reunion

REUNION MOTHAFUCKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

one last post.

Im sorry this is an angry last post but i am just so utterly angry and upset with traveling. by the time i get home at 6 am friday i will have been traveling for approx 50 hours. i want to die.
I ran into Manny in Los Angeles. Very bizarre considering he just flew here from San Fransisco and in 2 hours i will be flying TO San Fransisco. very frustrating.
Corine does NOT equal easy travel. i apologize to Melanie and anyone in the future that i ever travel with because i have a travel curse.

On a side note, it was very sad to say goodbye to my friends this morning(yesterday?) i cried mucho, melanie called me a waterfall, and we were on our way. i will miss Eli especially.
goodbye blog!

goodbye australia

Dont take this the wrong way everybody at home but i am sooooooo sad to be leaving Australia. I cant imagine waking up and not seeing mountains everyday. i cant imagine cars driving on the right side of the road or the drivers seat being on the left side of the car. I cant imagine money that is all one color and seeing a one dollar bill. I cant imagine sleeping on a comfortable bed or eating a meal for less than $20. '
This has honestly been the best trip of my life and im really sad its over! I'll miss these guys a lot (the koalas and kangaroos). oh and my friends too. Ill miss them! Thank god i will be seeing most of them at FSU (sad about Rachel, Austin, and Tracey)....
I am excited to come home though! Pumped to spend some quality time in Hinsdale and Coloma. Cant wait to eat at my favorite places and see my favorite people! Now for a 4:15 wake up call and an entire day (really 2 days) or traveling! Be home soon!

this is most likely my last post on this blog ahhhhhhhhhhhhh
until i move here that is.

Jungle surfing!

Middle of Nowhere

This weekend we went on a trip to Cape Tribulation. Basically we had no idea where we were. We left early friday morning and went to various places on the way including a gorge to take pretty photos and then to a beach. As we got closer to Cape Trib we had to cross a ferry and then drive in zigzags up a mountain. I was waiting (and hoping) for Mighty Joe Young to pop out at any moment. It was a scary drive but very scenic. So as we arrived our driver (good buddy Tony) started to tell us about the area. In a nutshell he said the following:

well guys, if you go ANYWHERE at night, go with a partner, tell everyone where you are going and when you expect to be back. People leave at night and never come back. There are crocodiles and snakes and cassowaries (the most dangerous bird in the world) all over the place. Last week..blah blah blah. Basically he said nothing that sounded promising. We get to where we will be staying and he literally said "well here are your room keys, im outta here, have a great weekend"

naturally we were a little bit scared. The rooms were "interesting" to say the least. (I was on a mattress on the ground). We were IN THE MIDDLE of the rainforest with no lights on the streets but my headlamp. (i saved the night naturally). There was a grocery store, one bar, and a beach and that was basically it. haha we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves but I have never felt so out of touch with the rest of the world before in my life!! Still the trip was a success and we all had a lot of fun!

Caution: Falling People.

So we decided there was no time to do the skydiving so instead we went up to the bungee jump place (i didnt bungee) which is right next to our campus. It was like the coolest place ever with a live band, a bar where you can get food and drinks and then a bungee jump right over a small lake. so pretty. Anyways so i did not want to go bungee jumping (for some reason i would skydive but not bungee jump) but we watched everyone go and they all had a blast. i have good pictures. But right next to the bungee platform there is another thing called the Minjin Jungle Swing and this is what i did. Me, Mel, and Jon were all strapped together and you are pulled back real slowly almost to the same height as the bungee platform (realllllllly pretty up there) and then when the light turns green Jon pulled a ripcord and we dropped and then swung through the jungle and it was sooooo much fun! It was kind of spur of the moment but I am totally going to do it again before I leave. Kiley if you are reading this yes it is the same thing we did at Six Flags but only like 111000000 times better since you are in the jungle and what not...Here is a pic before we went!

