Late May, I went on a trip with Quest (student exchange group) to Springbrook National park. It was a really nice trip only about an hour out of Brisbane. We hiked through the rainforest, saw glow worms, and fed wild birds. There were beautiful waterfalls and really cool trees. Nothing too spectacular happened but I wanted to blog about it so I could share the pictures because they are pretty neat.

So adorable

House mates

See any crocs?

As always, thanks to everyone for keeping up with my blog! I will have many exciting posts about Ben and I's travels throughout Australia soon and of course a semester recap. However, currently I am about a month behind with my blogging and my mind is preoccupied with trying to figure out how I can trick the airline into letting me check about 20lbs more than my allowed limit... aahhh cheers to packing up four months of my life+unexpected shopping sprees+random accumulated stuff that I just don't know how to part with. 

Your patience is appreciated, plus after spending three weeks with my boyfriend I am starting to realize how much I love sharing my feelings... so if you're lucky I might just keep blogging about random life thoughts.

Early May, I went to the Gold Coast to see some friends that I met in New Zealand. They are studying in Sydney and travelled to the Gold Coast for the weekend and since it's only about an hour train from me I decided to head down and have a reunion. We enjoyed some time on the beach and then (somewhat impulsively) decided to go zorbing. If you are unsure what that means, I've included a definition below...

zorb·ing

noun /ˈzôrbiNG/  A sport in which a participant is secured inside an inner capsule in a large, transparent ball that is then rolled along the ground or down hills

It's funny to me that they call it a sport, because well... you are basically rolling around in a hamster ball. Anyway, it was really fun! I can't explain it that well but basically you go in the ball with another person (usually 2-3 people total) and then they fill it up with a little water and release the ball which rolls down this large grassy hill. It sounds a bit mundane but it's actually very exciting. You think you will hurt the other person, or get a knee in the face but really you just slide around and giggle and almost lose your swimsuit. Basically the definition of a good time.

Me and Rachel with our Zorb Ball

As many of you know, my dear friend Krystal flew 9,000 miles to come visit me in Brisbane. And let me just say... it was exhausting! I mean that in the nicest way possible of course and we definitely took advantage of the short time we had to together to reunite. I am going to keep this summary brief and attempt to sum up the 10 days in about a paragraph. This is not because that is all the writing space it deserves but, instead, simply because I am about 3 weeks late, and I'm running out of time. Plus, I am busy studying for finals ;) Also, Krystal and I will be inseparable this summer anyway so if you want the full scoop on our adventure together we would be more than happy to chat your ear off for as long as you want. One thing I will include in the summary is our bedtimes, because I think you will find them refreshing and humorous.

