Encounters with Steroid-Enhanced Creatures

Last night CJ and I returned from a soccer game (Gold Coast v. Melbourne) that my roommate Nahall took us to. When we walked in, CJ found a HUGE spider on the wall of my dining room- easily the biggest one I've ever seen. While I was freaking out about the child-size tarantula from 5 meters across the room, CJ destroyed it with a plastic bag (the weapon of choice for big, manly heroes like himself). After that ordeal, the two of us started our long walk toward CJ's place to watch a movie. Just as we turned the corner onto the main road, an enormous bat with a 4 ft wingspan flies straight at us before swooping up into a tree. Bats here are like pterodactyl bats- think I could probably ride one. As if that wasn't enough interaction with nature for one night, a monster rat almost ran over my foot as it crossed over the bridge to CJ's apartment.

WHY is every creature I'm afraid of 10x its regular size in Australia?!

 

On a more positive note, the other night we went with friends to "Natural Bridge," which is up in the mountains and deeply embedded in the rainforest -- about an hour drive from Bond. We arrived to the famous national park which holds the Natural Bridge long after sundown, so it was quite an adventure navigating through the trails in pitch black. After weaving through the rainforest, we found ourselves standing beneath the park's most valuable attraction: a natural stone bridge -- the home of the GLOW worms. From within this dark space, we saw the inside of a waterfall that pours over one side of the bridge. The tiny glow worms live in the stone and are visible only in the dark... they're actually insect larvae and momma insects in larvae-form. They look like neon green constellations -- so pretty!

"Our Uni"

In Australia, when we've referred to our "college" education, we've gotten nothing but strange looks of confusion. Here, it's simply referred to as "uni" (pronounced 'you-nee'). Our "uni" (Bond) is one of the most beautiful campuses I've ever seen. You can tell that a whole lot of time was put into the design of each building, sidewalk, and archway. The middle of campus has a massive arch building that overlooks a beautiful Lake with a giant fountain in the middle. This portion of the campus was designed by a big-time Japanese architect.

I recently found out that 10,000 square meters of quarry tiles were used for walkways on campus, along with 10,000 square meters of paving stones from Victoria Australia for internal roadways -barely any concrete! There was no cutting corners in the construction of this campus... making it the most beautiful one I've seen.

We've completed one full week of class and are on to week two. We are both taking a journalism class where we're writing stories for both Bond's newspaper and for the online edition of our co

mmunity's newspaper. Our first story is covering an event we went to on Friday held by the BCC (Bond Christian Connection), which is the Christian club on campus that we joined. The event was called a "Rec Crawl," and was held as sort of an alternative to the pub crawls that were held for students on the same night. We went lawn bowling, had pizza on the beach, and played arcade games and laser "skirmish." It was a lot of fun; we met some really solid people and got connected with a church near campus.

I think we've both underestimated the work load and difficulty level of our courses here. I can't imagine how people complete their full degrees here- it's so hard to focus! I'll admit I've been so insane as to secretly wish it would be 20 below and blizzarding for an afternoon- just so I could get some homework done. Such is life... I suppose we can bear to stick it out for a few more months :)

As for our courses, we are both enrolled in Gender Comm and Writing for the News Media. CJ is also taking Photography and a Broadcast Journalism course; both are very involved and could be quite a challenge. I'm taking a Digital Media and a Marketing class. They seem similar to the classes back home so I'm not expecting any big surprises. Right now we're searching desperately for a story for our News Writing class... no such luck so far.

As I can only get away with saying back home, "uffda."

Week 1 at Bond : "Orientation"

G'day mates! Well, we're all settled into our places and starting classes this week! Our apartments couldn't be much more different. CJ is in "Varsity Towers," a one-room hotel-like accommodation, furnished entirely by IKEA. It's clean-cut, modern, and has a phenomenal view of campus and the shark pool. Yes, you read correctly; his building is situated on stilts over water inhabited by stingrays and sharks. A lovely bridge crosses over it, connecting his building to campus with about a 5 minute walk. We've decided our experience would be incomplete if we did not at least try shark fishing off the balcony, so if you're interested in having some shark mailed home to you for sandwiches, let us know :)

On the other hand, I'm living at "University Place, " which is about the same walking distance from Bond, but in the opposite direction. There are several separate units, each with their own outside entrance and garage. Each unit has 2- 3 bedrooms, 2 bath, a full kitchen, dining room, lounge area, and patio. They are much older looking and a bit on the grungy side. I like to think of them as a lovely yester-year throwback...vintage, if you will. Needless to say, I've had quite the opportunity to put my cleaning skills to use this past week! My roommate and I each have our bedrooms upstairs. She is a first-year student from Southern Australia and I've really enjoyed getting to know her! We have a spare bedroom downstairs now too, since our 3rd roommate moved out to go live in one of the IKEA catalogue units.

