First Australian House Party

My Australian friend, Gabi, invited me and Jackie to a house party in her 'hood this weekend. Actually, I think we maybe invited ourselves... but we have been wanting to meet more Australians and to get out of Sydney. She lives in a suburb an hour outside of the city called, Campbelltown.

This party was a dress-up/ costume party (FYI- From what I can tell Australians are in love with dress-up parties). Unfortunately, I had no time to get an outfit before the party because it was a crazy week, so Gabi said she had some random costume stuff at her house that I could borrow. I ended up wearing regular clothes and she had a pirate bandanna and sword, so I guess was kinda a pirate, but not really.

Anyway, the party was fun... Apparently having a funny accent, like I do, really helps at parties where you don't know anyone. Who knew being American was such a novelty?

Hakuna Matata

... it means no worries, for the rest of your days.My South African friend, Jackie, sent me this picture which I just loved... Its Pumba and Timone, as seen on an African Safari. Ha!!

Lost in Translation

Sorry friends... I have been such a bad blogger the past couple weeks, but the truth is that nothing too interesting has been going on around here.

I've just started my second semester of school and am already behind. But I did pass all my classes last semester... actually I did better than pass, I got a "Credit" in all except accounting, which by some miracle I managed a "Distinction". The grading in Australia doesn't really translate to American grades but it goes something like this: High Distinction (A+), Distinction (A), Credit (B), Pass (C), and Fail (D/F).

Also, I have been working a lot, which is great because I spent way too much over my "winter break" and am hoping to go on a few more trips before I head back home. On my list to see is Melbourne (pronounced Mel-bun), Cairns (pronounced Cannes)- which is the main stop for seeing the Great Barrier Reef , and hopefully one big trip after school ends... there has been some talk about Thailand. Scary! So in an effort to save up for these amazing places I have been trying not to go out as much. Boring!

But I did think of one silly story, that I'm still embarrassed about, to share with you. So, we were in Risk Management class last week, and we are discussing an upcoming assignment or something. This is our lecturer's first time teaching so he is kinda still figuring everything out, and it came up that he had mistakenly scheduled class on one of the days during the mid-semester exam week. So everyone is trying to explain why we don't have class, and the entire class is sorta talking aloud to no one in particular.

At some point during the commotion this French girl, who is also in events and all my same classes, says loudly to the teacher, "If we don't have class maybe we can go on a trip?" She, of course, means a site visit or field trip, but I guess maybe it doesn't translate properly.

I hear her say this from across the room, so I jokingly say to my friends sitting around me "Trip? I vote for Melbourne!". So, I laugh at my own joke... the people around me are laughing too, but of course my laugh somehow carries above the others. Then the French girl turns around looks directly at me and says "Actually, I don't think its very funny" (imagine this in a French accent). And the entire class goes silent, and the teacher does a nervous laugh and no one says anything for several seconds.

So, I went through my typical stages when stuff like this happens: First I am embarrassed, silent and want to die; then at some point I get angry and defensive; and when that wears off I finally get guilty, want to explain myself and make amends. I asked Jackie if I should apologize to her after class (even though I was NOT laughing at her... I was laughing at my own joke!), but Jackie said I need to let it go. It's been a week now and I still feel awkward everyday when I see her in class. Why do the French hate Americans again? :)

Miss you guys... and I promise to try and keep you updated more.

Goodbye New Zealand

We spent almost the entire next day on the road, heading back to Christchurch (where it all began). This day was pretty miserable for me since I was hung over, had no wallet (ie. no money), and my seat mate and I were on rocky grounds.
But Jackie and I got over it pretty quickly, especially since I needed her help with money and stuff, and she needed my help because she was crazy sick (with like swine flu or something) on the bus. And by the end of the road trip, when I was feeling better, I again started to appreciate the unbelievable scenery around me. My trip to New Zealand was amazing and feel so lucky that I got the chance to see it. And now I'm back in Sydney, back in school, and back to work... no wonder I have been feeling so blah recently.

Free Day in Queenstown

The rest of our time in Queenstown was great. There is so much to do there, like bungee jumping, jet boating, 4 wheeling, and skydiving (to name a few). And all of these sounded amazing, especially the skydiving which I was very close to signing up for, but Jackie was too scared and it ended up being canceled anyway...So we decided, instead of more extreme sports, we would spend our last free day relaxing. In the morning we souvenir shopped and Jackie found a new sheep hat/glove combo. For lunch we ate at this famous burger place called, Ferg Burger where the hamburgers were humongous and we ended up throwing half away.
And the best part was that after lunch we spent the afternoon at the spa, where I had the BEST ninety minute massage- so perfect! Although I did have a lot of bruises on my legs, from skiing, and it hurt so bad when she massaged over them, but I guess it makes the bruises go away faster. That night we had our biggest night out! I should've known it was going to be a mess when we were all wasted before we even left the hotel. This is a picture of our new friend Colleen... what she says is so true! And the night ended with me losing my wallet and getting in a fight with Jackie. Ugly!

