I believe in the sand beneath my toes...

Song: "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind

February 26th

I had optics class this morning at 10 am, but nothing the rest of the day, so I decided to go exploring. At the o-week extravaganza in the middle of campus, a bus line was advertising their timetables, so I grabbed one and decided to go where it took me. I looked it up on the internet first.

Mona Vale is a beach north of Sydney and it was a very scenic drive there. We drove through a couple different towns on the way. Gordon and St. Ives are the ones I remember. The area of Mona Vale was known as Bongin Bongin by Aborigines and Mona Vale Beach is right by the Bongin Bongin Bay. I think they should have kept Bongin Bongin. It's a sweet name.

I got to the city just fine, and after asking a gas station attendant, found the beach without a problem. I unpacked and lazed away for a few hours and took a bunch of pictures of the beauty around me.

From Mona Vale Beach Trip

From Mona Vale Beach Trip

From Mona Vale Beach Trip

From Mona Vale Beach Trip

Mona Vale Beach also has a cool pool on the rocks, which I intended to swim in, but there was a really intense swimmer doing laps in it.

The average age of the people on Mona Vale beach when I went was about 60. I passed a retirement home on the way there which explains that.

From Mona Vale Beach Trip

The best thing about this beach is that I had it all to myself. It was a very large beach and almost no one was out. I didn't go swimming in case there actually was a Great White Shark like the gas station attendant jokingly said there was. Plus, I didn't want to get stung again, by anything.

After I finished at the beach, I stopped and got potato wedges at a nearby cafe. I then walked to the bus stop and explore a few of the shops near it until my bus came.

I got back to campus without a problem, and then went home. I decided to investigate the student party at the UBar on campus, which I didn't have that much fun at. Half of my friends came a little later than me but didn't get in because the place was "too full." Super lame. I left within an hour of getting there and went home.

My heart's in overdrive and you're behind the steering wheel...

Song: "I Believe In A Thing Called Love" by The Darkness

February 25th
Ash Wednesday

First of all, I decided to give up sweets for Lent, excepting one biscuit at mid-lab tea time at each lab each week. So I get two butter cookies a week.

I am not even going to try to express the longing I have for every ice cream bar, bag of Tim Tam cookies, and giant chocolate Easter egg that seems to fill aisle after aisle at the grocery store.

I'm trying something different to see if I can do it, so why not try it here, where almost everything is something different?

On another note, the song was stuck in my head from the night before at Scruffy Murphy's. I could not get it out of my head all day.

Anyway, today started off with more Physics, which was more review (again, I cannot thank you enough professor). I had a fairly large break in between class and my first Physics lab, so I decided to go to Macquarie Centre to get school supplies and hair ties. (I remembered this shopping list because it rhymed.) On my way, I ran into Justin, one of my new friends here, and we went shopping for quite a while looking for a fan of any kind. We never found it, but we had fun on the way. We explored The Rejects Shop (kind of like an expensive dollar store) and it was definitely full of rejects. We tried Big W (the Australian Wal-Mart), Myer (the Australian Sears), and Target (the Australian Target), all with no luck. Stupid Australian stores don't restock quite as fast as America. Anyway, Justin and I ate lunch, then headed back. Along the way we met a girl who was lost and looking for the Village, which was conveniently where we were headed. She was very nice, and since I had to go to the Administration building anyway, I walked with her.

I'm not sure how I went shopping for two hours, but regardless I got to lab on time, and met my lab partner Shaheen. She was so helpful. I have no idea how physics labs work here and she really cleared up some of the muddy spots for me. We were on the noise lab and were playing with EM noise in a circuit system. Pretty fun. Luckily the lab reports for this class are due every three weeks instead of every week like optics.

After lab, I went to the gym, and after the gym, I went to do laundry, where I ran into Justin again. Turns out I didn't have quite enough change, so I went to the Trafalgar Square store (the local convenience store) to get some change. I may not have mentioned this by now, but I was carrying my laundry around in my suitcase, and the lady at the store asked me if I was moving out. I laughed. I am looking into a better system for transporting dirty clothes to the laundry as we speak. Over the course of the laundry evening I ran into Julie, Lauren and Lindsay, and a few other people I didn't know at the laundry place. It was a very productive night.

