We're doing things we actually came here to do!

Today marks the end of the first week of classes. Well the first week of lectures really, there's still other classes we haven't started, because of how the Australian Universities teach subjects. Here each subject you take has usually a lecture and either a practical, tutorial or a workshop; sometimes more than one, and each meet only once a week. The whole thing is kind of confusing to explain. But basically the lectures meet once a week and usually have a huge numer of students in them, and then you'll go to a practical and/or tutorial later on in the week (or next week if the lecture is later in the week). There's like 2-4 practicals that you can take and you sign up for the one you want/need so you don't end up with 2 classes at the same time. The whole process seems very confusing and not very efficient, but whatever works for them.

My classes are basically awesome, not going to lie. I'm taking illustration, and it's exactly what you'd think it is, drawing and painting stuff; intro to digital media, which is basically learning how to use photoshop, illustrator and other adobe software; a deviance, crime and society class, which is a sociology class trying to explain why we have crime and deviance in society and whatnot; and science fiction, fantasy and popular culture, which is a film class, and probably my awesomest class, where we just watch sci-fi and fantasy movies and talk about them. So all you people still in school, be jealous of how awesome my classes are.

So far the lectures have been just introductions to the class and going over the syllabus, so I haven't done much yet, expect for my art classes. In my digital media class we photoshoped a "Mr. Potato Head" of various fruits and vegetable. It was basically just cutting and pasting, and I knew all the techniques for that already. My illustration class so far more interesting; we had to paint with egg tempura, and yes it has actually egg in it. The professor asked for volunteers who had to crack open eggs and just pull out the yolk and mix it with coloring for us to paint with. the subject we had to paint was schadenfreude. For those who don't speak German, scadenfreude is happiness derived from the misfortune of other, I know right, how awesome is that? And we had to pick something significant to us and our culture. So what better to paint than the greasy pole? Who doesn't love watching people try and fail to walk across a grease covered pole only to fall and ruin any chance of fathering children? I know I do.

So that's about my classes in a nut shell. Other than that the only really exciting thing is that I'm going the Ultimate Frisbee team here so I can do something active and actually meet people, since I basically know no one here. So I'm looking forward to what JCU has for me to dominate.

Getting Down to Business

First of all, I'll give you a quick update on the past week.

About a week ago we started actually getting into school mode, after all that is why we are here. During "O Week" we met student mentors and other new students who are studying in the same fields. They gave us tours of buildings we need to know like the library, the student mall, and a few classroom buildings as well. The student mall is pretty cool. It has the bookshop, a corner store, a few places to eat, a hairdresser, and the Uni Club, which is basically a bar. After our tours there was a big lunch where they gave us (once again) a pizza each.

We got our JCU student ID's a few days ago and last night we got buckets. Yep, buckets. At dinner there was a big meeting for the whole residence hall and the new students got buckets. They also made up nicknames for us and wrote them on these yellow headbands. My nickname is Koala and Chris' is Griffin.

Also, we now have roommates. Last week my roommate Scott moved in and yesterday Jess moved in as well. I haven't really gotten to know them yet, but so far they seem cool (although it was kinda nice having this place all to myself).

And now for today's news: Classes have begun.

I had my first class in Australia today and we learned about, guess what, Australia. The class is called "Australia Through Time and Place" and its Archaeology/Anthropology. School works a bit differently here than back home. First of all, the professors prefer to be called by their first name. Also lectures are once a week. Most classes also have tutorials once a week, but you pick which one you want to go to. Somehow my schedule worked out so I only have classes on Mondays and Thursdays (and occasionally Fridays). One of my classes is external, which means I do it online and another one only meets four times the entire semester (two of those times being field trips). Yeah, it's a pretty awesome schedule, but I'll have to find something to take up some of that extra time.

Anyway, that's all for now. I'll let you know when more interesting stuff happens.

Bathroom Scare

So last night around 10 or so I felt nature calling, and appropriately went to the bathroom to answer said call. So I get in there, start doing what needed to be done, look up at the wall above the toilet and there was a lizard on the wall. Absolutely scared the crap out of me, and I freaked out and did the whole pin my back against  the corner of the room and look at the lizard with terror. You've probably seen that look in a variety of horror films of lore. So after my dramatic pose I ran out of the bathroom as fast as I could back into my room, probably covered in a cold sweat; I'm not sure as the overwhelming waves of terror that were washing over me.