Krystal arrived on Friday. We hugged and screamed obnoxiously, I cried just a little, and Krystal expressed her intense desire to take a shower. We took the train back to my house where we promptly dropped off her stuff and went shopping of course. We spent the afternoon on campus (because I do have class you know!) and Krystal slept in the grass. That night we went to a BYO restaurant for dinner and proceeded to drink copious amounts of wine and gossip about everything that had happened from February-April. Bed time: 9:30 pm. Saturday: beach day. Krystal played in the ocean  (child) and I suntanned on the beach (mother). Bed time: 8:45 pm (for the record, sun is tiring). Sunday we went to the Koala Sanctuary. We played with kangaroos, cuddled koalas, and then best of all we took a boat cruise from the sanctuary back to the city! We drank and giggled and Krystal said "she loved her life" about 17 times. Oh, and Krystal picked out a mansion for her and Patrick to live in on the Brisbane river. We then ate burgers so fast that we didn't talk to each other and then went home. Krystal napped but still.... bed time: 10 pm (koalas make you sleepy). Monday was spent (literally) shopping in the city! It was my first time shopping since I've been here (yay for breaking bad habits and then falling right back into them). After shopping I had more class and then we ordered pizza (another first). Bed time: 11 pm (or so, it was kind of a big night). Tuesday we went out on the town searching for some delicious Mexican food and margaritas (harder to find than you would think, but we found them don't worry). After covering everything that happened from February to April we needed to gossip about what's to come (May-unknown) which seemed to be a lot easier with a few margaritas. We then went to a bar (impressive I know) and played trivia, which we lost but still managed to get hit on twice before leaving. Bed time: Midnight. Wednesday we started our vacation from a vacation! We packed our bags and headed to Surfers Paradise for two days where we had a splendid time. We stayed at the beautiful Marriott Resort (thanks Krystal's job), drank free wine (thanks Krystal's job), and gawked at the cute Marriott bell hops (thanks Krystal's job). We spent the day on the beach and the night with our "fun card" on a group pub crawl. Lots of bars, dancing, and socializing.. but still, Bedtime: 1:30 am. Thursday was DREAMWORLD! Not much to say: we rode roller coasters, saw baby tigers, and watched a children's Madagascar show. It was basically a perfect day. We took the train all the way back to Brisbane that night...so, Bed time: 10:30 pm. OMG FRIDAY ALREADY!!!! Tonight was the night we were going to an official Australian rugby game woot! Aaannndddd, it rained. SO we watched the game, got soaked, went to a bar after, met some weird people, left, I tried to steal an umbrella and cut my hand open, the man at McDonald's gave me bandaids (but no food), went to Burger King instead, took a taxi (still raining) and yet, bedtime: only 1 am. We.Are.Wild. Anyway, Saturday came around and I had an exam (weird!!!!) so I studied all day with my lovely friend by my side (listening to my heavy breathing) and took the test (which I did quite well on by the way). After that it was raining again so we went to the store and got some traditional Australian food (Kangaroo and Shrimp) and of course some more wine and decided to have a feast indoors! Bed time: 10:30 (partial food coma). Sunday was Krystal's last day in Brisbane :( So we shopped some more and ate some more (things we are good at). We went to a fabulous little Italian restaurant for dinner and gossiped some more for the final time. (I'm just saying, if neither of our careers work out and we just marry some rich dudes we would be really good at the whole Housewives of New York or whatever. We are really good at getting beautiful and going out to eat at cute restaurants and gossiping for hours. It would be a reality TV show hit) OKAY FINE IT'S MONDAY and Krystal had to leave. I promised I wouldn't cry so I didn't, but I did wait in line with her at the Airport as stayed as long as I could without an actual boarding pass.

It was so wonderful for Krystal to come visit, and see what my life is like down under. Now I don't have to explain all the annoying things that I go through every day like standing at the bus stop where the bus never comes, and getting ripped off by taxi drivers, and wondering why they call it Hungry Jack's and not Burger King. But most of all, it was great to see my very best friend and take a week off (kinda) from school to vacation with her! It was an extremely successful trip with heaps of activities during the day and wonderful sleepy nights, plus as Krystal said, she didn't get a Translink citation for illegally using a student bus card and she didn't see any snakes. Yay!

Thanks again Krystal for coming to play with me in my temporary home that happens to be really far away from you. See you again soon!

(Okay that was a giant paragraph(s), but you get the idea...)

Over the mid semester break, I traveled to New Zealand for a 10 day adventure/adrenalin tour throughout the south island. We started in Christchurch, drove to Queenstown then up the west coast and across the top to end back in Christchurch. See map:

New Zealand is a beautiful island country but it is definitely not your typical island. Often people think of a tropical island but actually New Zealand is not tropical at all. It is extremely mountainous with a lot of lakes and tall sequoia trees. It reminds me a lot of the Rocky mountains in Colorado and, similarly, in the winter, New Zealand has a renowned ski season. The nature is breathtaking and the cities are all extremely clean, making this a truly incredible place to visit.

Day 1: Arriving in New Zealand

The plane ride from Brisbane was just under four hours to get to Auckland (in the north island, we had a layover). You can see the difference in landscape from the plane:

During our layover I decided I wanted to get some gum at the airport because I didn't have any for the plane ride. I went to the only shop in the small airport and I couldn't find gum anywhere. I looked by the candy, the magazines, the souvenirs, everywhere and found nothing... so I decided to ask the lady at the counter:

Me: "Hi, where is the gum?"
Lady: "Oh it's banned here"
Me: "Oh, excuse me sorry I said GUM" (enunciating gum because I thought she had heard GUN)
Lady: "Yes, it's banned in the airports. It's too messy to clean up if it goes on the floor"
Me: .................. in shock

So, gum is banned. And my ears popped the entire way on the plane. Welcome to New Zealand I guess...

