class week # 2

Goodness gracious, I am sorry its been a week since I wrote! I can't say I've been doing much. But I'll let you be the judge of that.

Lets go back in time for a few minutes........

Last Friday as I said we were going to have a movie night. We all had dinner together (me and my Aussies, and we had guests (Morgan and Scott-American friends haha)(And yes I do still know I am also American). We watched Yes, Man, which is way funny you should all see it if you haven't and PS I love you, which was pretty good, but definetly the opposite of funny.

Saturday I was WICKED bored, no big plans for the weekend. So I decided to go on a nice hike up the mountain type structure behind my townhouse. It was AWESOME. I should have brought my camera and I promise I will next time, but it was soo cool. I think I may have described an earlier walk up this mountain, but this time I went a lot farther and even made it up a second mountain peak. (I could be wrong in classifying these as mountains.) It wasn't too hot out, though it was sticky, dont get me wrong. But I had my headphones in with newly stolen music from my friend Rhona, so it was goooooooood. There are so many little pathways up there--I could probably take a different one every day and be busy the whole semester. I decided to take one called Hammerhead (because I had spotted it my last hike up there but was too nervous to try it.) This time I marched onward! When I got to the top I could see alllllll of Townsville it was so pretty and the wind felt so good. I neglected to mention that as I was close to the top the path ended so I kind of paved my own way for a few meters (yes meters, thats what they use here). To make sure I knew where I was going on my way back I made a little arrow sign out of rocks, though I honestly think I could have found it if I hadn't made this. At the top here you could go two different ways-down another path or up to another peak. If you were reading carefully you already know which I took. So yes, I went up up up! The earth here is so red and its got little ant cities every few feet. It started to get pretty steep, and the music was getting really intense, so I stopped and stared out at my surroundings, wow! It was like a movie and I was in the middle of it. I actually got teary -eyed (spelling), though that may have been for other reasons than the scenery. But it really felt good to be up there just climbing, freely on my own, with no one holding me back except myself. And to be away from people--it just felt good. This was such a steep peak, but I had to keep going because I knew there was something great waiting for me. when I finally planted my foot onto an unslanted surface I was pumped. There was like this little area that looked like it could be a camp site--there was even remnants of a campfire (along with someones shoes?) If you know me at all, you can only imagine what I did next. Danced, danced danced! Haha, it was quite a lot of fun. I could sing as loud as I wanted and dance as strangely as I wanted. (Of course I looked over my shoulder every 5 seconds to make sure no one else was there) The wind was amazing and the view even better. I am so ashamed I don't have a picture for you to see. I'll end this story there at the peak--but I did eventually have to climb back down.

That night I rounded up the troups to go down to the strand!! It was Rhona, Noor, Dylan and I. (Phillipino, Sydney-ian, Melbourne-ian and American) It was great-we took a bus down there and were on the bus for a good hour and still couldnt see the beach, we were wondering if we took the wrong bus, but it turned out it was good enough-but we basically had to jump off because the driver was a luny -bin. When we got there the first thing we all wanted was icecream! So we hunted down some place called Juliett's, which was actually a gelato shop. It basically was icecream, maybe you can explain the difference to me. One scoop was 3.90 but OMG -it was MEGA. I couldn't stop licking it for the first 5 minutes of having it because it was so huge and melting all over. DELICIOUS. We sat on the beach underneath the stars, listening to the waves crash (while keeping our eyes on a wild cat(so Noor said) that was stalking us for our gelato). I really wanted to go swimming though so I forced them to go with me (actually only convincing Rhona) and we walked down to the Rock pool because we were too scared to go in the actual ocean. The Rock Pool as I may have described in an earlier post is a pool built basically next to the ocean that connects to the ocean and has salt water filtering into it. Its free of marine stingers and crocs so its not so scary to be in at night.

Sunday was a lazy day, I don't think I did much other than talk to my family on skype and attempt to go swimming in the pool (closed due to low chlorine-whatever : ( ) I may have watched a movie that night--yeah right, I did--The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Another good one-quite long though.

Monday I spent the day looking up flights and such, trying to plan my life. I have come to the sad reality that I probably won't make it to Ayers Rock this trip. It is about 500 dollars one way and you can only leave there on the weekends which makes it really hard to plan for. But I have decided that I will just have to come back! : ) Maybe move here, just kidding Mom! (Or am I kidding?) I had one class Monday-it was my first with my Reef Fishes teacher-he's pretty wild looking and interesting to listen to. I think I will enjoy that class.

Random thought--I was walking down the beach the other day thinking I dont think I would want to move here if it is this warm all the time. Maybe a little farther South, but I think I actually miss the cold weather a bit. I was reminiscing (spelling? sorry!) about my wonderful bed at home with heaps of pillows and blankets that I can hide in and what a wonderful feeling that is. Here I have a sheet and sometimes I can't even stand to be touching that I'm so hot. Its nice to have the changing seasons-it keeps you on your feet. But then again, Syracuse winter lasts far too long. There has to be something inbetween-perhaps Spain? haha.

