yay, so here's some links to my photo albums. You DO NOT need a facebook account to look at them.
These are from Melbourne. The first half is from my graffiti tour. There's a lot but they're really pretty/interesting. Look closely, there are so many details. Then there's some stuff about architecture (all for you mom). It was all on display outside the Victoria museum...which is where the rest of the pictures are from.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2841489&id=8376733&l=497d2f8434
These are from my walk from Coogee to Bondi on the Sunday before we left for Cairns:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2841485&id=8376733&l=b6ed1acf9c
This is the first Cairns album. It has pics from the "jungle tour" - wildlife center, mossman gorge, river cruise, and cape tribulation beach
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2841482&id=8376733&l=edba3fc6a1
So much to say, so little time. Basically...the last week has quite possibly been the best of my life (minus writing a paper until 7 am this morning, but that's just how my life goes...ahah)
Last Sunday I went to Coogee beach for the first time and had a sandwich that was in the top 5 meals I’ve eaten since I’ve been here. Then Allison, Liz, Carla, my new-ish friend Luke and I walked from Coogee all the way to Bondi Beach. You would think I'd be used to the beauty that is the ocean blue...postcard-like pictures to come, I promise. Monday night was pretty chill...we stayed in, pretended to pack, and we watched Point Break....a surfer/bank heist movie w/Keanu Reaves and Patrick Swayze that our surf instructors told us to watch forever ago...it was quite possibly one of the most ridiculous movies I’ve ever seen. it's impossible to explain why until you see it...
For some reason, I decided to pull an all-nighter cuz Liz and I watched Nip/Tuck until 3 am, and I had to finish packing/cleaning my flat so the cleaning ladies would actually clean it when we were gone...we had to leave for our flight at 5 am so I guess I figured no sleep was better than 20 minutes…
Right so, in Cairns Tuesday we just chilled by the “Lagoon” which is just a huge man-made pool-ish thing where everyone goes to lay out and get some sun because the nearest beaches are 20 min away. We checked out the mall which was right across the street from the hostel we stayed at on the first night. We were all obviously exhausted and had to be up really early again the next morning so we decided to go see Fame (pretty good…I feel like it was rushed, but still entertaining) in the theater at the mall then go to bed. O YEA!! I also bought Office Space, Men In Black, and Green Street Hooligans…a store had a 3 for $25 sale, how could I pass it up? There were tons more I wanted but I wouldn’t have room in my bags ahaha.
Wednesday we went a tour up to Cape Tribulation. First we stopped at the “Rainforest Habitat Wildlife Sanctuary” where we chilled w/all the usual Aussie creatures like koalas, kangaroos, crocs, snakes, cassowary (a huge emu looking thing but prettyier) and fed some wallabies (again, I promise I have pics to prove it)
Then we went up to Mossman gorge which is basically just a river…w/a bunch of boulders in it…but of course it’s really pretty/scenic. We went “swimming”…aka only put our legs in cuz the water was “fresh” as they like to say when they actually mean “really freakin cold”
Next we went on a Daintree “river cruise”. This is when we got to see at least 4 wild salt water crocs…ranging from a couple months old (like the one I pet at the sanctuary place) to I don’t even know how old…but it was over 4 meters (13 feet) long. I wanna say they told us he was 50 or 60 years old. Albert was one huge beast. Luckily I only saw his tail. It really is horribly eerie how they swim through the water w/o disturbing the surface in the least bit…(I have a video of his tail…) Also, Elizabeth (a female croc, not my friend liz from the program…ha ha) was smaller, but still really cool because I got to see her pretty close up. She was swimming a long the shore/edges, and she was apparently eating a large crab (I never saw the actual crab, but I believe our tour guide…I did see/hear her crunching some something…you can too when I get my videos up)
After that we stopped at “Alexandra Lookout” on or way up to Cape Tribulation Beach. We were only there for a few minutes, but again, the scenery is breathtaking. Cape Tribulation beach is probably my favorite beach in Oz so far…it was small and not terribly exciting, but the water was so warm and perfect. The sand literally sparkled. It looked like some toddler spilled a couple tons of glitter all over the beach. There were also these tiny little balls of sand in firework-like patterns (I guess you just need to see the pic) Allison and I were trying to figure out where they came from, but we still have no idea. Yay for nature’s mysteries lol. We only got to spend an hour or so there before we took the 3 hour bus trip back. Luckily I was able to pass out for the majority of it.
That night at the hostel there was a free “fire-show.” The “dancers” had ropes/strings with some sort of ball-like thing soaked in gasoline so when lit, they could spin them around and make really awesome looking patterns in time with the music. My favorites were to Pink’s “So What” and Kings of Leon’s “Use Somebody” Again we went to bed early because we had to check out of our hostel and walk 20 or so minuets to the pier so we could catch our boat out to the reef by 7am.
