Freo Life!

After a long 3 month Christmas Vacation, I have finally arrived in Freo (Fremantle), and start class tomorrow. Being in Freo for the past week has been a blast! It is such a cute little city with tons of shopping, fun pubs, and great cafes. Everyone is very laid back and happy. We are staying at a complex called the P and O Hotel, which holds all 27 of the CSBSJU students, as well as a few from Boston College, Notre Dame, Sienna College, Portland, and Drake. I have already had the opportunity to meet a lot of cool people, both locals as well as people from other schools in the states! The P&O is a very cool building, with a balcony looking over Mauot Street and beautiful stained glass windows everywhere.  500 steps to our right, we have a beach called Bathers Beach, and about 300 steps to our left, we have a bar called the Orient. I think I’m going to like this place!

My first week has consisted of lots of sun, sweat, water, and orientation. We have a few hours of mandatory Orientation every day, but when we are not doing that we are at the beach. It has been about 100 degrees here every day, so everywhere you go is extremely hot! I don’t think I’ve ever drank so much water in my life! Also, our rooms are not air conditioned, so taking a cold shower is one of the highlights of my day! It is supposed to cool down in the next week or two, which will be nice. I feel slightly bad complaining about the heat since I know it is still freezing at home, but I’m quickly learning to get used to it!

 On the weekends, a giant market opens up where various venders throughout the metropolis area sell all sorts of goofy stuff, as well as some good produce! Since fruits and vegetables are so much less expensive at the markets, going to the markets will have to become part of my Sunday routine!

School here will be very interesting, as it is much different than what I am used to. I am taking 5 classes, and have each class only once per week. My grades depend on a midterm, 1 paper, and 1 final exam, which will be difficult. At orientation, the director tried to scare us by saying no one gets good grades here, and as long as you have a passing grade you should be happy with your efforts. Also, she made it clear that putting the correct answer down for a test won’t get you a passing grade; we must elaborate on every answer to expect a grade. This information is quite intimidating, but many others who have done the program say it’s not as bad as they describe, but we will find out shortly! The good news is that we won’t have a lot of homework, which allows us plenty of time to explore and travel! We have a few excursions planned for us through the school, one of which will take place with the Aborigines in the Kimberly Desert, but we also are planning a ‘study break’ trip to Bali, a weekend at Rottnest Island, and a trip to Margaret River to become wine connoisseurs J

I will post pictures on face book soon of the first week of Freo life!

Oh, and We  have quickly learned that no one should go swimming at night, as two people have had ‘jelly fish related’ incidents! We’ve also heard that sharks like to creep up towards the shore at night too--- so no night time swimming for me!

And I finally have a picture of our scooter team from Queenstown!

Sydney!

Oddly enough, our plans completely changed since I last wrote. We decided to fly to Sydney a few days early, which was a great decision. We didn't have anyplace to stay, but we managed to get placed in a 2 star airport hotel which very much resembled a jail cell. Lesson Learned: always have a place to stay when leaving the country.  

After our interesting hotel experience, we relocated to a hostel on the outskirts of chinatown, which was also an experience. Thankfully, we had friends at a hostel about 2 blocks away which we ended up moving to for great reasons. Another lesson learned: don't believe everything you see on the Internet. What was desrcibed as a family room which resembled the comfort of a hotel ended up being a 10x10 room with cockroaches in the window. Ohhh the joys of traveling. We had a good laugh at both places, and often talked about how much we will appreciate the luxury of traveling with our parents who pay for nice hotel much more. But like I said, we had some great laughs and it all worked out in the end.

One of the nice things about being in Sydney was finally having more bennies and johnnies show up. Brandon met with us last Tuesday, and Kelsey and heather came on Wednesday. I can't wait to see everyone else in Perth.