Climbing on, climbing on board, giving it a little bit more...

Song: "On Board" by Friendly Fires

February 24th
(Fat Tuesday)

I had my Physics class at 10 am, and I was a bit early to class. I brought my iPod and while playing on shuffle, "On Board" by Friendly Fires came on. I swore I had never heard it before, but by the end I was convinced I had. Turns out it was in a Nintendo Wii commercial. And it all makes sense!

Anyway, Physics class was interesting. We're reviewing vector calculus (THANK YOU PROFESSOR, I NEED IT) this week. I had a decent sized break between Physics and Aesthetics, where I ate lunch at my apartment. Aesthetics is already turning out to be a great class. The professor made the point that anesthetic is the opposite of aesthetic, and how I never made that connection before boggles me. Our professor has a way of using words that has lots of flow and rhythm which I love. While talking in regards to television and movies, he calls them "imitations of life that we get enchanted and seduced by."

Also, if I haven't ranted about this yet, I find this as good a time as any: American television is just not here. I can't get it online, the television we get at best has "Two and a Half Men" and I miss TV from home. Upside: I will have more time to live my life. I guess that works. I still miss being "enchanted and seduced" by my television shows of choice.

After class, I came home and a group of us decided to go to Scruffy Murphy's again in Sydney. We got there fine and danced until way too late. The music was great, well most of it. Luckily I wasn't the only one who wanted to get back home for class the next day, so four of us got our way into a taxi and went back to the Village. All in all, it was quite an eventful night.

It was a good start.

Song: "A Good Start" by Maria Taylor

February 23rd

Classes started today. Whee!

I had Optics lecture at 11 am, and when I got there, it was me and two guys in the class. That's it. I was shocked; I've never been in a class this small in my life.

The other two guys in the class were nice, and I certainly paid attention in lecture, so that's good.

I had a break in between, and looked around the O-week (orientation week) tables. I joined the Macquarie Musical Society and that's it. I'm so proud of myself. They're performing "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog." I couldn't not join. I also got information about volunteering at 2ser, the radio station here. (ser for Sydney Educational Radio)

My next class was Optics lab for three hours. We were joined by another student, a girl. 50% ratio of guys to girls and four people in the class. The lab was difficult, and things kept breaking, but my lab partner (Rowan) and I got everything figured out eventually.

I went to the gym after I got home and made myself some dinner.

Lick up a dream that seemingly screams with rushing neon death, alright!

Song: "Polka" by Yves Klein Blue

February 22nd

Today I went to Tropfest, which is apparently "The World's Largest Short Film Festival" in Sydney. I also stumbled into and around the beautiful Royal Botanic Gardens looking for a bathroom. :)

I had been planning to go for weeks, but that morning I realized my roommates were also getting a group together and I decided to tag along. I invited John from UMD to tag along with us. The giant group waited in apartment 8 for a while, and I stayed with them, until Jessie decided she could really go for some Subway. The sub place. Yes, that one; it's here too. Either out of boredom or a general need to walk somewhere, John and I decided to accompany her to the nearest Subway at Macquarie Centre. I really love that you can get sweet chilli sauce almost everywhere. We got our food, and then hopped on the next bus into the city.

Thanks to my handy dandy map that they gave us at orientation, we found our way quite easily to The Domain, the large open space that Tropfest is held at. We sat in some crazy orange cardboard chairs that were handed out and they were decent chairs until they collapsed in the middle of the night.

Basically, we were outside for a very long time. Jessie eventually left us because she found her friends, but John and I stuck together. They played this one Mitsubishi commercial about 500 times but I kind of liked the song on it (song of the post title).

Before the films started, I went on an adventure to find the bathrooms. I figured the Royal Botanic Gardens must have some, so I went there. I took a bunch of pictures in there. My favorite part was probably the pretty flowers and plants and trees.

From Tropfest

From Tropfest

From Tropfest

My second favorite part was the bats. They were everywhere, and mildly horrifying, even in the day light.

From Tropfest

Turns out there were many bathrooms closer by where I was sitting, but I didn't find those until I came back and I'm glad I got to explore anyway.