I’ll tell y’all about the reef trip in the next post…just thinking about writing about that part of the trip is making me exhausted.
So I’m not sure how much I told everyone about my internship, but basically, Chugg Entertainment is a small company that promotes and produces concerts. It is my dream job. It is the perfect combination of my love for marketing and music.
Today was my first day, and aside from the fact my new shoes rubbed bleeding blisters into my heels before I was even half way through the 25 minute walk…(I had to stop at a drugstore to buy band-aids) it was fairly uneventful. Susan is my main supervisor, but I am there to help anyone who needs anything. First she showed me around the office and introduced me to everyone that was there (I maybe remembered 5 of the 15 something names ahah) I have a desk in the middle of the office like everyone else.
My “semester” long project will be to update…read – “create” a myspace page for them because theirs is currently beyond outdated and in desperate need of a makeover. I also made a database of around 530 contacts from a list of email address she emailed me. (thank god I love making lists in excel…because that is what I did for the majority of my 8 ½ hours there today) When I wasn’t working on that, I helped another woman (I just blanked on her name…dang it) write a press release for an artist (i'm not sure if it's public knowledge yet, and I don't want to get in trouble for spilling the beans too early so...yea) who just announced that his/her tour is going international. I had no idea what I was doing, but she was really nice and helped me figure it out. I think it ended up pretty good. I’ll put the link up when it actually gets published.
Yup…so that was my day. I am so excited to see what else I get to do. With my schedule more regular now I should be able to keep this updated a lot more consistently.
OMG i almost forgot my favorite part about being here....ok just kidding, it's really not my favorite, but it's close...
I GET TO SEE NEW MOON 2 DAYS BEFORE PEOPLE IN AMERICA!!! haha it comes out the 19th...and it's a day earlier here anyways....tee hee i'm really excited...
ok, sorry, that's it
Alright, so I'm taking a mini break from writing my journals for mass media. Earlier when I was talking to Mom on Skype (yay for her/Ryan getting it figured out haha) she said that I don’t say enough about the things I like in Sydney/Australia….so I am going to list a few so y’all don’t think I’m not enjoying myself.
KC SLAM (aka Kaelin, Carla, Shivani, Liz, Allison, and me…) – friends from that first night at the BBQ…pretty much inseparable since then. I love them all so much for various reasons but mostly because we are all so alike and yet different in every imaginable way. Most people know I spend a lot of time with guys/don’t get along with many girls, well it’s a good thing these girls are the coolest ones around. I don’t know what I’m going to do w/o them in my life in Texas (o wait…move back to Australia and live w/Kaelin and Shivi…sorry mom, it just got even more likely that me moving will actually happen)…but moving on to the rest of my list…
GELATO…mostly Lemonetto in Melbourne…delicious, everyone should try it
RUGBY…enough said
ACCENTS…and adorable words…I am determined to add these words to my vocabulary: heaps, dodgy (ok, that one’s already there), “how ya goin”, full on, and more…but my mind just went blank…
TIMING – People seem to run on the same time schedule as me…5 minutes late is on time…if you’re there on time…you’re early J
TIM TAMS – a delicious cookie aka biscuit…it’s a wafer thingy coated in chocolate…they have all different flavors like caramel (my personal fav) and mint and dark and such…YUM
CADBURY – so I know we have Cadbury in America, but not like this…there’s huge bars…we like to call them our happy place
WEATHER? – ok so this one’s iffy, but it’s gotten up to 90 deg F…and it’s still early early spring. I wore a tank top when it was still Winter. Much love! (We’ll ignore the fact it rained and got down to 55 yesterday…)
ANIMALS – how can you not love kangaroos and koala’s?!?! (ps I have video of a huge male hopping away and another one of him scratching his bum haha get excited for my camera to actually get along with my comp)
SURFERS – surf camp = awesome purely because our instructors were so nice, easy going, fun and encouraging. They have an even more care free attitude than other Aussies (which is hard to do)…it’s impossible not to get caught up in the atmosphere.
50 CENT McDonald’s ice cream…no explanation necessary
ROUNDING – every bill is rounded to the nearest 5 cents…which means they don’t have pennies…makes life easier J
SCENERY – okay, so I kno I haven’t exactly been around the world, but I can’t imagine another place that has more picturesque views of different varieties so close together. FANtastic (haha that’s what my great ocean road tour guide said about every 5 seconds…FANtastic!) (OH! Another word…lollies = candies…tour guide liked them too)
Okie…well I’m gonna get back to work now, I hope you are fully convinced that I am having a good time
- Aussie culture class: The first session (Aug 31 – October 10) we took 2 classes. All 70 of us had to take Australian Culture and Society. We were in the class room Tues-Thurs from 530-830 pm. Wed mornings were reserved for field trips, the first week we went to …(some political building by the Rocks…it’s 1:30 something right now, I don’t remember, haha sorry) then our prof walked us up to the old convict barracks which were pretty interesting. I think I got 2 pics before my battery died L the museum was pretty interesting, the different rooms/floors were set up to show what the building was used for during the different time periods. 2 of them were the sleeping quarters, which was just a bunch of hammocks (there’s a pic of me in one on a friend’s camera…I’ll try to find that asap). Another was about the Irish orphan girls that stayed there. Most of the ground floor was about the history of the convict plan in general. Susan, pretty sure you would’ve liked it a lot, I know how much you love history – I even enjoyed it so you know it must’ve been good haha. Our other field trip got cancelled...
