Going BALL-istic all the way to Heron Island

Its been a crazy past few weeks (nothing new there really) and I've got loads to update on. Two weekends ago I travelled up to Hervey Bay for our Ask Weekend with the other Lockley guys and all of our partners for Ball. It was about 5 hours of travel but my friend B1 has an awesome house right on the beach that definitely made the trip well worth it. The gals had already had a bit to drink on the ride so we were all rearing to get our weekend started by the time we finally arrived.

We quickly unloaded the two cars (the third would come later because a couple of the people had exams to take that day and ran out to the water and played out there for a good few hours. The water got a bit chilly for us so we went inside to get some dinner and to play some good old drinking games (Taylor and I had been put in charge of those since being the resident Americans it was assumed we had an extensive knowledge of them :P). The next day a few people had to go back to college because of school/work obligations but the rest of us spent the start of the day lazing about watching TV and laughing at the pictures from the day before.

Eventually we managed to corral the energy to go outside but since it was low tide we had to walk a good couple kilometers out to even get to the water. B1 and Boomer taught Fuster and I how to play a backyard version of cricket which was alot of fun as well. We had a fire that night on the beach and we introduced our Aussie friends to the best version of s'mores that we could create. Apparently they don't have graham crackers here!? So we had to improvise with some cookie/cracker things I figured would do the trick. And their marshmallows are about the 1/3 of the size of ours so we had a bit of difficulty roasting them over the fire but we made it work and everyone was quite happy with the result.

Took us about 9 hours to travel back because of troubles with the train schedule but it was all well and good as I got to converse with B1 quite a bit. He's a pretty chill guy and we had endless chats about the weekend, his friends who had visited us and the shenanigans they used to have, and he taught me quite a bit about how the Australian government works. Needless to say, its got some similarities to American government but its got quite a few interesting distinctions (a part from being a part of the commonwealth of course). People vote for parties and not the candidates that the party endorses so if a party is voted in and they decide they don't like what the candidate is doing then they can oust them for somebody new. This happens even to the Prime Minister, most recently Kevin Rudd having been replaced by Julia Guillard.

Anywho, thats a whole conversation and a half to itself that I shant be getting into now. This last Friday we had our Ball and everyone first gathered in the Dining Hall for some predrinks and hors d'oeuvres. Everyone was up in their finest and looked absolutely amazing! It was still a secret at this point as to where we were going but we piled onto the buses and eventually found ourselves at the Rydges Hotel downtown. An elevator took us up to the top floor where we were greeted by waiters with champagne and the most beautiful view of the city and the river that I could've imagined. There was a live jazz band playing, two balconies, an endless stream of wine, beer, and champagne, a delicious meal of steak and potatoes, an amazing brownie type dessert, basically a phenomenal evening all around. I sadly didn't have my camera but others got pics and I'll be sure to get some up once I've gotten them myself.

The next morning we all got up early for the day after event called Recovery, basically a fun hair of the dog kind of idea. Everyone got dressed up in absurd clothing, started drinking out on the front lawn and then hopped on a bus to a local pub called the Down Under, aka the Dunda.

Sunday I travelled down to the Gold Coast with Fuster and Jeeves where we stayed with our friend Mussels. We had really only expected a ride down there but she and her family were wonderful enough to let us stay with them and Mussels played tour guide to us through Tuesday (now). We were well and knackered after two solid days of drinking but we managed to get out Sunday night to enjoy the beach a bit. Monday avo we went out to the Hinterlands (bushland = country) where we drove up into the mountains and did a fair bit of hiking. The Gold Coast and the surrounding area was actually a massive volcano some 20 million years ago but has since eroded leaving a web of rivers and a circle of mountains. We went to a place called the World's Best Lookout which though a rather immodest name it offered a spectacular view of the entire area. We also went on a 4km walk around a sweet waterfall before having a nice picnic lunch in the park. After an afternoon power nap we went into the city to get dinner with our friend Echo on the beach. We also ran into another Cromwellian Towel, who was having dinner with his parents.

Its been a busy past few weeks with class, trips and such, and it continues tonight. I'll be leaving for Heron Island in bout an hour and will be up there for bout five days snorkelling with the fishies, turtles, sharks, and such! Should be a great time and there'll be plenty of pics and stories once I return at the end of break. Until then, I bid you all adieu!

Ugh its sparkling water!