And I'm not joking either, I was freaking out. Like a fly landed on my desk next to me when I ran back in my room, I jumped backwards out of my chair and fell to the floor.  You're probably thinking I'm a baby and that the lizard is "sooo cute" but I didn't. For all I know it could have been one of the most poisonous lizards in the world. Animals are douchebags like that in Australia. You think they're all cute and stuff and you want to touch them, and then the next thing you know you've been in a coma for the last 2 weeks. I wasn't messing around with it but I know I wanted it out of my bathroom.

The first thing I discovered was that this thing was fast. So first attempts at trying to catch it in my trash can were unsuccessful; it was very fast and hard to catch, and when I did catch it, I couldn't see it I couldn't get the lizard to fall into it. After much frustration and knee-buckling fear, I ended up catching the demon reptile in my wire mesh hamper, and after it's hilariously futile attempts to climb out of it, I got it outside to let it terrorize  someone else, or poison someone's dog if it decided to roll that way. Either way it was out of my bathroom and I could finish what that hell spawn rudely interrupted.

What we've learned so far

• Australians like weird flavored snacks (especially chicken flavor)
• Green ants' butts are for licking
• Tons of rotaries, but they're smaller than the ones in Gloucester
• Vegemite should not be a FDA approved food
• Sugar cane: everywhere
• Flocks of wild cockatoos
• Kangaroos hop down the street
• Don't say fanny pack, it's called a bum bag here
• Dude = Mate
• Australian are like the chillest people ever
• Things are more expensive (especially candy and shampoo/soap)
• Look right first, cars drive on the other side of the road
• She'll be right mate
• Good on ya
• New Zealanders = Kiwis
• They like Italian words, but disregard the meaning of said word
• To Australians, Italian and Spanish are interchangeable 
• Chips = French Fries
• Chips = Chips
• Everything is called chips
• When in doubt call it chips
• Their money is weird*
• Phone numbers are confusing
• Women aren't allowed to have shaving cream
• Orange soda tastes like orange fruit juice
• They use the Rice Krispies from the 70's
• They call it Rice Bubbles instead
• The Duracell Bunny looks different
• The Nesquik rabbit looks like a punk

* Australian money is very colorful. A $100 note is green, a $50 note is yellow, $20 note is red, $10 is blue, and a $5 note is purple. Also the size of the note gets bigger as the value increases. instead of having a $1 note, they have a $1 coin, and a $2 coin too. The coin denominations are $2 coin, $1 coin, 50 cent coin, 20 cent coin, 10 cent coin, and a 5 cent coin. from 5 cent to 50 cent they get bigger, but the $2 coin is smaller than the $1 coin. Also they've completely done away with the penny, so they round the prices to the nearest 5 cents. However they don't round the price until it's time to pay, so you'll see prices for $2.47 for example.

Here's some pictures: Notes and coins.

Moving to Townsville

On Wednesday morning we had breakfast, checked out, loaded up the buses and headed for Townsville. At breakfast I managed to spill boiling hot water on my hand then proceeded to spill my entire cup of tea all over myself. This is why I should not be awake at 7am.

Anyway, the bus ride was pretty boring. For two hours we saw nothing but sugarcane, bananas, and mountains. Around noon we stopped at this place that charged an arm and a leg for food. I spent $8 on a small bag of chips and vitamin water and a bag of Skittles cost $6. It was pretty ridiculous. I had these Moroccan spiced chicken and lemon flavored chips. They have some crazy flavors here, but they were actually really good.  

After lunch we got back on the bus for another two hours, but at least this time we got to watch the Princess Bride (best movie ever). Finally we saw the James Cook University sign. We got dropped off at George Roberts Hall, where we will be living for the next 5 months. They gave us our room assignments and we moved in and unpacked.  Our roommates are not here yet, so we have the dorms to ourselves. We went to dinner around 6 and were surprised at how tiny the dining hall is. It's approximately McDonald's, but with different food. The selection is very small, but not too bad and there is this green drink that is pretty good (btw, there are only two drink options: water or green juice).  

That's pretty much it for our first day here in Townsville, nothing too exciting, and we didn't even have internet access to keep us entertained. Now for our shopping adventure as told by Chris.