After the first 2 weeks/6 classes, we had an open book reading quiz (that I just got back tonight…48 out of 50 thank you very much!) and we started our modules…this is the sport thing I wrote the other post about. It turned out okay. It stayed pretty boring, but that’s okay. That week was insane, but more on the timing of stuff later… umm We went to Melbourne (pronounced Mel-bin) with the whole program and had a couple “briefing sessions” with the culture prof (Mark – awesome Australian prof) where he told us about the history of Mel and about the tours we would be going on…again, more on Melbourne later. Tonight was our first normal culture class in a while…we talked about gender roles…it was definitely the most entertaining lecture so far…and we only have 2 left (o wow that’s depressing/awesome)
Please be patient with me though…this is a full month’s worth of stuff I’m trying to catch you up on…
- the rocks/opera house/botanical gardens: The Rocks is an area of Sydney (one of the oldest). This was one of the tours our RA’s took us on in the first days. On the weekends it has a really cool outdoor market. Dad – one booth had these very cool metal sculpture things, I took a pic of a motorcycle one. Susan/Mom – there was another with interesting wooden bowls, pretty sure you both would’ve loved them, there’s pics of them somewhere. I plan on going back one weekend to buy some gifts for everyone J there’s tons of different stuff for everyone. From there, I walked with a few of my new friends to the Opera House and then the Botanical Gardens (see pics) because they were so close. Both were obviously very cool and beautiful. Mom, I took a couple pics of birds of paradise and I thought of you…and cassie and that time we were in Florida when we made fun of you because we thought they didn’t exist/weren’t a real flower…(anyone actually remember that besides me?)
- RUGBY GAME x2 :) much love: Thanks to Cassie’s and my friend Connor for starting my love of rugby. The sport is so important here and going to a game is something I obviously wanted to do, but wasn’t sure I would be able to because it was pretty much the end of the season when we got here. LUCKILY my friend Carla (a girl from the program) has family in Manly (northern part of Syd) who have season tickets to the Manly Sea Eagles (one of the at least 9 teams in the Sydney area). We were able to go to the last 2 games of the season. The first time we sat with her cousins in the stands/season ticket holders but the game was pretty boring, but Manly won in the last 2 minutes ,which was exciting. The next weekend Carla and I brought 4-5 more of our friends and we sat on the other side of the stadium/general admission seats. It’s amazing how many people crammed onto that lawn. Honestly it probably doesn’t matter where you sit though because the stadium was pretty small. There are definitely bigger stadiums for Texas high school football (think kimbrogh?) haha o yea, speaking of HS football….these teams, like America, have dancers/cheerleaders. My HS drill team was definitely better than theirs, it was sad and kinda reminded me of the Texas Aggie dance team during the basketball games haha. Again, there are a couple pictures from the games, but I don’t even know if I’ve uploaded them yet...i’ve been having complications…. Which brings me to another thing…
Again I find myself apologizing for not writing in a long time, I have been so busy with uni (aka school, except “school” is only used for kids in elementary or something) and traveling…and I thought I was busy in College Station HA!
So I guess I’m just going to go through that list from the first post, give a very brief description/commentary, and just move on…looking back, it’s much more boring than stuff from the last 2 weeks. I’ll probably break it up into a few posts so you don’t get bored and quit half way through haha. So here goes:
- orientation from wed-Sunday: we pretty much sat in one of our class rooms and had listened to presentations about Sydney/other vacay places in Australia/class stuff. We had a few “tours” to choose from, (the one to the beaches got rained out and I ended up at the Rocks…see later part about that…)
- housing (bbq/EY building - cough cough cassie): I live in a building/facility called UniLodge. It’s a mix between apartments and a hotel. There are people that stay for a couple days, and students like us who are here for at least a semesters…it’s kinda odd, but we’ve gotten used to it. There’s a café downstairs in the lobby that has DELICIOUS double chocolate chip muffins…I pretty much lived off them for the first 2-3 days. There are a couple pictures of my room up on my facebook…you don’t need facebook to look at them, just click on the link. I’ll put up another post of all the other albums. (http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2810521&id=8376733&l=66a12e060d) The first night here, BU threw us a BBQ on the roof, and the fist thing I saw when I got up there was the huge Ernst & Young building. Haha how can I miss you if you won’t go away cassie? Jk
