First days in Melbourne

So now that I'm about to start school and my adventures are ending, my blog posts will get more and more spread out.

Since my last post, I basically haven't had internet. I did the Melbourne Welcome program, which was very fun. There were about 100 people staying at the residential college I was at. We got to go to the beach and I learned how to surf! I actually stood up 4 or 5 times too and rode the waves almost all the way to the beach. We also went to a zoo and we went to the Immigration Museum. They had a lot of parties and trivia nights planned for us too, so i didn't get much sleep for about 4 days :(

The dorm I stayed at looked like it would fit in Harry Potter world which was very cool! I'm kind of glad I'm not staying in the residential colleges though because the rooms were very small and I wasn't their biggest fan.




















So that program ended today and I'm all moved in to my actual apartment called UniLodge. It's very near campus and near Lygon street which has a bunch of pubs and restaurants and shopping on it. So I've just been walking around and shopping and getting settled in today. I also took an hour and a half nap in my room which was nice. That's about it...I have some study abroad briefings the next few days and then Orientation week starts next week. hopefully I'll get my classes figured out.

My days in Australia....

So it has been about a week and a half since my last post...woops!

After the cool bungy day, we went on a Lord of the Rings tour. I liked that a lot, we got to see where they filmed a lot of the scenes and it was beautiful. They also happened to be filming the new "Wolverine" movie with Hugh Jackman while we were there so we got to see some of those sets.

We left the day after that for Sydney. In Sydney, we went to the Blue Mountains and some animal place. I really liked the zoo place because the wallabies were just running around and you could pet 'em and feed 'em! They were very cute, as were the koalas! We also went on a tourist bus in Sydney and got to see all the touristy things. We saw the Opera House but didn't get off the bus because it was raining a lot. The main thing I remember about Sydney was that it rained a lot and they had this shop that sold really good bread/pastry things and I had an apple one and it was sooooo good!

Next was Cairnes. Cairnes was sooo hot when we got there! We walked along the "beach" the first night and went to a cool animal dome. Our hotel wasn't very near town so walking back and forth wasn't so much fun. The next day we got to go on a boat to the Great Barrier Reef. We went on a semi-submersible ship or something and got to get up close and personal to the reef and its inhabitants!! Then, we went to the beach and went snorkeling in the reef which was cool. It started to rain after that though, which was sad. The next day we went to Kuranda village which is this cool little village in the middle of the rainforest. I got to cuddle a koala there!! She was very soft. I also made friends with some lazy kangaroos! After we walked around a little we went to this pub where I got my first official legal alcoholic umbrella drink! a mango margarita mmmmm it was good! It started raining pretty hard then and we just went back to the hotel and hung out. It rained pretty much the whole next day but we managed to go to some tourist shops and we found a mall so that was nice.

We're in Melbourne now. I'm liking the Melbourne weather and atmosphere a whole lot better than both Sydney and Cairnes...so that's good. It has really good public transportation and today we took a free tourist bus around the city. We stopped off at the university and i saw the civil engineering building and the dorm i'd be staying at for 4 days for the melbourne welcome program (the dorm looks like it'd fit in harry potter world....) We also found UniLodge where I applied for an apartment but never heard back. Apparently I have a spot and they'd been emailing me, but i never got the emails...sucks for me. But i still have an apartment and I can move in whenever. I'm probably going to move in tomorrow because I don't want to have to lug all of my stuff to the dorm i'll be staying at for a few days then lug it back again to the apartment. Anyway, that's all we've done. I really like Melbourne so far and am excited for school to start!!

Adventure town

So today was definitely an adventuresome day...

It started out not uber early like a lot of the other days, which was great. When we got to the little adventure shop to check in for our jet boat thing, I booked myself a spot on the Nevis bungy jump. 134 m. eek! But that will be later....

First, we went on the shotover jet ride. That was REALLY fun! I really thought our driver was going to crash into one of the rocks and when he did the 360 degree turns I almost flew out of my seat! Fun times...

After that, we went back into town and got lunch at a cute pizza place...then it was off to the Nevis bungy!

It was about a 40 minute drive up the mountain. I didn't really feel scared driving up there, just excited. I started getting more and more scared as we got closer to the actual jump spot. And by the time it was my turn, I was almost shaking! My heart was beating to the loud music in the pod that was suspended in mid-air. Jumping was amazing and I would do it a million times again! 134 meters is nothin. We didn't buy any pictures or movies of me because my mom (who was too scared to jump) took some of me going. I got a free t-shirt though!!

So tomorrow we're going absailing maybe and on a Lord of the Rings tour which I'm really looking forward to!

So far, Queenstown gets an A+++++!!!!! :D

MIDDLE EARTH aka Queenstown

Let's see...I guess it's been a while since my last post.

On Thursday, we went to the Auckland Museum which I liked a lot and we just walked around a lot and rested and ate dinner at this cool place called Patio. I liked that a lot too. It was basically just a relax-a-day...

Friday, we headed off to Queenstown. The flight over there was kind of scary because there were very high winds and the guy had to try to land the plane like 2 times. But we didn't die, so yay! Friday night we just walked around and checked out the town and bought souvenirs. I watched a lot of rugby because the New Zealand Sevens are happening right now. Rugby is an interesting sport...

Today, we got up super duper early and headed off to Milford Sound for our boat ride. It was so beautiful on the way over there and there were a looooot of sheep! The boat ride was amazing too, I thought I was riding on the river in Lord of the Rings!!! I listened to it on the way back, too.

My battery is dying...tomorrow i might bungy yay!!!