Week 7..or 6...whatever week it is

It's been quiet times as of late here in paradise. Ha, paradise. I forgot it rains forever in paradise, but seriously. It has not stopped raining since that cyclone came through (If you don't know what I'm talking about, go back and read previous posts....now). I know what you are thinking though, surely you must be exaggerating a bit Chris. I'm not. The sun came out for most of the day this past Saturday, but sure enough the rain came through without fail. Anyyyywho, enough complaining, I am after all in Australia. Like I said, not a lot has been going on around here as of late. We are about half-way through the semester and lots and lots of projects have been due, hence the lack of a blog update. Don't worry though, I am here to make every ones life a million times better with another classic Chris blog post.

Saturday was really the only day of any excitement. At night I attended an Australian Football game. Interestingly enough, I have never in my life been to a NFL game, and now I have managed to go to an AFL game before ever going to a NFL game. Doesn't make much sense to me, especially seeing as I want to be a sports broadcaster/journalist when I am older, but I digress. The game was pretty entertaining from an American perspective. I had to have the rules explained to me as the game went on, but I got a good grasp  after a while and it became quite enjoyable. The one aspect of the game that I really liked was the fact the play NEVER stopped except for halftime and the end of the game. Even when one of the players legs exploded from a tackle the play still continued while he was ushered off the field. It was the best way to experience AFL as it was a round robbin of sorts where 3 teams all played each other in shortened 40 minute games as opposed to the usual 80 minute games. I was told to root for the Gold Coast Suns who churned out a win in the first game, which ultimately,  proved to be the most exciting. The game was tied and it was coming down to the final seconds when one of the Hawthorne Hawks players tackled one of the GC Suns players as the clock expired. The only thing was, the Suns player didn't have the ball when he was tackled which constitutes in a free kick for the Suns from just outside the 50 meter arch. I know most people won't know what any of that means, but just go with it. Anyways, there are three posts set up at the ends of the field in which kicking the ball in-between the outer posts results in 1 point, while kicking it in-between the inner posts results in 6 points. With the game tied and no time left on the clock the Suns only need 1 point for the win and sure enough Freddy Fitzgerald (made that name up) came through in the clutch. The next 2 games proved to be blowouts for the Brisbane Somethings, but none the less it was still enjoyable.

Saturday during the day proved to be a very fun day as well as I participated in an event called the Bondi 500. Yea I did Saturday night before the day, I don't care, it's my blog and I do what I want. This event was basically a cross between the Amazing Race and a scavenger hunt all throughout the Gold Coast. In teams of 4 you were to go around the Gold Coast collecting all sorts of different things from road kill to suspenders all the while participating in different challenges. At the first station we had to paddle and inflatable boat across the pool. The second station consisted of hitting a golf ball a mere 50 yards which was quite easy and it allowed for me to show off my mean slice. The third station was at an aerobics gym where we actually had to learn poll dancing moves.  Believe it or not it is extremely difficult to do and is quite the workout. The next station was a rock climbing station in which we were informed a team had already finished the race and took the grand prize. Obviously this altered our strategy to trying to obtain as much scavenger hunt points as possible. This lead us to McDonalds, AKA Maccas, and trying to persuade the employees to sing the Australian National Anthem for us...we failed. So, instead we had a delicious lunch and moved on. The rest of the day resulted in many other scavenger hunt shenanigans and we returned to the University feeling pretty good about our chances of winning the scavenger hunt prize. We lost. By over 1,00 points. However, our team got the honorable mention for our spirit and efforts (the feel good award) and won free entry into the event next year. You're welcome to whoever takes my spot.

That pretty much sums up the last two weeks. Shout out to Charlie Ross (an Aussie mate who turned 20 on sunday), Happy Birthday bud. Tomorrow is a big day as it is off to Sydney for the Mardi Gras festivities which should be the grandest of times and will surely result in another excellent tale in Chris' Super Fantastic Blog so stay tuned!

Week 5: The Great Barrier Reef

It may please many of my readers to know that this was by far and away one of the most fun weekends of my entire life. Others will probably be jealous. Either way, you are gonna hear about it. On Friday morning at the lovely time of 4:30 in the morning Hayley, Sara, Audra (newest crew member, sorry Molly) and I arose and prepared to catch a cab to surfers paradise so we could catch our 6am bus to the Great Barrier Reef. We first had to ride on a bus that made every single bump feel like a speed bump up to Brisbane where we would meet up with our tour guide and our specific bus that would take us the to reef. Our tour guide was a man named Harry, AKA the Nemo Wrangler, AKA the greatest tour guide to walk this side of the pacific ocean. He was abundant with crazy information about every area we drove through on our trek up, but I won't bore you with the details mainly because I don't remember them. One thing in particular I do remember was driving through the town of Bundaberg. To say this was an eye opening experience would be an understatement. If you read my previous posts you would know that we had some major flooding two weeks ago, some of the worst the eastern half of the country has seen. If you didn't read the posts, go back and do it, this is like a book you can't just go out of order, it's not a pick your own ending book. Anywho, the town of Bundaberg was one of the towns that really received the brute of the flooding and rain and you could tell. At one point we drove over a bridge that was probably 20-25 feet off the ground to which the flooding had reached the bottom of. As we drove through the town, taking the detour routes as the main roads were closed, every house we drove by was completely empty with all the furniture on the front lawn either drying or just beyond repair. Well that is for the houses that weren't washed up into the middle of the street. It was truly a sad site to see and one can only hope that they will be able to rebound from this travesty in a strong way.

