This is a LONG one!

Wow, sorry it's been so long since I last posted, I have been crazy busy. Get ready for a long one, cause a lot has happened.

Going back to Monday, April 20th....I had my group project for my ASC class. I was talking about Australian art. My group focused on two artists: Syndey Nolan and Rosalie Gascoigne. Sydney Nolan is most known for his series of paintings on Ned Kelley (an Irish man that was very mistreated by the Austrlian police). Rosalie Gascoigne takes things she find laying around in Australia and puts them together to make art. She arranges them in such a way to portray the Australian landscape in which she found them. Both of these artists are really interesting, and I would encourage anyone reading this blog to google them and view a few of their works.

Tuesday I had my first exam since coming to Australia. It was in my Theological Foundations class. I was really nervous about it because I didn't know what to expect, but I didn't do too badly which is nice. Amy and I walked to school this morning. It was a really nice walk, and more reliable than the buses because we controlled when we left and the speed we walked and there was no traffic on the sidewalks...haha. It took us about 1 1/2 hours to walk; it's 6.4 kilometers. After my Theology class I went to a Thai restaurant just down the road with all the Theology professors and some other students because it was free Theology lunch day where Theology students could go eat lunch at this restaurant and the professors pay for it all. I got Chicken Pad Thai and it was AMAZING! I LOVE Thai food and it'd been a while since I'd had it so it was extra good! From there I walked back home. Tuesday night I went to a bible study at a friends house in Concord. Normally, I would take a bus all the way to their house, but I wasn't paying attention and got off way early and had to walk about 20 minutes to their house. So, all together I walked about 10 miles in one day!

Friday we didn't have to be at school until noon because it was the day we were leaving for our outback trip and we weren't leaving until 12:30pm. We were headed out to the back of Bourke at a place called Trilby Station. The total driving time was 12 hours and we split it up into two days. Friday, the first leg of the journey, we drove 6 hours to a little town called Dubbo and stayed at a little motel called Matilda's Motor Inn. Saturday we got off to an early start and drove for 6 more hours to Trilby Station. I had expected red soil at this station because that's what I pictured there being in the outback: red soil. On the drive out there, there was lots of red soil, but at the station it was a light brown. We found out this is because it floods in certain areas and where it floods the soil is light brown, so there were parts of the property that were light brown and parts that were red. The owners of this station, Liz and Gary Murray, own over 200,000 acres and they raise sheep for wool. At the moment, they have about 17,000 sheep. We stayed in the shearers bunkhouses, however, several people slept outside on a tarp under the stars. I slept outside the first night. It was amazing, the stars were SOOOOO beautiful and I saw so many shooting stars. Saturday night at campfire we had s'mores, but they were interesting s'mores because they don't have graham crackers here, so we had to use these ones that were similar and the marshmallows here are different, more sugary, less gooey and creamy if that makes sense. Also, instead of milk chocolate, we had white chocolate bars to use. They were yummy!

Sunday we had our own little worship service type thing where we sang songs, read some Bible passages and talked a bit. After that a group of us went out to explore the property some. The flies were not too, bad but still annoying, very persistent. I had a fly net, but I never used it. If the flies would have been much worse I would have used it though. It was really not that warm and a bit windy which helped keep the number of flies down. Sunday night I went with half the group on a drive around the property to look for Kangaroos. We didn't see that many, only about 5 or so, but we
also saw wild goats, wild cats and bunny rabbits.

Monday afternoon we split into two groups and got taken on a tour of the property. I was in the second group and was in Liz's car. We saw tons of Kangaroos, they would just be chilling in the middle of the road until we drove up and then they'd run to the side, but if we slowed down and stopped, they would stop too, so we could look at them and take pics and stuff, it was cool! A few of the Kangaroos had baby joeys in their pouches. We saw all kinds of stuff on their property: an old double-decker bus, the old farm house where they used to live, a dam, etc. Liz cooked for us the whole time we were there and she made some AMAZING food! We had a beef and veggie stew one night, for breakfast every morning we'd have toast and eggs, for dessert we had things like an apple crisp, dumplings with a carmel sauce, custard, some type of cake similar to rum cake, etc. YUM! However, we ate like 6 times a day (breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, dessert) so by the time I left I felt so over full, I felt like I could go without food for a whole week I ate so much! But at least we were well fed.

Tuesday we begin our long trek home, this time we split the drive up unevenly. We drove for about 8 hours this time. On the way we stopped in Bourke and visited this new cultural center that had just opened. We drove all the way to a town called Bathurst and stayed at a place called the Bathurst Sheep and Cattle Drome.

Wednesday morning we got to watch the animals perform. The people put on a cd with special music on and the sheep, cows, horses, donkeys, and goats would run in and go right to their labeled spots on the platform. It was amazing! They were well trained. Then we got to watch a sheep being sheared, some of the group got to try milking a cow, we got to hold a baby lamb, try to crack whips, etc. It was a lot of fun! We stopped in the Blue Mountains for lunch. They are so pretty, I am definitely going back and hiking in them at some point before this semester ends! They aren't really what we'd call mountains back in the states though, more like rock formations with deep valleys in between.

Thursday I went with Amy into the city. We went to the Rocks so I could look for an Opal necklace and just explore a bit. Opals are native to Australia and it's my birthstone, so I wanted to get one as a special momento. The place we found was rather expensive so we started walking back from where we came from. On the way, we found a jewelry store that was having sales so I went in. I found an Opal necklace that I really liked and it ended up being only $28 American ($40 AUD). Originally, it was $110AUD, but it was half price so $55 AUD and then the lady gave me a discount because it was my birthstone. I was super excited to find it! Then, right next door, there was a store with all kinds of Aboriginal art and such in it and it was closing down the next day so they were also having super sales. I found several things there for people back home as well as myself. And they were all directly from Aboriginal people, so they were very much authentic.

Friday was the start of the Aboriginal portion of the ASC class. We took a field trip to La Perouse in Botany Bay and were shown around by an Aborigianl guide. We went through the bush, along the cliffs overlooking Botany Bay. It was gorgeous! We learned about history and different plants we could eat or not eat.