Our final destination was Christchurch where we were staying for the night and then beginning our tour the next morning. We checked in to our hostel late Thursday night and decided to grab some food before bed. There was absolutely nothing open and we ended up eating bar food at this really sketchy bar filled with a bunch of old, drunk people.

Aside: February of last year, Christchurch was affected by its second major earthquake in 6 months. Although a relatively low rating on the Richter scale, the earthquake was so devastating because it was extremely close to the city center and they still hadn't recovered from the previous earthquake. The damage was immense and the city hasn't really been the same since. It was once New Zealand's second most populated city and now it is essentially a ghost town. Basically everyone abandoned the city due to the dramatic infrastructure damage.

Thanks Google... I didn't actually see this

Essentially all that's left in Christchurch are run down buildings and some extremely unique people who decided to stick it out. Needless to say we didn't stay long at the bar...

Day 2: Beginning the tour

This was the start of our trip. We piled 48 college students (all American, except for 3 Canadians) into a green tour bus and headed out of Christchurch as fast as we could.

The name of our trip was called "So that's what a sheep is for" and there is a little background with that which is mildly humorous. New  Zealand is very popular for its sheep. Yes, sheep, as in the farm animals... and let me just say that there are a lot of sheep. The total population of New Zealand is only about 4.4 million but there are about 60 million sheep roaming the beautiful countryside. Given that, the Australians (basically New Zealand's big brother) decided to start some nasty rumors about the farmers of New Zealand. Basically, they say that the farmers get really lonely out on the farm and there are just so many sheep that they get a little too... romantic with the sheep if you know what I mean. After our tour guide proceeded to tell us some Australian/New Zealand sheep jokes, he said so that's why your tour is named "so that's what a sheep is for". We all giggled about it and then he gave our bus an inflatable sheep which we named Barbara. We lost it within the first 3 days.

With all this excitement around sheep, we were fortunate to experience the farming/sheep culture of New Zealand on the very first day. We stopped at a sheep farm for lunch and watched a sheep sheering. I couldn't tell you how many girls were distraught because the animal "looked sad" or it was "being hurt". Ugghh... I don't even live on a farm and I knew that it was perfectly normal. So dramatic those girls...

Okay... it looks a little sad

I even made friends with the sheep. And a cat. Typical farm girl right here...

We continued our drive south and made a couple really cool stops along the way. The first stop was at Lake Pukakai where we climbed rocks and took a ton of pictures.

We also stopped at this cute road side fruit market and got delicious ice cream. They blend it with really fruit! Yumm

We got to the hostel that night in Queenstown, devoured 30 some pizzas between 48 people and then decided to explore the town for some nightlife. It happened to be Good Friday and interestingly, none of the bars were allowed to sell alcohol because of that. We did however discover a loophole: if you buy food, you are allowed to order drinks to supplement your "meal". So we went to a bar called Chico's, ordered some fries and a bunch of bear and decided to make the most of the night. It was a group of about 15 rowdy Americans and we basically cleared that bar out. We jammed to the live band, pretended it was one of our friend's birthdays, and some old man gave us $100 to spend on drinks (we have no idea why).... pretty successful night if you ask me.

Day 3- Milford Sound Boat Cruise

We woke up really early to start our drive to Milford Sound which is the most popular tourist destination in New Zealand. Milford Sound is a fjord which, geologically speaking, is a narrow inlet surrounded by steep cliffs usually caused by glaciers. (Yes, I got that directly from Wikipedia. You can search it if your curious for more fjord-ish information). Basically, it's a beautiful lake with giant mountains around and waterfalls and seals and all sorts of beautiful nature. See pics and you will understand.

 


To get to Milford Sound, we drove through the Fiordland National Park where we stopped for some great photo ops and of course more pictures:

Mirror Lake

We spent that night at our hostel in Te Anau where we played drinking games and relaxed after a long, hard day of being a tourist.

