Weekend of **10/8 to 12/8

**In case I have confused you, the dates here are written with the day first and then the month ;-)

Two weekends ago, I went on a volunteer weekend to Chakola, in the South Coast of New South Wales. On Friday morning, myself and 8 other international students, who also attend Macquarie, were picked up by a group leader from the Conservation Volunteers of Australia. It was about a 3 1/2 hour trip to the site, which is basically forested preserved property.

I had been expecting to do some hard-core work since work boots & gloves were highly recommended... yet there was more site seeing than physical work! On Friday, our group stayed on the property to pull weeds in a open area of the forest, where lots of wombats live. The rest of the night, we watched wild kangaroo in the field next to the camp, talked around the fire pit, and were in awe of the stars (including the Milky Way!)

Saturday, we drove about 30 minutes away to a National Park to do about 1 & 1/2 hours of work- putting up stakes & plastic around baby trees so they would be protected from the wind & animals eating them. Then we got to walk around Seven Mile Beach, climb around the rocks at a blow hole, and walk around a quaint town called Berry.
That night around the camp fire, we had both a possum (which are actually cute, unlike the ones in the States), and a wombat come wander around by us!

Sunday, our last day, we stayed at our camp site to work; for about two hours we raked & cleared a walking trail through the forest. That afternoon, on the way home, we stopped at another national park to take in the view of an awesome waterfall:

Richie is also going on a volunteer weekend trip with the same program from August 24th- 26th. He's been taking pictures on our adventures, too. So you can check them out at this link: http://picasaweb.google.com/Richard.Kuebler

We have gotten better at grocery shopping which means better meals! We've enjoyed making some awesome dinners, including stir fry, pasta, tacos, and chicken & potatoes! Woo-hoo no more peanut butter & jelly for dinner :-D

Some observations...

1) I saw a kookaburra bird (above picture) for the first time, in the Blue Mountains. They sound kind of like laughing monkeys. Now that I know what they look like (and more so sound like) I notice them around campus, too.
**side note: there is a bush-walking club on campus, that goes on hikes around Sydney. So I went on one in the Blue Mountains on last Sunday. I posted pictures from it and other adventures at this site: http://picasaweb.google.com/Alison.in.Aussie

2) I am taking a math methods class for my major, and people from Australia always says "maths". At first I thought it was someone who mispronounced it, but now I hear the teacher and everyone else saying it with the s.

3) Another thing with the accent, r's are put at the end of a lot of words. For example, "I sawr her at the store."

4) The advisor told us to switch the spell-check feature in word documents to "Australian English". I have already noticed some differences in lecture power points, like: colour and organisation. I'm already not very good at spelling, so this is really going to mess me up!

**Warning this last observation may be somewhat upsetting to some if you are fond of kangaroos...................................................................................................................................



5) Richie & I had this for dinner at a place on the Sydney Harbor:

................................and it was really good! :-O

Settling In

I've now been living at the Macquarie University Village (MUV) for two weeks and a few days. My two suitcases (which were about 40 lbs each) are unpacked, and my room is finally feeling set-up. There are five bedrooms, and each has its own bathroom -its so nice! I ended up with 4 guys as house mates, 1 being Richie. The others 3 are really nice, 2 were friends already from Boston, and 1 from Brazil (he has an Aussie accent , because this is his third semester at the Uni). The condo also has a living room, dining room, and kitchen. Our first night, Richie & I had Australia's famous meat pies for dinner, and the next day we were introduced to their famous biscuits, or cookies, Tim Tams- dangerously delicious! Since we have our own kitchen, we go grocery shopping at this enormous mall located on the opposite end of campus; thus we plan our trips out there, as to not forget anything and have to trek back.

About 3/4 of MUV is study abroad students, so it is good to see & hang with the people I was in Cairns with. The village is located at one end of the campus, which means about a 10 to 15 minute walk, if I'm walking slowly or have gotten lost... to class :) It is definately different than at Elmhurst. The Uni has over 30,000 students, and it is must be an awesome school study abroad at considering over 8,000 of the students are international.

I am taking 4 units (classes), which is the full amount. Each has one or two lectures (1 hour each) and a tutorial (1 hour each). My lectures have anywhere from 75 to 250 students in them (again very different from my small classes of 8 to 25 students at Elmhurst,) and the tutorials are about 20 students. I don't have very many assessments (assignments), 1 to 2 papers, a midterm, and final for most units. I just survived my first week of lectures, and am loving listening to the teachers' (whom wish to be address by their first names) accents.

This is a view of part of the campus; it is in back of one of the main buildings the SAM (Students @ Macquarie) Center - which includes the food court & book store, etc. This is a great place to hang out between classes and soak up the sun!

Arrival

I left for Australia on JULY 17th, from Chicago... to LA, to Sydney, & finally to Cairns.
On the way we crossed the international date line, which meant I lost a day & it was really the 19th when we arrived.
The plane ride from LA to Sydney was looooong (over 14 hours).  I was practically asleep before we took off;
yet when I woke up, there was still half of the flight left!  At least the seats were comfortable.  And the guy next to me,
I could tell by his accent, from Australia, was really nice - the 5plus times that I got up to walk around,
he replied, "No worries" (pronounced No WAH-REES).

Waiting for the plane to Cairns, I met heaps of other students going through the same orientation program
(who would also be attending Macquarie Uni).  We stayed in at a backpackers' resort (which is more or less the
nice way of saying a so-so hotel/hostel), called Gilligans.

The first night we had dinner outside at a restaurant called Hoolahans.  It was really nice weather out, like 20 degrees
Celsius -which converts to 70's in Fahrenheit.  They had a live band playing, and I was kinda surprised to have
recognized that all the songs played were ones I often heard the U.S.  The plane food had been a bit dodgy,
so I went straight for the ribs & mashed potatoes!  That night we walked around a bit,
but, thanks to the jet-lag, went to bed early.

The next day, Friday, we went to the Rainforestation.  The best way to describe this is cultural experience, mini zoo &
rain forest trek combined.  The Aborigines, taught us how to throw a boomerang, showed us some hunting skills, &
showed us some of their tribal dances.
Then we got to hand feed kangaroos &  wallabies- I couldn't stop smiling!
To top that, I  held a koala & got my picture taken with it!  Lastly, we went on an Army Duck ride through the rain
forest.  On the way home, the bus drivers stopped at the side of the road to show us a view of Cairns
from the side of the hills- I was in awe.

Later, we had our own time, so some of us walked a few blocks to the beach.
It was beautiful out, unfortunately too chilly to get in the water.  That night we ate at a Mexican restaurant
(no kangaroo burgers yet!)  We learned that there is no tipping required, & the server expects you to ask for the bill,
as to not push you out of their restaurant.

Saturday the group got up early to walk to the harbor & took


this huge boat 2 hours out into the Great Barrier Reef!
It was windy & cold but the sun was still bright!  The Reef was gorgeous! I can now say that I know that first hand,
because I actually went scuba diving!  ...I may have hung on to the instructor the whole 30 minute dive,
but either way, I am still proud of myself.  We saw schools of fish, a 3 foot reef shark hiding under some rocks,
lots of huge clams (which we touched & were quite squishy), Nemo-fish and lots of other things that we took pictures
of with our under water cameras.  After lunch on the boat, we went on a guided snorkeling tour from the boat to
an island. The coolest animals we saw were 2 enormous turtles about 5 feet beneath us!
I would love to go snorkeling again...
I couldn't stop pointing things out to the people around me, because I was sooo amused ;-D