So I started this post a good week ago but forgot to post it... whoops! Anyway, here it is now:

Saturday marked the beginning of Brisbane Festival, which is basically just three weeks in September with a bunch of random concerts, theatre performances, etc. semi-organised throughout the city. The real exciting thing was the fireworks display to kick it off Saturday night, known as Riverfire. Met up with Taylor and Megan at South Bank and we decided that we had a pretty good spot right where the City Cat stop was. We were promised an aerial show at 5pm but unless one helicopter appearing for about 2 minutes is something to get excited about, it was pretty lame/nonexistent. So we chilled on the waterfront for another couple hours waiting for the fireworks and watching the area fill up with people thousands of people.

Eventually 7pm rolled around and any doubts that the show wouldn;t be worth the wait vanished instantly as a F-111 jet flew overhead and performed a "dump and burn". Basically the F-111 has its fuel tank located behind its afterburner so literally the jet dumps some of its fuel which is ignited behind it in a gigantic stream of fire! People complain about it being wasteful (which it most certainly is) but I have to say it was freaking awesome to see this jet all of a sudden disappear into a gigantic fireball cruising through the sky! Supposedly this will be the last "dump and burn" performed in Australia as the F-111s are being phased out of their air force and its also mad expensive/wasteful.

Then began the actual fireworks, accompanied by a soundtrack. Not sure if I'm just that much of a country bum but I had never seen fireworks that were actually synchronized with music so between having just seen the flying fireball and this new novelty I was already blown away. Every public event in Australia is begun with an acknowledgment of the "rightful land owners", the Aboriginals, so the first music that was played was a beautiful Aboriginal song. Very nice and all but I couldn't help but be amused by the irony considering it was following a performance that consisted of burning fuel and blowing up tens of thousands kilograms of fireworks over a river. Thanks for the land guys, we're gonna go blow some shit up over it k? The comparisons to America never end!

But in any case, the fireworks display itself was easily the best fireworks show I have ever seen. There were 6 barges (3 of which we could see from our spot) shooting off fireworks from the river, fireworks being launched from the bridges crossing the river, and even fireworks being launched off the tops of the skyscrapers downtown! The F-111/ball of fire cruised around at different parts as well. Best free entertainment I've had here/possibly ever.

Afterward we realised that getting onto the City Cat back to campus was not going to be easy as we'd thought despite being right next to the stop. There were literally thousands of people waiting to get on and the system wasn't even running because apparently the river had become clogged with people watching the fireworks from their boats. So after about 40 minutes of indecision, we decided to fight our way through the crowds and get some food since it was after 8pm and none of us had had dinner. Taylor had remembered some pizza place so we grabbed that and chilled in the grass. This is only the second or third time I've had pizza here but I have to say, it sucks. Apparently Australians don't believe in sauce and there's just something about the pizza itself that just isn't great. It confuses me because the Australians I've talked to get excited about this chain called New York Slice which sells good old American pizza. So why they don't just all make good pizza, I have no idea.

The next morning, Taylor, Maia, Megan, Liz, and I got up earlyish to check out the "French" Sunsupper Breakfast. Basically we were pumped for a free breakfast that wasn't at college. We got to the Goodwill Bridge where it was being held and got excited because they were giving away free water and we were all really thirsty. Little did we know that it wasn't plain water, but in fact sparkling water. There was a big line for the food and I had had to go to the bathroom for some time so I volunteered to take all 7 of our bottles (we'd taken a few extra, we were THIRSTY) and dispose of them while they stayed in line. Didn't find any recycling or rubbish bins on my way to the portapotty so the people to go in after me were probably pretty confused by the bottles that were taking up half of it! The event itself wasn't quite as cool as I'd expected but was still good. Basically the gave out free croissants, strawberries, yogurt, and cheese, had some really good sidewalk chalk drawings of French places/paintings, and we bought some crepes (decent) before making our way back to college. Spent the rest of day doing homework, woohoo!

Monday brought the usual class, homework, and our last two basketball games. Got our butts handed to us by International House which was a bit demoralizing as they're not usually good at sports but apparently that wasn't the case for basketball. I had contemplated going to the gym between games but ended up staying for the ladies game, GREAT DECISION! It was their last game and they didn't really have anyone who was good or had played much ball before and they were fully aware of it. So they instead decided to just have a good time with it. Memorable quotes included "IMA GET ALL UP IN YOUR GRILLS!" (Bounty jumping around like a crazy) and my favorite came from the ref, "Foul is on... Giz!?" That put me in a good mood for our next game against Kings (one of the all guys college's), which we knew we were going to get spanked in whether we liked it or not. Was a little worried at first because we had mysteriously lost some players and were down to four. Then Kplus showed up to save the day so we had a whopping five players, one of whom didn't even know the rules. Despite this, we held our own and played a decent game.

