On Tuesday, April 10th, we slept in. After breakfast, we did a little shopping, ate lunch, and went to the Lagoon down the street from our hostel. It's basically a big pool overlooking the ocean. Very pretty! We layed out in the sun for a while (I took care to put on a gallon of sunscreen and not let the sun shine on my poor, red back lol) then hopped in the pool for a refreshing swim. It was a pretty relaxed day:)
Wednesday Alex, Benny, Viivi and I arranged a guided tour of Cape Tribulation in the Daintree Rainforest Region. Cape Tribulation is where Captain Cook's boat sank in Northern Queensland, so all the landmarks have pretty depressing names, like Tribulation or Mount Sorrow lol. Our guide, George, picked us up bright and early in a big van. Our first stop was Mossman Gorge, where there was an opportunity to swim in the clear, cold water coming down from the mountain. I elected not to swim, but enjoyed taking pictures of the pretty scenery and walking around on the different suspension bridges.
Next we took a ferry across the Daintree River and drove up to the Alexandra Range Lookout. The view was amazing. None of the pictures I took can capture the beauty and majesty of the mountain and the surrounding area. Our next activity was the Marrdja Boardwalk, a winding walk through the rainforest. This was awesome and terrifying at the same time. There are so many things that can kill you in the rainforest: spiders, snakes, ants, crocodiles, etc. One girl almost walked straight into the web of a huge female Golden Orb spider the size of my hand. The guide told me that female Golden Orbs eat the males after mating...yuck! The trees were beautiful though, and the guide told us lots of interesting facts about the plants and animals.
After our walk we made our way to the Main Beach for lunch. We couldn't swim there because of the crocodiles and stingers, but the scenery was pretty:) We then went on a wildlife cruise down the Daintree River. I was pretty disappointed, because it started getting really rainy and windy at that point, which means that most of the crocodiles stayed underwater or hid behind the vegetation to stay warm. We saw an 8 ft. croc named Scooter, as well as a little baby, but that was it. I learned some pretty interesting facts about crocs though:) The last thing we did was drive through a small town called Port Douglas on our way back to Cairns.
Overall, it was a really cool trip! I'm having so much fun here. Today Alex and Benny are off whitewater rafting, and Viivi was supposed to go skydiving (but it's raining like you wouldn't believe, so she went to a museum instead), so I'm just chilling by myself at the hostel right now, enjoying a little alone time:) It's kind of hard to come by on trips like this, so I enjoy it when I get the opportunity. I like to get up earlier than the others in the morning and have some quiet reading and praying time as well. Tonight we are taking a bus down to Airlie Beach, where we will go sailing around some of the Whitsunday Islands:) I can't wait!
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Vacation!!!
Not like being abroad in Australia for a semester isn't vacation, but right now I'm on my two-week semester break, so it's like a vacation within a vacation haha. My one dream in coming to Australia was to visit the Great Barrier Reef, and I'm finally getting to do it! Some friends and I are taking these two weeks to fly up to Cairns and then work our way down the east coast. Some of us are traveling by Greyhound bus and staying in hostels (Benedicte, Alex, Viivi, and myself) and the rest are renting a van and driving down themselves (Bethany, Bubba, James, Trevor, Gabe, Jacob, Kyle, and Lyndsay).
On our first day in Cairns, we arrived around 7 pm, so we didn't do much. We checked into our hostel, a place called Corona Backpackers Hostel. The receptionist, Angelo, is one of the coolest people I've met. He's super chill and really helpful. He helped us book a bunch of activities and even got us 20% off! And our hostel is nice and clean! (not always the case with hostels I guess). Alex, Viivi, Benedicte (aka Benny) and I are staying in a 4 person air-conditioned room, so it's a pretty ideal situation. Our hostel provides us with meal tickets that get us a discount at a local restaurant, so we went there for dinner. The restaurant is a saloon type place called the Woolshed. It's got a pretty good vibe to it, and we can get nice steak dinners for only $8 with our hostel cards.
On our second day, Sunday, we got up and did some grocery shopping then went to Palm Cove beach. It was an absolutely beautiful day, and we got lots of time out in the sun! Unfortunately, even though I put sunscreen on 3 times, I got pretty burned:/ The water was nice and warm, and we had a great day. The only thing that was a bummer was that we could only swim in a netted-off area in one part of the water, because it's jellyfish (aka stinger) season and there are also a lot of crocodiles in this part of the ocean. Other than that, it was great:)
On Monday we went to the Great Barrier Reef!!! It was easily one of the best days of my life. I've been wanting to go to the reef ever since I was little, when I used to be obsessed with whales, dolphins, and other marine life. Originally, I just signed up to snorkel in an effort to save money. When we got there though, my friend Lyndsay, who had signed up for one intro dive, found out that she wasn't allowed to dive because she has asthma. So I got to swap places with her for only $20 or so. We went to our first site in the morning. I started out snorkeling around to get used to being in the water and everything. Alex even let me use his underwater camera to take pictures of the reef! The water was warm and it was so beautiful. After about 30 minutes, they called me in to go diving. We got outfitted with oxygen tanks and all the other gear and hopped back in. I was pretty nervous at first, but the guide (Fraser) was very helpful. When I first started to descend, my ears were hurting pretty badly, but after a while I fixed it by "equalizing", which is plugging your nose and blowing out of it to get air into your sinuses and stuff. Diving was awesome because we could get right up close to the reef and all the fish and animals at the bottom. We saw a stingray, some giant clams, and other cool things.
