Friends!

Here are a few pictures of me and my girlies...some are from Katie's 21st and some are just recent pictures of us going out! Top to bottom:
1. Lea, Me, Molly & Erin at the bowling alley. 2. Me, Lea & Sarah 3. The crew on Katies birthday!!! 4. Lea, Erin, Me, Katie & Claire. These are my girls that I spend all my time with (plus Sarah, she wasn't there yet!) Recap: Lea, from Boston, Erin, from Hot Springs, Arkansas, goes to Rhodes with Claire, Katie, from southern Cali, goes to Bates, Claire, my fabulous roommate from Baton Rouge, goes to Rhodes. And, the one missing, but in picture number 2, Sarah, is from Pennsylvania and goes to Franklin & Marshall.

yachting

Here are some pictures for you!
Top to bottom...
1.me! The yacht was practically on its side!
2. Erin, me and Molly, with the city in the background.
3. Commador Ian!
4. Spellbound
5. Erin being helped out of the boat by old man sea captain! Look at him!!! My goodness. He kept talking to us on the little boat back to the dock and we had NO idea what he was saying...! Ah well.

Classes are over!

Well! Its been two weeks since I last posted and since then, classes have ENDED! I still have two papers to write and two final exams, but then I'm done! Its pretty crazy how fast things are wrapping up here, October flew by. We have a week long 'vacation' for studying for exams, so my friends Sarah and Erin and I are going to Sydney from Sunday until Wednesday. We're getting there early early and leaving late, so we'll have a full 4 days, which will be great! From what I've heard, Sydney is AMAZING, so I can't wait!! Since I last posted, we went yachting, had a 21st birthday and the last week of classes, so its been eventful! I'm not sure if I mentioned it but when Claire, Lea and I were in St. Kilda a while ago (which I talk about in the last post), we saw a sign for the yacht club 'open day' and it said you could go on a free ride across Port Phillip Bay...so we called and made a reservation for 10, and voila! done. So! On the 15th we headed down to St. Kilda and went out on 'Spellbound' which was co-owned by a former commador (sp? anyway, head of the yacht club), and his name was Ian. He looked like Walter Matthau (sp?) from Grumpy Old Men. He was a really sweet older man and pretty funny too, so we had a good time! It was a bit cold, and very windy, which was great for an adventure. We rode from St. Kilda across the bay to Williamstown and back. We stayed in St. Kilda for dinner and then headed home. Quite a fun day although we were a bit chilly!
The next weekend was Katies 21st birthday, which was a BLAST. Her parents and CJ (her boyfriend) threw her an amazing party, which was at a bowling alley in the city. The funny thing about bowling here is that its a classy event. Most bowling alleys you have to be over eighteen to get into, and they have a bar, and its really modern and nice and they play music, so its like going to a club...but you bowl instead of dancing...pretty strange compared to what bowling alleys are like in the US! We went out to a nice dinner and then we went bowling and made a night of it!
Well, thats about it for now, I'll post some pictures from the last few weeks. I'll have a LOT to write when I get back from Sydney so I'll keep this post short! Oh, and for those of you who are curious, I'm almost done planning my trip at the end of the semester, which is pretty exciting. I'm going up to the Fraser Coast for a week, which will be amazing. I'll be 5 hours north of Brisbane, so it will be hot hot hot and beautiful! I'm going on this overnight trip which takes you out to a cove which is where hundreds and hundreds of sea turtles come to shore each night in November and December and lay eggs. Its supposed to be amazing, and I'm VERY excited!!! After that I'm going to go out on Fraser Island, which is the largest sand island in the world, and is in the Great Barrier Reef. I'll be on a tour, because I'm travelling alone, and we'll hike and swim in the freshwater lakes and I can't wait!! Anyway, just a little preview of whats to come in my fabulous life in Australia!
I miss you all and hope everyone is doing well! I'll be back in the US in about a month, and in Maine in a month and a half! (I'm taking a two week detour, one week at Pomona and one visiting my sister in St. Paul!). Post comments and send me emails!

the pictures! woohoo!
from top to bottom (the bottom is the start of the day!)
1. Claire and I on the tram home....we were cold (hence the beach towel around Claire) and thought we should take funny pictures...so we did.
2. Lea and I at dinner
3. Lea and I at Luna Park by the old tram
4. Claire and Lea outside the entrance to Luna Park
5. Claire and I on the pier (thats Melbourne in the background!)

me again!