Before I divulge into this tail, I must add some of my thoughts to some things Emily talked about. Firstly the bus stop place was ridiculous, I've noticed that things are a bit more expensive here, but that does NOT justify charging $6 for skittles, it was so upsetting. For food they had this restaurant style grill serving food with this huge list of food, but no prices anywhere, which was really frustrating. Secondly: Left Cairns, this beautiful tropical city with all these amazing views, and we arrive in Townsville, which looked like we just entered the African savanna. So I was doubting our choice of schools. But I guess its not so bad, except for the internet part, we were just kinda sitting around for two days, until today (Friday). Also when we got into our dorms we didn't pay attention to where the other one was staying, so we just sat around until we found each other at dinner about 4 hours later.

So yesterday we had absolutely nothing to do, and the campus is practically empty, and we couldn't use the internet for another day, so we decided to take a chance and venture into the city to get some things we need. So we get to the bus stop which is right next to our dorms and wait for the bus. Now we were just sitting there, waiting for the bus and a kangaroo hopped by. Yes it actually happens, kangaroos just wander around campus, I didn't believe it when they told us I thought they were joking, but they're for serious. 

As we watched the kangaroo hop away, the bus arrived. This bus was very different from the CATA bus back home. So instead of just paying a straight fare for where ever you're going, you pay depending on where you're going. We were going to Stockland, which was only a couple minutes away, so we had to pay $2.80 per trip, which was kinda dumb but whatever. Unfortunately we had no idea were we were, and we ended up missing our stop altogether and instead we rode the bus all the way into downtown Townsville to the last stop.  Luckily there was a Woolworth's right where we got off, so we weren't wandering around trying to find a store. For those of you that don't know, Woolworth's is kinda like a little Walmart; it's mostly for food, but they also have non food stuff too.

However we didn't end up buying everything we needed. We got shower stuff, like shaving cream and and soap and stuff, but we didn't get converter plugs, although Emily thought she did but it ended up being an expansion plug so you can plug two things into one Australian outlet. I bought some awful headphones and a bottle of air freshener that smells like a used car. But on the bright side we got some delicious cookies and chip, so our trip wasn't too bad. I just wish we didn't have to take a bus into town, and just walk into town like we could in Cairns, but if we were at the Cairns campus we'd have to take a bus anyway. Whatever. 

Saving Cassowaries and Exploring the Reef

Monday morning began at 6:30. So early. We ate breakfast then took a bus up to Kuranda to save some cassowaries. In case you don't know about cassowaries, I will give you a little info. A cassowary is a large Australian bird that has the ability to kill people with its talons. But aside from being extremely dangerous, cassowaries are very important to the Australian environment. They are the only animal that redistributes certain seeds. Today there are only about 1-2 thousand left in all of Australia and if these birds go extinct, then the seeds they carry will not be redistributed and the RAIN FORESTS WILL DIE!!!

So anyway, we went up to Kuranda to help save the cassowaries. We went to a school and planted trees that grow fruits that cassowaries eat (I don't know why we want such dangerous animals so close to our children's playgrounds, but whatevs). This awesome eco-warrior (hippie) old lady showed us how to dig with pickaxes, call for the "poo boy", plant a tree, and call for the water boy and ribbon girl. It was dirty work, but she offered us "five-digit condoms" to keep our hands clean.

After planting trees for about an hour, we went back for morning tea/snacks (they give us so much tea... like I have at least 3 cups a day here). After snack time we walked around and learned about some of the plants and whatnot. Then they showed us how to make koala/worm poop fertilizer soil stuff. We split up into groups to pot some plants for the nursery. Someone found a little lizard and it ended up crawling into one girls hair, it was pretty hilarious.

Next was lunch at Bellavista, which was this awesome pizza place. They gave us a pizza each. Yep, a whole pizza. Then we had to go over to another place to have a reflection/info session which was pretty boring. Afterwards we didn't feel like waiting for our bus so we walked around town. We looked at souvenirs, ate gelato, and walked along the shore (type thing even though there was no water). Then we went back and hung around the hostel.

The next day was Great Barrier Reef day. After breakfast we took a bus to the marina where we got aboard the Silverswift for an hour and a half ride out to the reef.

Awwwright, time to get going.

The ride up was kinda boring, except for that one girl who got seasick and puked that was interesting. Oh and that guy who broke his foot. Actually those kinda suck, but they made the ride up stand out. Anyway, once we got on the boat they separated the certified divers from the newbies and snorkelers so they could give us talks about how the reef is delicate so don't try to stand on it or you'll break it and it'll cut you big time. Remember that scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall when Aldous Snow got coral in his leg? It happens, coral will rape your leg and any other part of your body that's unfortunate enough to touch it. Definitely not good rape.

