A Week Up North

Wow, where to start. So, early Sunday morning, I caught the 5:19 bus to the airport. The trip had begun! We flew up to a town up north called Townsville and then took a ferry over to Magnetic Island. The island was so cool! It reminded me alot of the island from the tv show LOST, but minus all the creepy/weird things on that show. We stayed in a youth hostel right along the beach. It was a cute, nice hostel.


There were eight of us in the group (7 girls and 1 guy) and we all were in the same room which turned out to be a nice little cabin. It was super hot there and very very humid; it was around 85-90 degrees Fahrenheit all week and the air was super wet and sticky.

Tuesday 6 of us went down to Horseshoe Bay and went on a horseback ride through the bush, along the beach and in the water if you wanted. It was super fun!! It turned out to be about a 3 hour ride. We got to see so much and when we got to the beach, after riding along it for a while, we had the option to go bareback on our horse into the water. I didn't end up doing that, I don't know exactly why, I kinda wish I would have, but I can't go back now. Those who did go, though, got to do different things on their horse while in the water, such as stand on the horses bottom and jump off in to the water. It looked like lots of fun! I was on a horse named Kloe, she was dark brown with a white stripe on her forehead. Before the horseback ride, we had walked around Horseshoe Bay a bit and we found Wallaby Way, but unlike in Finding Nemo, there was not 42 Wallaby Way and there was no P. Sherman. Ialso got to see a few Koalas in their natural habitat.

Wednesday was the trip out to the reef. We caught the boat at 7:30 in the morning. There were about 30 people on the boat (that included us). It was a 4 hour boat ride out to the reef. Unfortunately, the trip there was pretty miserable for me. I've never gotten motion sickness on a boat before so I didn't think anything of it, but I had to fill out this waiver form and it was pretty rough water and that combination was bad. I felt pretty sick the whole 4 hour ride. It was raining off and on the whole ride over there as well, and there were no seats under cover, so I had to sit out in the rain, so I got completely soaked. Once the boat arrived at the reef, the sun came out and it was beautiful weather! The snorkle gear was passed out and we all put on stinger suits (like wet suits), flippers, and the snorkle masks, then it was off in the water we went. It was sooooo pretty!!! I didn't get my hands on an underwater camera, so I don't have pictures, but man, it was AWESOME!! I saw a giant sea turtle and swam over it for a while, and I saw reef sharks, teal/bluish fish, big ugly fish, clown (nemo) fish, black and white striped fish, etc. and of course lots of coral! I snorkled for about an hour, then came back to the boat for lunch, then went back in the water for about another 1/2 hour. I didn't want to leave!! It was so beautiful! The boat ride back was much better, I didn't feel sick and it was sunny and nice the whole way back. After getting back the group of 8 I was with, walked down the beach to a house that a group of 7 ASCers had rented and had dinner and hung out.

Thursday I hiked over to this private beach that Kelsey and Audrey had found a few days earlier. It was a nice, peaceful beach. There was no one else there for most of the time we were there. We couldn't go swimming in the ocean though because of the box jellyfish, so that was a bummer. There were some neat rocks to climb on this beach.

Friday we had to get up early and catch a bus to the Nellie Bay ferry so we could get back to Townsville and catch our flight back to Sydney. I wasn't ready to go back, it was such an amazing relaxing week!! I sat next to this crazy lady on the flight back. She was nuts!! For one, she was terrified of flying and apparently dealt with it by talking to someone (not her boyfriend, who was sitting next to me as well, she said because she always talks to him) and that someone ended up being me. She was very.......I'll just say eccentric. From the airport I went with Keri to Burwood Park to use her camera to take pictures of the giant chess board there for a photography project I had to do.

Oh yah, how could I forget. Okay, so around the hostel there were ring-tailed possums everywhere and they were not scared of people. One night, I don't remember what night exactly, Matt, the one guy in the group, decided it'd be funny to play a joke on the girls. So, there were five of us girls in the cabin and Matt picked up a possum by the tail and threw it into the cabin. I heard a thump and looked down and there was a possum in between my feet nosing up to my feet. Several of us started screaming, more from the shock of a possum being flung into the room than from the fact that is was a possum, and that freaked the possum out. Eventually we all made it outside, possum and us girls. The guys in the cabins next to ours had heard us screaming and all had come outside and were all laughing at us, which I was laughing to by that point. It was pretty funny!

