fun like always.  I never want to actually go, but then when we're done I'm always glad I did.  It could be that the reason it's so fun is that none of us actually know what we're doing, so we're constantly messing up and laughing hysterically about it.  Friday night some of us went to a bar here in Freo called Newport, which we've been to before.  The music was alright, but there were some sketchy people there that night.  We ended up leaving and coming back though, and when we came back we danced right at the front by the band and they played some awesome American rock songs (plus an Australian one that I love), so it was a ton of fun to dance to them.  Then we went to check out this place called The Clink, which was pretty cool because all you can see of it from the street is one door (it looks like a tiny alley), so once you go in it's a huge hall and then you have to go downstairs to get to the actual place.

-Saturday: Christmas day!  We started watching movies around 10, starting with Elf.  Some of the guys actually made cookies/baked yummy things, so we sat around in our PJs watching and eating, which was fantastic.  After Elf was a Christmas episode of Grey's Anatomy, then Secret Santa.  I was surprised how many people decided to do it - 18 of us.  Exchanging the gifts was a ton of fun and some of them were realllly funny.  For my person I got a personalized Spongebob Squarepants sippy cup, and I got a hilarious mug, two decks of cards, and a picture frame with a picture of a bunch of the group.  After that was Muppet Christmas Carol and helping Betsy get ready for the UWA dance, complete with fashion show in her room to vote on which dress she should wear.  Then later we watched Love Actually (ok, I actually watched it twice).  People were baking seriously all day - sugar cookies, egg nog, an attempt at chocolate covered pretzels that resulted in burned chocolate and eventually just trail mix.  And I had cookie dough and icing that I didn't even bake because there was so much other stuff.  For dinner, our cooking group made chicken/stuffing/gravy in a pan with mashed potatoes....it was SO good.  I think Will and Kate, our RS's, think we are insane for getting so into the whole Christmas thing, but whatever, it was fun.  

As far as Notre Dame football goes, we can't watch the games here until 3:30 in the morning since we're 12 hours ahead.  I should really have napped before since I woke up so early, but instead a bunch of us went to a bar here called Sail & Anchor, then to Hungry Jacks, then Jackie and Erin and I played on the playground for a little while :)  To actually watch the game, one of the girls here had her mom point her webcam to the TV so we could watch via Skype, so the quality wasn't exactly stellar.  It was definitely better than nothing, but it made it sort of hard to really focus on.  We all piled in the upstairs common room to watch though, and I ended up falling asleep during half time (and maybe a couple times before...).  I finally went to bed during the 3rd quarter, and when I walked back to my room it was already getting light outside, which was really depressing.  

Saturday was my first home game at ND away from ND, and it was kind of really sad to think about how everyone was there for gameday and we're so far away.  I really miss it.

Anyway, then yesterday I slept in for a looong time, went to the market, mass, etc.  I have nothing due this week (yay!) but I really need to start working on some of these long-term assignments so they don't all pile up at the end of the term.

I guess that's all for now!

<3

Just realized today...

...that we only have 7 1/2 weeks of classes left.  Whoa.  We've already been through 5 1/2 weeks of class, which means we're almost halfway done.  When did that happen?!?  Classes will end on Halloween (which means that night is going to be extremely fun), then we'll have a week of study days and two weeks of exams.  This is insane!

We had footy practice on Monday, but there were only 8 of us there so we couldn't do very much.  We did find out though that we have a scrimmage in 2 weeks about 3 hours south of here, which was sort of startling.  We're definitely not ready, but it should be fun anyway.

Yesterday me, Katie and Erin had our first day helping out at the Homework Centre in Fremantle.  It was pretty fun; the little boy I was helping was adorable but it was really hard to make him focus on his homework.

Christmas day plans are progressing...we drew names for Secret Santa today, and I bought the ingredients to make icing for the sugar cookies.  I think people are getting pretty excited about it :)

Anyway, the main purpose of this post is to say:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!! Love you!

And now I need to go study for my macroecon test tomorrow...

<3

Post-semester travel plans!

I booked my end-of-semester travel plans today!  I'm going to be spending 2 weeks after the semester traveling around Australia and New Zealand and I am SO excited about it.  Here's the game plan:

November 22

The dorms close and we have to leave.  We're catching a late morning flight to Cairns with a short layover in Ayers Rock.  I'm starting out with Andria, Katie, Jackie, Sam and Erin. We get into Cairns at 5:20 that day and have Saturday and all of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef (!!!) and lay out on the beach and explore the town. Michael, Kevin and Tom are meeting up with us in Cairns that Sunday to travel with us the rest of the way.

November 26

On Wednesday we have an early morning (6:50 am...eek) flight to Sydney which will arrive there late morning.  We'll have the rest of the day Wednesday, then all day Thursday and Friday to check out Sydney.  I'm so so so excited to see Sydney.

November 29

On Saturday the 29th, we have a morning flight to Christchurch, New Zealand, which is on the South Island.  We'll spend the first four or so days on the South Island checking out places like Queenstown (for skydiving!) and other awesome spots.  After that, four of the girls are flying out to go to Fiji and Hawai'i, and me, Erin, Tom, Kevin and Michael are going to make our way up to the North Island to visit it for a few days.  We're going to try to do the Lord of the Rings tour and possibly go Zorbing, which is where you roll down hills in a giant plastic ball thingy.  I seriously can't wait.

December 6

We leave Auckland (North Island) on the evening of Saturday the 6th, and actually get to LA the morning of Saturday the 6th because of the time zone craziness. 

So that's pretty much it!  As of right now the countdown to departure stands at 81 days :)