Enough of the sadness though, let's move onto the excitement. Along with us on our tour of the reef was an Irish couple who had been in Australia for a wedding. By the end of the weekend we had all been wishing they just left after the wedding though as the husband was an alcoholic who managed to smell up the hostel room after the first night and was really quite the smart ass towards Harry. There was also a young french couple, a Canadian woman and and Chilean. For those of you who are a little slow with the math (ABA right big guy?) that makes 10 people, 11 if you count Harry.

The first night Harry took us to a nice little park where we got to have some delicious pizza while watching the sunset. It was the french guys birthday as well so we had a nice cake which Harry got confused with and initially gave to me thinking it was my birthday. It wasn't. Seeing as we had an early morning the next day everybody went back to the hostel after this, hung out for a bit and went to bed relatively early. Except for Sir Irish. He managed to stumble into the room at who knows what time, drunk as a skunk, and somehow turned getting into his bunk into a life or death task as it took him upwards of 10-15 minutes to climb up to the top bunk. The next morning he promptly got up and moved his mattress onto the floor. Prior planning prevents piss poor performance right?

We woke up at 7 the next morning and got ready to go to the boat for the reef which departed promptly at 8. Where we were going at the reef was not like anywhere else at the Great Barrier Reef. As some of you may or may not know it is one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World and on good merit as well as it stretches 1,600 miles. We were going to the southern most point of the reef to a small island called Lady Mustgrave. The coolest part about where we were going is that where we would be snorkeling/scubaing was completely enclosed. This meant 2 things in particular. The first was that there would be no swells and there would be no current. This was particularly good news for me as me and the water have never been on the best terms and the last time I tried snorkeling was a disaster because I could barely stay above the choppiness of the waves. The second good thing about the enclosure was that it meant no stingers (big scary stinging jelly fish). So with all of that info I was ready to hit the water and get my snorkel/scuba on alls I had to do was get there.

The boat ride was unfriendly to say the least. One thing I have learned in all of my years of boating is that the WORST place to be is inside. So sure enough we spend the first 40 minutes of the ride inside getting debriefed on how to scuba and sure enough my delicious breakfast did not agree with the idea of that. I'm not gonna spell it out. Once I got into the fresh air though the rest of the ride, although choppy, was smooth in another sense. Once we got the the reef it was as if we were in a who new area because the sky immediately cleared up and the sun shone bright, the rain and clouds weren't ideal on the boat ride. We started our time off with a nice snorkel so we could all get used to breathing with only our mouths and boy am I glad we did. It took a little while to get accustomed to doing so, but once I got the hang of it I got to enjoy fish of all different shapes, sizes and colors including the biggest starfish you have ever seen. It was blue.

Then came the time to really get under water and scuba. The scuba instructor could only take us out in groups of 3 so unfortunately the 4 of us couldn't all go out together and even more unfortunately I was stuck with Hayley as my scuba buddy (boom roasted). It took me a little while and a little reassuring from the instructor to get the hang of being entirely submerged while breathing though the mouth. Again, me and the water-not on great terms. Once I calmed myself down and realized that this was a once in a life time experience I just went for it and boy am I glad I did. Being able to see the reef up close and personal was just an indescribable experience. We got to stay under for about 30 minutes getting to see some of the most beautifully colored fish you have ever seen. All in all I can easily say that it was one of the greatest experiences I have ever had thus far in my life and I do owe it to my wonderful parents so shout out to them in the freezing cold, no power nor' eastern they are dealing with. Below I have included a few more pictures so enjoy and until next time, stay warm!

Week 4: The Forgotten Week

Many of you may have noticed that there was no week 4 blog, good job. Due to a week as exciting as any other week there was no blog. Also the disappointment of the 49ers losing due to terrible coaching decisions also plays into it as I was just too caught up and being disgruntled over the loss. Never fear though a new post is coming and it is bound to be a doozy so stay tuned.