I was a little nervous about scuba diving so I decided to snorkel instead, which is now a decision I definitely regret, cause the reef was amazing.  Another decision I regret is not buying an underwater camera, cause there were a lot of cool fish and coral and stuff, so most of the pictures and links here will be from Google, but I actually saw them in real life, so just pretend I took the pictures, it'll be a lot more impressive that way. So, The boat stopped at three different locations along the reef that we could explore within a reasonable distance from the boat. Getting ready for snorkeling was kinda difficult cause people were running around everywhere, and I had no idea where anything was, so it took awhile to get stuff, even longer than normal since I'm practically a giant and had to wait longer, as they tried to find super sized fins, and I tried on like 3 wet suits until I got one that fit me.

This was my first step into the Pacific Ocean, and let me tell you, it was so much warmer than the Atlantic. It was legit like bath water, I think the guides said the water was around 80 and it's only winter down here! So the first site was kinda shallow maybe around 15ft deep at the most....I think, I could touch the bottom, so it wasn't too deep, the other two got progressively deeper as we went. The reef looked kinda like this, but like I said, I wish I had taken pictures, cause it's way too much to describe. And there were all sorts of crazy colored fish; green fish, yellow fish, one fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish, crazy awesome fish, all sorts of fish.

I also found Nemo....kinda. It was a clown fish but it was mostly black instead of orange. I also found Gill from Finding Nemo too, you know that angel fish from the fish tank that wanted to escape? That guy, I saw him, at the Great Barrier reef. Also some of these guys, and this dude over here, and even this scary guy. That last one they called a buffalo headed parrot fish, and it was pretty big and kinda scary, it had this teeth beak thing and it bit off chunks of coral. And speaking of big and scary fish I saw a reef shark and some barracudas. The Australearn girl that was with us chased after the shark and was able to touch it's back fin. It was only a small shark too, only about as long as me. And I tried to touch the barracudas, but they were too deep for me to reach.

The reef was awesome, way too awesome to describe, and I wish I bought an underwater camera, so I could show you the pictures and brag better, buuuutt I guess I'll just have to make do with Google images and taunting. Once we got back they gave us dinner, and guess what it was? Pizza! Again! For the third time! It was good though, again we got a full small pizza for ourselves, so they had like half a bajillion boxes of pizza there, it was Pizza Hut pizza too, pretty good too. And that was it basically, I was pretty exhausted from the day's activities, so I ended up going to sleep like at eight, also every time I closed my eyes it felt like I was falling. It was really weird. So that concludes day 4 of Australia.

Emily's Jungle Tour & Chris' White Water Rafting

The jungle tour kind of got off to a rough start. When we met up at 7:30 Sunday morning I was not on the reservation list. So we ended up calling the reservations people and getting that all sorted out, so I was able to go on the tour. It was a very long day. First we went to this wildlife sanctuary place and looked around at all the animals. It was very similar to the Rainforestation from Saturday so it wasn't too exciting, but I did get to see my first cassowary. We were told to meet back at the bus at exactly 10:20 and anyone who was late had to eat vegemite. I am so glad I made it back in time because when I tried vegemite before I practically threw up.

After punishing the latecomers we drove over to Mossman Gorge where we walked through the rainforest and learned about some of the plants and animals. Before we left the gorge we went for a swim in the river which was pretty awesome (except for the part where we had to sit in wet bathing suits all day). Next was lunch followed by a cruise on the Daintree River where we saw a couple of crocodiles on the banks.

 After the cruise we took a ferry across the river to go to Cape Tribulation where we chilled on a beautiful tropical beach and I took my first steps into the Pacific Ocean. Along the way I actually got to see a cassowary in the wild, which is pretty rare since they are endangered. We had about a two hour drive back to Cairns and were late to dinner with the rest of the Australearn people, but we managed to make it before everyone ordered. By the time we got back to the resort I was so ready for bed.

Chris' turn:

First thing I want to say is that vegemite really is the worst thing I've ever had, like seriously I've heard people
say how terrible it is, but they didn't do it justice. It was kinda like a skunk ate a day's worth of soy sauce then crapped in a bucket of molasses. Yea, that disgusting. Anyways.....

