(no subject)
i'm thinking i'm done with the eyebrow piercing, but i don't wanna take it out and regret it.
so, thoughts, feelings, opinions?
in other news... email update from Sept. 19th-ish
Hi again everyone,
Here’s installment 2 of my adventures in Australia. Since the trip to Moreton Bay I talked about in my last
email, I’ve done a lot more traveling. I was gone pretty much every weekend for about a month. The weekend
after Moreton Bay, I went up to Noosa, which is a small beach town north from Brisbane on Sunshine Coast.
There were 6 of us that went up Saturday morning to Sunday night. The first day we walked around the
national park there, which was really pretty. We ended up at this point called Hell’s Point, which had gorgeous
blue water. We then walked back on a trail that ran along the cliffs next to the ocean while the sun was setting.
It was really beautiful. We spent that night at a hostel, my first hostel experience! The next morning 4 of us
took surf lessons. The company we went through guaranteed that we would stand, and we all did. Ok, so we
were on foam boards, and caught waves after the break, but it was still a really cool experience. Then we had a
nice lunch and hung out on the beach before we had to start heading home.
The next weekend I went down to Byron Bay in New South Wales. A lot of the Americans living at
Emmanuel are here through the same program, and on Sunday their program was paying for all of them to go
sea kayaking. Since everyone was going down anyways for that, a lot of us just went down early on Friday and
Saturday to really experience Byron Bay, and I tagged along with them since I’m not a part of that program. So
about 7 of us went down early Friday morning and hung out on the beach. A bunch of the people played in a
free beach volleyball tournament. Then we walked to the most eastern part of Australia, and then up to the
lighthouse. It was, of course, beautiful, just like everything else in Australia. We saw a breaching whale
though, which was really neat. The next day we took a bus tour through the valleys and such near Byron Bay.
We went to this weird farm/forest place that this old hippy owns. It really looks like he just threw seeds of
random plants everywhere on his property. He did have some tasty fruit though. We also saw this waterfall
that’s suppose to be really awesome… but it was dried up since it’s not rain season yet. While we were gone, a
few more people coming down for sea kayaking showed up. So we ate the BBQ at the hostel and hung out.
Then we went to this awesome bar called Cheeky Monkey, that basically turned into a club where you could
dance on the tables. It was a lot of fun since there were about 13 of us there. The next day while all the sea
kayaking kids were doing that, the 3 of us that were not in the program just lied on the beach. It was so
relaxing.
The following weekend my school paid for a trip to Sydney for all the Dickinson students. So Friday
morning we flew to Sydney with our program director, Ann, and met our tour guide for the weekend, Russ. We
stayed in a really neat hostel that used to be train station. Some of the rooms were even renovated train cars,
which we stayed in. After settling in, Russ took us to the cliffs for a picnic lunch. We walked along the cliffs a
bit, then went back into the city and walked around for a while. Russ showed us places we might be interested
in returning to when we had our free time. A lot of shopping malls in Sydney are these really gorgeous, old,
renovated buildings. He showed us some cool parks and monuments and such, just to help us get a feel for
the city. Then we walked through the botanical gardens, where we stopped and fed the birds, and had them
jump up onto our arms and shoulders. It was a lot of fun. The botanical gardens runs along the harbor, so
eventually you get an awesome view of the opera house. We then walked to the opera house and took a tour of
it. It was really neat to learn about the history and to actually go inside and see it. After the tour, we got ready
for dinner at this cool steak house where you choose your meat, and then you have to cook it on the grill
yourself. So I cooked my first steak ever! There were then salads and bread and sides. It was really delicious.
Then, we took a “historical tour” of one of the oldest parts of the city, the Rocks. Our tour mainly consisted of
various beverage establishments throughout the Rocks, (aka it was really a pub crawl). It was a lot of fun. The
first pub had a lot of house beers, including one named Quayle Ale. The next pub had some live music, which
we sang along and danced too and Russ taught us some Aussie songs. The third pub had a rooftop area, with a
spectacular view of the opera house at night. The fourth pub was right along the water, and the fifth pub had a
really good singer/guitar player. It was a lot of fun.
The next morning we walked through this really cute residential area with really awesome houses, very
New Orleans like. There was a craft market there, that we wandered through for a while. We then had the
afternoon off, so some of us went to the Natural History Museum, which was really interesting. We saw the
Aboriginal exhibit, and the exhibit on bones and such. We then had another group dinner at Darling Harbor, at
this amazing Malaysian restaurant. Russ just ordered us a bunch of different dishes that we shared. Then we
wandered around Darling Harbor. A few of us tried to go to this club, but it was a private party, so we met up
with the rest of the group at a bar with music and danced for a while.