Week 3: Time to Build an Arc

First off I'd like to apologize to all of my loyal readers for the delay in creating this most recent post, but I have a very good reason. Okay not really I just got a little lazy, but never fear it is back and better than ever. Eh also probably not true. Anyways onto the exciting times.

This past weekend was a good one as Saturday presented us with our first Australian holiday; Australia Day. It is the 4th of July of the Australians, but of course on a different day and not for American independence. A crew of about 16 of ventured to the lovely town of Byron Bay which was a very laid back town and was quite cool to walk around. I imagine if it were sunny it would have been a lot more enjoyable, but unfortunately it rained from the moment we arrived on Friday to the moment we left on Sunday. I'll divulge deeper into the rain a bit later though. We checked into our Hostel on Friday which was actually a pretty cool place. The room was much bigger than the Hostel in Brisbane and the Hostel itself was much more spacious as a whole. It was fully equipped with it's own private path to the beach which was convenient as walking the beach was the quickest route into town. The only issue with it came when walking back at night. Believe it or not it was actually quite hard to find the path at night. I know, Who'd a thunk it eh? I was walking back with some people on Friday night and managed to overshoot it by a significant margin and ended up maybe about half a mile away from the Hostel. "Chris you are in a foreign country you have GOT to be more careful!" Don't worry loving parents I will. Luckily a taxi cab driver drove by as we were walking back to the Hostel (in the rain) and gave us a lift, free of charge. Free of charge. As if something like that would ever happen in the states. Other than that Friday was pretty uneventful mainly consisting of wandering around the town which was pretty small, but full of lots of cool shops.

Then came Saturday, Australia Day. We started the day off with a big group breakfast and then proceeded go back to the Hostel to have a few drinks with the rest of the Australian community that was staying there. Later on in the day we went to one of the others Hostels where they were having a good ol' fashioned Aussie barbecue that only cost 10 dollars for all you can eat which was easily the cheapest meal I have had since getting here. My narrowed minded American mind was a little shocked when I went to get my food as there were no hotdogs and hamburgers. Instead they had sausages and beef patties. I know what you are saying, "Beef patties are hamburgers idiot!" They aren't. I don't like hamburgers, I like these beef patties. The other peculiar thing was that there was a serious lack and buns. Buns as in bread, not like....yea moving on. Instead, sausages were put on just a standard piece of white bread while beef patties (not burgers) were just eaten as is. Once the BBQ was over we went to one of the rooms and listened to the rest of the "Triple J Hot 100" countdown which was a top 100 countdown of all the songs over the last year that the ENTIRE country listens to. As the countdown started around noon you would be hard pressed to go anywhere and not hear it. What was the number 1 song you ask? Or don't ask? You probably don't care, but Imma tell you anyways. It was Thrift Shop by Macklemore. Yea, you read that right, Thrift Shop. The rest of the night was spent bouncing around on the town going to different clubs/bars and what not. One club in particular had a Ms. Australia and Mr. Australia competition which were both pretty humorous to watch. The weird thing was that there were more Americans than Aussies in both competitions and an American even won the Mr. Australia competition. I don't get it.

We left Sunday and returned to school just in time for the most ridiculous cyclone ever. The rain, having started on Thursday, continued through Sunday, and through Monday leaving a large majority of the northern part of the country under water. It was so bad that they even had to cancel classes both Monday and Tuesday, but ain't nobody complainin bout that. And when I say it rained, it RAINED. At one point it was at a point where the rain drops would hurt you if you got hit by them. Ha, if you got hit by them. The good thing about the rain here is that it doesn't cause a significant drop in temperature and that leads to football (gridiron as they call it) in the rain which was pretty enjoyable.

To give you an idea of the flooding, that green post is normally not in the man made lake.

 

I'm the scrawny one in the black shorts. That grass is never going to grow back.

As far as this coming week/weekend nothing too crazy is on the docket, but I'll have something for ya next week. Hopefully on time this time.

Week 2: Ey Currumbin

So my second full week has come to an end and we are getting into the full swing of things. Classes have started and they are so much different from class back home. There are 2 parts to the classes here the lecture and the tutorial. The lecture is well, a lecture. You will be a full class ranging from 20-30 people and the professor will teach for a solid 2 hours which for me is still mighty long as I never did do a block schedule. Then later in the week there is the tutorial which will contain between 7-12 people and is basically a recap of the lecture that took place earlier. It is a much more informal environment in the "tuts" where you essentially just talk with the teacher for an hour. All in all I like my classes and I don't think  any should be too strenuous, knock on wood.

The best thing about classes here are the ones that take place on Friday and that's because there are none. You would be hard pressed to find somebody who has a class on Friday which always means that fun and exciting things can take place. For instance this past Friday the school organized a pub crawl for us. It was pretty long as it started at 4:45 and went until about 1 am. We bounced around 5 different pubs/bars/night clubs and don't worry Mom and Dad all I drank was water, water, water and some more water. 

