Saturday 2-19-11

Slept in after a loooonngg hike yesterday! Getting out of bed was quite interesting and I never thought the 2 stairs into my cottage would be so hard. We all relaxed around our cottages before hanging out at the beach doing homework. The ocean was really weird, the rip tides were strong enough that they pulled the sand to the sides and back out creating a sand island in the shallow parts. A rip is when the water comes into the beach through a wave and has no where to go, so the access water begins flowing perpendicular until it pulls enough water to flow to the ocean. The rip is really strong, like the current and can pull you from shore to back behind the waves. People die from fighting this instead of relaxing swimming along with it, the letting a wave to you back to shore. It looks really scary but cool to look at.
After the beach we had a quick snack, went to the lake for a few mins. On our way into town we ran into a few students chatting with teen Aussie girls. It was really neat because they were asking questions about America. They basically think America is Gossip Girl and other TV shows & movies. They were saying that in school they watch movies about America that say that we sleep with guns under our pillows, that a typical house has bars on the windows, and that we can buy guns at the bank. We corrected them saying- definitely not! We talked about the language differences. They don't say Good'ay Mate, like we think they do. They had so many questions about Americans in America and what things are like. Most Aussies seem to be very interested in where people are from and enjoy learning about us. They really want Jake & I to visit their school to show us around and tell their teacher that he was wrong about America.
After talking with the girls J and I rode into town, went to the ATM (finally got money out, after having some troubles before!) and to the grocery to get a few items for dinner.

Climbing Mt Warning

Last night we left camp in a bus to Mt Warning cabins. We all slept in cabins for a few hours before we woke up at 3:30AM to begin hiking up Mt Warning for the sunrise. We had to start out on the road that was basically an uphill incline, it was a rough way to start the morning! After an a little over an hour of walking up the road we finally reached the pathway, consisting of some sidewalk, mud, and rock boulders. The hike was intense but really glad we got to do it! The last portion of the hike was by hanging on to a chain while pulling yourself up boulders. We rested at the top and took a ton of pictures of the view. The way down was a ton easier & took a lot of pictures of misc things! For not being a huge outdoors girl- I did really good! I even lead a good portion of the way back down the mountain/volcano! Our feet hurt pretty bad once we got to the bottom making the walk down the steep road very difficult! The hike up the mountain was 9 kilometers and the walk on the road was 3 kilometers, approximately. This was about 7.5 miles all together! Quite the work out & I will def feel to tomorrow. I already hate the 3 stairs into my cottage! Just relaxing/homework

for the rest of the weekend!