Day 4- Pretty Glowy Things

We woke up early to take another beautiful boat ride to the the Te Anau glow worm caves. On this boat ride we happen to see an absolutely perfect rainbow that seriously made me cry. The pictures say it all:

After the boat ride, we hiked inland a little to get to the caves. We then walked through the caves for about 15 minutes to get to the glow worm spot. We took a little boat through this underground river to their special spot where is was completely dark (I couldn't see my hand directly in front of my face). All you could see were tons of little bright blue spots, like stars in the sky. We had to be completely silent as to not disturb them. The silence and the darkness made it quite tranquil and magical. Planet Earth did a special on the glow worms during their Caves episode if your curious for more.

After the caves we drove back to Queenstown just in time for dinner. This is when I experienced what might have been one of the best parts of the trip: Fergburger. Fergburger is a world famous burger place specific to Queenstown. All I can say is that it was the best burger I have ever had (sorry Dad) and I ate it three times during the four days we spent in Queenstown.

Day 5- Adrenalin Day 1

Just your average Monday here in Queenstown, New Zealand where they let 20 some college students jump out of planes. Yes, today was the day I went sky diving. I wasn't really nervous until I was on camera for the pre-jump interviews (weird, I know).

Me and my friend Evan who goes to Madison who I met in Fiji who just happened to be on the same tour in NZ

Here is how it happens: you get suited up in a really flight suit type thing (see above), your camera man interviews you (you will of course act like a total dork, or at least I did), you will meet your tandem partner aka the man in control of your life (I hugged mine and uncontrollably told him I loved him upon our first meeting), you then climb into a small plan where they pack you like sardines, and you ride in the plane for about 13 minutes to reach an altitude of 12,000 ft. Now here is when it gets interesting, they open the door and people literally start disappearing out the side of the door, when it's your turn you have no choice but to go toward the door because your tandem man is pushing you. Your camera man jumps out and hangs on the side of the plane to get one last picture and then all of a sudden you're falling. Falling at a terminal velocity of approximately 50 m/s to be exact. You fall 8,000 ft in 45 seconds... I mean as a nerdy engineer you have to appreciate the insanity of this. You fall 2/3 of the distance you are up in less than a minute... and it took you 13 minutes to fly up there in a plane! Anyway, I basically forgot what it felt like it was so crazy. Good thing I got the video which can be watched later upon request.. or when I get the motivation to upload it.

Here I goooooo!

Loving Life

After sky diving we spent the afternoon crusing around town, shopping, eating some spicy Thai food that made my mouth hurt, and ended the night with an exciting bar crawl of over 100 people (two tours combined). Thankfully we didn't have to get up that early the next day.

Day 6- Adrenalin Day 2

After a nice sleep in, a few of us girls decided to get Starbucks. I hadn't realized how long it had been since I got coffee there because they legitimately don't exist in Australia. I think there are a total of three in the entire country. After that delicious treat we all started to get excited for another big day: today was bungy day. I will admit I was the most scared for bungy jumping. It just seems so... unnatural. But I knew I had to do it or I would never live it down. I don't really have much to say about it: you basically fall off a ledge and bounce up and down. Although simple in description, it was definitely an adrenalin rush. The video says it all:

After bungy, we took a few rides down the luge track. It was basically like go karting down a mountain with no acceleration control, only brakes. It was really fun actually. We finished the day with more Fergburger and a nice night in full of girl gossip.

Day 7- More Adrenalin!!

We had to wake up really early today because we had so many activities planned. We started the morning with a jet boat ride which was great! The jet boat can suck in 800 L of water per second and only needs about 4 inches of water to work. They drove the boats through the river which was surrounded by really steep rocks. There were times when we were centimeters from the rocks.

After jet boating, we were whisked away by van to the side of the mountain. We then boarded a helicopter which flew us to the start of the white water rafting site. Helicopters are really cool and they have a lot more control than you would think. Plus it was nice to see the aerial views of New Zealand without the thought of jumping constantly weighing you down.

Once everyone was flew into the white water rafting site, we began the two hour journey down the river. It was really cold, but still fun. The rapids were pretty intense and we even rafted through an underground tunnel type thing. By the end of the journey everyone was so cold  so we all piled into the sauna at the rafting hut and then headed back to the hostel for our last night in Queenstown.

