It's been a while..

So I have a lot to catch up here- our trip to Sydney, Spring Break with Mom and Dad, Currumbin Zoo, and NSW Rugby Championship.
I'll start with the Sydney tour. Our director , Dr Avila, could not come with us but one of our professor and bus driver could. Both had lived in Sydney for a good period of their lives, so were pretty excited to show us around the town.
We left late Thursday night and drove through the night, arriving at 6am in Sydney. We stopped at McDonalds for breaky then drove the to North end of the Harbour Bridge to walk across at 8am. It was amazing, and we had an awesome view of the opera House and the whole harbour. At 10.15 we had a 1 hour guided tour of the Opera House, we learned a lot. From the pictures I thought the Opera house was covered in a metal material but it is actually tile, like the size of bathroom tile! We had lunch then took a ferry down the harbour to the Tarongo Zoo. The Zoo was really cool, had so many different animals with great views of the city. We spent about 5 hours there before checking into our hostel and then going on a bus tour of the city. For dinner we went to Harry's, a famous restaurant out of a trailer that celebrities have gotten meat pies from.
THe next day, Saturday, we had an early breakfast at the hostel and took off to the Blue Mountains. Some people compare the mountains to the Grand Canyon but with trees. There is also the Three Sisters, which comes from an Aboriginal myth. The picture is posted. After touring the mountains for a few hours we went to Bondi Beach then later on went out to the Gay/Lesbian Mardi Gras. It was very interesting and fun to see. The city of Sydney were filled with colorful people but it was surprisingly interesting how fast the streets were cleaned up. Groups of us went out to different clubs and has some fun.
On Sunday we walked around town and were shown some of the different buildings and statues. I love how Sydney has kept the buildings and sites were restored, all of them. We went to Manly Beach as well, but it was a bit cold and rainy so we just shopped around in local stores. We had some free time before we left, and so a small group of us went to the Sydney Aquarium. it was absolutely amazing, the exhibits were unbelievable. There were enormous tanks that were 2 stores high, so we could look in from the top and then walk through tunnels around the bottom. The largest aquariums were here and were beautiful! After a few hours walking around and looking we went to dinner at Darling harbour at a place called Plate. it was really good! We loaded the bus soon after to drive through the night back to Lennox.
BUSY WEEKEND! I a not a big city person but I loved Sydney.

More DogRace Pictures

DogRace Pictures

Dograces

Yesterday started with Marketing class! Our classes are 3 hours but once a week- it makes the class seem like it goes all day long compared to 1 hour classes at home. But I really enjoy the class so that helps!

Side note story:
During our break for class a few of us went to the restroom, as soon as I got into mine I realized there was a quite large spider on the wall. To make a long story short, it started crawling towards me- I screamed the guys opened the door and stepped on it- aka saved my life!!!

In the afternoon we were supposed to volunteer at the local business stores doing misc things for them. The Mayor had emailed them letting them know that this was going to happen but the businesses must not check their emails or have anything for 30 students to do. Instead, another student, Chelsea,and I went into town and started picking weeds and trash from the flower pots. We had a lot of fun together doing that and enjoyed an In The Pink ice cream afterwords. (Best ice cream ever!)

At 5:30 we left for the DogRaces with our Events Management teacher. Students that weren't from the class even came too. He taught us how to follow the TV screens of info. We all put in $5 and bet on dogs, students even started betting individually with their own money. We watched 8 of the 10 the races & even got to pet one of the dogs. It was really cool and our group had a lot of fun! I had fun until the point that I went to use the restroom and realized after locking the stall that there was a frog jumping around. I about died. There was NO way I was going to be using the restroom with him in there! I finally got the courage to unlock the door and take a run for it- made it safely. The animals are after me here... and I'm not enjoying that!

SeaBird Rescue

Today for Australian life & culture, we went to the SeaBird Rescue. It was an organization that rescues birds and sea turtles. The staff member first showed us a film on how much plastic is being carelessly thrown into the ocean and how many animals it is harming/killing. Then we went into the turtle's vet room. There was a big tank that held 4 sea turtles, ageing from 10-40. They has been rescued and were in heir final stages of care before being let go into the wild again. There were 2 smaller tubs that each held 1 sea turtle. The one turtle has eaten fishing line and it was possibly entangled in the turtles digestive track because some fishing line was hanging out his back end. THe other turtle had probably eaten a plastic bag (like those from the grocery store) and was causing problems with the turtles ability to naturally let out gases and oxygen, so it is getting stuck in the turtle which turns him into a balloon that can't swim under the water. This prevents them from feeding, so if the bag doesn't kill them, they will starve because they can't swim underwater. Really sad stuff. Over 100 thousand marine animals are killed each year from "rubbish" being wasted into the water. (When we had surfing & scuba lessons, they touched on this subject and told us to grab any plastic/trash that we see in our jackets/wetsuits because it harms so many animals).
The organization also rescues and saves many birds/pellicans. They offer courses on how to catch them in case of any indangerment. We could not see any of the birds due the how easily birds get scared- I think the turtles loved the attention though.
Really cool day, I think that it made us all want to take a boat out and start cleaning the ocean.
When we got back we had our intramural volleyball tourney- I hit the ball a few times!! Then we had another spaghetti night made by the cooking committee! Always good meals made by us!

Now homework..

Another good thing about today- I got a package & card from home!!! YAYYY!!! :)

The other pictures that I am including are a Walking Stick that our group members found and from the Seabird Rescue & turtles.

Tenterfield

The 21st through the 23rd was spend in Tenterfield, about 2-3 hours into the 'bush' from Lennox. It was a little old town with about 5,000 people. It was first developed in the 1850s. We first started hour walking through the Thunderbolt Hideout. They were these huge boulder rocks that we larger than the size of cars, or even 2. IN the same area of the mountains we saw a World War II Tank Traps- I can't say I really know what they are but I'll do some research. We went a little farther into the mountains and started climbing Bald Rock. It was absolutely amazing. It was the highest granite point in New South Wales. It is something that would be highly restricted in the US but in Australia, people climb without a care. Before we went back the Golfers Inn Motel, we went to a wine tour/tasting. It was really neat to see how the process was done and taste the variety of wines the produced. It was a small time winery but really neat. That night we had our concert between our group. Just outside our motel, we just sat and some of the students sang along to Taylor swift, or did a rubix cube under 2 minutes, sang along the Backstreet Boys, created a kitchen cabinet band. It was surprisingly really good! We have a pretty talented group.

On Tuesday, we went sapphire fossicking. We started by getting a shovel full of dirt/rocks. We seperated out the bigger rocks, then washed the smaller particles in a water tube. Once clean, then we put the rocks out on a barrel top and checked with tweezers for sapphires or other neat stones. Some people sound jem quality stones but I only found a few small pieces. Just after fossicking, we had tea and a traditional Aussie snack. Bread with butter with syrup drizzled over it, pretty good! We then went to Pioneer Village had lunch- sausage, steak, sweet rice, salad, and dessert! We looked around the village that contained what a typical small rural community would have looked like many many years ago. There was a doctors office, blacksmith, school, church, photography shop, house, etc. Its amazing to see how people used to live. Later on that night we dressed up and went out to dinner at the country club.

On Wednesday, We toured the first hours build-in 1850. With my love for big old houses- I loved it! It was a white house that had a complete wrap around porch. The house hadn't really been kept up due to previous caretakers but the new caretaker can't wait to get some work done on it! Then we had a lady give us a tour the Tenterfield town where we learned about the founding of the town and met the major.

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Pictures from yesrerday at the beach!
-Liz & Liz
-Jake & I in our sand seat