A 2 week birthday

Oh man it's been a while since I've gotten the chance to update this. Lets start with last Saturday...

So since the following weekend everyone would be going to various places for weekend trips, I decided to throw my 21st birthday party on the Saturday before. About 35 of us met up at room 411 to have a champagne party in their larger than normal apartment and absurdly grande wrap around balcony. 6:00 comes around and we all got in taxis to go to the Temple Bar facing the inland water. We all arrived and got a free drink and hung out until like 7:15 or so. Then, we boarded a party boat, ate some pizza and departed the dock. 

The boat had about 200 people on it, all aged in their young 20s and everyone was having a really good time! Beck and I participated in this golf ball game and Sahill and Amanda managed to win the dance competition. Amanda deserved the victory, but Sahill should have placed last if it weren't for the Bond Uni audience and girls undressing him on the dance floor. We met a bunch of Australians and docked back at the Temple Bar around 10:30 or so. We then went to Melbas to continue dancing and having all that fun. We just did some more bar hopping and dancing (etc..) and ended up back in our lovely apartment...

The following Friday morning we had to be outside at 8:00 in the AM to get in our van/taxi thing that would take us south along the coast and then west to a small town of 800 called Nimbin. What a cool and neat little town. It is an alternative lifestyle town where everyone is hippies, art and bright colors douse every wall and surface, pot is smoked inside restaurants, and the people are some of the friendliest I have ever met. We met some hippies from New Zealand in the Rainbow Cafe and some other locals. While talking to this one local, a news reporter came up to ask the character we were talking to about the government's "War on Drugs." Prezz Star Limited, the local, proceeded to give the worst interview I have seen and had a picture taken of him by the photographer with the reporter. Let me tell you what Prezz Star Limited looked like. Say 5' 9" wearing large female Prada sunglasses with the lenses removed and a haircut resembling asparagus (dreadlocks sticking straight up with buzzed sides). Quite the character indeed. Paul and I walked around Nimbin and stumbled upon a nursery school and a bunch of other buildings which were all covered in very colorful and artistic graffiti and art. The town of Nimbin just breathes creativity and friendliness everywhere you go.

Our ride to Byron Bay came in the middle of the afternoon and took us on a scenic drive from Nimbin to Byron Bay through bright green mountains and windy roads. Once in Byron Bay, we settled into a very nice apartment where we squeezed around 8 people. By nighttime, most everyone was extremely exhausted. Not Paul, Scotty and me. We got ready and went to a popular bar in Byron called Cheeky Monkey. The town caters towards backpackers and 18-25 year olds and this bar seemed to have all the 18-21 year olds in the town packed inside of it. Apparently the bartenders at this bar do not wear shirts or bras. Instead, they paint a black bra on and let their ta-tas breathe. No complaints here. We had fun there for a little while before the three of us moved on to several other bars on the street. The people were extremely fun; everyone in the town was just there to have fun and enjoy the nightlife. 

The next day the weather continued to be terrible and we were stuck inside for a large majority of the day. The most outdoors we got during the day was hanging out on our balcony watching the torrential rain pour down. At night, everyone was awake and pumped to go out. Quite the difference from the night before. We went out to Cheeky Monkey again, sadly this time the bartenders wore clothing, but the bar was just as fun as the night before. 

Of course the sun decides to poke its head out the last day we are there just to tease us on how much better the weekend could have been... We went straight to the beach. The whole town is based around the beach with really neat and funky shops. Byron Bay is a hugeeee surfing town so there are surf shops every 10 feet. Once we got to the beach, we were able to see why people love Byron Bay so much. The beach was so nice and the waves were perfect. A few of us chose to go for a monster hike to the lighthouse in the distance, a distinct landmark of Byron. The walk gave us so many great views of Australia's coast and Byron Bay. 

We came back Sunday evening and Craig, Sahill and I went to the casino to celebrate my 21st. We took the night very easy and just enjoyed the casino. Monday night we went out hard to celebrate my 21st birthday. A bunch of us went to Melbas where we got free drinks for the b-day boy and met a group of Celtic football fans at Fiddler's Green and ended

 the night at Sin City. 

Heaps Fun. I'm 21. 2-1. It's about time.