Saturday was a spent at the beach which was nice and relaxing as we took a bus down there around 11 and just spent the day there. On Sunday we went on an adventure to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary where lots of exciting things transcribed. We first saw a crocodile feeding show which was hardly a show and more or less some dude throwing giant pieces of pork towards a 20 foot croc. It was cool to see it be fed, but if I had some pork I probably could have recreated the "show."

Feeding time

From there it was time to frolic with the kangaroos. I don't know if other Americans had the perspective that I had and thought kangaroos were almost extinct and treated like gold over here, but they aren't. In fact they are the U.S. equivalent to deer. They destroy everything from fences to gardens, they love to see how quickly they can hop across the street in front of your car (they lose a lot) and then they make a great dinner time treat as well. I have to be honest as well, kangaroo is damn good. That being said they were all very calm and relaxed and the sanctuary. For 2 dollars you could get some kangaroo food to feed them and just hang out with them basically.

Sarz, Storm and I feeding the roos

 From there we wandered around a bit and eventually made our way to the koalas and they were awesome. Living what seemed to be the high life of just sitting in trees and sleeping the majority of the day only waking up to eat some food and take sweet pictures with me. All in all the sanctuary was a very neat place and a fantastic way to close out the week.

Next weekend is the grand holiday of Australia Day which is kind of like the 4th of July back home. Me, Sara, Hayley, maybe Audra (new american friend) and a bunch of Aussie friends are going to Byron Bay for the weekend because apparently it's the place to be so check in next week for more exciting tales. For now though, take a gander at some of these great photos taken by Sarzburt and Storm. My photos are on my phone and I don't have the attention span to deal with uploading them right now. Well that and the fact I'm not in any of my own pictures. Cheers!

Chillest kangaroo around

That's a baby croc, not a lizard....Meghan

 

From left: Storm, Ana, Pany, me, Sarz and Audra

Cha boi Lleyton-named after the tennis player

Week One: Rules of Thumb

I have now been in the land down under for approximately one week and things are going just swimmingly. It is quite similar to the U.S. but at the same time quite different. After this first week there are specifically 3 things I have learned that one needs to be aware of at all times. First, the phrase "How ya going?" has absolutely nothing to do with where you are going or how you are going about getting there. So don't respond, the bathroom, why are you wondering? In fact it is the U.S. equivalent to the classic question "How are you doing?" Secondly, and this may actually be the most important, KEEP LEFT AT ALL COSTS. Whether you are running, skipping, jumping, rolling, diving or driving it is essential that you stay to the left. Otherwise there is a very good chance you will be giving a complete stranger a solid chest bump for no apparent reason and that's very hard to recover from or play off like it was on purpose. Lastly, thongs are flip flops not underwear. So if somebody ever tells you they are going to put their thongs on don't give them a weird look because they are a guy, and don't give them a weirder look because they are putting on more than one. Remember these three things at all times and you will be alright.

Sara, Hayley and I arrived last Sunday and spent our first day/night in a hostel in Surfers Paradise which is a pretty self explanatory name for a city. The hostel was surprisingly nice as it was equipped with a lobby and patio area where most of the hostel goers gathered at night just to hang around and meet some of the other travelers. The room itself was about the size of an airplane bathroom, but since we were only there one night it was no big deal.

We got to the Uni (University is a lot of syllables so they shorten it) on Monday and it is basically the High Point of Austraya-the "L" disappears when you arrive here. The campus was finished being built in 1987 so everything looks very new and it even has its very own man made lake. The dorm rooms are pretty straight forward except for the fact that there are cleaning ladies that come through and clean the rooms once a week. Yea, cleaning ladies, balls in your court High Point.

Now onto the beaches. The first thing you notice at the beach is the incredible cleanliness of them. It almost makes you wonder what is really going on with the beaches in the U.S. and definitely warrants a little skepticism towards them. That being said though, I would still much rather be swimming in the U.S. waters. Now I know what people are thinking, but the water there is cleaner, the water is warmer and surf rescue is an actual sport so your chances of drowning are virtually impossible. I'll have you know that there are much bigger worries about swimming in the water here, bigger being the key word. I was not in the water for more than 5 minutes before I was greeted by a jelly fish that, honest to God, had to be at least 3 feet in diameter. Oh and it will sting you if you get too close. Not to mention it was poisonous. Basically all the while you are in the water your head should be on a swivel looking out for these mammoth floating death traps and other creatures of the deep.

All in all the first week here has been a grand success as I have made a lot of Aussie friends. I'm sure as long as the sea creatures and other deadly creatures don't get me I will have a fantastic time here so feel free to check back week to week and read about my endeavors so long as they don't bore you.