We went on another bar crawl that night which included a very famous stop at the ice bar called Minus 5. It is a bar literally made of ice and you have to wear parkas to get in. Even the glasses are made of ice. It was really "cool" if you know what I mean ;)

Day 8- I can't take anymore adrenalin!!!! (but I want it so bad)

A few of us had to wake up early today because we were going to squeeze in one more adrenalin activity before we left Queenstown: the canyon swing. It is essentially a giant swing through a canyon, seems nice right? Well, it's actually pretty scary... but definitely fun. It's funny what weird things come out of your mouth because you're so freaking nervous. I did the jump twice and there are plenty of hilarious things. Here is the video:

*Disclaimer: Yes, you will hear me scream that "I have already had three children". That is not true, I have actually had zero children. All I have is my baby gecko and he was a given to me. I yelled that because prior to getting strapped up in that contraption, the guy asked if I had any health problems and well, after doing so many extreme things I had gotten that question so many times that I was kinda bored of answering it normally so I lied and said "Yeah, I've had like seven heart attacks... and three children.. but I'm good now". OKAY it was a joke... anyway I was freaking out on that ledge so it just kinda slipped out. Sorry if it concerns anyone.

After we were done canyon swinging, the entire group drove to Wanaka where we would stay for the night. We had lunch in Wanaka and then a few of us decided to hike up Mt. Iron. It was a pretty steep hike but the views were definitely worth it, and we got to have some fun with jumping pics at the top.

Day 9- Look at that Glay-see-errrrr

We woke up really early to begin our drive north of the west coast to get to the Fox Glacier. We arrived around lunch time and then hiked the glacier for the entire afternoon.

The icy part of the glacier used to be at the top of the rock where you can see the tree line. The glacier is continually shrinking and expanding. sooooooo cool!

As a side note, glaciers are amazing and I am really curious about Geology now because they can do some pretty crazy stuff to the rocks. Anyway we hiked around, I picked some ice, and we all drank glacier water. Totally normal Thursday.

We spent the night in the small glacier town with a couple bottles of wine and a good old fashioned game of charades. It was quite entertaining. Oh, and we drunkenly made a human pyramid. Check it out:

Day 10- Farewells

Today was spent driving back across the country to get to Christchurch. After arriving in Christchurch our group had to split up to stay at different hostels for the last night so we had to start saying our goodbyes.

Day 11- I eat adrenalin for breakfast now

Most everyone flew home today, but Adam and Alex and I didn't have our flight back to Brisbane until the next day so we went to the Adrenalin Forest for the day (yes, we just didn't get enough adrenalin on the trip). It was essentially a high ropes course with zip lines and really fun obstacles.

The video is pretty funny because I didn't know how to brake.. which always makes for an exciting time. Don't worry, it wasn't that painful...

Adrenalin Forest Video



Day 12- Departures

This was our last day in New Zealand. We decided instead of paying for a ridiculously expensive cab to the airport, to take the city bus. It was quite the experience, especially in a creepy city like Christchurch, but we made it to the airport with plenty of time. And don't worry, I bought gum at the store before we got to the airport.


Summary:

Things I would do again (in a heartbeat): skydiving, bungy jumping, canyon swinging, white water rafting, helicopter, jet boat, and traveling to New Zealand

Things that cost a lot of money:  skydiving, bungy jumping, canyon swinging, white water rafting, helicopter, jet boat, and traveling to New Zealand

Motivation to graduate and get a good job: see lists above

Okay, but in all seriousness, New Zealand is a beautiful country with a lot of things to experience that are unique to the country. I love that I was able to travel to NZ while I was "nearby" and hopefully I will make it back some day. Oh, and it was worth every penny. Cheers!

Okay... I am not a professional blogger. But I do want to make a public apology. I am sorry I haven't posted details of my exciting life lately. Not that my life isn't exciting or anything... actually I think it's just so damn exciting that I can't sit at the computer and write about it. Plus, I have been having computer issues and I was out of the country for 15 days or something obnoxious like that for spring break. Anyway, enough excuses... the posts are coming. Your persistent daily checks are always appreciated :)

This past weekend, I travelled with 86 other exchange students to the largest sand island in Australia: Moreton Island. And let me tell ya, it was sandy. I have never had so much sand in so many different places. But it was still a wonderful weekend and just what I needed to revive my love of Australia.