One final note, My pics from Riverfire and the dump and burn didn't turn out too well but I recommend just doing a youtube search. It'll be well worth ten minutes of your day to check them out a bit!

Peanut Butter and Vegemite!?

I'm getting pretty used to hearing that on a daily basis. The Australians are very happy that I am one of the few nonAustralians who likes (in my case, love) Vegemite and despite the fact that they pride themselves on using it in strange combinations, I've apparently broken the limits by creating PB & V. Thus, every morning when i make my typical bfast of toast with PB & V and often an egg or two on top, I'm met with awestruck faces and "You eat peanut butter AND vegemite!?" Yes, yes I do. And its freaking delicious thank you very much :P

In other news, it is now September. Holy shiznit. One of the girls on our program actually counted it up and we've been here over 50 days now. On one side this is cool because I definitely feel like I've fallen into the rhythm of school life here but it also means that our number of remaining days is rapidly dwindling. With that in mind, my recent dilemma has been trying to figure out where I can both afford and have time to travel to. Places on the list of possible travel locations include: Tasmania, Melbourne, Uluru/Ayer's Rock (the huge red rock sticking up in the middle of Australia), Cairns, more NZ, Singapore, etc. etc... Basically everywhere and anywhere which is causing me some prioritization issues. That and I won't know what free time I'll have during the exam period cuz we're at a bloody large university that doesn't post exam dates and times until freaking october. But as the Aussies say, "She'll be right" and I'll get it all figured out... eventually.

Aside from that all is going well. We've reached that point in the semester where there are all kinds of assignments due and my procrastination is catching up with me but its nothing I haven't dealt with before. People are getting more and more excited for Ball here at Cromwell now that there are only three weekends of Asks left followed by Ball. Fuster and I were invited to our friend Boudjoo's house for a weekend over midsemester break but unfortunately its during our trip up to Heron Island. Other than that there's not all that much to report. Finally won a basketball game, sang "Party in the USA" with the other Cromwell Dson folk at karaoke last night (we rocked it), going to be accompanying Impulse on the song "Stars" from Les Miserables on Tuesday, and hopefully jamming with a couple guys sometime next week. Just gonna keep on rocking down under!

Kiwis and Squeaky Sand

Soooo I fail at updating this regularly but I'm at least going to attempt to catch up from my last post here. To sum up my kiwi adventure, I had a hell of a great time and hope to find myself there again someday. Had my first bball game Monday night which considering basketball's popularity here and the state of our team went pretty well. We played better than I think any of us expected and only ended up losing by a few points. Got two games tomorrow night, which I'm sure we're going to rock!

The week cruised by pretty quickly as usual. Got to see Taylor play in his first rugby game Wednesday night and other than a long overdue haircut nothing overly exciting happening until the end of the week. Friday morning, Fuster, Shazza, and I boarded a bus to the Moreton Bay Research Center on Stradbroke Island for our first research field trip for our Australian Marine Biology course. Jeeves and a few other Dson girls had gone the prior weekend and had brought back rave reviews of beautiful beaches and constant feedings so we were pretty pumped. We had ended up going out to a club the night before so after hopping on the bus at 7:30 I slept for the majority of our 90min bus/ferry ride to the center but once we got there it was go Go GO!

The weather was absolute crap and on the beach it was even windier and colder with some intermittent rain but we all braved the elements to go out while it was still low tide. We were broken up into groups of 8 and went out with PhD students who showed us all the cool things to be found in the sand, seagrass, and rocks. We were literally fed every three hours so of course despite going in and out of the cold I was quite happy! Just before dinner we went out during high tide to do some seining and actually were able to catch a bunch of different fishies as well as a male and female sting ray which were doing ummm male/female things prior to us catching them. Sorry!