Fraser Island

Bright and early Friday morning we had to make our way to campus to start our adventure to Fraser Island. Since we had to be awake so early, it would have only been foolish to go to sleep or pack in advance for that matter, so we just stayed up to do laundry and get our stuff together for the weekend. 4:30am came around and we decided it would be a good idea to gather everyone and get ready to get moving. We spent about an hour looking for LB because she decided not to sleep in her room that night which gave us a shaky start to the weekend. We got to Bond to meet up with the other 7 girls and our tour guides. Our tour guides, Wes and Sal, two extremely rugged individuals driving large jeep safaris took us on a four hour drive to Fraser Island.

Fraser Island is the world's largest all sand island (75 miles 

long). It is home to rain forests, fresh water lakes, beautiful sights and a unique animal called a Dingo. Since it is an all sand island, there are no roads on the island so we used the beach as our highway. 

Flying down the beach (and back "roads") was quite exciting. We drove to our campsite which was surprisingly nice. It had clean and new bathrooms/shower areas and cabins for those unwilling to camp out. We had a nice corner of the campsite set apart for our crew and five of us (Craig, Sahill, Scott, LB, and me) shared one large tent while the other 7 girls split themselves up (Rhode Island in one and Maryland in the other). 

We boarded our jeeps and drove to this rainforest pretty deep in the island. Once there, we filled up our water bottles with the fresh water from the creeks and walked about 1.5 miles through a rainforest. Our tour guides met us on the other side, we got in the jeeps and drove to McKenzie Lake. 

This fresh water lake was huge and the water was crystal clear. 

 We stayed there for about an hour and a half then got in the jeeps again to go to the campsite for dinner. Wes and Sal concocted a huge dinner of freshly caught fish, salads and something else. Some of the spices used for the fish were picked off trees/bushes from the island. Delicious. After dinner, we hung out around a bond fire and looked at the stars. The stars were incredible. We were able to see stars as far as the eye could see in any direction. It was absolutely wild.

In the morning, we woke up to some cereal and toast, then proceeded to board the jeeps and make our way to Eli Creek. This creek was sort of like a lazy river pouring fresh water into the ocean. Some other tourists were there playing cricket along the creek and a few of us hopped in and gave it a try.

 After spending a while there, we made our way to a fantastic lookout point called Indian Head.

Indian Head is one of three rock cliffs on the island and it acts as a sort of anchor for the sand. We hiked up Indian Head and had a fascinating view of sand dunes, waves, beaches and trees. 

We stayed up there enjoying the view for a while before our hike back down and into the jeeps. Wes and Sal then drove us to this trail that would take us to Lake Wabby. We got out and followed the sandy trail through another forest for about 2/3 of a mile. Then the trees disappeared and all of a sudden all we could see in the distance was sand. Over the past years, sand has been accumulating in this area that was once a rain forest. We were now walking across sand dunes covering an entire forest of trees beneath us. 

The heat was pretty intense and no matter how far we walked new signs would continue to say "Lake Wabby: 1 Kilometer"... Finally we got to a steep sand dune and saw Lake Wabby. A small fresh water lake surrounded on one side by trees and the other by a mountain of sand. We played for about an hour and a half, took some photos, dried off and made our way up and down a different forest path until we could see the ocean waves and our Jeeps again.

It would now be time to go home. It took us 3 to 4 hours to get home and we played a bunch of games to pass the time. Especially the "i'm thinking of a person" game which we managed to play for an hour and a half. We finally got home at dark and I jumped right into the nice clean Meriton shower and got on some nice clean clothes and cooked up a nice and clean meal. Civilization feels great after tents and camping for a few days.

Who wears bathing suits to class? Oh yeah, we do...

Hey thereeee!!! So my computer won't let me log in to blog anymore so I have to use the school's computers in their computer lab. Unfortunately this means that I cannot post pictures anymore unless I can somehow get it working again... Wish me luck.

We started classes last week at Bond Uni, forcing us all to get on a sort of schedule for at least a few days a week. Lucky for me, I only have class 3 days a week so I am able to go to the beach/pool/fun stuff plenty often. To get to class I have to take a public bus that runs every 30 minutes from a bus stop a block away from my apartment building to the campus. The buses here are very nice and efficient and the ride is only about 20 minutes.