Waterfall

Fooddd

The other day we went to the Tablelands which is just a very hilly place which was a scary drive in our bus! We started at a dairy farm where we got to taste cheese and yogurt, it was delicious! Then we continued driving to a really pretty waterfall where the boys went swimming. Then we went to a honey "farm" and got to try all different types of honey (not a big fan of honey but we were given some to take home) and then finally we went to a coffee plantation. It was quite a long day of driving on the bus but very fun!

I miss...

Things that i miss include:

my people duhhhh, ranch dressing
twizzlers, reeses
the elantra, my bed
my dog, my cat
chipotle, bagels
television, Coloma
my pantry, Red Mango
(basically a lot of food)
more things i can not think of!

ZOO

Today we went to the zoo and I got to hold a koala. It was the best, it was so cuddly but had real sharp nails. Then we also got to feed Kangaroos and they were surprisingly really friendly. We were just in this giant place with them and no zoo keepers. It was bizarre but fun and i played with one that I named Derrick for a long time. We became great friends. Then we ventured to what is now one of the best animals in my opinion, the red panda! He was sooooo cute. Look for pics! I feel like we did big things today. Very exotic day

Toy Story

Today instead of going out 11 of us sat in our living room around the tiniest television and watched both Toy Story 1 and 2. It was truly a magical bonding experience and i loved it!

Food repetition

We are all getting really sick of this cafeteria. It is real close to the same thing everyday! We have been forced many times to go to the delicious Thai place across the street. Everyday my plate at dinner looks like the following: white rice, potatoes, rando vegetables. We walk up to the same food all the time, stand in line, bow our heads and sigh. its not healthy and im going to come back very plump. you have all be forwarned. and melanie (my roommate) wants her name on my blog so here it is!

Yesterday we went to Josephine Falls, Bramstone Beach, and Babinda Boulders. It was an awesome day. We set a world record on how many people we got to go down this natural waterslide in the waterfall. Last record were 10 FSU students last year and this year we got 12! It was really fun but took us like 75 tries. Then we went to the beach where all the locals go and it was way prettier than any of the beaches we have seen yet (besides Manly). And then after we went to this little creek area to swim with these boulders you can jump off. I ate like an entire watermelon and screamed when i saw a rooster walking in the rainforest.

Cairns weather is so bipolar. Yesterday we woke up it was cloudy, at the beach it was sunny and scorching hot, on the bus it was cloudy and raining, then we get to the boulders and it was perfectly sunny and raining. Real bizarre.

High note about today. I bought a bag of crispy m&ms and a thing of mentos. they were real good.

Great Barrier Reef

Today we took the Poseidon to the Great Barrier Reef! it was very very fun. We stopped in 3 different places to dive. I saw lots and lots of fish, coral, a shark, and a turtle. The turtle was my favorite, he was very cute. I didnt have an underwater camera but a couple of my friends did so im going to have to steal some of their pics later. But here's a really nice shot of me in my stinger suit (that you have to wear so you dont get stung by jellyfish) and just a picture of the water.

Walked out of class and saw a nice wallaby grazing on campus with a wonderful mountain behind him. The Aussies looked at us strange as we took lots of pics. they are like squirrels to them

danga danga

So just to give you a little background we had to go to a lecture on jelly fish yesterday and this is what the man told us...
Cairns (where we are) is home to the:
worlds most venomous: plant, mammal, snake, spider, fish, snail, octopus, tick, sea urchin, and ANIMAL in general!

Soooooooooo im watchin where I step

boreddd

I just had my first class and it was alright. a tad bit long but no toooo bad. Now i have two hours until my next class and im in the library and im bored. The cool kids sit downstairs so we have to sit in the silent section and I dont know what to doooo. Here is an acrostic poem for Australia.

Awesome
Ultra cool
Super hot
Talk in accents
Rad
A home to many creatures
Lovely
Interesting people
A place that I could thrive.

Now heres my daily schedule:
Monday and Wednesday: 9 am class and 2 pm class
Tuesday and Thursday: 2 pm class
Friday, Saturday, Sunday: whatever I want to do.