The next day was nonstop research: we formulated a hypothesis that on the pipes running into the water we would find more different species the further away from shore you went, created an experiment with random sampling to test our hypothesis, analyzed the results (we were right of course :P), and then had to create and give a powerpoint presentation to the tutors and other students. We did all of this in ONLY 10 HOURS!!! By the time we had made it through the the last presentation I basically walked back to our room, flopped into bed, and promptly fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning (Sunday/today) we roused our tired selves, got some bfast, packed up, and headed out on the bus to Point Lookout to do a gorge walk along the shore. Found out that Moreton Bay is home to the largest permanent population of bottlenose dolphins and is a popular spot for whale watching! The views were spectacular and we actually saw a few humpback whales playing around out in the distance. We stopped for some delicious homemade gelato (I had passionfruit cheesecake along with strawberry mango cream!) before heading to the beach. The sand was some of the whitest and most beautiful sand I've ever seen and was so fine that when you stepped in the dry areas it actually made a squeaking sound! It was a bit chilly because of the strong winds coming off the bay but I allowed myself to be coaxed into swimming around in the water for a bit before relaxing in the sun and "tanning".

We didn't have anywhere near as much time on the beach as we would've liked but eventually it was time to head back. Before long we were back at Cromwell College and Fuster and I had to catch up on what is called Ball LineUp. At the end of September, Cromwell is going to have its ball, called Ballistic this year, which is basically like a sort of prom/formal. Each semester the guys and gals take turns with which gender will do the asking to ball and this time around it was the guys turn. Basically what happens is that all the guys lined up to ask to bring their preferred partner. The catches are that people were allowed to start lining up nearly a week ago, though only a few guys started that early. Most started lining up on Friday or Saturday so for most of the weekend there was a line of guys chilling in the hallway outside of the room of the guy, Randy, who was in charge. Now people weren't expected to stay there the entire time, most guys worked as a pair taking turns standing in line so they could have the option of eating, going to uni, etc. So by 4:00pm today when the asking actually started, most of the Cromwell guys were lined up, aside from Fuster and I who only got back from Moreton Bay just after 5. This actually worked out alright for us, because although we missed all of the fun of lining up we arrived after the line was completely gone and simply had to walk in, take a look at the list of remaining girls and make our pick. Despite being so late in the process, we were quite happy with our partner choices.

So now all of the Cromwell guys have their partners but the gals currently have no idea who asked picked them and I'm not entirely clear on the details but we'll be giving them clues and such for awhile leading up to Ball. Some weekend before ball, Fuster, the other Lockley guys, and myself will be taking our dates on a little trip up to either the Sunshine Coast or perhaps even a bit further north than that. As I said, the details of everything are still quite fuzzy for me but as things progress I'll be sure to update things here.

Continuing on with the busyness of this weekend, after picking dates for ball, and having dinner, I went to my first Dancefest practice. Dancefest is going to be sometime in the first week of October where each of the residential colleges will put on a dance and I'm assuming there will be judges and a winner of some sorts. Anyway, I am about as white as they get when it comes to dancing and prior attempts at taking part in a dance line have been compared to a mentally challenged bird of some sort. Nonetheless I feel like I did fairly well and it should be a lot of fun.

Anyway, that about catches things up though as always I know I've left thousands of cool things out and will be kicking myself about them for the next few days saying I should blog about them but in two weeks when I get around to actually doing my next post I'll kick myself for not being able to remember them. Buuuut so it goes I guess! tomorrow the Dson crew is going to have coffee with Ann, which is always fun, then back to the crazy thing called class, then my two basketball games! In summary, its barely after 9pm here and I'm bout set to head to bed. Night y'all!

Rocking with the Kiwis

After such a great weekend in Sydney, I was still super pumped for my next weekend... in New Zealand!!! The week went by pretty quickly: had class on Monday, work training for my new job as a social science interviewer (I'll explain later) on Tuesday, Pub Crawl for Ekka holiday on Wednesday, then struggling through class on Thursday before hopping on a plane to Christchurch. I was bummed that I wasn't able to get a window seat but it was dark out anyway so there wasn't much to see anyway. Best part of the journey was getting through customs to see Phillippa, Tessa (two of my fellow blueshirts from Dson), and Tessa's sister Georgia waiting for me.

