First Post

G’DAY MATES!! Sorry I’ve fallen off the face of the earth (actually just down under!) for the past 2 weeks but it’s been absolutely insane here! Not having the internet for 2 weeks is torture! Then not having a cell phone was hell. (Believe it or not Steve my built in hand phone wouldn’t even ring) The system at uni is so messed up and takes forever to get the internet. So whereas I would have been writing a little bit each day, here is a massive compilation of what I’ve been up to. After I noticed how much I wrote I realized I’m way too excited to tell everyone how much fun it is here. Why can’t writing papers be this easy? So bear with me for the first post... from now on I'll post a little bit every now and then, won't be so long and boring to read. Sorry Mom/Dad for my bluntness, but I figured it was easier to tell everyone everything instead of making different entries for certain eyes only... lol SORRY!

So by now I’m a pro at flying now… had some worries before leaving but now it’s no worries! My flight from LAX left at midnight 2/3/08 and was 13 hours long. Oi veh. I flew on Qantas and they had mini TV’s on the back of every seat and we could pick between like 8 movies to watch, too bad the system was messed up and the picture flashed in and out every 20 seconds, oh and the headphones had static the whole time, so that was a huge bummer. After a while I said fuck it and watched some of Atonement (Melissa knows that one!) and 3:10 to Yuma (you WILL have to see this). They also had a picture of the plane and its progress- we were 11,000 ft in the air, traveled at some 560 mph and it was -52 degrees F outside!

I got the aisle seat and sat next to an Aussie couple in their 50s-60s. The woman was a hoot and we talked it up quite a bit. She couldn’t understand why Americans would want to study in Aussie… and bashed Newcastle (my uni = university = college = dorms…. Got that??) to shreds – although I found Aussies are like us and think wherever their from is the only place to be. She was from Darwin – the outback pretty much. She told me how Aussie is in a 7-year drought but it’s been an unusually wet summer (stinks for me but great for them!).

Oh yeah, so her husband – huge drunk. I actually remembered him from the airport in LA, every time I looked up he seemed to be passing by with a new cocktail! So he stumbles on last minute and curls up in a ball and goes to sleep through the entire flight. It’s crazy how limber they are! He had to be 60 and was literally in a ball on the seat like a 5 year old… and whenever they had to use the toilet (bathroom) they insisted to climb over me instead of me just moving. That was a good way to get to know the woman when she went to lift her leg up to hop over me there was quite a bit of bad turbulence. She ended up in my lap – “Sorry bout that mate guess we’re pretty close now.”

So the food was pretty awesome surprisingly, with a killer omelet in the morning! Oh and it is all you can drink free wine/beer… I had Toohey’s New (my favorite so far).

So I flew into Stralia (not Australia) on 5/2/08 (that’s February 5th not May 2nd … never experienced the 4th because of the international dateline - HAPPY REALLY BELATED BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!) into Brisbane and nearly missed my connecting flight because of crazy customs! Literally ran through the airport and onto the plane as they were about to close the connecting ramp! In fact, about half of the 40 students from AustraLearn did miss the flight and were stuck in rainy Brisbane all day. Sucked for them cause I was in Cairns!!!!! Home to the Great Barrier Reef.


The locals said we got extremely lucky cause it had been raining for forever and the 3 days we were there it was beautiful! We stayed at a hostel named Gilligan’s – more like a mini resort. This place was sick- 2 bars, loft, lagoon pool, volleyball sand pit– crazy nice! And it was only $24 a night (free cause of AustraLearn).

There was way too much orienting, but the next day we went to Rainforestation – a rainforest in the mountains. They had a zoo where I got to feed a kang and hold a water python (Will don't look below...)! We also got to take a picture holding a koala bear, literally just like a stuffed animal, very cuddly.

We went on Water Ducks which were used for WWII and made in the states then brought to the park for $26,000. It reminded me of the duck attraction at the Inner Harbor but much more rugged and cool (like everything here). We went through the rainforest with an awesome tour guide who cracked jokes the whole time while educating us about everything, then went straight into the water since it’s a boat too! Very cool.