I also walked around and took a bunch of pictures of Tropfest too.

Here's the red carpet:

From Tropfest

Neil Finn, of Crowded House fame, was the entertainment. He was enjoyable, but I think only the Australians knew all the words to his song. He didn't sing "Don't Dream It's Over" but I let it slide.

From Tropfest

The 16 selected short films were quite enjoyable. I'll try to recap my favorites. "The News" has a couple meeting in a coffee shop, both with "news" they'd like to share with the other. The woman found out she is expecting twins and excitedly goes to tell the father of her children the good news. His news: he killed her sister. The way it was carried out was hysterical.

The woman in front of us, who stepped on my towel wearing high heels which really confused me at first, was actually one of the directors of one of the films. Hers was also hysterical. The premise is a shy, normal girl tries to convince her sister's attractive boy friend to essentially strip for her for about $500. The twist?: Her sister comes in after she's paid the boyfriend and says "Oh good, my sister finally dropped off that $500 she owes me." The boyfriend's look of astonishment was priceless.

There was another one about a guy who lived in a pirate suit which was good fun, and the eventual winner's work was also very good, but honestly, my reviews would probably confuse more than explain. They're not up yet, but eventually I'll believe they will be on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/user/TROPFEST

It was a fun evening. Classes the next day...(I made it on time, fyi)

We'd truly missed the boat...

Song: "Missed the Boat" by Modest Mouse

February 21st

The main goal of today was to find the group of students from our apartment complex (The Village) who had taken a bus to what we thought was Manly Beach. If you couldn't already tell, they did not go to Manly Beach. But we did!

And when I say "we," I should clarify. Let's start at the beginning; I hear it's a good place to start.

I woke up as early as I had planned and tried to get a hold of Tara because I knew she was part of the group who didn't get on the original beach bus and wanted to meet up with them. Tara had just gotten her phone and was a bit unfamiliar with how it worked, so by the time we were both clear on what was happening, she and the rest of the non-beach bus folk had already gotten onto the bus to Sydney to catch the ferry. Becky missed the bus...

But that didn't stop me of course. :)

I hopped on the next bus to the city and got to the Ferry Wharf by Circular Quay (a little area of Sydney, right by the opera house) and got myself on a ferry. I'm a very resourceful girl.

From Manly Beach Trip

After the ferry landed at Manly Wharf, I walked out of the area and immediately ran into Tara and the gang eating lunch. It was incredibly convenient. Turns out I was only 20 minutes behind. Not too shabby.

I had some great food and when I asked for tap water they gave me this:

From Manly Beach Trip

How cool is that?

It was sunny for a period of time, and then it started sprinkling, and then it started pouring. We played in the little fountains that they had along the boardwalk-like area with all the shops.

From Manly Beach Trip

We went to go look at the beach, but it was just sad and wet.

From Manly Beach Trip

Then we tried to find our friends, the beach bus folks. Thinking back on this makes me laugh. I call Andy and Sean (my roommates, successful beach bus folk) repeatedly to ask where they are, and they give me the name of the establishment and street names, and our group asks all the local vendors nearby for directions to get to this place. We receive many confused stares. Turns out they were at Narrabeen Beach and not Manly. Also turns out that this was advertised on many posters, but everyone thought it was Manly Beach regardless. So it goes.

The group of us who did go to Manly explored around, and when the sun peeked out we swam a bit at West Esplanade Park, an tinier beach next to Manly Cove (not the ocean). Bobby had this amazing ball that bounces on water. I'm still perplexed by the physics of it. For the 40 minutes we spent there, we had a good time. We had to leave earlier than we would have liked because the last ferry on Saturdays leaves at 2:45pm. Fun trip overall.

From Manly Beach Trip

When we got back, several people wanted to go out into town, but I was too tired.

On another note, here's a picture for all you Manly Kebab lovers out there:

From Manly Beach Trip

Am I the only one who's insane?

Song: "My Delirium" by Ladyhawke

February 20th

Today was a fairly lazy day. With everyone still recovering from the public transportation disaster from the night before, not many people were early to rise in my apartment. I got up before most and headed down to the Macquarie Centre to do some grocery shopping. On the way, I took a few pictures of campus.