Today was our first day of classes- back to reality! The class structure is not too different from the states' except that there are fewer graded assignments and a more relaxed atmosphere. CJ raised a brow hearing one of his classmates throw a casual F-bomb to the prof-- somehow I don't think that would go over well at Bethel! CJ had a total of about 6 hours of photography today, which he's really excited about. I, on the other hand, had one class in the morning and another in the afternoon, leaving some time to lie out by the pool in between. Life is good :) This is the first unbearably hot day so far, with temps nearing 100-- a good day to cool off at the beach.

We're Here!!

After spending 24 hours on 4 different airplanes, we finally made it to Cairns Australia (which is pronounced "Cans.") The climate shock that both of our pale bodies experienced would rival the shock that Moses might have got if he had travelled into the future and walked down the streets of Las Vegas. We travelled with 150 students from all over the U.S. and nobody knew where we were staying or what our first week of orientation would look like. The place that we all stayed at is known as a "backpacker," otherwise known as a hostel. The owner of this particular hostel must have spent about 5% of their money on the rooms, showers, and toilets, and 95% on the bar and pool. Each room had 3 bunk-beds, so we both roomed with 5 strangers.

Day 1 Our first full day in Cairns was the most memorable. We boarded a giant yacht and sailed a few hours northeast to the Great Barrier Reef. Just seeing the color of the clear, tropical blue water alone was worth the money. We were pleasantly surprised when we were given the option to scuba dive for an extra charge and decided to give it a try. Watching Molly try to "equalize" her ear pressure 2 feet from the surface was a sight that would make any scuba diver drown (due to laughing out loud underwater.) But minutes later, Molly and I found ourselves swimming at the sea floor amongst the coral and fish straight from "Finding Nemo." It was the most surreal thing I've ever experienced. I will never forget it. About 70 feet from the surface, our guide led us to a huge clam the size of a large man curled up in the fetal position. The guide told us to put our hands into it's "mouth," which caused it to clamp onto them. CJ now is missing his left arm, but he's right-handed so it's okay. No, we all made it to the surface in one piece, even though I was convinced my head would explode from pressure on my ears, which is apparently hilarious to some...

Day 2 & 3 The next day in Cairns CJ and I were the "captains" of a white water raft floating down the Barron River. Since it's the end of their dry season, the water was low and the current pretty slow, so our job wasn't too difficult. The scenery was amazing though, with mountainous rain forests towering over us on either side.

The 3rd day was our group's community service day, where we traveled up the mountain to a conservatory in the rainforest that focuses on saving the Cassowary, a big weird bird that can kill people with its toe and chops its way through the rain forest with its mo-hawk --a favorite pet of Australians, I'm sure. We didn't do a whole lot of "service" while we were there but we did learn about the process that koala poop goes through to become fertilizer for the trees that Cassowaries like... enthralling stuff.

Day 4 Day four fulfilled all of my childhood dreams that had to do with any sort of interaction with native Australian animals. We took a beautiful bus ride to a place that could only be described as a "petting zoo" slash "boomerang-throwing school" on steroids. Basically any normal 10 year-old's dream field trip. It's called the RainforeStation. While licking the best mango-dragonfruit ice cream we had ever tasted, we road a large amphibious WorldWarII army duck through the dense rainforest, giving us a chance to see some amazing plants and animals in their natural habitat.

Apparently Australians are extremely relaxed about tourists hanging out with their country's most-valued animals. We got to walk among kangaroos and wallabies and interact with them in any way we wanted. A highlight of my day was watching Molly bounce after a wallaby when it had had enough of her. Another highlight was when an animal expert put a very large python snake named "bullet-proof" on Molly's little shoulders. As you can imagine, her face was priceless (don't worry I took great pictures.) Following our activities with the bounce bunch, each of us got to hold a Koala bear and get a picture taken with it. (It wasn't as exciting as it might sound, but the pictures are sweet.)

The moment that I had been waiting for my whole life had finally come. I finally got to throw a real boomerang with a real Aboriginal guy. Molly probably had the best female throw... buuuuut...I PROBABLY had the best throw overall...

Day 4 was soft to the touch, pleasing to the eyes, and a full of once in a lifetime experiences. So far, Australia has been amazing!