(One) more to come...

Queenstown or Bust!

After our glacier adventure, we headed off on a five hour drive to Queenstown, NZ. Queenstown, known as the "adventure capital of the world", is where we would be spending the next four days skiing and, potentially, doing other crazy things. Of course, when we finally arrived Queenstown was just as beautiful and scenic as every other place we'd seen thus far... like a freakin' postcard. The first full day we spent in Queenstown also happened to be my (second) 25th bday- so it was automatically extra special. First thing in the morning we headed to The Remarkables ski slopes to take some "refresher" lessons. See, I had been skiing one time before this trip, but that was when I was in high school and I guess I'd forgotten how tough it actually is... man, was I in for a surprise.
The lesson was very helpful, but during it there was a really bad snow storm and by the end everybody's suits were covered head to toe in a snow. Also, the snow was so hard that my entire face, except the part covered by my goggles, was beaten and covered in red dots. It was so bad that we had to cut the day short and head back to the hotel. But that's okay because my legs were going to commit suicide if I didn't get out of my boots anyway.
That night, for my bday celebration, Jackie took me to a Mexican restaurant in town, and afterwards we met up with some friends from the tour for drinks. We went to this bar called, World Bar (they have one in Sydney but I've never been to it), where they serve the cocktails out of tea pots. We went a couple other places too, but that's when it starts to get hazy. :)I got over my hangover the next morning on the slopes of Cardrona. This is where I learned, after many face plants, that I am not a natural skier... go figure. But I gave it my best and continued to try long after I wanted to quit. I did have fun playing in the snow though, especially at the top of the ski lift where the snow went up to my knees!! I will definitely try skiing again, but perhaps I will need a full day of lessons... and I will need to ski with someone at my same level. Jackie is a really good skier and the whole time I felt like I was weighing her down.

More to come...

Fox Glacier, New Zealand

Our first group activity was to visit the world famous (says the website) Fox Glacier. Jackie was smart and took the helicopter tour to the top of the glacier, but I (in an effort to be frugal) decided to do the hiking tour.It doesn't look like much in this picture, but trust me it gets better. My group hiked for over an hour to the site of glacier. Along the hike there were several streams and pools of melted glacier ice. For some reason these pools were a crazy neon blue color (see pic), but also totally clean fresh water. I tasted some and it was actually pretty good.
After the most exhausting hike of my life- we had to hike up the mountain in order to gain access to top of glacier- we finally got to glacier. There we were given walking sticks and had to put crampons on our boots to give us more traction on the ice.
It was pretty crazy on the actual glacier because there were all these places where the ice was really thin and would crack under pressure. Jackie said on her tour one girl stepped in one of these areas, and fell into a pool and got soaked up to her knees.
At one point on the walk, we went to this ice cave where we crawled under the ice. Everything was very blue colored... oh and very cold!
All in all, an awesome experience in Fox Glacier.

More to come...

Contiki - Ultimate Winter Adventure

One of the strangest things about the Contiki Tour was that of the fifty or so people, Jackie and I were the only non-Australians. This was made apparent when we checked in and our tour guide, Nathan, high-fived us when he saw we had different colored passports than everyone else. I thought this a bit strange since we were not in Australia and you'd think a bunch of internationals would be doing Contiki... but whatever, at least we stood out.
So, after a quick breakfast we boarded the coach, which was actually pretty sweet- probably because it was a brand new bus, and our driver Richie took off towards Franz Josef and Fox Glacier. On the six hour drive Nathan told us about NZ culture and the places we were passing, and at one point we did a "speed dating" type activity to get to know everyone on the bus... awkward.
But the best part was that Nathan was himself a New Zealander and so we got to learn a lot of the local lingo. My favorite is "Sweet As, Bro!", which is said by New Zelanders at least once every fifteen minutes. Translation: "What you just said is good by me". And you can add the word "as" after basically any adjective... Drunk As, Sore As, Tired As... all of which I said at one point or another on the trip. In these cases the "as" just means "very"...

Anywho... we finally got to Fox Glacier that evening and had a nice buffet style dinner. By the way, all of our included meals were buffet style which is bad news for me... (ie. "Stuffed As")!! And that night the bar at the hotel we were staying at had karaoke night so everyone was there drinking and having fun. Jackie and I even met some cool locals who were trying to teach us how to play this game "Coin Abuse", but it wasn't as fun as our own drinking game... "Liver Abuse" :) Sadly (at the time, but funny now), the night ended on a sour note when one of the local girls, who obviously had a thing for the guys we were talking to, tried to pick a fight with us by calling us "Snobs, who use guys for free drinks". Lucky for her we decided then it was time to call it a night, especially since we had to be up early to see the glacier.

More to come...