Here is the run down of my classes:

Tuesday
9 - 11 = Love, Sex and Relationships Lecture. This class is taught by a stunning 5' 10" stunning blond Australian who looks like a sexier Cameron Diaz. Waking up 7:30 to get to class on time will be NO problem. We discuss human sexuality, gender differences, anatomy, relationships and other good stuff making class easy to pay attention. The Cameron Diaz look-a-like helps a little too.
Then I will take the bus back to the Broadbeach (the town that my apartment is located in) and keep myself entertained until 4:00 when I have to be back at Bond for class.

(I'm creepy right?)

4-6 = Buddhist Philosophy Lecture. My teacher is a 65 year old, 40 year practicing Buddhist nun that wears a Buddhist cloak and has no hair. She is very nice, speaks very softly and slowly, and probably has a lot going on in that mind of hers. At the end of the first class, she had us all sit in a circle to meditate. She explained how to sit, position your arms and hands, and even how to fold your tongue in order for the energy circuits in your body to flow uninterrupted. We then meditated until class was over. She said that this would be a common activity for our class and we would get better at it over the next few months.

Wednesday
8-10 = International Business Seminar 1. Tuesday nights are big going out nights around here and an 8:00 AM class the next morning really blows when you get only a couple of hours sleep the night before. Four of us from Study Australia are in the class together which makes class slightly more interesting. The class is conveniently made up of about 25 students from all around the world, so whenever we discuss business around the world we have several perpectives (USA, Australia, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden...). The teacher is a retired CFO of some big business that had branches all around the world. He is American, but lived for months and years all around the world. He is very smart and packed with information.
11-12 = Love, Sex... Tutorial AKA discussion. All the tutorials here are taught by the professor which is a nice change from the uninformed/incoherent T.A.'s at the University of Maryland.
I have a two hour break here where I go to the gym on campus with Scotty and get a bite to eat afterwards.
2-3 = Buddhist Philosophy Tutorial.
3-4 = Intro to Chemistry Tutorial.
5-7 = Intro to Chemistry Lecture. The teacher is probably 60 years old and has been a scientist his whole life. The class is taught at a 3rd grade level (and pace), which is ideal because chemistry has never made any sense to me. I will finally understand it.
I finally get to take the bus home for the day. I'll eat some dinner and probably sleep to make up for some of last night's festivities and most likely get some rest before going out again! Woo hooo.

Thursday:
2-4 : International Business Seminar. Class 2 of int'l business for the week.
Go home.
Intense day of classes, I'm aware.


This weekend about 10 or so of us have plans to camp out about 6 hours away at Fraser Island. They have rainforests, beaches, lakes, and really impressive landscapes. Google it, it's pretty neattt. Get excited to read the next blog.

Cheers Mate!

Quick overview of the Gold Cost

So I have been living here in the beautiful Meriton for about a week now and everday is better than the day before. So let me recap a few events, not sure if they are going to be in the correct order or anything, but you will still get a feel of life on the other side of the world.

The weather has been a constant 90 degrees or so. We have gone to the beach several times to relax in the sun and even go boogie boarding (holler Hammer). Boogie boarding is not like boogie boarding on LBI. The waves are veryyy intense and big so boogie boarding is pretty difficult and tiring. On the flip side, when you get a wave you just fly for a long time until you get washed ashore.

We went to campus a few times to get our schedule, ID cards, meet up with friends and do some orientation events. The campus is beautiful. There is a huge pond in the center of campus and it seems that all the buildings are brand new. Everyone walks around in flip flops and beach clothes because the weather is always soo nice. Most of the people I have met here are from either America or another overseas country, so I have yet to meet some Australians. That is a little dissapointing, but it is still early so hopefully I will meet some soon.

At night we have gone to several bars including: Platinum, The Bedroom, The Drink, East, Melba's, Shooters, and mannyy more. Nightlife here is crazy and the Australians dance much much different than the slutty Americans. They give you eyes and point when they see you grinding, but we'd do they same if they were dancing their way at our bars... The music at the bars has been real good too. Nightlife here is just heaps of fun and we still haven't even been to a fraction of the bars and clubs.

I guess those three things pretty much sum up my vacation: beach, bond and bars. Sorry Dad.

