end of o-week

So life is all sorts of craziness at this point which is good for me because it is interesting but bad for you because that means this post will not be even a little bit short.

On Friday I left for a wine and whale watching trip in Newcastle run through uni. I knew a couple of the people bu most weren’t from Australearn or Campus East so most of them were new to me. The bus ride was at least five hours which was a little ridiculous but we went over the Sydney Harbor and saw the opera house and I slept for pretty much the rest of the ride. The really unfortunate part was that I started to get sick Friday morning which is pretty much inevitable when I’m in a new environment, drinking this much more than usual, and sleeping this much less than usual. I pretty much spent Friday night going out to dinner and then crashing since I was dead tired.

Saturday started really fucking early due to the fact that one of the other girls in my hostel wakes up really early and is not at all quiet about it. After we got up and breakfasted we headed to the marina an hour or so away and went on a 3 hour whale watching cruise. We saw the water that the whales were spouting as well as their backs fairly frequently but there were almost no good picture opportunities. I got a crappy picture of the tail but you can barely see it. The dolphins were not much more photogenic but they were swimming right along the boat and jumping out of the water and playing with each other. It was really fun to watch.

After we got back on dry land we went to these giant sand dunes that were absolutely in the middle of nowhere. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. I was a chicken and wouldn’t sand board down but I did climb way far up and the sand was crazy soft. We also checked out a couple of beaches that were really nothing exciting. Before the dunes we stopped at this amazing lookout point. Never before have I seen so much random and beautiful scenery.

When we got back we had free pizza dinner that disappeared in 15 minutes max. Then everyone went to go get ready for a night out on the town. We finished eating at 7:30 and managed not to leave until 9:00. I don’t know who thought it was a good idea to send a group of college students to the pub the night before wine tasting but just about everyone went anyway.

The next morning was funny because A LOT of people had to face the consequences of what (or who) they did when they were drunk the night before. Needless to say (because otherwise I wouldn’t be writing about it here) I had nothing shameful to face the next morning so I thought it was all really funny. On our way to the first winery we stopped at this really small random zoo. There were white peacocks and these very pretty little birds that were total camera whores. I also got to pet some wallabies, one of which decided he should check if I was a yummy snack.

The wineries were okay… not really my cup of tea but it happens. It was an experience at the very least. There were some really good white wines and dessert wines but I decided against buying any. I’m very much against drinking stuff that expensive when something cheaper will do the trick at this point. Also, getting it home might have been a little tricky. The ride home was made pretty funny (and incredibly warm) by the wine tasting all day. The bus driver decided to have a heart and drop us at our individual dorms when we got back (an hour and a half late!) which is good because the shuttle to and from Campus East apparently doesn’t run on Sundays.

Today I have my first lecture. I have decided that I love all of college except for the going to class part. My professor seems pretty nice but this class is going to kick me in the face. He asked the class if several things sounded familiar… none of them did to me. We’re also reading Foucault. One thing working in my favor is that his accent is very easy to understand and he’ll let me take notes on my laptop. I suppose that’s two things. Good thing I gave up on the math minor, huh? Thank goodness I’m only taking three classes. I felt really bad because I was trying to talk to him and my voice is now all but gone. Oh well.

After my one class I managed to get hopelessly lost on campus trying to find the shuttle back. After spending 2 hours in the library while they tried to get my computer on the network I asked someone where said shuttle was and they gave me blatantly wrong info that I knew was wrong but smiled and nodded before leaving. I ran into Edwin after a while of wandering and after another few hours of entertainment he was able to point me in the right direction. I felt stupid since I’d been almost there, I’d simply took a wrong turn after walking out the doors.

Julie got me hooked on Veronica Mars. I definitely sat here watching 5 episodes but can justify this by saying that it kept me from talking and in turn was good for my voice. After I stopped watching I went to go find people at about 11. This entire campus is a ghost town right now. I suppose the crazy locals do actually need sleep. It was also really weird looking up at the stars because the big dipper was in the wrong place but what can you do? I could really go for something familiar at this point though… well I suppose this is way longer than a blog post need be but you can now consider yourself caught up on my life.

Interesting OZ fact: Platypuses are poisonous.

P.S. Mike is making a contest out of the blogs so each new post will have some random mention of him or his phenomenal television show, The Mike Mayer Show.