Well, it's technically my weekend now, because it is Thursday night and I don't have classes on friday....but I have a bio assignment due at 1 pm, which is worth 10% of my grade...and I did almost all of it last weekend, and most of the remaining part on tuesday, but there are a few more tweaks I need to make to it, and I just really do'nt feel like doing it, so I thought I would update my blog (this is the best blog week ever for rachel). So...last weekend, Claire, Lea and I headed down to St. Kilda, which is a 40 minute tram ride from our apartment, we have to go down, through the city and then south of it, where we hit the Port Phillip Bay...and the beach! So, St. Kilda is this lovely area with cafes and boutiques and fun places to eat and Luna Park, which is Australias oldest theme park, and a beach! and it was 85 out! So! To the beach we went. We had a lovely day, walking the beach, trying on fun dresses, sitting at the end of the pier, etc etc. As the sun set, we rode the "Scenic Railway" which we waited in line for 40 minutes to ride, and paid $7 for the ride...anyway, its this fun roller coaster which goes around the perimiter of the park, so that was good. After the ride, and some delicious burgers, we headed back to good ole Carlton, stopped back at the apartment to change out of our bathing suits, then ran down to Nova, the amazing independant theatre a block (literally) from our apartment. This theatre is so amazing that it had advance screenings of "Little Miss Sunshine", which I recommend you ALL go see. It was amazingly funny, very quirky, very well written, very very good all around. So. That was our fun Saturday....and enjoy the pictures! (oh, and for those of you who forget...Claire (the one with brown hair) is my roommate, and Lea (red hair) is from Boston...and they are both amazing!)
p.s.- the picture feature won't work...so i'm going to work on my bio for a bit and come back to it!

Carlton!

A little view of where I live my life.
1. The neighbourhood north of my apartment, which is next to the park I run in...this is where I would live if I lived here, its SO cute! Also, those buildings are what all the places look like in the city, with the metal lace terrace/balcony things.
2. The infamous Lygon street! This is where I go grocery shopping, walk to class, go our for good Italian food, etc!
3. The park I run in every morning, very pretty don't you think?

My week in Melbourne!

Here are some pictures of my second week! Some botanical garden pics!
Top to bottom:
1. Pretty flower...
2. Me in a fun tree!
3. Mom, this made me laugh, and think of you! (My mom has never been afraid to eat a mushroom growing in our front yard...she's always claimed she knew it was okay and wanted to see what it tasted like...my family is so in tune with nature!)
4. Gillian and Nicole with the dinner I prepared for our dinner party. Yummy brocolli and asparagus, safron rice (Aunt Homa style!) and lemon & garlic chicken. Mmmmm delicious. Oh, and 'fruity white' boxed wine, we're classy, thats for sure!

here are the last of the Tassie pictures! Enjoy.

In random order (as always)...top to bottom!

1.Bottles of cascade heading to be labeled then shipped!

2. Cateract Gorge...not that exciting...haha

3. Cascade Brewery...beautiful!

4. Inside, where we got to have 'tastes', behind the taps is a stuffed Thylacine, or Tasman Tiger, which is their emblem and also an exctinct relative of the Tasmanian Devil, last seen in the wild in 1937. There are tons of rumors and 'sightings' that they still exist, but as far as the records are concerned, they are extinct. :( Sad.