Home Sweet Home

This would be the day that we finally arrived at our home for the next four months! We had all been anticipating this for a very long time and we tired of living out of our suitcases. We flew into Brisbane and took a bus to the Gold Coast, one bus filled with people living on campus and the other with people living in beach housing. We drove down the Gold Coast Highway and passed by bunches of tall buildings until we finally saw Meriton written on top of a tall blue and black brand new apartment building. The base floor of our building has a bunch of restaurants, a spa and a crucial 24 hours 7-11 (opening soon). Everyone from the bus got more and more excited as we unpacked our luggage and Matt gave us our rooms and keys. Room 1608 would be our home for the next four months.
We took the elevator to the 16th floor and opened the door to a brand new apartment with granite counters, sofa and chairs, 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and one very nice flat screen T.V. hung up on the wall. How nice of the Meriton to give us all this. We flipped a coin for the bigger bedroom, tails – good, and checked out every crevice in the apartment. We have a balcony facing inland with heaps of mountains in the distance, a shopping mall two blocks to the left, a huge casino directly across the street, a convention center one block to the right and downtown Broadbeach across from the convention center. WOW. I could not ask for anything better. Maybe a bigger bed actually, but I barely sleep as it is so who cares.
The four of us living together walked to the downtown area and ate at some Italian restaurant that was very good. After we ate, we walked around and explored the downtown/beach and picked up some necessities for our kitchen. Then, we walked to the beach. The white sand is so soft and the waves are like nothing I have ever seen before. Paul is a big time surfer and explained to me that the Gold Coast is one of the most famous places in the world for surfing and that only a few places have waves as good as these in the world! After our stroll on the beach, we walked the one block inland to our apartment and tried to take in everything that was going on. We took the night easy, and hung out in our apartment and went to bed at a semi-decent hour.

When we woke up the next day we started running errands for things we needed to make our apartment a home. Target and a grocery store pretty much had everything we needed and lucky for us they are both one block to the left. After our errands, Sahill and I went for a walk to a Muay Thai/MMA gym a few blocks past Target to check it out. On the way back we stopped by a surf shop to look into buying a board and take lessons. The day before we had walked by a piercing shop and Craig-alicious said that he wanted his nipple pierced. So today we went there to watch him get it done. Hilarious indeed. After almost passing out, turning white as a ghost, and sweating a gallon he had a piece of metal going through his left nippy.
At night we took a bus to campus where we met up with some friends living on campus. Then we all walked to the bar on campus, yeah there is a pretty nice and big bar on campus. At midnight a few buses took everyone to this bar called The Drink. It was pretty crowded and crazy, fun fun fun.

Last days in Sydney

Day 3 in Sydney came and went. Waking up at 8:30 was a treat after the early morning the day before. Russ, our trip leader in Sydney, gave us a tour of Sydney with impressive history and great advice for the semester. Notably, he told us to realize we are in another country and things are done differently here. He said not to think of these as weird/gross/wrong, just different. He also told us to take advantage of any and every invitations from Australians in order to get unique experiences. We walked through Hyde Park, the Central Business District, and a park where we got to see the famous Sydney Opera House. What a view! We walked along the water towards the Opera House that got larger and larger as we got closer. It was so much bigger than it looks like on TV or in pictures and was loaded with people in and around it.

Then, we got on a bus to take us to a zoo! Oh baby. Again, a few hours later, we arrived at a zoo and was greeted by a zookeeper holding a six month old wallaby. It was so cute and soft and many of us got the chance to hold it. We walked in and saw more wallabies, kangaroos, koalas, wombats, *penguins*, and many others. We got to pet them all except for the wombats (which were ugly anyways) and the penguins. The animals were real friendly except for the kangaroo, but that was probably because it knew I ate his cousin two days prior.

We got back and the four of us living together on the beach (Sahill, Craig, Paul, and I) went out for some Asian food. T’was okay. Sahill’s friend, Matt, from Maryland who is taking a winter course in Sydney met up with us and we wasted some time before our dinner cruise. We walked again to the Inner Harbor where we got onto a real big yacht/dinner boat. Being exclusive again, us Maryland kids ate together. The boat showed us wonderful day and night views of the city and allowed for us to snap a bunch of photos.

Post boat trip we went to Kings Cross(ing?) for its nightlife. We got rejected from several bars because we were not dressed appropriately for “Indie Night,” but ended up having fun at several more accepting bars.