My "day of adventure" didn't actually start until 2 so I kinda had an afternoon of adventure. So until then I was just going to hang around the resort for awhile and draw or something (kinda wish I bought a book to read), but then a bunch of people were  going to go to the beach around 10 so I went with them. The Australearn guys said that there really wasn't much of a beach and that it was just crap, but there was this lagoon thing at the end of the coast. So we walked there, which only took like 10 minutes or so. And when they said it was crap they weren't kidding. By the time we got to the beach it was low tide, and as far as you could see was just mud, mud as far as the eye can see it was kinda awful.

The boulevard was really nice though: green grass crazy looking trees, a skate park, a weird shell statue, a playground, and a weird fish and cake shop. Yea, you heard me, a fish and cake shop; they sold fish....and cake. Also some burgers and other things, but mostly fish and cake. So we got some lunch there and continued along the boulevard. Eventually we got to the lagoon, and what was there was amazing. When I first heard of it, I was expecting like an actually lagoon, with the ocean and all that, but it was this giant pool. Like you could walk right into it just like a beach; it even had white sand. It was pretty awesome.

But we didn't go to the lagoon right away, first we went into town cause some people needed to go to global Gossip (the place that we get our phones here from). So they go there, and some of us walked around town a little. We ended up in an aborigine store that sold authentic (so they say) boomerangs, didgeridoos and other stuff. I bought a boomerang and we met this girl who was being followed around by a camera guy. Apparently she was filming an episode of MTV's Made. For those who don't know, it's a show where they track and help this person become a different person...like they'll have some cowgirl who wants to be an iceskater so they follow her journey to achieve that. I don't remeber what her episode was called but i might be in a passing shot in that episode.

Ok Emily's yelling at me for not getting on to the raft part, so here it is:
After the boomerang getting, I ended up skipping the lagoon since I had to be back to the resort by 2. There ended up only being five of us going (me being the only guy), but we were joined by these brother and sister from Canada, since there had to be 7 people per raft. The river was pretty tame, some pretty strong rapids, but nothing too serious, but there were TONS of rocks, like we had to dodge them left and right. after the rapids we end up in a calm spot for a while and we got to jump out of the raft and swim around before the next wave of rapids.

We were joined on the river by a British rugby team that afternoon so we had like 5 rafts of jacked guys with british accents yelling at us to race or splashing us with their paddles. Our rafting guide thought it would be fun to try to hook up the girls on our raft with the rugby guys in the manner she seemed best, asking them: "Who wants to get my friends here pregnant?" really classy.

But overall rafting was awesome and we went to this brewery for some snacks and to see the pictures they took during the trip. All the pictures I had my head down, as they took to the pictures during the crazy rapids, so I didn't get any....sorry mom no pictures for you. But they gave us the most delicious potato wedges I have ever had, like I don't think even vegemite could ruin them....ok that was a lie, vegemite can probably ruin any food you put it on. But that was my day and stuff.....Emily doesn't like my ending but who cares what she thinks.

Adventures in Time Travel and Adventure Day 1

We left Boston at 10:15am on Wednesday. Four planes and 24 hours later we arrived in Cairns, Australia at 4:45pm on Friday. Yep, two days went by in a 24 hour period. That's time travel. The first two flights (Boston to Dallas, Dallas to San Francisco) were on American Airlines and they didn't even give us snacks. In San Francisco we met a lot of other Australearners, and there were about 60 or 70 of us on the flight to Sydney. The flight to Sydney was 14 hours long and very boring, but the plane was nice and they kept giving us food. Our final flight from Sydney to Cairns was only about 3 hours and they gave us these ice cream cone things with a kit kat inside. At the Cairns airport we met up with the group leaders and all the other Australearn students, got our luggage, and took a bus to the Bohemia Resort where we are living for the next week in 6-person bunk rooms. 


Today, Saturday, was our first adventure. At this morning's buffet breakfast we tried Vegemite and it was probably the most disgusting food ever invented.  After breakfast we took a bus to Rainforestation where we took a duck tour through the rainforest, watched an Aboriginal dance show, threw boomerangs, and saw some Australian animals. We held koalas and snakes and fed some kangaroos and wallabies. We met Jack the Ripper (a gigantic crocodile). Today was excellent, and photos will be posted as soon as I don't have to pay $10 an hour for internet.