5. Wooohoo! Time to ride the chairlift...this is before we saw what it actually looked like.

last few days in Tassie

So! Almost there! On our last planned day (Wednesday the 20th), we rode 3 hours north to Cataract Gorge in Launceston. Hmmm. We were told that when we got there we were going to take a chairlift (which sounded fun) and talk a walk to Duck Reach Powerstation (which is supposed to be good). Anyway, when we got there, we see that the chairlift is the longest chairlift span in the world! Wow! Well then we realize they just mean from pole to pole, its actually, once on it, the shortest, most rediculous chairlift ever...i've had more fun on ski lifts! Anyway, on their brochure, it says "it is believed (ha! believed...) to be the greatest single span of any chairlift in the world, at 308 meters". So yeah, not so much fun. We got to the otherside (which meant riding over a grassy park thing and a walkway over some water...so we could have walked it if we wanted) and there was a strange little park, with a wishing well and a cafe...and roaming peacocks everywhere...strangest thing ever. We had lunch though, provided to us, at the Stillwater River Cafe, which, i must say, was one of the best wraps I've ever had! Hmmm. Anyway, so we walk around, walk across the suspension bridge that is close to the gorge (which was probably the best part of the day, thats not saying much)...and then we got back on the bus. We were all a little thrown off about the fact that we rode over 6 hours in one day to ride the crappy chairlift...but it turns out the path to the duck reach powerstation was closed because of a rock slide the day before, so that was supposed to be the big activity. Anyway, it was fine because we were all tired and slept the whole way there and the whole way back. So, wednesday was interesting, but the night was fun. Wednesday night is supposedly Uni night, which meant finally, there were some bars open.
Thursday was our last day in Tassie, and we had a free day in Hobart to do what we wished. So! Since being in tassie we had embraced Cascade as being an excellent beer, and had heard lots of reports that tours of the brewery were awesome, so we went! The brewery is really old, and its a ways up Mt. Wellington (the mountain we biked down). Cascade reminds me of Sam Adams...its well respected, quality beer, it has seasonal brews and a hard cider (Mercury) which is very good! After the tour they gave us 'tastes', generous ones, which was great fun. Supposedly some of their brews have won awards in the US...so I'm going to keep my eye out for it! After the brewery tour (which most of our IES group did), about 20 of us met up at the sole mexican place in all of australia (well not really, but close) and had margaritas (happy hour!) and some semi-authentic mexican food. There was hope, the nachos were good, but it was a pretty pathetic showing of mexican food, I don't think they really knew what they were doing. Ahhh well, it was close enough to make me a little bit happy inside!
On Friday we headed back to Melbourne early in the morning. It was strange to feel so happy to be 'home'! It was the first time we'd been away from the city and it made me realize how much the city is home for now! I couldn't wait to eat my own food, sleep in my own bed, go to the market, use my own shower, etc etc. Friday night a bunch of the girls came over and I made crepes! We had a fabulous crepe party send off and then on Saturday morning Claire, Erin, Sarah and Lea headed off for Cairns. Thus began my week on my own!
I was sad not to be going up to Cairns (ie the Great Barrier Reef) with my girls but it turned out to be good. I'd been sick for a while and it really hit me the second week of break. I slept alot, coughed a lot, worked a little, and did some fun sightseeing. I went to the Melbourne Museum (again, i wanted to revisit and none of my friends would ever go with me), I wandered the city, walked around the botanical gardens and a few other park areas. I spent half a day writing postcards it seemed, and enjoyed myself! Australian Idol is always on when I'm at work, so I've become a bit addicted (even though I've never watched American Idol!). So anyway, the second week of break was 'footy finals week' which is equivalent to the week before the superbowl...except the footy final is in melbourne every year, which means its a week of events...which meant that the top 12 australian idol finalists put on a free concert at Federation square one afternoon! A few of my friends who were here and I went...it was pretty funny, lots of pre-teens, tweens and shreiking people. It was a bit overwhelming but good fun! On Friday (the day before the game) there was a big parade in the city, with the two teams and some marching bands and who knwos what else. There were thousands and thousands of people, the streets of Melbourne looked like a crowded NYC, rather than its usual relaxed state.
So! Overall, I had a fabulous spring break! Tasmania was fun, and if it hadn't been planned, i probably never would have gone, so I'm glad I went! I'll probably never go back...but haha, a good trip. I've been back from break for almost two weeks now, and only have 2 1/2 weeks of classes left, which is a bit insane. Classes end on the 27th of October, then I have a week off (an extended Reading Days). Sarah, Erin and I are headed to Sydney for 4 days during the week, which will be awesome! Exams (which run for 3 weeks) begin on the 6th, which means I have two final papers due on the 6th, and then an exam on the 13th and another on the 15th...and then I'm done! On the 24th I'm flying out of here to Brisbane, where I'm going to spend a week around Fraser Island and the Great Barrier Reef. After that week, I'll be in Pomona for a week, St Paul to visit my sister for a week, and then home in Maine on the 12th of December (most likely). Whew. I have almost two months until I'll be home in Maine, which is crazy. Time is flying, and I do'nt want to leave but it will be great to see y'all (for claire and erin) when I get back!
I must be off to class now, but I hope you've enjoyed reading about my trip to Tassie and seeing pictures! Keep in touch, send emails, I miss you all!