From Shots around Macquarie

From Shots around Macquarie

From Shots around Macquarie

At the store I got a boatload of stuff, including but not limited to: air freshener (crucial), battery charger (I'm pretty sure my other one won't work here, silly voltage), and St. Ives facial scrub. I was pretty thrilled about the scrub because I didn't see it at the other Woolworth's and I wasn't sure it was available.

On a very uninteresting side note, Woolworth's has every kind of TRESemmé shampoo and conditioner except the one I want. This is just mildly frustrating, but I'm looking at it as a way to try new shampoos for a change.

Ok, back to story. One thing I like about Woolworth's is that they have free samples, à la Sam's Club. One of the men giving out sausage samples cracked me up.

"These sausage samples are so delicious, if you give them to your friends, they'll disappear. The sausages, not your friends!" - Sausage Guy

As I left the grocery store, I tried to arrange my bags and spilled half my grapes on the table. Carrying groceries back and forth is not something I would wish on most people. I may invest in one of those shopping carts I hear you can purchase if I ever find one. Stealing a shopping cart carries a $1000 fine, so you won't catch me doing that any time soon.

When I got back, I realized I had essentially missed the Village's BBQ. I missed out on some free stuff, but I didn't really mind. I went to the gym after getting back, and by the time I returned and cleaned up, we were on our way out again. The UBar (I think) was having a Beach Party. Sounds fun, right?

From Shots around Macquarie

From Shots around Macquarie

The dancing at the party was completely started by the group I was with. There was almost no one there. They also had run out of sausages, so I had a veggie burger. The veggie burger had actual vegetables in it. You could see the peas and carrots. It didn't taste great, so I didn't finish it.

We stayed for awhile, and then me, Tara, and Tara left and headed back for the village. It's T-ah-ra and T-eh-ra. Different pronunciations. I'm so sorry for mixing them up all the time girls. When we left, we saw this giant cockroach and bolted out of there.

From Shots around Macquarie

We hung out with some people from apt 8 on the grass for a bit, coated ourselves in bug spray, and then left to hang out with other people who didn't have our bug spray odor on them. Still fun. It was a long night, but pretty fun.

Control yourself, take only what you need from it...

Song: "Kids" by MGMT

February 19th (still my birthday in the states)

We had orientation at 9:30 am. Several of us met up outside of our apartment and walked over together. Our introduction to the university was made by "Uncle Greg" who told us that we should respect our elders and that the men always look prettier than the women for a reason in nature and that he really really wanted a grandson because there are things that men can do that women just can't.

Uncle Greg...

From Shots around Macquarie

After this lovely introduction, we got bundles of information thrown our way, which no one was paying attention to. Two members of our crew participated in the Vegemite challenge, which was eating way too much Vegemite spread on bread with a cup of water the fastest. They were troopers.

From Shots around Macquarie

Lunch was some native Australia sandwich I'd never heard of from this sub chain called Subway. There were free cookies, so I can't complain.

We had way too long for lunch and our herd was visited by this and that organization trying to get us to go on their expensive spring break package. The one guy pushing the New Zealand trip was insane. Also, there were several bits of slang in the information packets that we're still not really sure was or wasn't inappropriate. It was funny to imagine nonetheless.

When we returned to orientation, we sat through more information about classes and I found out that I wasn't registered for either of the classes I needed to take abroad. Fantastic! Even though I was mildly frustrated with this, I took care of business and met some nice people in the physics department who re-approved my classes for this semester. Thanks very much Carol; you were a giant help. I got my ID card, figured out I didn't qualify for 50% off concessions for public transport, and got my classes straight, all before 5 pm.

At orientation we got tickets for a free (enough) Sydney Harbour cruise. The only condition is that we had to be there by 7 pm. We left at 5:30 pm and we just had enough time, but luckily they weren't as stringent with the time thing as they let on. I don't think I mentioned this before, but it was 80's themed. Yeah.

There were a ton of international students on the cruise, many who I knew from Surf Camp and AustraLearn, which I didn't go on, but it feels like I did.

