Airle Beach

After a short week of work Thursday rolled around. A week of mid-semester break had gone by and it was finally time for our vacation to the Whitsunday Islands on the northern east coast. This place is a small backpacker town on the mainland, a stones throw away from the islands which are basically paradise. The arrival at the Beach Court Villas (Thanks Lauren) was celebrated with a quick bottle of champagne. The small, main road is full of great bars, clubs, hostels, restaurants, and beach shopping. During the first full day the eight of us (Me, Jordan, Lauren, Jen, Aids, Allie, Sonya, and MJ) took the 40 minute beach walk from our villa to Airle beach. The beach was shallow and semi clear for a good distance out, and the first time we saw it we were pretty excited. There is also a cool lagoon area just before the beach, these things seem to be pretty popular in Australia. My meal of the trip would soon become calamari and I would end up sampling three different restaurants worth. All in all the small beach town feel combined with the casual nightlife was perfect for a spring break adventure. After the first day in Airle we were very satisfied with the trip, but we had no idea how much more satisfying it would become.

The Day of Conception

At Macquarie Uni we welcome the start of the mid-semester break with a hazy tribute to the foundation of our school. Conception day began with a 7 am wake up call, followed by an early morning rallying of fellow village residents. The green right out my backdoor was the location of the village pre game (the best pre game before the concert) and was accompanied by a bright, blue day. By 8:30 breakfast was set up, and by 9 the dj in a pop up Red Bull truck had arrived. The rest is history. Mobs in the green, people shuffling in and out of apartments and just general shenanigans (including MJ stuck in a tree, girls pretending to be animals, and many falling victim to "the horn"). Somehow made it downtown that night to continue well into the early hours of the morning, and still made it to work at 9am! never again. Oh and yes I have job at Pannetta Fruits, a local produce market in the Macquarie Centre. Its a pretty chilled out job at the cash register, and I get to learn about all kinds of fruits and vegetables go ag business!

Olympians and Barbarians

September 11th was the date set for the final international rugby match of the season. The huge rivalry of the Australia Wallabies and New Zealand All Blacks would once again be ignited for a massive finale of the rugby season. Of course we had to go. The event was held at the ANZ Stadium, a site of the 2000 summer Olympics in Sydney. The stadium itself is brilliant, with a futuristic design and lined with fountains and trees. Although we copped nosebleed seats at the last minute the game was still had an intense vibration as thousands of fans bellowed for their beloved team. Despite our late arrival, I managed to catch the famous Haka performed by the All Blacks before every match. The rugby hooligans were in full force and we of course did not hesitate to join in the clamor of rivalry. Jordan and surrounding All Black fans were taunting as they took the lead in the final two minutes of the match. The match was easily one of the most fun sporting events I have ever been to, with the adrenaline of American football mixed with the fast paced excitement of basketball or soccer.

Da Citay

It's a little difficult to rally people to get up and take the train to the city (at least during the day), but once the journey is made it is worth it. I started in Darling Harbour which is one of the cooler places I've been. The whole harbour is surrounded by restaurants that smell amazing, and supposedly have the best seafood in Sydney. Darling Harbour also boasts the largest Imax screen in the world, where a few of us saw Hubble 3D the other night. Definitely see it if you can... its amazing. Bondi beach reminds me of Santa Cruz, it has a small beach town feel to it and a beachfront skatepark covered in graffiti. There is also a beachfront pool, and one of the most scenic cliff walks in Sydney, both of which I will have to come back to do. After walking around with no idea where we were going Jordan and I ended up at Hyde park and Saint Marys Cathedral. I've never been in a cathedral before, but it was actually breathtaking. The ceilings are all so high with arches and artwork everywhere, intricate stained glass windows, and perfect looking scultures. For a smallish price we headed up to the tallest tower in the city to see an amazing panoramic view of the city and ocean. I would not be surprised to see more day trips like this in the future.

MojoSurf: The Weekend the World should Never See

While we were in Cairns we had a rep from MojoSurf came got a good sized group of us to sign up for the weekend surf trip up at Crescent Head. The Friday that we were leaving on I spent the day at Mark's parents house. We spent the day playing sports in his very cool backyard with a pool, huge bbq, and tennis court. The bus was set to depart in the evening and a few of us made it out to the city to meet the bus after. Australearn students took up about an eighth of the students on the trip. We of course showed up late and had to take over the front of the bus for the six hour bus ride up north. The bus ride was similar to the Whistler bus ride, for those of you who know about that bus ride you can imagine. It was raging and wild, bumpin tunes, including a special guest performance by Jordan and Sneaky Siemen. The beach at this place is the coolest beach I have seen before. It is a very long beach that is completely empty. At the end is a huge rock structure that sticks out into the ocean, and the water is waist deep and crystal clear. The waves were perfect for learning how to surf. Surrounded by tropical forest is the camp that we stayed in, there was a large hostel like building where most people slept. But a few of the guys managed to get a secluded cabin in the forest where almost all of Australearn ended up crashing at. It was like we had our own weekend getaway which was a nice change of pace from Sydney. The reason I say the weekend the world should never see is because of the hilarious things that happened on Friday and Saturday night. Lets just say Saturday night, all the guys and girls ended up trading clothes. My camera unfortunately was dead the entire trip, but we still managed to get "a few" pictures

Togas , Pools, and Snow

This campus is one of the coolest I have been to, besides the lake and cool sculptures all around there is also a bar that throws parties every Thursday night. During the second week of school the theme was toga, Jordan, his friend from the states, Adam, and I used Australian flags, definitely seemed to give us some attention. The next night wave Dave "Sneaky" Siemens birthday. Dave is one of the guys from Hawaii that Jordan and I kick it with every day. We decided to go big for his 21st so we went to Ivy. This club is one of the higher end places here in Sydney, with six floors many of which require membership to enter, and each seeming to get cooler and cooler as you go up. Dave aka Sneakster somehow got the bouncers to let us to the elevator, where we took it to the fourth floor pool. It is like something out of Entourage filled with beautiful women, tons of important looking guys in suits, and a pool to top it off. Since it was Dave's birthday we threw down for a table at one of the poolside cabanas, since there were so many of us we ended up taking two by the end of the night. The next morning Jordan and Adam flew to New Zealand for some snowboarding at Mt. Hutt. I had some trouble with the airline booking my flight and was unable to attend, but the snow sounded awesome