Had an amazing CHINESE BUFFETT for lunch. I went to town. Tons of local fruit which was amazing. Then ended the day with an Aboriginal dance show. It was actually very lame and fake, these guys were laughing through the whole thing, but they did play a mean Didgeridoo. Then we got to throw boomerangs (actually pretty easy to do).

So the next day at 6AM we went on a massive pontoon boat called Passions. Destination- Great Barrier Reef. It was about a 2 hour ride till we got to the reef and typical Americans were complaining about it- I loved the ride. The reef was insane. Water so clear and so warm, about 80 degrees F. The first reef we went to I snorkeled around for about 2 hours while the majority of people scuba dove. But the lesson to learn was $60 and was too long and I felt the need to soak up the sun. Amazing pictures…. I saw crazy fish and just beautiful coral. Then we had another buffet for lunch (Pop woulda loved this one) and set sail for another reef.

                             Can you find me??

The 2nd time I decided last minute to scuba dive… well everyone else that did it went to a 45 minutes course on how to learn. I was the only one who didn’t do the course the first time, so a lady taught me in 5 minutes and thoroughly freaked me out. Saying how if I panic and surface too fast my lungs will explode. Nice. She said if water leaks into your mouthpiece you breath in, then remove the piece and breath out then put it back in and say “two” which flushes out the water and you’re good to go. I ended up just swallowing the water.

So everyone else went in a big group to scuba dive with an instructor, but since I hadn’t gone before I got my own personal tour guide- Mookoo! That’s here name, not an Aussie word. I got to follow her around for 30 minutes underwater where she took me to all the good places since she knew. I saw Nemo’s protecting their babies, got to touch the coral, the sand on the bottom was like dust, saw a sting ray, tons of HUGE angel fish and other fish bigger than me! The coolest part was seeing a giant sea turtle which is really rare. No sharks ☹ Some of the big fish were so friendly they would follow me around and brush up against me… I had this one guy follow me and kept staring at me in the face! So when we surfaced Mookoo shakes my hand and says “Good job. That was first time for me and you!” Apparently she had just come from Asia and it was her first scuba tour. I’m so glad I decided to scuba last minute, everyone needs to do it once in their life. I could definitely get into that more.  Dad the underwater camera is champ!  Everyone was amazed and it took perfect pictures - thanks!!!









The rest of the day was spent lying in the sun on the boat which had 2 giant cargo nets that you could lay in which had open water underneath. So cool. Apparently there’s a giant hole in the ozone layer above Australia so the sun is super intense- I put on lotion all day and still got red!

That night we pregamed at the hostel on our balconies, drank a bottle of $7 wine and didn’t realize I didn’t have a corkscrew so had to push it through with a knife- real classy. Then we all went out to the Woolshed- sick bar. This place was bumping! It was free champagne night for ladies, so there was pretty much naked model men walking around dishing that out (The girls at Towson would have loved it). (They are big on promos here….on campus there’s a Gloria Jeans coffee and half nude girls in 70s waitress gear were promoting that. The mall had a live band to announce the opening of Krispy Kremes- opening song “Hit me with your best shot.”) Needless to say I made close friends with a girl and got her to fill me up all night with free champagne. (Makes me miss CVPs) The music here is soooo strange. It’s either 80/90s, which I love cause I know all the words and most of it are my guilty pleasures. Then the other half plays crazy techno/electronic junk. Not a fan. But some are nice mixes of normal songs, good to dance to.

So the dancing… Aussies don’t grind, ever. And are apparently disgusted if you do. They sorta do a very white, middle aged person’s dance at a wedding reception. So weird. The young kids I met at uni do this intense harlem shake but like on crack. It was like a strobe light. Some American girls I went with got on the tables and started to grind, everyone walked away and there was a huge empty circle around them haha.