It was rather late but we went back to Tessa's house for a couple beers and played in a park, then watched some crazy NZ tv show called "Outrageous Fortune" before passing out. Tessa and I spent Friday checking out downtown Christchurch and the local museum with the infamous Paua Shell House. Paua shells come from abalone and when shined have a beautiful iridescent blue, green, purple color to them. Back in the 1960s, Myrtle Flutey got tired of her husband leaving his shiny paua shells lying around the floor of the house so she started hanging them up on the wall. Next thing they knew they had over 1200 and they opened their house in 1963 to tourists for free. They started collecting other "Kiwiana" as the kiwis like to call their local knick knacks and after they died a recreation of their house was made and the entire collection moved to the Canterbury Museum for our viewing pleasure :)

After the shiny shell house, Tessa and I got some delicious souvlaki before meeting up with Phillippa for a ride up into the "hills" surrounding Christchurch. By most Americans they would probably be termed mountains but by kiwi standards they apparently didn't quite make the cut. In any case, the views were absolutely beautiful. It was a foggy day but we could still easily see the ocean on one side, the Canterbury Plains, the neighboring bay of Lyttelton, and off in the distance a vague outline of the Southern Alps. Wasn't quite LOTR territory but it was amazing nonetheless! There are a few hiking trails running through the hills, most notably the Bridle path which the original British settlers used to cross the Port Hills.

Friday night took us downtown again for the local pub scene and to see some band that Phillippa's friend was lead singer for. Very chill (and chilly) place, the music wasn't quite my thing, but there was a delicious organic brew on tap which I'm kicking myself for not remembering the name of but so it goes!

Went into town again with Tessa intending on actually checking out the Botanical Gardens. Seeing as Christchurch is nicknamed the City of Gardens it would make sense to check them out right? Instead we got sidetracked and went down to New Brighton Pier to get some ice cream and check out the ocean. After that I went with Tessa's family to a couple malls (very similar to American malls). Tessa's dad made us some delectable homemade pizza. Kiwis scoff at American pizza and our happiness to have just cheese or one/two toppings and so instead we had some three really good types ranging from shrimp with brie, peppers, etc to a simpler bacon and veggie pizza. Super good!

Even though the legal drinking age is 18, kiwis (and aussies) still like to celebrate 21st birthdays. Phillippa had turned 21 a few weeks earlier but had only just managed to organize her bday party that night, lucky for me! It was a really cool experience, its traditional to invite both family and friends to a 21st bday party and to have a few people give speeches about the lucky birthday gal/guy which can range from sweet anecdotes to embarrassing stories. Somebody asked me if we did anything similar in the states and I couldn't come up with anything similar aside from maybe at weddings or perhaps at someone's graduation party. One way or another it was very cool to hear more stories about Phillippa as well as to get to take party in this kiwi tradition.

I've only barely settled back in here at college but I've actually got a basketball game in about 15 minutes so I'll have to continue my tales later. Never stopping!

Opera House, Dugongs, Harry's Cafe du Wheels, and other Sydney Wonders

Not typically a big city sorta guy but Sydney was freaking awesome! We left early Friday morning out of Brisbane and after a short hour long flight we were there. As a quick aside, security for domestic flights in Australia is a bloody joke/nice reprieve from the crap we deal with in the states. No liquid restrictions and they didn't even ask us for ID for our tickets! Crazy...

Since we were only there for the weekend we quick dropped off our stuff at our hotel and then took a bus to a nice park overlooking the harbour for some lunch. I haven't been to cali but it reminded me a lot of pics that I've seen of San Fran or Italy with winding streets and beautiful houses on the hills overlooking the bay. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous with huge trees like this guy below all over the place. To put it in perspective that tree would take about 5 or 6 of me possibly more to wrap my arms around it!

Next we took the bus back into downtown where I was amazed by the number and size of they parks that they have right in the city. This is thanks to the last governor of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie, who had the commendable foresight to not only plan out many of the city streets but also to set aside large chunks of land to serve as parks and gardens in order to keep the natural beauty alive and well inside of the city. Made the country boy in me quite happy! In the Botanical Gardens we had a blast getting to feed the cockatoos which happily hopped up on our shoulders and/or heads and walked around with us for ten plus minutes even after we'd run out of food for them. Though one did try a bite of my sunglasses but figured out pretty quickly they were a bit less tasty than the banana bread that I'd been feeding it!

A short walk along the harbour then took us to the famous Sydney Opera House. Pictures did not do justice the phenomenal place that it is. Our tour took us through the impressive and ingenious design and construction of the opera house. They started with a design contest and the design they picked was actually rejected initially because it was extremely abstract and had absolutely no actual construction details but they went for it anyway. Construction was originally estimated to take only a few years a 7 million dollars but ended up taking an extra 10 years and a total of 102 million! Being the musical person that I am I was in constant awe of everything that I saw and was able to get into a brief discussion with our tour guide who was excited to talk with someone who had actually helped move a piano before. Here's me inside the main concert hall! (I admit I had to keep from drooling when I heard about the organ which has over 10,000 pipes going back over 8 meters into the wall)

My only regret is that we didn't have time to catch a performance there...