Good Friday Production

Jesus talking to his disciples in the garden
The disciples fell asleep
Jesus crying out to God in the garden
Jesus waking his disciples
Judas betraying Jesus
The guards arresting Jesus
Pilate
Jesus being whipped

Carrying the cross

Featherdale Pictures

1) Tasmanian Devil
2) Kangaroo lazing around
3) Emu
4) Albino Wallabys
5) We could feed the Kangaroos cones full of Kangaroo food
6) A Wombat
7) Peacock
8) Koala close up
9) Group of standing Kangaroos
10) Close up of a Kangaroo's face
11) Sleepy Koala
12) 10 meter Crocodile
13) Me with a Kangaroo
14) Standing Kangaroo

First Week Of Break

Monday was the start of the two week break! I slept in which was most wonderful! Then I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art. There was some really cool exhibits in here, unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures, so I went to Google and found some pictures from there so I can show you what some of the exhibits look like. The artist is a women named Yayoi Kusama. One of her exhibits was a room that was furnished like a living room, so sofa, table, tv, etc. and everything (walls, ceiling, floor and furniture) were all black. The only source of light was black lights and there were little round stickers that were all different colors (red, blue, yellow, green) and they glowed under the black lights. It was so cool looking, I really wish I could have taken a picture. Here's another link to what yet another of the rooms looked like, this room had the walls, ceiling and back of door as solid mirrors and there were strands of colored lights hanging down. After that I walked around the outside of the Opera House a bit.

Tuesday was Featherdale day. Featherdale is a wildlife park where I was able to pet Kangaroos and Koalas! It was super fun and I saw so many awesome animals! And of course it was fun to get so close to roos and Koalas. They both have really soft fur. After Featherdale, me and my American friends Jess, Chantel, and Keri and my Aussie friend Emma went to the Opera House because the Star Trek movie world premeir was happening that evening. We got there early because we expected a crowd, but there was nobody, so we got a spot right up along the red carpet! It was awesome! However, because we were near the top, after the press, by the time the actors got to us they were running late, so only a few stopped for autographs. I got Eric Bana's, who was in movies such as The Hulk, The Other Boleyn Girl and The Castle and I got Karl Urban's, who was in movies such as Lord of the Rings, the Bourne Supremacy and Doom. I did not get Zachary Quinto's autograph, but I was about 4 feet away from him and on his way by, he waved and said "sorry, I've got a movie to get to". It was very exciting! The other celebrities there that passed by included, Chris Pine, John Cho and the producer and director of the Star Trek movie J.J. Abrams. Thursday night, my fellow ASCer, Jason, came over for dinner. We had stuffed peppers, well, my host mom called them something else, some Greek name, but basically it was peppers with a rice/meat mixture inside of them. They're pretty good! Then we watched the movie Dodgeball and played some Phase 10. Friday was Good Friday. I was originally going to meet up with a few other ASCers at Wesley to work on a group project we have to do, but when we got there we discovered the school was closed due to Good Friday. So, I went over to one of their houses (Keri's) and we worked on the project there for a while. Then we headed off into the city for the Wesley choir/drama/dance Good Friday production. It was an amazing production! It started out in Martin Place and they acted out the betrayal and the trial and then Jesus picked up the cross and walked through town to the Wesley Mission with all of us crowd following behind. Once at the Wesley Mission there was more service. It was really good! Afterwards, I was meeting up with Emma to work on my photography project. We went out to dinner at Macca's and then got some coffee at Starbucks. Then we headed to Darling Harbour to try and take some good pictures of a place called Luna Park, it's a sort of amusement park. However, the pictures weren't quite working so we were going to try another place. We decided we'd take a ferry there, however, we must have gotten on the wrong ferry, because it never went to where we wanted to go. The ferry arrived at it's last stop and we had to get off. We then went to catch a bus to the nearest train station and the lady driving the bus was in a BAD mood. She was super grumpy and kind of rude, not to mention a bad driver. Finally we arrived at the train station and we parted ways and made our way home. It was a very interesting experience, but a fun one nonetheless. It is so fun to listen to the differences in accents between American and Australian on certain words. It provides endless entertainment!