After diving, we ate lunch and went to the next site on the reef. This time I just snorkeled. But it was awesome! The reef was closer to the surface at the second site, so I could snorkel over it and still be right up close. The variety in plants and animals was amazing and so beautiful. All the beauty really made me think of God, and how He created all of this for us to enjoy, and how beautiful He must be to create scenery like this. I could have stayed there for hours taking it all in. I almost got hit in the face by a jellyfish though, and I even saw a shark! It was a small White-Tipped Reef Shark, so I wasn't scared. The only thing that I didn't get to see that I wanted to was a turtle. Kyle said he saw a turtle eating a jellyfish, which would've been awesome. Oh well!
After that we went back to the hostel, showered, and went to dinner. That night, everyone else went out to the bars, but I stayed back and had a nice quiet reading time and went to bed early:)
On our first day in Cairns, we arrived around 7 pm, so we didn't do much. We checked into our hostel, a place called Corona Backpackers Hostel. The receptionist, Angelo, is one of the coolest people I've met. He's super chill and really helpful. He helped us book a bunch of activities and even got us 20% off! And our hostel is nice and clean! (not always the case with hostels I guess). Alex, Viivi, Benedicte (aka Benny) and I are staying in a 4 person air-conditioned room, so it's a pretty ideal situation. Our hostel provides us with meal tickets that get us a discount at a local restaurant, so we went there for dinner. The restaurant is a saloon type place called the Woolshed. It's got a pretty good vibe to it, and we can get nice steak dinners for only $8 with our hostel cards.
On our second day, Sunday, we got up and did some grocery shopping then went to Palm Cove beach. It was an absolutely beautiful day, and we got lots of time out in the sun! Unfortunately, even though I put sunscreen on 3 times, I got pretty burned:/ The water was nice and warm, and we had a great day. The only thing that was a bummer was that we could only swim in a netted-off area in one part of the water, because it's jellyfish (aka stinger) season and there are also a lot of crocodiles in this part of the ocean. Other than that, it was great:)
On Monday we went to the Great Barrier Reef!!! It was easily one of the best days of my life. I've been wanting to go to the reef ever since I was little, when I used to be obsessed with whales, dolphins, and other marine life. Originally, I just signed up to snorkel in an effort to save money. When we got there though, my friend Lyndsay, who had signed up for one intro dive, found out that she wasn't allowed to dive because she has asthma. So I got to swap places with her for only $20 or so. We went to our first site in the morning. I started out snorkeling around to get used to being in the water and everything. Alex even let me use his underwater camera to take pictures of the reef! The water was warm and it was so beautiful. After about 30 minutes, they called me in to go diving. We got outfitted with oxygen tanks and all the other gear and hopped back in. I was pretty nervous at first, but the guide (Fraser) was very helpful. When I first started to descend, my ears were hurting pretty badly, but after a while I fixed it by "equalizing", which is plugging your nose and blowing out of it to get air into your sinuses and stuff. Diving was awesome because we could get right up close to the reef and all the fish and animals at the bottom. We saw a stingray, some giant clams, and other cool things.
After diving, we ate lunch and went to the next site on the reef. This time I just snorkeled. But it was awesome! The reef was closer to the surface at the second site, so I could snorkel over it and still be right up close. The variety in plants and animals was amazing and so beautiful. All the beauty really made me think of God, and how He created all of this for us to enjoy, and how beautiful He must be to create scenery like this. I could have stayed there for hours taking it all in. I almost got hit in the face by a jellyfish though, and I even saw a shark! It was a small White-Tipped Reef Shark, so I wasn't scared. The only thing that I didn't get to see that I wanted to was a turtle. Kyle said he saw a turtle eating a jellyfish, which would've been awesome. Oh well!
After that we went back to the hostel, showered, and went to dinner. That night, everyone else went out to the bars, but I stayed back and had a nice quiet reading time and went to bed early:)
Sorry!