That night we went out to dinner at a cool little pub where you could grill your own steak (delicious) and then proceeded on a pub crawl through some of the more historic pubs e.g. Sydney's first hotel, first pub, etc. Enjoyed a really great local porter (I'm realising how big a fan of dark beers I am) at one of the place's called Nelson's Blood, as you can imagine it was a grand evening :)

The next morning we got up early to walk along the coast listening to our tour guide, Russ, explain a bit of the history of the harbour to us. Apparently when the British first came to Australia they completely missed Sydney Harbour and it was only during a return trip that somebody thought hey! I feel like there's something more in here! If you wanna check out the pics they'll be on FB soon and eventually I'll get around to getting my pics posted up somewhere more easily accessible for peeps who haven't caught up to the 21st century :P The water was the most amazing blue I've seen due to the water being pumped into the harbour and Pacific being filtered of any human caused pollution before being allowed back out. Once again I have to commend the Aussies on their efforts to try to keep green. They're also quite proud of their environmental work and almost everywhere you go you'll see some kind of sign explaining just what is going on.

We walked by a few different beaches until we made it to the infamous Bondi Beach where you can find the Iceberg Club which has its own pool situated right alongside the water! It was founded in 1929 and in order to become a full member you have to take part in a winter swim with the "IceCubes" where they actually fill the pool with ice. I suppose this the Aussie version of the Polarbear Plunge though we've definitely got it a bit easier since our beloved Lake Superior conveniently freezes over every winter for us!

We then spent the afternoon exploring a local Aussie market (read great authentic souvenir opportunity) where we also stopped at a famous chocolate shop, Max Brenner: Chocolate by the Bald Man. Pure decadence this place was. Taylor and I indulged in the "Exploding Chocolate Shot" which consisted of a shot of pure milk chocolate mixed with pop rocks and some white chocolate chunks. I can easily say I've never had such good chocolate before and fingers crossed they'll get around to opening up the store they're working on in Brisbane before we leave! Next we had a bit of downtime before getting dinner at a nice Malaysian restaurant. A few of us headed over to the aquarium only to find out it had closed ten minutes before we arrived but our spirits were quickly raised by a street performer by the name of "Toy". He wasn't particularly talented but was absolutely hysterical with terrible "Engrish" and a lovely cache of lewd jokes. A bottle of wine back at the hotel also helped to raise spirits for the evening and a bunch of us ended up wandering around the city having another grand evening in the Harbour City.

Sunday morning we quick checked out of our hotel (which I forgot to mention was easily the nicest hotel suite I have EVER stayed in, read thank you Dson) and scurried over to the aquarium. I can't remember the last time I was at an aquarium but I had a great time there. Sharks, dugongs, octupi, huge sea turtles, and endless Finding Nemo jokes made for a happy Phil. The shark feeding was less than exciting though, they just kinda swam up to the fish grabbed it and then continued swimming around. LAAAAAME

Russ had told us about this famous meat pie stand called Harry's Cafe du Wheels (conveniently located by Russell Crowe's less than humble abode) that with my growing taste for Australian foods I had to try out. This meat pie was a heck of a meal piled with mashed potatoes, mashed peas, and covered in gravy and was delicious beyond words! Time was ticking down though and we made a quick foray into the Paddy Markets which boasted loads of cheap merchandise sold my lovely Asian folk. 'nough said there. Thus ended our time in Sydney and before we knew it we were back at college eating the much less appetizing food wishing we were rich and could have just stayed there forever (kidding i promise) It was an absolutely unforgettable weekend, though it was all too short and with any luck someday I'll find my way back there.

For now its been back to class and then off to New Zealand on Thursday! Didn't you know I don't ever stop?

Off To Sydney

Hey y'all,

haven't posted recently because I've been a. lazy b. busy c. fighting off an ear infection d. recovering from an unfortunate kangaroo boxing accident. Okay so I haven't gotten into any fights with a kangaroo but the other three are actually valid. Don't have time to catch up on everything right now as I'll be catching a taxi to the airport in t-minus 8 hours then flying to Sydney for the weekend with the rest of the Dson folk. Not sure what we'll all be doing there but I promise I'll get back on my game here and get some posts up about this last week+ as well as the Sydney trip. Until then, miss everyone back in the states and hope you're doing well.

Cheers, Phil aka 'Cluck'