Wineglass Bay, Cadbury's, Mt. Wellington! In a very random order! Anyway, top to bottom the pictures are: Claire, Erin, Me & Sarah at Wineglass Bay; me and my new wallaby friend at the lookout over Wineglass Bay; Claire, Me, Erin & Sarah at the bottom of the mountain. Whew! We were tired ( I didn't know that was the theme of the picture!) ; Wineglass Bay from the lookout; Claire, Erin, Me, Dana & Sarah about to bike down Mt. Wellington; Claire, Me, Erin & Sarah at the top of the valley on our hike; the wallaby in the carpark licking my hand; Erin & I were REALLY excited about the chocolate tour we were about to go on!

Back In Hobart, the journey in Tassie Continues

Ahhh, back in Hobart on Sunday night. We soon discover that this 'city' which is also the capital, is a little bleak. At 6:00 on a Sunday night, the ONLY thing open was Subway, which was closing in a few hours. So, we scaped by on some subway, and went back to our hostel, "backpackers" as they call it here, which is Montgomery's (but goes by Monty's) and had an early night. On Monday (Day 3) we headed three hours north to Freycinet National Park, where we took a hike. The hike went through a high valley between two mountains (but was very much uphill, it was more like a middle mountain than a valley) which led us to a lookout to beautiful Wineglass Bay. After the lookout, we hiked down the other side, to the bay itself, where we waded in the cool water and sat in the warm sand! It was a really nice day out, lucked out on the weather, and although a tough(ish) hike, the 3 hours roundtrip were totally worth it! We saw a few wild wallabies on the trail itself, which let us get close, and then when we got back to the carpark there was a wallaby that was being shy, but when I crouched down and made cute noises, it came to me! I was definitely its favorite human and I was very excited. It licked my hand for a while and then let me pet its head. Wallabies are SO cute! After it wandered around and we gave it some space, its pouch twitched and we realized that there must have been a VERY young little joey in its pouch (one that hadn't yet emerged). Once we discovered that, I was surprised that it had come up to me earlier, most animals are SO protective, but it was probably pretty use to friendly hikers.
Upon returning to Hobart, we had the same problem as the night before finding dinner, which erased our excuse of 'well its sunday night', nope, its Hobart. What a place.
On Tuesday (day 4) we started out with a tour of the Cadbury Chocolate Factory. Yummmm! Although established in England, Australia's main supplier of chocolate bars is Cadbury's (whereas in the US its more Nestle and Hershey's). The hot chocolate powder I buy here is Cadbury's, all the candy bars are Cadbury, etc etc. The tour was AMAZING. When I was little, I would always watch Mr. Rogers just in case 'picture picture' was a trip to a factory. I vividly remember watching the day they showed a tour of the Crayola Factory, I thought it was the coolest thing EVER. well, cadbury choc factory, even better! Probably being there in real life helped, but it was so cool. Claire almost passed out because the smell of chocolate got to her but the rest of us really enjoyed it!
After the tour, we had a quick lunch and then rode in vans to the summit of Mt. Wellington, which is the mountain that overlooks the city and bay. The top was SOOO windy, but it had awesome views. Anyway, the whole point of riding up it was so we coudl BIKE DOWN!!! woohoo. We got on bikes and put our helmets on and cruised down the mountain. About halfway down we got off the paved road and went on mountain biking paths....SO steep and so rocky. That was pretty hard/scary but so much fun. We got back on the road at the bottom and rode our bikes through the city and to the bay. The ride was SO fun, Claire and I rode in front of each other and sang songs and had a blast.
When we got to the bottom, we were right next to this Mexican food place (very exciting) that was about to have margarita happy hour...so Sarah, Claire, Erin and I split a big pitcher of strawberry-mango (i think) margaritas...what a day! Chocolate, biking AND margarita's. What a blast.
Well, we've made it to the end of Tuesday. Wednesday and Thursday are soon to come, and then I'll make a little post about my second week! Enjoy the pictures!!!

here's the first set of pictures!
From top to bottom
1) The Penitentiary at Port Arthur Convict Site. 2) A kangaroo with a joey in its pouch...they dive in head first and then twist around so they're head it sticking out, and this one is taking a breather I think, but meanwhile his leg is just hanging out. 3) The first Tassie Devil to the meat! 4) A very very cute very very big footed joey. 5) The Salamanca Market in Hobart!

Tassie... oh what a place!