Our week was filled with tons of walking, sight seeing,some beach bumming,a little shopping, and a  well deserved pub break for a few happy hours (did I mention that in love being legal to drink?) one of my favorite things that I did was went t manly island and spent the afternoon on the beach. It was about a 30 minute very ride but we got to see some great scenery along the way. The water was so warm, and the waves and HUGE! We saw a bunch of people body surfing the waves, so we attempted to try it and quickly realized that more training was needed before attempting to ride a wave. It's amazing how those things can make you twist and turn underwater if you get caught in one. There were a couple times it got a little too scary, so I guess I need to give a shouting to the beresford swimming pool for all of those great lessons when I was a kid and my cousin/ diving instructor Corey for teaching me to stay calm underwater. 

Beings we were so close to china town, I was on a mission to find some great knock offs to bring home as gifts, and to impress the guys with my mad bargaining skills but apparently none of the shops there have secret closets filled with fake channels, ray bans, and Pradas. I was disappointed, but I guess every chinatown is different!

On our last night, Gavin, Matthew, Brandon and I all went out for a nice seafood dinner and a show at the opera house. The opera house is beautiful, and it was a great experience that I will remember forever. Unfortunately I ended up getting food poisoning so I had to leave at intermission ,but I'm sure the second half was great. 

I am currently en route to Perth, and I am very anxious  to be settled and to stop living out of a suitcase. This wonderful vacation I have been on is about to come to an end, as I start school next week ( I think....no one really knows.) Im looking forward to meeting more Australians and less backpackers, and getting to know another city.  you all very much and will let you know about the first week of school once it happens!

Superbowl Monday and Beyond!!!

Our time in Queenstown is rapidly coming to an end, and while I’ve only been gone for 10 days I feel like it’s been months!  Michael left us today for his study abroad program, which was kind of sad since he is such a fun guy, but we wish him well! Dunedin doesn’t know what they are in for—go get ‘em Michael! The other crew from CSBSJU also left for Cairns, Australia which leaves Gavin, Matthew, and myself still in Qtown. We had originally wanted to rent a camper van and travel around the south island of New Zealand until Tuesday when we head to Sydney, however none of us really know how to drive an automatic van especially in the mountains, so we opted to take a bus to Dunedin for the long weekend. We don’t really have plans for once we get there, but that’s the beauty of exploring. We’ll figure it out! J

As mentioned before, the past week has been nothing short of unforgettable.

Monday: Gav, Michael, Matthew and I woke up early to go bungee jumping and canyon swinging. Queenstown has the 3^rd largest bungee jump in the world ( the 1^st and 2^nd being in Capetown, SAfrica) and the world’s highest canyon swing. I was too scared to do the Bungee jump, so I decided to do the canyon swing since I didn’t really know what it was, which didn’t leave me a whole lot of room to be nervous.  Then I saw the canyon where I would be falling, and freaked out. I told the guys that I had to go first in order to make sure I didn’t back out. After all is said and done, it was so much fun! Definitely the scariest activity I’ve ever done, but now I can work on climbing my way up the adventure ladder to the bungee jump.

One essential question we all had going into this trip was “Where are we going to watch the superbowl?”  Since we are a day ahead of the States, it played on Monday afternoon and to my surprise, many bars marketed the game and had some great specials! Everyone from CSBSJU met at a bar called Ministry of Sports which is across the street from our Hostile. It also happened to be the 21^st birthday of a girl on our trip, so we had a lot of fun all day J We even met a guy who graduated from St. John’s, and knew my older brother Jason and a bunch of his friends! Small world—this just proves that you can never hide! During halftime we had everyone over to our hostile for a few drinks, and we got to meet a lot of other residents in our hostile. Many people are from Israel, Germany, and London. We also met Stuart from England, who has been our new friend all week! He nicknamed himself “no hangover stu”, which means he has a glass of water after every drink or shot. Not a bad idea, right?! We’re trying to convince him to come to St. Joe, which would be a blast!

Tuesday and Wednesday we did a lot of walking around and relaxing. Tuesday morning we were all pretty tired from Monday’s series of events, so we took a personal day to explore the city and do a little shopping. We got coffee down by the pier at a place called Patagonia, which sells great chocolates, ice cream, and coffee and people watched for a good portion of the day. A few  people here don’t wear shoes, which I find odd but interesting. We all went our separate ways to take naps or continue walking around, which was when I went to the Queenstown Garden,  my new favorite place in the world! It’s right next to the lake, but there is a small pond, tons of flowers, beautiful landscaping, all with the mountains in the background. I could sit there for hours! 