The next day was jam packed. We were suppose to have a choice of going to the aquarium, the tower or
see an I-Max (Sydney has the largest I-Max screen in the world, I think… it’s really big at least), which Russ
would buy us a ticket for. Pretty much all of us showed interested in the aquarium and the tower, and were
planning to get tickets to one, and the just pay for the other, but Russ was very nice and bought us tickets to
both. So, in the morning we did the aquarium, which was fun. It wasn’t as big as I had expected. But we did
see little penguins, and sharks and stingrays, and platypus and seals. One of the seals we saw was playing with
a pair of sunglasses someone had accidentally dropped into the tank, it was really cute. We then went to the
Tower, which is the highest point in Sydney, and gives you a 360 degrees view of the city. It was an incredible
view. Then we rode the OzTrek which is one of those virtual reality rides that the seats move to make you feel
like you’re moving, and it shows all the different part of Australia. It was cool, but you could tell it was done in
the 1980s. If they updated it, it would be really awesome. Then we did some shopping and went to the Paddy
markets, which has extremely cheap, touristy things. Then we had to go back to the hostel and get ready to go
to the airport. Sydney was amazing though, I absolutely loved it. You can walk pretty much anywhere and feel
safe pretty much anywhere. And the water is surprisingly still really blue and clear. It was a great weekend.
The past two weekends I’ve stayed around campus. Last weekend the most of the Frisbee team was in
Ballarat, which is about an hour outside of Melbourne for a tournament, which I didn’t go to because it was
really expensive. Also, all the kids that did the sea kayaking in Byron were gone on a trip their program paid
for. So it was a very quiet weekend. Saturday night I went to my first rugby game with a couple of the girls
who were also around for the weekend, which was fun. It was the last home game of the Brisbane Broncos, and
they lost pretty terribly, but it was a fun experience.
In other news, I did make the Unigames Frisbee team. We’ve been having training about two times a
week, and then the beginners University of Queensland league on top of that. So I’ve been busy with Frisbee.
Also, midterms are this week, so I’ve been working on papers and such. But next week is spring break! Mom
and John are currently in Sydney and will make their way up to Brisbane on Wednesday. Then we leave for
Cairns until Sunday, when I fly to Adelaide for Unigames. Mom will meet me there at the end of the week, and
then we’ll go to Ayers Rock in the outback until Monday. So I’m pretty excited for the coming few weeks.
I have also planned a trip to New Zealand after school ends for about 10 days. I’m doing a bus tour of the
South Island with a friend of mine from Dickinson. It should be pretty awesome. And I fly back to the states
November 30, so I’ll have a full month at home before I leave for adventure #2 in England.
I think that’s the summary of my life these past few weeks. Hope everything is going well back in the
States. I miss everyone. Feel free to email me back about what’s been going on in everyone’s lives, I’d love to
know.
Byyyye!
Annie
coming soon... unigames/spring break... oooh the fun
so, thoughts, feelings, opinions?
in other news... email update from Sept. 19th-ish
Hi again everyone,
Here’s installment 2 of my adventures in Australia. Since the trip to Moreton Bay I talked about in my last
email, I’ve done a lot more traveling. I was gone pretty much every weekend for about a month. The weekend
after Moreton Bay, I went up to Noosa, which is a small beach town north from Brisbane on Sunshine Coast.
There were 6 of us that went up Saturday morning to Sunday night. The first day we walked around the
national park there, which was really pretty. We ended up at this point called Hell’s Point, which had gorgeous
blue water. We then walked back on a trail that ran along the cliffs next to the ocean while the sun was setting.
It was really beautiful. We spent that night at a hostel, my first hostel experience! The next morning 4 of us
took surf lessons. The company we went through guaranteed that we would stand, and we all did. Ok, so we
were on foam boards, and caught waves after the break, but it was still a really cool experience. Then we had a
nice lunch and hung out on the beach before we had to start heading home.
The next weekend I went down to Byron Bay in New South Wales. A lot of the Americans living at
Emmanuel are here through the same program, and on Sunday their program was paying for all of them to go
sea kayaking. Since everyone was going down anyways for that, a lot of us just went down early on Friday and
Saturday to really experience Byron Bay, and I tagged along with them since I’m not a part of that program. So
about 7 of us went down early Friday morning and hung out on the beach. A bunch of the people played in a
free beach volleyball tournament. Then we walked to the most eastern part of Australia, and then up to the
lighthouse. It was, of course, beautiful, just like everything else in Australia. We saw a breaching whale
though, which was really neat. The next day we took a bus tour through the valleys and such near Byron Bay.
We went to this weird farm/forest place that this old hippy owns. It really looks like he just threw seeds of
random plants everywhere on his property. He did have some tasty fruit though. We also saw this waterfall
that’s suppose to be really awesome… but it was dried up since it’s not rain season yet. While we were gone, a
few more people coming down for sea kayaking showed up. So we ate the BBQ at the hostel and hung out.
Then we went to this awesome bar called Cheeky Monkey, that basically turned into a club where you could
dance on the tables. It was a lot of fun since there were about 13 of us there. The next day while all the sea
kayaking kids were doing that, the 3 of us that were not in the program just lied on the beach. It was so
relaxing.