From Sydney Harbor Cruise - Stuck in the Eighties

I had a hard time staying in one place. I had several moments where I felt crazy alone in a sea of people, but I tried to not let it get to me. There were periods of time where I would just disappear to another deck. I danced to "Let It Rock" and "Kids" on the DJ deck but that was it. I left pretty immediately after that. Overall, I had a great time on the cruise and got some great pictures. The harbour is gorgeous in all facets. I hope I have time to explore more of them over the next few months.

From Sydney Harbor Cruise - Stuck in the Eighties

From Sydney Harbor Cruise - Stuck in the Eighties

From Sydney Harbor Cruise - Stuck in the Eighties

From Sydney Harbor Cruise - Stuck in the Eighties

From Sydney Harbor Cruise - Stuck in the Eighties

Everyone had amazing costumes and it was a blast to just people watch.

Also, Luna Park is horrifying and I want to go there.

From Sydney Harbor Cruise - Stuck in the Eighties

After the cruise, making our way back to campus was much more difficult than I thought it would be. We went to several wrong bus stops and eventually caught one of the last buses back to campus. Here's a picture of the crew waiting at the bus stop:

From Sydney Harbor Cruise - Stuck in the Eighties

You say it's your birthday. It's my birthday too, yeah.

Song: "Birthday" by The Beatles

February 18th

One of the marvelous things about birthdays while studying abroad in Australia is that you can milk them for about 16 hours more than they should be. I turned 21 today, sort of, and therefore proceeded to party like it.

hahahaha, I went to the shopping center by myself and bought a fan.

I also bought myself two CDs (Ladyhawke and a two-disc Bushfire Aid compilation, if you're curious) but the fan was crucial. I hauled that thing back from the store in incredibly hot weather and it was completely worth it.

When I got back, Matt was on the radio and asked me for a birthday request. "Sex on Fire" was my request because it has been so prominent in my life here recently. While listening, I danced like a fool in my room. It might have been my favorite part of the day. He also played a Ladyhawke song for me too. Seriously Matt, thanks a lot.

After all this, I went to the gym. I am a party animal.

When I returned, I showered and then quickly rushed off to The Ranch, which is officially my least favorite bar we've been to since I've been here. Again, "Sex on Fire" was played, this time being slowed down to an unbearable tempo. Good grief.

I ran into half of surf camp which was fun, and Sean bought me a drink, along with Tara and Liz. They tried really hard to make it a fun night for me and I really appreciated it. We left in this shuttle back to the Village which was way too full, but I also appreciated not having to walk, although the fresh air might have been nice. Orientation was the next morning so I went to bed as soon as I got back.

"They say it's your birthday, We're gonna have a good time"

Take back the city for yourself tonight, I'll take back the city for me.

Song: "Take Back The City" by Snow Patrol

February 17th (continued)

After getting back from the bus tour, I was quite tired, but due to some lovely peer pressure/mild encouragement to go exploring, I agreed to go with a bunch of my roommates' friends and my roommates to a bar called Scruffy Murphy's. We slipped and called it Scruff McGruff's several times, after the National Crime Prevention Council's obviously successful advertisement campaign for the youth of our generation.

We successfully managed to get from our apartment complex into the city via bus, and also to our final destination. Turns out we were told that this was the place to be on Tuesdays because Scruffy Murphy's has "Tight Arse Tuesday." I would not have believed this without a picture:

From Night Out in Sydney

I had way more fun than I thought I would. The live band was awesome in my opinion, but I'm not sure the other people I was with enjoyed them as much as I did. For starters, they played Kings of Leon twice. Why yes, actually they did play "Sex on Fire." This song is following me. They also played some Snow Patrol from both their most recent album and the album before that, and a Bloc Party song too. And Guns & Roses and Bon Jovi too. I danced like a fool (which is the only way to dance really) and had a fantastic time.

From Night Out in Sydney

Oddly enough, my friend Sydnee from UMD who is studying abroad through Study Australia actually ran into me in the bar without any previous planning. Wild stuff. We left after the buses stopped running and split a cab home. It was steep, but I was prepared for it. Roommate Andy also got an amazing picture of roommate Sean sleeping in the cab. Priceless.

You tell tales as tall as cliffs...