Last Week of School Before Break

Last week has flown by! Wednesday I went out to Thai food with some friends, both Australians and Americans, it was super dooper yummy!! Then there was a movie night at Wesley, we watched "Ned Kelly". It was all about a guy named Ned Kelly (it's a true story) and how he fights against persecution and ends up dying for the cause in the end. It's a very depressing movie, typically Australian, their movies do not always have happy endings like American movies do.

Thursday I went to some performances called IP's at Wesley. They were good, interesting, but good. They were all written, directed, and performed by students. Afterwards, I went out to "Thursday nights with Emma". This has been a tradition for a small group of ASCers/Australians, but this was the first time I went. We hit up the 7/11 and got slurpees, then went down to the bay and just chilled for a while. It was lots of fun! We had fun making fun of each others accents.

Friday morning was spent in class, yes I do actually go to school here despite all my fun, haha. After class me and a few others went to the NSW state library to work on our group project that we have to present. We're doing it on Australian art; we chose to focus on two artists: Rosalie Gascoigne and Sydney Nolan. Friday night I went to watch the Wesley choir perform at an Easter service.

Saturday morning I had my service project at Hillsong again. This time I went out to what they call the Towers, it's a government housing apartment complex in Waterloo. We went to a couple peoples apartments and cleaned up some for them and then went floor to floor knocking on doors asking if anyone needed anything. It was an awesome experience! I can't wait for this next week. In the afternoon, I just hung out at home and attempted to do homework. Saturday evening I went to the Hillsong service. It was really good, probably my favorite service there yet. I have a few problems with Hillsong, but none of them came up in this service, it was nice. Afterwards there was an art show at two different cafes in the area so I went with Jess and one of the guys who signs for the deaf at the services to them. It was a lot of fun and I got to meet new people!

Sunday night I went to Burwood Uniting Church. It was a very different service. There was only about 20-30 people there and there was no official sermon; a few people got up and read some passages and then an older man got up and talked a bit about each one. Scattered throughout the service they sang praise songs, but it was kind of awkward. Someone would get up and say we are going to sing praise to God please stand, and everyone would look around waiting for someone else to stand, so it took a while for people to stand up. The people were really friendly and all, I just felt the service was kind of awkward.

Fun fun fun!

Friday night I hung out with Ty and Ben. We decided we wanted to take a ferry, we didn't know to where, just take a random ferry. So we did! It was super fun, we got off at a place called Mosman Bay (or something like that) in North Sydney and walked around there for a while. Then we got back on the ferry into Darling Harbor. From there, we decided we wanted ice cream and wafer cookie things, so we went in search of a Maccas. However, on the way there we decided to instead get a big thing of ice cream from a store and share it. So we got 2 liters of ice cream and some chocolate wafer cookies and sat in Hyde Park and dug in! By the time we were through we all felt rather full and somewhat sick, haha, the price that is paid for eating so much ice cream I suppose.

Sunday I was originally going to go to Hillsong with a friend, but she missed her bus and so wasn't there to meet me at the train station, so I decided I'd go ahead and just go by myself. Well, I got off the train in town, but couldn't find the place where the shuttle leaves to go to Hillsong (last time I took the shuttle I was with my friend and didn't pay attention to where it was). So I ended up walking all around that area for about 2 hours, it was great fun, I just wandered wherever I felt like. Then I went to Bronte beach to meet up with a few friends from Hillsong for a bbq. I was going to go swimming, but the lifeguards, when we first got there, said that we could swim if we wanted to, but if something happened they weren't going in after us because it was too dangerous. So, we did not swim and then they ended up closing the water part for the rest the time anyway because the water was just too rough. They had two different people get rushed to the hospital because of the rough water. Sunday night was Hillsongs Live Album Recording at the Sydney Entertainment Center. It was super awesome! Darlene Zschech was there and so was Brooke Fraiser. I sat in the deaf section with my friend, because she is learning sign language. It was very interesting, I think I'm going to have to start learning some sign language, because I find it quite fascinating. In Australia, they have a completely different sign language than America, I never knew this, I thought sign language was universal, but apparently it differs.