Tuesday-I had one lecture in the morning-conserving marine wildlife and that was it for the day. I had a different lecturer today than the first week of classes, he use to work for the IUCN-the people who make the lists of endangered species. Pretty cool. After lecture I hopped on a bus and went down to Flinder's St.-the hub of the town. I had no idea where to get off so I just sprang up at one stop and got off. I walked down Flinders Mall which is in the middle of flinder's street-but no cars are allowed on it-its full of cute shops, coffee spots and other fun summery things. I didn't stop in any shops but I will go back there another day. Iwas headed for the Museum of Tropical Queensland, which was just next to the Reef HQ that I went to during O Week. When I finally made it there the guy at the entrance chatted me up a bit finally coming to the conclusion that I could be classified as a local, haha, imagine that! (Due to my student ID from JCU) So I got in for free! It was such an awesome museum. Please check out my pictures on snapfish. I got there at 11 and didnt leave until 230, thats pretty long for a solitary person in a museum.

The first exhibit I went in was about Pandora-a ship that sunk just north of Townsville in the 1800s. There was rumored to be a mutiny of some sort. The Pandora was set off to find the mutiners (is that a word?) and collect them and bring them back. A relatively small box was made on top the ships deck to hold the prisoners, Pandora's Box! I think 14 men were put inside, legs and arms bound. The Pandora then set sail for home, but it had to cross part of the reef on its way. Someone was sent out to find a way through it without crashing the ship, but before they knew it, the Pandora had drifted into the corals because of a strong storm coming on. As the tides moved out and the currents pulled, the Pandora moved farther out to sea where it sank to its demise. It was only at the last minute that the captain let the prisoners out of Pandora's Box.

The next exhibit was on Rugby Union, lots and lots of trophies. Despite my one semester playing rugby "I couldn't be bothered" (an Aussie phrase) to look at it long. On the upper level of the museum was an exhibit on Deep Sea Creatures, Coral and the Rainforest. This was pretty cool--they had basically every coral species you could, would, should ever want to see. There were also bizarre deep sea creatures ranging from that abyssal fish you see in finding nemo to this spider/crab creature. Again check out my pictures on snapfish for some crazy things.

After the museum I decided I HAD to go to the Strand, I was just too close to miss going into the ocean! After a 30 minute walk down a beautiful beautiful beach in which I could see Magnetic Island in the distance and jetskiiers and boaters abound on the water, I found a bathroom to change in. I forgot to mention that on that walk I passed some workers cutting down coconuts. I got a real kick out of this because they had a sign that said something like Beware Falling Coconuts...hahahahaha...I took a picture. When I finally made it to the beach I was greatly disappointed yet wildly excited. A sign (which I stupidly didn't get a picture of) of a crocodile was posted- the beach was closed due to a "confirmed crocodile siting". WOWWWW sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

cool! I couldn't believe it so I HAD to ask the lifeguards all about it. Well I didn't want to give up, I was already in my swimmers (aussie slang for swimsuit) so I quickly walked down to the Rock Pool and had a wonderfully relaxing dip there, with all the other bummed Aussies who couldnt go in the real ocean.

After a 30 minute swim and a 40 minute walk to the bus station I was on my way back to campus after a wonderful and fullfilling day with myself.

As if my day wasn't tiring enough, a friend passed by in the hallway and told me about how there was going to be Australia's Best Butt Competition at the Uni club that night. Now who would pass this up--I expected it to be ridiculously funny. It was actually a real dissappointment. The boy who won--you couldn't even tell if he had a butt, his pants were so baggy and the girl who won, well her butt wasn't that special. But it did give me and some friends a bit of entertainment so that was good.

On Wednesday I nearly felt like I was back at Cornell again. Not really, but I actually had several classes to go to, and finally a practical (lab)! The practical was pretty cool. We got to use stereoscopes (I think thats what it was called) to look at aerial maps of some reefs. It made everything look 3-D. Then we learned how to calculate reef accretion (I hope thats the right word)rates. Anyway I may not have known what I was doing, but it was way cool. After class I went and checked out some sweet books to read from the library. One on the S.S. Yongala-the most famous shipwreck in Townsville-that I will be diving in May and one on ghost towns around Australia. Wednesday night I took my first trip in an Aussie car! It was so weird-I went to get into the passengers side-except it was the drivers side. Whoops. One of the guys on my floor, a med. student, needed a coffee before a long night of paper writing so I joined him. We went to McCafe, SO WEIRD-the Australians actually have something before the Americans!! I guess its pretty fancy stuff here, but to me it will always be McDonald's.

Today is Thursday but for you all in America-still Wednesday. I haven't done much today, it was laundry day--I've got all my shirts, undies and socks hanging around my room like ornaments on a christmas tree -very bizarre to see and probably too much information (sorry). I have a class in the afternoon and tonight Rhona, Noor and I are taking a trip to Stockland (the shopping center) to get a few things. It is the ONLY night they are open past 5PM, weird I tell ya. Tomorrow I have quite a few classes and then at night I take a flight to Cairns!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOO!!! I'm off to JCU -Cairns to visit my friend Theresa (American from the University of New England where I first went to school). Saturday I make my first dive in the Great Barrier Reef! I can't wait. Look again on Monday for posts of pictures and hopefully some exciting dive stories. That is...if I don't get eaten by a croc!! G'nite my American friends : )