Song: "As Tall As Cliffs" by Margot & the Nuclear So and So's

February 17th

Today was fun. I had signed up to attend the Sydney Bus Trip before I got to Australia, and after checking my information, realized with glee that I did not have to get myself to Sydney this morning, I only had to get myself to the International Building on campus. When I arrived, I found John from UMD and sat with him on the bus.

The bus took us all over the place in Sydney and our tour guide Debbie filled my brain with lovely factoids that are more than likely useless, but might come in handy for some sort of trivia game one day. The first place we got out of the bus on the tour was near Mrs. Macquarie's chair, named for Lady Macquarie, wife of Lachlan Macquarie.

The tour guide said the seat was probably more comfortable because of the serious amount of padding she had due to her frilly dresses.

From Sydney Bus Tour

Lachlan Macquarie was the man who first took Australia seriously (I believe he is considered to be the father of Australia) and also had such an ego problem he named everything in sight after himself. He is also who our university is named after.

The spot we stopped at was a great place to take pictures of the Sydney Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

From Sydney Bus Tour

From Sydney Bus Tour

We also saw a sweet lizard-like animal.

From Sydney Bus Tour

One of my favorite things about Australia is how different the wildlife is from home. True, Australia is home to some of the most deadly animals on the planet, but until I get stung by one of those, I'm in awe of the creatures who live here. For the most part, that awe doesn't exactly apply to the human beings. No offense. (offence?)

After we got back on the bus, our next stop was at Bondi Beach. I'm still caught off guard by it being summertime in February, but the beach was very nice, even with the clouds. I had these delicious wedges with sour cream and sweet chili sauce, which I crave like Tim-Tams on a regular basis. At Bondi, I saw the area that the surf camp instructors warned us about, which is an area by the rocks with a permanent rip (rip current). It's also apparently where the show Bondi Rescue is filmed. Bascially, it's a show where they film people being rescued on Bondi Beach from the rip.

From Sydney Bus Tour

From Sydney Bus Tour

We then hopped back on the bus and went to the top of a hill where there were expensive houses. Sadly, that's all I got out of that part of the tour. "This house is this many million dollars, etc." The park we stopped at did have a very nice view of the city, which would have been even better without clouds, but so it goes.

From Sydney Bus Tour

The next leg of the tour was probably my favorite. I have no idea why, but for some reason I was entranced by the cliffs we walked along near the water. I can tell that I was entranced because I took copius amounts of pictures during this part. I believe we were near an area called "The Gap" where there were many tall cliffs with menacing rocks at the bottom. Apparently, it's a suicide hotspot and since I just visited the Golden Gate Bridge a few days before, I'm also apparently on a giant tour of suicide hotspots. Morbid!

Regardless, the cliffs were gorgeous.

From Sydney Bus Tour

From Sydney Bus Tour

From Sydney Bus Tour

From Sydney Bus Tour

From Sydney Bus Tour

Ok, sorry. I'll stop the cliff pictures now.

The tour ended at some bar in Sydney, we got our "free/we already paid for it" drink and afterward we headed home peacefully. On a side note, our bus driver Leigh was quite hysterical in a very subtle way. I appreciated his humor very much.

Uneventful Entry #1

February 16th

I was going to go to the Taronga Zoo today but I overslept. I'm still upset about it.

A bunch of people, myself included, went to get gym memberships and then met up with a bunch of people from the AustraLearn crew at the mall, where we proceeded to buy many things. I brought a backpack and felt very smart for doing so.

Not much else happened today.

I did go to the gym and at their fitness area with the running machines I watched an entire episode of How I Met Your Mother on mute. Sarah Chalke from Scrubs was guest starring, and I think there was a wedding that was supposed to go on which didn't. I realized a few days later that you can watch it with sound if you bring headphones. Silly me.

I want to know, have you ever seen the rain?

Song: "Have You Ever Seen The Rain?" by Creedence Clearwater Revival

February 15th

We woke up early again for Brecky (I've seen it as Brekky too, but Brecky is closer to my name so I'll just keep it like that) and it was pouring.