We left Woolshed around 2AM and went to JP’s dance club. It was close to their Chinatown so it was PACKED with HEAPS of Asians going crazy! It was their Chinese New Year too, so people were setting off fire works in the streets and Asians were getting annihilated! I loved it. But it was so sweaty and hot we left and went to Mackers (McDonalds). There were these school kids in there around 3AM in their little uniforms bugging all the drunkies for free food. So naturally I became friends with them and ended up doing a shout of hamburgers. (Shout is when you’re at a bar you SHOUT or buy a round for everyone around, then someone else does, then someone else, and it goes on till everyone is pissed (very very drunk, not angry) So they all got their hamburgers and I got my Big Mac, then they snatch my drink and fries outta my hands and run away! Little buggers!

We ended up walking to a lagoon area which was so beautiful and got in the water. Then I got to wake up at 4:30 for my flight to Sydney. Fun.


I slept the entire flight then we took giant buses to Newcastle, which turned into a 4 hour ride even though it should have taken 1 ½ hours. Oh, the middle aged bus driver decided it would be a treat for us to watch Beyonce Live the entire time. He LOVES her and by the end of the bus we all stepped off it to the left, to the left (sorry I’m getting bashed on for my lameness, I tell them its really cool at home…).

On 08/02/08 I finally stopped living out of a suitcase and moved into International House College (they call dorms colleges). It’s so different here, the dorms are all super nice apartment buildings, kinda like the village. But everyone is really into their college and we got IH polo and t-shirts. They have competitions in sports between colleges and themed parties with different colleges (Rave, Toga, Red Light Green Light, Superheros, Back to School party, where everyone dressed up like teachers or little kids, or Britney Spears. Each party we start at the college then go into town to the bars dressed up. Think we can organize this back at Towson??) It’s sorta like a frat or sorority but not all the BS, cause they don’t have Greek life here. And we have RAs, but no worries. Unlike at home, your RA will come get you TO party and usually are the loudest most drunk people.

The campus is so awesome, tons of trees and wildlife. It’s HUGE and the architecture is insane. Spiders/millipedes/all kinds of bugs I’ve never seen are EVERYWHERE. It’s normal to brush your teeth with a spider or sleep with a beetle. Oh and the Mossies (mosquitos) are horrible. They are EVERYWHERE and never leave you alone, even the buses are filled with them from opening the doors.

The other day I went to the beach for the first time with Sarah who is an Aussie with a car. (a Toyota Corolla, but not really. All there cars are almost the same in style, but not really- all much smaller and green friendly. The Aussies hate American Hummers and huge SUVs). We went to Nobby’s beach – amazing. It’s been cloudy and rainy since I got to Newcastle, but you still can’t beat a rainy day at the beach. Water was a bit cold but we got in anyway for over an hour. HUGE waves…. Like monstrous. And you can only swim between 2 red flags the lifeguards set up each day, or else you’ll pretty much drown. Their sand is so fine, it’s really strange when you walk on it, it makes a “school” noise, so weird I thought it was another crazy bird. I wake up each morning to a bird that cries like a baby then to one that I named Vicki-bird from Real Housewives of Orange County because it goes “WOOOOOO WOOOOOOOO.” And there are lizards and tropical parrots you see in pet stores all over campus. So cool. Although I was walking home and noticed a leech type thing on my leg and he had gotten some blood pretty quickly.

CONGRATULTIONS if you made it this far! Sorry that was a heap of a post, but it shouldn’t be as boring/hard to read from now on if I update a little every now and then.  PLEASE write comments on here or just send me an email, let me know what's goin on in your life or if you have a question.  It feels so good to hear from people when you're away.  I feel like I sort of took my family and friends for granted when I was home, but now that I can't call or see you whenever, I know how much everyone means to me.  So when I get back and you ask me to do something and I just don't feel like driving or going, CALL ME OUT.  Ok, that was a bit sappy but had to get that out there.  So check back and write back! It feels so good to hear from everyone. I miss and love everyone heaps.

CHEERS!

-Justin