So! I've been back at class for a week but I had a fabulous two week spring break. Although I didn't go anywhere the second week, I had an amazing first week in Tasmania, and was very sick the second week, so it was nice to have an apartment to myself and get lots of sleep. Tasmania Tasmania Tasmania, where to start? I guess I'd never really thought about Tasmania, so there's that, but i mean, what do you think about it? I knew it was in the Australia region, but I didn't think much about it, its not that I thought it wasn't a part of Australia, but never thought it WAS. So, incase you have no idea either, Tasmania is one of the seven states of Australia. Its the only island one, and the smallest. Its just south of Melbourne (a 12 hour ferry ride or a one hour flight). Tasmania kind of reminds me of Maine, but it's an island, so people that live in Tassie can't drive to Boston or New York, nope, they just stay on that litte island of theirs. All of Tasmania has less than 500,000 people, and Hobart (the capital, and where we based our travels out of) has about 200,000 people. Most of the island is national parks and/or wildlife reserves. So. Awesome backpacking destination, but a funny place. Everyone Australian whom i told about my trip would say "tassie? hmm, never been....have fun though! " So we get to Hobart. What a place! We went to the famous (not sure to who, but it is famous) Salamanca Market, which had tons and tons of stalls with crafts and food and used books and on and on. Lots of quality stuff, so I got some gifts taken care of there! We then boarded the bus (that we became VERY friendly with over the week) and headed to Port Arthur (about a 2 1/2 hour drive). We made a few stops to check out beautiful sights such as the 'blowhole' which had some awesome rock formations and huge waves and then the Tasmans Arch and Devils Kitchen which are just huge um, rock cliff things. I don't know what the official name is. So we finally arrive in Port Arthur, which is at the tip of a peninsula that runs parallel to the east coast of Tasmania (and right next to Hobart). We arrive to find out that we are staying on the only lodging ON the convict settlement site. Nice and close! After a surprisingly good dinner at the Comfort Inn restaurant (thats probably what people think after eating at the Senator) and after the sun went down so it was nice and dark, we headed out for our ghost tour. Although I wasn't too impressed with our tour guide (and she was NOT, as Claire pointed out, a hottie with a body, shoot). Anyway, although a bit cheesy once in a while, I was definitely scared. There were way too many stories and accounts of weird happenings for me to not be a little freaked out and scared of seeing something I ddin't want to! After being in way too many dark basements, empty houses, dark jail (gaol as they spell it here) and creepy autopsy rooms, I was pretty ready to be done with the tour. My happiness about having a room to myself quickly changed when I returned to my room...shut the door and realized how creeped out I was! Whew! I slept with the covers pulled up all the way and as tight around me as possible and listened intently for any strange noises...my room had sliding glass doors to a deck that looked out over the convict site...from my room, i could see buildings we had been in, that had very strange things happen in them. SO SCARY!! Anyway, the next day we went for a boat cruise around the bay and we got off and took a tour of the Isle of the Dead, which was the main burial site for over 500 convicts and for many of the higher ups at the penal colony.
We headed out of Port Arthur and were surprised by Liz and Luke (our IES leader people) that they added something to the itinerary! We got to go to a Tasmanian Devil Conservation Center (if you're from Maine...it was a lot like the Gray Animal Farm). So! Super cool place. Tasmanian Devils only exist in Tasmania and they are in really big danger of extinction because a cancer (the only spreadable cancer known) is spreading rapidly through the population and in some places 80% of the population have died already. So yeah, the Center no longer takes in Tassie Devils from the wild (the rest of the animals only come from being injured in the wild) and they are breeding them as much as possible. They have a huge quarantine area and they are trying to build up a population of Tassie Devils to put back in the wild once the disease is under control. Pretty cool, kind of reminded me of the work my Dad did when I was little, I stayed and talked to the woman working there for a while. Anyway, so we got to see the devils get fed, which was crazy. They drop in the meat (bones and all, everything is eaten!) and the devils fought fought fought. They all ripped at it fighting to get it and they were biting so hard and using so much energy to pull that they breathe through their noses. It made this really loud noise and was hilarious. Pretty crazy. We also walked down to the big area where the wallabies and kangaroos are, and got to pet them a little. Almost all of them had joeys either in their pouches or right near them, which was awesome! The joeys were so awkward (their feet are SO huge) and just super cute.
After the Tassie Devil stop we drove for a while, just making one more pitstop. We stopped at Meadowbrook Winery and did a wine tasting. They gave us a reisling (good), chardonnay (good), pinot grigio (okay), cabernet (bad bad bad) and pinot noir (bad), so! Still sure I'm a white wine girl. After the wine they gave us some tasty bread and cheese to go with our wine and we walked around the visitors center which was really nice.
So! Thats the first two days in Tasmania. I'll post more later! Enjoy the pictures and I hope you liked the stories!:)