The next day we had a meeting in the morning where Russ gave us a great PowerPoint presentation about our next 4 months in Australia and how to make the most of it. After that, a lot of people went to Bondi Beach, but the four of us living together went for a monstrous walk around the city of Sydney for a few hours. We sat at an open bar for a few hours and bonded. How cute.

When night came we hung out and went out to Sydney’s Festival First Night. Sydney Festival comes around once a year and lasts for a few nights. The city shuts down several blocks and splits up the different areas into different venues. Over 300,000 people attended and the place was out of control. We went with just under 15 people and after about five minutes we were down to six. We raged hard the whole time we were at the DJ/outdoor rave that was one of the craziest places I’ve ever been. After, we went to one of the bars from the first night. It was packed with guys and wrecks so we called it a night.

Sydney Dias Uno y Dos

We woke up early early to make a 9:00 flight to Sydney. Flying into Sydney was pretty wild as the airport is located right along the water. Especially since I was not near the window, I was convinced we were about to land in the Pacific and be washed up on the shore of a mysterious island home to a large black murderous cloud. But, no worries, we landed and hopped on a bus that took us to our hotel.

Sydney is truly a unique city. The first thing I noticed was the extremely interesting architecture that nearly every building had. No two buildings are alike and not one building is like anything I have seen before. So now we have arrived in our 80 story hotel (one of the tallest in Sydney) and are getting a massive rundown on the current and next few days. We also met the other 30 kids that did not come to Fiji, including my roommate Sahill, who is going to be fun to live with. 

We had a few hours to kill before we had to meet up for dinner, so we walked around the hotel’s block, got a cell phone and checked out some of the shops. Dinner time came and we, as a group, walked to the Inner Harbor (which ironically looks identical to Baltimore’s Inner Harbor) to eat. Sahill, Maxine, A-Lowe and I ate together – Go Maryland – and I tried my first Kangaroo! It tasted like a really soft and tender sort of steak, pretty good. After dinner, we went to the hotel to get ready to go out. One of the trip leaders told us of two bars that are similar to a college bar that we would be comfortable at called Three Monkeys and Murphy’s, so that is where we went and had our fun. 

A terrible 6:30am wake up call reminded us that we had to be in the lobby at 7:00am for a two hour bus ride to the Blue Mountains of New South Whales. The Blue Mountains are similar to the Grand Canyons of America, just covered in trees that emit a blue haze over them. Gear was given to us for rappelling down the sides of the cliffs after a small hike. We hiked down through the woods down a hill for about 15 minutes before reaching out destination. Here, we were given instructions and a small cliff to practice on. Two tries there and we were ready for the next level of difficulty - increase from about 10 meters to 30. I rappelled down next to Chicken Shit Sahill. Sorry bud. At the bottom of this cliff was a really creepy and scary ladder that we had to climb up to get back to the base. The ladder was by far scarier than rappelling, or so I thought. We had lunch and hung out on the mountain before moving to the final, tallest cliff.

I originally wasn’t going to do the tallest one because I was just somewhat bored with it. At the very last minute Lauren and I decided that we ought to just go for it and so we did. This one would be very very different than the other two. We would be going face first with our chest facing the ground about 60 meters (180 feet) from the ground below. I got myself pumped up and energetic prior to getting to the edge of the cliff. When it was my turn and I got to the edge… Holy shit was I high. I was talking to the pro why anyone would choose to do this. I couldn’t understand why someone would see a 200 foot cliff and want to scale it. Oh I forgot to mention that the cliff is only about 10 feet or so before the overhang comes and you are floating down the rest of the cliff. I grew some big balls and went for the kill and made my way down; slowly at first, faster towards the end. It was real fun and I was real real glad I conquered that beast of a rock.

Our bus arrived in Sydney around 6:00 or so, just in time for cleaning up and getting dinner. Sahill and I went out with some chicas to a sushi place. Plates sit on a conveyor and go around the bar and you choose whatever looks good. We ended up sitting at a table, but that did not stop me from eating a massive amount of sushi. I was the clear victor with 11 plates of sushi and I can tell that since sushi is everywhere in Australia, I will be eating heaps more.

After dinner, we went back to the hotel for some drinks and hanging out before we went out as a group of like 30+ to a lounge/bar/billiard place. It ended up being really fun and, as usual, our group was out of control.