In case you haven't noticed, my blogging has been a bit less frequent lately. This is because I was starting to get.... "bored". Not necessarily bored because of a lack of activities, but simply because I have become a little less excited about every little thing. I mean, I live here, I get to experience it every day and after about a month I was just tired of getting so excited. After discussing this issue with my oh so smart boyfriend, we concluded I was suffering from a very normal study abroad "condition", where things are really exciting at first and then they just kind of die down. Thankfully Australia is not a boring country and the trip to Moreton Island helped me to realize that.

On Friday morning we woke up really early, as in 5 am, in order to catch the bus. We bused with a large group to the ferry stop. We then took the ferry about an hour and half to get to Moreton Island. Moreton Island is an extremely common destination for local Australian's as it has excellent camp sites and you are allowed to bring your vehicle to travel around the island (only if it has 4WD of course considering there are no roads, just sand). After all the other people's cars were unloaded we departed the ferry and hopped on our 4WD bus (yes, they exist). The bus ride brought me back to my time in Fiji when I was getting absolutely rocked in that tiny boat. The bus ride was... not smooth. But I could tell the driver was doing his best considering he was driving through sand and rainforest areas. We arrived at the Eco village which was a very nice simple accommodation and of course we immediately went to the beach. We strolled along the beach and enjoyed this island's great size and sandiness. Around six pm we enjoyed what might be the most beautiful sunset I have seen thus far in Australia.

That night, we enjoyed a bonfire on the beach, drank some wine, smoked some hookah, and overall just had a really nice chill night. Ahh, the love for this country was starting to return.

Saturday was greeted with another day of gorgeous weather and beach activities. That afternoon we went snorkeling through the shipwrecks off the shore of the island. We hand fed fish and saw a variety of marine life. I was lucky enough to see two sea turtles! They are extremely shy and faster than you would think. I was challenged to keep my eyes on them but it was still so wonderful. Seeing a turtle in the ocean was the most beautiful wildlife I have seen so far in my life. After another rough and bumpy bus ride back to the village, we enjoyed another sunset and an evening of outdoor beach activities.

On Sunday morning we woke up early and travelled by (bumpy) bus for about an hour only to arrive in the desert. Yep, the desert... here's proof:

Okay, maybe not the "official" desert but close enough. Here in the desert is where we all went sand boarding. You basically rode down one of those giant dunes on a piece of cardboard. It was so hot and we had to walk back up the hill! I would rather just sled... you can at least find comfort in hot chocolate after. We ended the weekend with more beach relaxing before boarding the ferry back home. I went to sleep at 9:30 that night (totally wiped).

Conclusions: I still love Australia. It is a beautiful country with so many things to explore and it was foolish of me to think I would be able to see everything in the first month. I simply just needed to expand where I was looking. And yes, if you are wondering how hard it was for me to resist referencing "Crush" from Finding Nemo the entire time while snorkeling... it was very, very hard. But sea turtles are so totally righteous!

For the past month I have been living with a few other ladies which I have not really shared too much about. But I decided it's time. My one roommate Penny lives downstairs with me. She is from China and is completing her entire degree here in Accounting here at UQ. She has lived here for about two years and I find her to be "less social" but I decided it's just because she isn't an exchange student and she probably has her own friend group established and she actually cares about school and doesn't just want to party. Anyway, I don't really see her leave her room much. My other roommate, Ilva lives upstairs and she is an exchange student from Germany. She is really nice and friendly and quite German. She likes going out and partying and stuff but at first we didn't really have that much to talk about so it was kinda weird at times. Then one night I got really drunk and she took care of me and brought me and stuff and we really bonded over that, but basically I was just thankful she still wanted to talk to me after that. 

Then we went out for St. Pat's day and we went to wakeboarding together and things have been getting better and better. I told her I wanted to practice German with her and she seemed to really like that, which is good. Then Sunday we decided to go out after wakeboarding and we had a wonderful time. On the way home however, something happened that I have never seen happen in real life: Ilva got shit on by a bird flying above us. Seriously, what are the chances! After we laughed about it for some time, I realized two things: I could seriously get along with a girl who laughs about something like that and the German's are always getting shit on. 

Me and Ilva... and our friend from New York. It was the best I could do for a pic...