Hey everyone,
I apologize for being such a terrible blogger. Most of the time I forget I even have a blog, and the other times I just get distracted and/or am too lazy to write lol. But I'll try to be better from now on. It's been over a month since I've written, but for most of that time I don't have much to report. Classes are going alright; they can be very frustrating at times, but I'm taking comfort in the fact that I technically only have to pass them--my grades here won't affect my GPA back home. I'm still trying to do well, but it takes the pressure off.
When I'm not in class I'm usually reading, at the gym, hanging out with people, or playing ping pong. They have a ping pong table in the common room, and I swear that game never gets boring to me. There's quite a few people that enjoy playing, so we have fun competing against each other:) I've started doing yoga and pilates classes. My body gets so tight and inflexible, so I'm trying to work on that while I'm here because the classes are free! It's definitely very hard for me, but hopefully it will start to get easier soon. I'm going to miss the gym here when I go home. It's an awesome facility and they have lots of personal trainers on staff that answer your questions and give you free consultations every few weeks. Although, I have a pretty awesome trainer back home (love you mom!) :).
Definitely one of my favorite things in Australia is Hillsong Church. I've gotten to know some of the people that go to Hillsong College, and some that just attend the church weekly. I've even started volunteering for Hillsong! It's a pretty small thing--I carry around trays of food for people to eat after the services when everyone stands around and talks--but I'm just doing what I can and trying to let God use me in whatever way He wills. I've started going to a weekly small group as well. My group's leader is named Lillian, and she is really sweet:) Last Friday was one of my favorite days at Hillsong. It was Good Friday, so we didn't have classes, and I went into the city to attend the Good Friday service at the Sydney Entertainment Center. It was awesome! We had a long period of awesome worship, and Michael W. Smith sang:) I'm so sad I missed Easter Sunday at Hillsong. I bet it was awesome. Reinhardt Bonnke was preaching. I'm going to see if someone has a recording of it that I could watch.
After the service, I went with some girls I met that day to Paddy's Market. It's a huge market that sells a ton of touristy type souvenirs and other small goods. I tried to find some good things to bring home:) After a while it got really overwhelming though. There are so many people and so much stuff for sale..and it was really hot. We were exhausted when we got done. We cooled off with a 30 cent ice cream cone from McDonalds (or Maccas, as they call it here) and went home.
That's pretty much what I've been up to for the last month or so! Just studying and enjoying myself:) Nothing too big, until right now....
I apologize for being such a terrible blogger. Most of the time I forget I even have a blog, and the other times I just get distracted and/or am too lazy to write lol. But I'll try to be better from now on. It's been over a month since I've written, but for most of that time I don't have much to report. Classes are going alright; they can be very frustrating at times, but I'm taking comfort in the fact that I technically only have to pass them--my grades here won't affect my GPA back home. I'm still trying to do well, but it takes the pressure off.
When I'm not in class I'm usually reading, at the gym, hanging out with people, or playing ping pong. They have a ping pong table in the common room, and I swear that game never gets boring to me. There's quite a few people that enjoy playing, so we have fun competing against each other:) I've started doing yoga and pilates classes. My body gets so tight and inflexible, so I'm trying to work on that while I'm here because the classes are free! It's definitely very hard for me, but hopefully it will start to get easier soon. I'm going to miss the gym here when I go home. It's an awesome facility and they have lots of personal trainers on staff that answer your questions and give you free consultations every few weeks. Although, I have a pretty awesome trainer back home (love you mom!) :).
Definitely one of my favorite things in Australia is Hillsong Church. I've gotten to know some of the people that go to Hillsong College, and some that just attend the church weekly. I've even started volunteering for Hillsong! It's a pretty small thing--I carry around trays of food for people to eat after the services when everyone stands around and talks--but I'm just doing what I can and trying to let God use me in whatever way He wills. I've started going to a weekly small group as well. My group's leader is named Lillian, and she is really sweet:) Last Friday was one of my favorite days at Hillsong. It was Good Friday, so we didn't have classes, and I went into the city to attend the Good Friday service at the Sydney Entertainment Center. It was awesome! We had a long period of awesome worship, and Michael W. Smith sang:) I'm so sad I missed Easter Sunday at Hillsong. I bet it was awesome. Reinhardt Bonnke was preaching. I'm going to see if someone has a recording of it that I could watch.
After the service, I went with some girls I met that day to Paddy's Market. It's a huge market that sells a ton of touristy type souvenirs and other small goods. I tried to find some good things to bring home:) After a while it got really overwhelming though. There are so many people and so much stuff for sale..and it was really hot. We were exhausted when we got done. We cooled off with a 30 cent ice cream cone from McDonalds (or Maccas, as they call it here) and went home.
That's pretty much what I've been up to for the last month or so! Just studying and enjoying myself:) Nothing too big, until right now....
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