We returned to the garden on Wednesday, where we all took a nap in the sun. The weather is perfect here! It’s around 60-70 degrees, with a little breeze, but a warm sun! After our playday outside, we thought it was appropriate to get some seafood and wine since we hadn’t gone out to eat yet and it was Michael’s last night with us. We went to a restaurant called Finz on the water, had a lovely dinner, and then walked next door to a pub for 2.50 pints! Gavin did the exchange rate, and we found out that we were only paying $1.60 American dollars per beer, so we obviously took advantage of the situation. Man, does it feel good to be of legal drinking age!

Tomorrow we are taking a bus to Dunedin to explore more of the South Island. It should be a 4 hour bus ride, but since everything is so beautiful here I’m sure the 4 hours will fly by.

Miss you all, and I will let you know how Dunedin goes soon!

PS—to my roommate Taylor Boyum, HAPPY 21^st BIRTHDAY! I wish I was there to celebrate with you, but have a blast! Miss all my loop gals J

PSS--- As of 10 minutes ago, we found a van to rent! Good thing we’re flexible, right? This should be interesting!!

Cherrybombs

After 12 hours of sleep, we woke up and decided to rent scooters for the day and venture outside of Queenstown to check out the country side and some surrounding towns. Getting used to their driving conditions took a while, but once we all got used to it, we headed out on the hogs! Michael decided to nickname us the Cherrybombs. Surprisingly, there are not any stop signs here, so you always need to be on the lookout and look left! Drivers are a little crazy!   We went to the next city over, which was a small town full of ma and pa shops, had fish and chips, and ventured back to Queenstown. After we returned, we went on a pub-crawl with the other 8 kids from our school! We got to meet some locals and go to a few bars we would have never found otherwise!

Today we just roamed around the pier and took it easy. Since the superbowl is on Monday here, we have to gear up to watch that tomorrow morning and we are also planning on bunjee jumping and canyon swinging in the afternoon! I’m scared!!! Wish me luck! 

Will post pictures soon!

Day 1 in Queenstown

Feb 4, 2010

If you were to put key largo in the middle of the Rockies, you should have the south island of new Zealand. The scenery is stunning, the people are so friendly, and despite being a tiny island there is Tons to do. Ive met alot of really intesting people so far, aNd ironically enough only one of them  has been kiwi, or what a person born and raised in nz calls themselves! On an avergage day in queenstown, 13,000 kiwis live here and 50,000 tourists travel or live here. Very interesting! Also, there are no bugs!  I could get used to this!

Last night we meet up with the other group and went to the world famous Fergburger. It was awesome. After out first fergburger experience, we went out to a few of the local bars, had a few drinks (my first legal one!!) and made it back by midnight to catch upon the sleep we lost from our flight. 

We woke up at about 8 am this morning, and decided that today would be excellent for mountain hiking. Michael made some eggs, and we walked about two blocks to the closest trail. 7 hours later, we finally made it to the top! It was harder than I ever imagined. Imagine being on a stair climber for 7 hours straight, then jogging a decline on a path of rocks. It was By far the most physically demanding but most rewarding activity I've ever done! The guys were pros, which Was nice because they really knew what tehey were doing and kept pushing me to go further. Naturally, I got very frustrated on the way up,especially after hour 4, but they were great at helping me! They even let me be the first to reach the top of the mountain :) What great travel companions they have been so far!It was so worth all the sweat,  cramps,and profanity yelled along the way.  The goods news is that the way down was much easier and only took about three hours.  It was scary to jog first, but once I got the hang of it I was keeping up well with the boys, or at least I'd like to think so ;)

Needless to say, our strenuous morning/ afternoon exercise activity  in the 80 degree sunshine left us all exhausted. We decided to take a nap around 6:30, woke up at 10 pm, and opted not to go out and just keep sleeping. So the good news is that I got a pretty good tan started, only spend 3 dollars today, and climbed a mountain. All pretty good if you ask me :)


The internet is very slow and expensive here, but I will try to post pictures soon!