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Good day mates!
So I really should have started this 6 weeks ago, but the moment I got here its been its whirlwind so I just never seemed to have the time to put this together… till now. Now you can all read about my adventures and shake your heads in either 1. humor for my stupidity, or b. jealousy. I am going to sum up all the things I have done in the past 6 weeks, nearly impossible, but I WILL do it, in one long post. So prepare to start reading, take a beak get some food, then continue to read. I have a picasa picture webpage that correlates to this that I will post links to, I should have used the one this website has but it took heaps (Australian for a lot/really/many/much) longer to download.
So first I guess I will talk about "general" Australia. Then I'll go into the places I have been and the trips I have been on. All and all Australia is a wonderful country. People in the United States say that "it's the US on the other side of the world" but that is not true at all. And they defiantly don't like being associated as another America. The cultures are different and aussies get insulted if you assume they are just like us since we speak English. It defiantly lives up to some stereotypes though; it is an extremely laid back country. People are definitely nicer, friendlier and not as stressed or fast moving. People don't worry about things as much and seem much happier with the things they have. It is also a lot less judgmental and people do there own thing. They are a very confident nation and are very fun, although most of their humor is sarcasm. They actually warned us in our orientation about the aussie sarcasms, and it's true, people will joke around and be sarcastic with you right when they meet you and they tease you like they have known you for years.
I also don't think I'll ever stop melting over the accent. It is awesome. Here are some Australian terms and the translation next to it
Yank= American (in fact they call us "sepos" short for septic tank yanks, because they say we are full of sh*t)
Crook= sick
Biscuit= cookie
Chips= French fries
Thongs= flip flops
Jumper= sweat shirt
Heaps= a lot/many/really/much
Sunnies= sunglasses
Singlet= wifebeater/tank top
Boot= the trunk of the car
Cheers= thanks
Lollys= candies
Petrol= gas
Car park= parking lot
Tomato sauce= ketchup
Sultanas= raisins
Jam=jelly
Jelly= jello
Then there are sayings like "how ya goin'" meaning "how are you" and "fun as (or any synonym of fun like cool plus as)" so in a sentence that would be like "nikki how was last night?" then I would say "defiantly fun as." Then they obviously say "mate" a lot. But believe it or not there they don't say " throw the shrimp on the barbi'" because they call shrimp prawns, or maybe they eat prawns instead. Then to say goodbye they say "catch ya'". ALSO they don't eat hot dogs, which has been VERY difficult! Like they don't exist. Instead the country lives off sausages, and much to my mother's dismay, I have been eating a lot of them because they are a staple food here. They also do eat beans on toast and vegemite on everything. The funniest thing it how they pronounce things like tomato, aluminum, basil, herbs, oregano etc.. it makes me giggle every time I hear it. Also, in Australia never say you "root" or cheer for a team. I don't wanna explain what they use "root" for, but just think about it :]
The wiggles are HUGE here. Another tv show everyone watches is The Mighty Boosh. It's really popular. Everyone watches it. Friends, you know the "Old Greg" youtube clip, that is from The Might Boosh. Everyone, I mean everyone here loves it. But the old greg clip is pretty much what every show is like, really weird and yet kinda funny.
My college is located in Wollongong, in New South Wales. On picaso there is a picture of New South Wales and I pointed to various places I have been and where my college is. I live about 1.5 hours away by train from Sydney in a pretty big city. The residence area I live in is called Campus East and it has 500 residence. About 1/3 are Australian, 1/3 American and 1/3 International students. I am mostly friends with Australians because that's who I live with. I live in a top floor of a building with 5 other people, 1 other American (named Olivia who is super sweet), 2 Australians and 1 Saudi Arabian. We all share a bathroom and a little living room area with a couch, a table and a sink and fridge. Wollongong is a pretty descent sized (industrial) city, it's big enough to have plenty of bars, a major train station and cheap taxis but small enough to not get too lost or not to spend too much money getting around.
So my traveling.