The following weekend my school paid for a trip to Sydney for all the Dickinson students. So Friday
morning we flew to Sydney with our program director, Ann, and met our tour guide for the weekend, Russ. We
stayed in a really neat hostel that used to be train station. Some of the rooms were even renovated train cars,
which we stayed in. After settling in, Russ took us to the cliffs for a picnic lunch. We walked along the cliffs a
bit, then went back into the city and walked around for a while. Russ showed us places we might be interested
in returning to when we had our free time. A lot of shopping malls in Sydney are these really gorgeous, old,
renovated buildings. He showed us some cool parks and monuments and such, just to help us get a feel for
the city. Then we walked through the botanical gardens, where we stopped and fed the birds, and had them
jump up onto our arms and shoulders. It was a lot of fun. The botanical gardens runs along the harbor, so
eventually you get an awesome view of the opera house. We then walked to the opera house and took a tour of
it. It was really neat to learn about the history and to actually go inside and see it. After the tour, we got ready
for dinner at this cool steak house where you choose your meat, and then you have to cook it on the grill
yourself. So I cooked my first steak ever! There were then salads and bread and sides. It was really delicious.
Then, we took a “historical tour” of one of the oldest parts of the city, the Rocks. Our tour mainly consisted of
various beverage establishments throughout the Rocks, (aka it was really a pub crawl). It was a lot of fun. The
first pub had a lot of house beers, including one named Quayle Ale. The next pub had some live music, which
we sang along and danced too and Russ taught us some Aussie songs. The third pub had a rooftop area, with a
spectacular view of the opera house at night. The fourth pub was right along the water, and the fifth pub had a
really good singer/guitar player. It was a lot of fun.
The next morning we walked through this really cute residential area with really awesome houses, very
New Orleans like. There was a craft market there, that we wandered through for a while. We then had the
afternoon off, so some of us went to the Natural History Museum, which was really interesting. We saw the
Aboriginal exhibit, and the exhibit on bones and such. We then had another group dinner at Darling Harbor, at
this amazing Malaysian restaurant. Russ just ordered us a bunch of different dishes that we shared. Then we
wandered around Darling Harbor. A few of us tried to go to this club, but it was a private party, so we met up
with the rest of the group at a bar with music and danced for a while.
The next day was jam packed. We were suppose to have a choice of going to the aquarium, the tower or
see an I-Max (Sydney has the largest I-Max screen in the world, I think… it’s really big at least), which Russ
would buy us a ticket for. Pretty much all of us showed interested in the aquarium and the tower, and were
planning to get tickets to one, and the just pay for the other, but Russ was very nice and bought us tickets to
both. So, in the morning we did the aquarium, which was fun. It wasn’t as big as I had expected. But we did
see little penguins, and sharks and stingrays, and platypus and seals. One of the seals we saw was playing with
a pair of sunglasses someone had accidentally dropped into the tank, it was really cute. We then went to the
Tower, which is the highest point in Sydney, and gives you a 360 degrees view of the city. It was an incredible
view. Then we rode the OzTrek which is one of those virtual reality rides that the seats move to make you feel
like you’re moving, and it shows all the different part of Australia. It was cool, but you could tell it was done in
the 1980s. If they updated it, it would be really awesome. Then we did some shopping and went to the Paddy
markets, which has extremely cheap, touristy things. Then we had to go back to the hostel and get ready to go
to the airport. Sydney was amazing though, I absolutely loved it. You can walk pretty much anywhere and feel
safe pretty much anywhere. And the water is surprisingly still really blue and clear. It was a great weekend.
The past two weekends I’ve stayed around campus. Last weekend the most of the Frisbee team was in
Ballarat, which is about an hour outside of Melbourne for a tournament, which I didn’t go to because it was
really expensive. Also, all the kids that did the sea kayaking in Byron were gone on a trip their program paid
for. So it was a very quiet weekend. Saturday night I went to my first rugby game with a couple of the girls
who were also around for the weekend, which was fun. It was the last home game of the Brisbane Broncos, and
they lost pretty terribly, but it was a fun experience.
In other news, I did make the Unigames Frisbee team. We’ve been having training about two times a
week, and then the beginners University of Queensland league on top of that. So I’ve been busy with Frisbee.
Also, midterms are this week, so I’ve been working on papers and such. But next week is spring break! Mom
and John are currently in Sydney and will make their way up to Brisbane on Wednesday. Then we leave for
Cairns until Sunday, when I fly to Adelaide for Unigames. Mom will meet me there at the end of the week, and
then we’ll go to Ayers Rock in the outback until Monday. So I’m pretty excited for the coming few weeks.
I have also planned a trip to New Zealand after school ends for about 10 days. I’m doing a bus tour of the
South Island with a friend of mine from Dickinson. It should be pretty awesome. And I fly back to the states
November 30, so I’ll have a full month at home before I leave for adventure #2 in England.
I think that’s the summary of my life these past few weeks. Hope everything is going well back in the
States. I miss everyone. Feel free to email me back about what’s been going on in everyone’s lives, I’d love to
know.
Byyyye!
Annie
coming soon... unigames/spring break... oooh the fun