Different Atmosphere

Cairns is wayyyyy different that Sydney. There we woke up to a city and here we wake up to mountains. Here's us with the city of Cairns behind us. We went hiking and then swimming in a little creek that had waterfalls. Lets just say my new Tevas worked wonders

Group Pic

A picture of all of us during Buddha's bday celebration!

Problem down under...

I have had ZERO citing of twizzlers yet....not sure how this is going to go. What the hell! Lents over! Do they have any common sense?

and not as big of a deal but they also dont have reeses. Whats the world coming to.

Arrival in Cairns

So today we had to wake up at 6:30 am and get on a plane to Cairns! It is a lot different than Sydney. Its a lot hotter and humid with mountains. No city. I would have to say that if Mighty Joe Young were to live anywhere he would live here! Its really nice though, our university is in between the beach and the mountains (even though we cant go to the beach really because there are deadly jelly fish and crocs and stuff). But its super pretty. I live with 2 roommates (from FSU) and we have a little living room area and then our own rooms. All 12 of us have rooms next to each other so its nice. We have like a dining hall, a bar, a barbecue area and a pool. This is where we will be for the next 5 weeks so im off to go make my room feel a bit more homey!!

peace love and dolphins

Love.

So the picture over to the right that is my profile pic. yeah thats me and my future husband Liam (that i plan to live on Manly with)

Sick Pics right?

1. Lil' bit a highschool musical up in here

2. Giant girl hangs from Sydney bridge

Heres the Hap

“Ello Mates!

Here is a little preview of what’s been happening here in Sydney. Miss you all!

Thursday: We landed at like 6 am and had a brief orientation type deal. After that we had the entire day free so we basically just walked around and got to know each other and the city. We all bonded really really fast it was crazy. Then we went to dinner at the Sydney tower, which is the highest point in Sydney. I ate Kangaroo and im still having trouble getting over how bizarre it was to eat.

Friday: We went to the Art Gallery which was alright, not my favorite but kind of cool. After we took the ferry to a beach called Manly (this is going to be my future home. My friend Rachel and I are moving here fairly soon so remember the name so you all can visit) We went snorkeling in the ocean and admired the locals and their AWESOME lives

Saturday: We got on a bus at 8:30 am for what was literally an all day tour. We got back to the hotel at 4 pm. On the tour we stopped at all these different places and took pictures and ate and went to the beach. It was awesome and our bus driver told us that we restored his faith in humanity. I teared a little. Miss Dave. We ate dinner all together in Darling Harbor and saw a fireworks show for the upcoming Mum’s day.

Sunday: We went to the Australian Museum and walked around a little. Then we had to do a self-guided tour through china town. Not going to lie, it was not the most fun. nobody could understand what we were saying and it was a hot mess. Then we chilled at Buddha’s birthday celebration for a while.

Monday: We went to Sydney Wildlife World. Koalas rule. That’s all there is to it. They exceeded my expectations in cuteness while Kangaroos let me down a little bit. They were kind of creepishly too humanlike and it was weirding me out. You will see what I mean by the pics. Very odd. Then we went to the Maritime Museum. Later we went to the Barracks and saw where they kept prisoners. At night we went to the Rugby game and it was sooo much fun. We went to the bar and hung out with the locals for a bit before heading over to the game. I met my Rugby husband Liam (who I will be living on Manly with. A little awkward looking but hey I wasn’t picky which one would come up and take a pic with me)

Tuesday: We toured the Botanic Gardens (worst part) it was boring. But then we got to tour the Sydney Opera House and it was so cool!

Tomorrow we have a free day and I am not too sure what we are going to do yet but we might do a bike tour or white water rafting or just head back to the beach. Not sureeeeeeeee

Hope this wasn’t extremely boring to read!! I tried not to go into boring detail, just for any peeps that care at all what I’ve been doing! Wish all my American people were here with me to experience my down under experience. If anyone feels like jumping on a plane feel free! LOVE

Hello Everyone!

Testing to see if I can blog! I am not an experience blogger but I figure it is the best way for everyone to know what's up in Australia!