I started at 11am July 8th leaving Ridgefield to go to JFK airport. There was a problem with my flight, but I ended up getting on the right plane and getting to LAX. It was pretty funny because I ended up bumping into a friend from high school who was also studying in Australia (he was going to another university) but it was nice because we did the whole airport traveling thing together. I arrive in Australia at 8am on July 10th to then get on another plane to go to my orientation for the program I was going with. (you apply to your school through a program and then that program gives you an orientation and takes you to the school you are going to) So I didn't get situated and settled till about 6 o'clock that night. So I would say I had a good 42 hours of driving, planes, layovers, more plans and bus trips. (the first picture in the album is my first glimpse of Australia from the plane)
Our orientation was in Noosa, Queensland. We didn't get to go around the city but we did do a few things at orientation. First, and most importantly we saw our first kangaroo. Everyone was super excited. The aussies always laugh at us for getting excited about them, because to them its like us getting excited about seeing a deer or squirrel, which they don't have in Australia. So at orientation we did orientation things. We learned about the culture, a little bit about the government and banking system etc. We got to watch an Aboriginal presentation and had a guy come with Australian animals. That day we even got a surfing lesson. I could even stand up on the board, but the waves were really small and the board really big! The next day we went to Frasier Island. This is an island made completely of sand. There is more sand on Frasier Island then the entire Sahara desert. And the pass between Australia and Frasier Island has the most concentration of sharks in the world during feeding time, so we weren't going swimming there. We took a 4 wheeled drive bus tour of Frasier Island, which was really neat. We saw dingos, which even in Frasier Island is rare. I made at least 5 "a dingo ate my baby" comments. But it was exciting to see a dingo. Then we saw a carpet python, which was also exciting because I really wanted to see some sort of snake in Australia because I love snakes. Sadly, that was a non-poisonous snake, I say sadly because if you are going to see a snake in the wild wouldn't you want to see a poisonous one? On Frasier Island is Lake Mackenzie, it is one of the cleanest lakes in the world. The water is so clear and the sand is so pure white. It is so beautiful. The beach sand of Lake McKenzie is nearly pure silica and so we all cleaned our jewelry and exfoliated our skin. The water was cold, but it was so beautiful, we all had to go swimming. All and all orientation was a great way to get to know Australia, and Fraser Island was such an awesome experience. The next day we got on a plane to Sydney on our way to Wollongong.
That's when the hurricane started. Don't worry it wasn't a real hurricane, and plus they are called cyclones down here in the southern hemisphere, but a literal cyclone in the fact that's when every thing just turned around and life got a whole lot more interesting. I got to Wollongong. Let me just say it's fabulous. For the first week there were no classes, it was called o-week where they had many celebrations and get-to-you-each-other activities. I could go on about these, but my relatives probably don't wanna hear about pub crawls and bbq's. But friends can see these pictures documented on facebook, and will probably hear these stories on later days. So let's just leave it as I got to know many people very well and had a GREAT time.
The weekend after O-week, I went on a trip to Newcastle, Port Stephens and Hunter Valley. The drive to Newcastle was a killer. We hit traffic in Sydney and it ended up being nearly 5 hours. I don't know why it was so bad, because usually I am a pro at long car rides, but dah that one I was not so pro at. But when we got to Newcastle we stayed at this youth hostel and saw a little bit of the local town life. The next morning we work up and went whale watching in Port Stephens. Port Stephens was such a cute little town and had a lot of great little stores. Once we got on the boat to find whales I was VERY excited I took my seasickness medicine. The cool thing was we saw humpbacks, but I had gone whale watching in Cape Cod in may, and these were probably the same whales that had migrated town to Australia. I know I am a huge nerd, but the second grade teacher in me thought this was very cool. Despite my need for ample amounts of Dramamine I love going whale watching. We did see whales, sadly we saw none breach, but we DID see dolphins. They swam next to the boat and did cute dolphin like things. I got a huge kick out of it! We even got to wear these huge jackets and I felt like the Gorman's fisherman on those tv commercials. I made a lot of jokes about this and my fisherman skills. After whale watching we went sand dune sliding. Probably one of the most fun things I have ever done in my life. We took snowboard like boards down these huge sand dunes. It's hard to explain, but check out my pictures and you will get a better idea. Half the fun was drawing in the sand and trying to climb back up the sand dunes. I could have spent two days playing in the sand and the dunes. My friend Sarah and I were so into it, and were the most enthusiastic ones. And it was quite a work out too, I slept very well that night. The next day we went to a zoo and got to see all these different animals. It was not the kind of zoo I was use to. It was off this dirt road and the animal cages were completely falling apart, but it defiantly had charm and gave us all a sense of adventure. We saw emus, beautiful birds and best of all a KOALA bear. In New South Wales you are not allowed to pick up a Koala, but we were able to pet it, which was exciting and made me feel quite Australian, maybe a little like Bindi even!! After this we went to Hunter Valley for a wine tour. Hunter Valley is a wine region with tons of little wineries. We got to tour them all and get free wine. It taught me a lot about wine and wine tasting and was quite fun. Some places were really nice expensive wine and I definitely expanded my wine pallet, where other places were more fun where I got to take shots of chili wine which was interesting and spicccccccy. We had bbq's with sausages and drank our wine out of paper cups. But the best part came after the wine tasting, it was the CHEESE tasting. I seriously think I was in heaven. I pretty much ate the best cheddar cheese of my entire life. Wine and cheese and whales. Nothing better I think. The views there were amazing, and looked over these rolling hills or vineyards and farms. It was really beautiful. That weekend was splendid!