"This is surf camp, not sun camp"

From Surf Camp

We got our nasty wetties (wetsuits) on and (most of us) went back into the water for some more high quality surf time. I stood up some more, but honestly, it is epically easier to do when the instructor gives you a push. Maybe it was just the quality of the waves, but that push really made a difference. I stood up some more and all was good. We stopped again for lunch, which was also delicious. Seriously, after being beaten down by waves for two straight hours, food tastes so incredible. They could have been feeding me asparagus and I would have thought it was gourmet. Anyway, the Belgian cooks prepared some delectable food regardless and I ate it all up. This was the first time I was introduced to Sweet Chili Sauce, which is possibly the most delicious condiment I've ever tasted. It's all over Australia and I love it. It's sometimes spelled "chilli" or labeled as Sweet Thai Chilli sauce.

The next two hour session was fairly eventful. Toward the end of it I was stung by a Portuguese Man o' War (also known as a bluebottle). Several of my new friends were stung earlier and I felt really bad for them, but I wasn't quite as empathetic until I got stung myself. Sean, the photographer and also Chaplin's fill-in for the last session, assured me that it would feel like my leg was going to fall off, but only for 30 minutes. He told me a very nice story about someone he knew who got stung by one. The guy was convinced he was going to die and demanded to be taken to the hospital. After he arrived, the very tricky person in charge told him it would be about a 20 minute wait knowing that the pain would be gone by then. This was incredibly reassuring as I sat on the beach wincing the minutes away.

This is what they look like:

From Surf Camp

From Surf Camp

A shot of my incredibly sore feet:

From Surf Camp

I had already gotten in most of my surfing for that session, so in theory it came at the right time, with the actual right time being never. Right after that session we got changed back into regular clothes, packed up and headed out. We stopped outside Gerroa in a town called Gerringong where we had the option of getting meat pies at a local bakery or ice cream at a local ice cream shop. Both sounded great, but I went for the meat pies after having them highly recommended by my friend Karl back at UMD. I led the pack to the meat pie bakery and when I got there, the cashier gave me six free cupcakes because she was going to throw them away. I gladly took them off her hands. :)

From Surf Camp

The meat pie was similar to a chicken pot pie, except that instead of being filled with chicken and vegetables, it was filled with a ground beef meat and meat gravy. It was quite tasty, but if I were to eat them on a regular basis I would probably gain 100 pounds (45.359237 kilograms, I really gotta get with this metric thing). More people from the bus joined us in the bakery like Rosa from England and Heather from Canada, who I also roomed with. When we got back on the bus, I purchased some pictures of the group and after we started rolling back to the Sydney area (which was quite a trip, about 3 hours) we watched Point Break. This movie is epically ridiculous. To start it off, the leads are Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, with a nice supporting cast of Gary Busey. Oh and John C. Reilly (Dr. Cox from Scrubs) is in there too, but I find it impossible to hate him. If that doesn't make you not watch the movie, try Patrick Swayze leading a gang of surfers who rob banks and having Keanu Reeves be a cop who learns to surf so he can catch him. Regardless, the movie was a favorite among the surf instructors and it was at the very least entertaining.

We got back to uni (the university) and I headed back to my apartment. Somewhere between being dropped off and nightfall, I ran into my roommates on the sidewalk. Andy, Sean and Bethany are really cool. The guys are from San Diego and Bethany goes to school in Hartford. It has been a blast living with all of them. All three of them came to Australia through the Australearn program, and I'm friends with so many of them that someone I never met from the Australearn team friended me on Facebook.

A few seconds after I got back to the apartment, I was whisked away to Macquarie University Village (our apartment complex) orientation, which was really lame. We all got back to the apartment and Sean, another AustraLearner Mary, and I all went to Woolworth's (the grocery store). I was in pretty desperate need of conditioner because surf camp ate my hair. The store was not very close to where we lived, but we were pretty convinced it was the only one open on a Sunday night. I got what I needed, and while we were making the trek back to the University Village, it started downpouring. The skies opened up and just dumped water on us. I can't remember if it was Sean or Mary who started it, but by the time we got back to our apartment we were belting CCR's "Have You Ever Seen The Rain?" at the top of our lungs. Mary and I both were in choir and like harmonies which is fun. After we got back, we took an awkward "we're really wet" photo and then I think I went to bed. Fun day.