The Tuesday I got back my classes started. My classes here are interesting. I am taking 2 psychology classes I need to take to graduate, 1 elective education class and 1 class called introduction to aboriginal studies. It's fun because I get to learn all about Aboriginal and Australian history. One of my psychology classes is called applied psychology, it is pretty much all about criminals and sex offenders and why people commit crimes and become serial killers. It is soooooo interesting. I feel like one of the guys from Criminal Minds or Wong from Law and Order SVU. We even get these case reports about criminals and their backgrounds and have to write reports on why we think they committed the crime. My classes are interesting, but the layout (we have 1 lecture, then one smaller meeting a week) are definitely not what I am use to. I have never taken a lecture class before and the grades here are all based on final exams, which I am also not use to; but like this entire abroad semester, it's a learning experience.
The weekend after classes started my roommate Toby decided to go home for the weekend. (And when I say he's my roommate I mean, we don't share an individual room but live in the same suite) since I was doing anything, he invited me to go home with him. We lives about two hours south of Wollongong in a town called Bateman's Bay. It's a beach town, where you have to cross all these bridges to get to. But it was defiantly worth the drive. It was so beautiful. Sitting on his front porch you just looked out to the ocean. In the states, you could never have private property that beautiful. I had such a good time that weekend. His family was so sweet. His mom kept calling me darling, and was so friendly. We even bought pasta and marinara sauce and ground beef and we made pasta Bolognese and garlic bread because Toby knew I kept craving good Italian. We spent most of the weekend hiking. On Saturday we woke up early and Toby went surfing while I slept. Then we woke up and went to the beach. We went on this rainforest walk and saw some pretty cool animals and went on this sick path. Since it's the off season (its winter here) it was pretty secluded, so we didn't have to hurry and could take our time looking at all the rainforest like things. After that we went to get Toby's car fixed. When we got there, another one of Toby's cars needed to be driven back to the house. (His house was 30 minutes away) They were all deciding how to get the second car back to the house when all of a sudden, Toby, the maintenance man and pretty much everyone else in the general vicinity looked at me. Then I got why I got the looks. I replied with a "hell no. you have to be kidding me? Don't you dare look at me; 1.I can't drive a manual car and 2. I have never driven on the left side of the road 3.Even If I did I don't know the area and I would have manual on the wrong side of the street alone in a car." But we all know it doesn't take much to convince me to try something, so after a 15 minutes explanation/lesson, on some back country road, on how to use stick shift we were off. I picked up the stick swift thing pretty fast, but I guess being scared to death would make you do that. Driving on the other side of the road wasn't as hard because I was following Toby, and all it takes is a little thinking. After 30 minutes and lots of sweating we were at our destination. I was quite proud of myself, and I am happy I learned, because most cars in Australia are manual, and in an emergency I can now drive a manual car. And plus as I said before, it's all one big learning experience! That night we had a bbq and I got to taste some kangaroo. It was kind of funny because they were hoping around the yard, while we were sizzling them up. I was really pretty eager to try kangaroo and it wasn't bad at all. It tasted quite like steak especially with ketchup on it, and was much tenderer. The only thing I didn't like about kangaroo was the smell of cooking it. The next day we decided to go hiking all day, so Toby and I woke up early and started on our journey. We hiked up this pretty big "mountain," (less than a mountain obviously but bigger than a hill) and it lead us to this beautiful secluded beach on the other side. There was no one around and it was so peaceful. We ate our lunch sitting on the beach, I had peanut butter and banana, while Tob ate a kangaroo meat and ketchup sandwich. We went for a freezing, freezing cold swim for about 30 seconds and then kept going. We decided to hike back along these huge rocks and cliff sides. It was quite a workout hiking up and down these huge rocks. I have a couple of pictures of it on the page, so you can see how big they are and there is even a picture of me next to the cliff so you can see that size too. We hiked for a pretty long time because we were hiking back to North Durras beach, which is near Toby's house. However, even the surfer he is, Toby did not think about high tide and low tide, and we got in some sticky positions. It was funny, but at the time I was a little scared, we would be hiking next to these cliffs and I look up and I see these water lines about my head and a wave coming. I did have to run a couple of times to big rocks and one time Toby got stuck, which I did catch on film. But, hey I faced my fears of waves! The cliffs were beautiful and I got to see the most amazing ocean views and the most amazing rock structures. Once again, I was a nerd and took about a million pictures.We ended up hiking pretty much all day, and we got back to the beach right as the sun was setting. But before we went back though, Toby got on his wetsuit and went surfing as the sun set. Watching him surf was one of my favorite memories of the weekend, because I really truly felt like I was in Australia, and I had such a good day hiking and being adventurous, and the view was so beautiful of the setting sun and there were dolphins out jumping about in the waves he was surfing, plus he looked so graceful and skilled on the waves. That night after a shower and dinner, Toby and his brother took me to the local pub. Which was fun too because there everyone loved my accent and made me teach them all to line dance. I am pretty sure I showed at least 20 people how to do the cotton eye joe, cause that's real American right? Haha. It was definitely one of my favorite weekends here so far because I feel like I got to do things that a normal Australian would do and I would never have found that hike in a tourist book so I got the opportunity to do things I would never in the world gotten to do.
For the next couple of weeks and weekends I laid low and didn't travel much because school started to really pick up and I had work to do all stuff. But we did do fun things. We have been going to the beach a lot more. In fact one night we have had a huge bonfire. I also run along this beautiful walking path along the beach to this lighthouse. It makes running so easy. We also just go to the beach to play soccer and throw the football and Frisbee around (they call American Football gridiron because they have there own football that they call footy). Another funny thing that happened here was a hail storm. We had a really bad thunderstorm and it started to hail. Well the hail stuck on the ground for about 20 minutes. The way the Australians acted it was like Christmas morning times 1000. Everyone was outside making snow balls and playing in the hail. All of us east coasters were sitting there like it was absolutely nothing and laughing at the freak out. We kept trying to explain that it was NOT snow and we usually would get this much snow on a weekend in April. Also I heard that there was the highest amount of car crashes in Wollongong because of it. Imagine that? I have pictures of the "snow" on the website too.
Last weekend I went home with my best Australian girl friend named Katie. She also lives south of Wollongong in a city called Nowra. I also had a blast there too. Her mom was so cute and made us lasagna one night and roast chicken the other. It was sooo good to sit down and eat a real meal. Saturday morning was the best at Katie's; we woke up and went on a walk down 7 mile beach, a famous beach in Nowra. We went with katie's boyfriend and his brother and their new puppy. It was a ton of fun, and was amusing to run around the beach and into the water and have the puppy not follow then one of the boys have to chase after is and wrestle it down. For the next part I have to write a disclaimer for my mother:
Dear mom, I will only once in my life do this and since I was in Australia and you told me to "live it up" I decided to take chances and do this here. I wore a helmet, made him drive slow and wore full clothing so my skin would not scrap the road if I did fall. Thanks for understanding, love you daughter Nicole.
That being said, I rode on the back of a motorcycle! Katie's boyfriend's brother has one and when we were going to our destination he asked if I wanted to come. I had never before been on one, and don't know when I would ever do it in the states, so I went for it. It was so much fun, and really cool. We didn't go fast at all, partly because I probably kept screaming but it was fun. Then when we get up to our next destination we (Katie, me and the boys) went to this beautiful look out in Budgon National Park. It was the most pretty look out spot I have ever seen. You could see for miles, and you could see all these rolling hills and these rivers and such. I wish I brought my camera so you could understand how beautiful and breathtaking it truly was, but I'm sure it's a memory I will never forget. After this we go back and all get on motorbikes. These weren't like motorcycles because they have much bigger wheels, for off-roading, and are slower. We must have motorbiked in the bush (aka the forest) and the national park for hours. It was really fun and exciting. At one point though, me and my partner (cause I wasn't driving) had to go through this huge mud puddle. Well lets just say, we didn't make it. We fell into this huge mud puddle. It was the funniest thing I have ever done or seen. We were covered in mud. Covered. I wish wish wish someone took a picture because I am sure my face was priceless. I was covered. It was all over my face, and I was soaking wet. My partner and I were laughing so hard we couldn't even stand up. We were soaked, freezing, and caked with mud but it was just so funny you couldn't help but keel over and laugh. After getting back to katie's and having the longest, hottest shower of my life we feel sleep watching Michel Phelps totally kick butt in the Olympics.
So that's about it for my travels and adventures so far. I have a lot more planned. Hopefully Melbourne this coming weekend: Sydney Harbour bridge climb (you climb to the top of it, I would do it when daddy comes, but I don't really think he would like that); the Outback; Cairns; Whitsunday Islands; and the Blue Mountains. Depending on how many finals I have I am hoping to go to New Zealand or HOPEFULLY if I can afford it and have time I would love to go to Darwin too and see Kajadu national park.
So stay tuned for more updates! Now get on with your lives, after reading 7 pages worth of information. Love you all!!!! And I miss you.. kind of.
Cheers!
Nikki
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