Brisbane Trip

So after surfing a came back to my apartment, packed up my stuff, picked Sarah, Jenny, Noelle and Cooper in great white and we headed towards Brisbane. The drive only took about 50 min but then it took us another 20 min to find our hostel but we got to drive around and see the city a bit so it wasn’t to bad. We stayed at Brisbane Backpackers Resort, which as far as hostels go was really nice. We had a six-person room with our own bathroom and balcony. The hostel also had a free shuttle that takes you into downtown every hour, so we took advantage of that and went into the city to walk around. We went to outdoor mall area that was huge and super crowed but pretty cool, defiantly a change from gold coast.
We had some lunch and shopped around for a while. Then we got a shuttle back to the hostel and relaxed for a while. Later on we had a drink at happy hour before Keith (an aussie that the girls had meet on their trip to Frasher island) picked us up to go to dinner. We had to wait 40 min for dinner so we went and got a drink at bar down the street. We also met up with Molly, another DU’er who goes to Griffith in Brisbane. We had dinner at this Japanese place, which was very good, and not to expensive. Then keith drove us to “the point” which is a big hill that over looks the city. The skyline at night was very beautiful.
He then dropped us off at the casino, so he could take his car home. Once he returned we bar hopped around for a while until it was very late and we got a taxi back to the hostel. It was really awesome to have Keith leading us around and knowing were to go because we would have all been clueless, so cheers to him. The next morning we woke up, packed up, checked out and headed north to the Australia Zoo “Home of the Crocodile Hunter.” After about an hour drive we arrived and headed in. We saw tons of crocodiles, including a 14 foot salty, dingos, kangaroos, wombats, all the venomous snakes of Australia, elephants, tigers, koalas, tree kangaroos, tons of birds and probably some other stuff that I can’t remember. We also saw the famous croc show in the crocosum where they get in the pen with the crocs and feed them.
My favorite part of the day was series of photos I took of a tiger jumping out of the water in its enclosure.

By 3 o’clock we were all pretty tired so we got back in great white and headed back to the gold coast. Overall it was an awesome trip and it felt great to get out and see something new and different. That’s it for now; time to get some needed sleep so I can surf early tomorrow.

Cheers,
Marsh

P.S. I put a bunch of new photos from the weekend up my flickr page which you can get to by the link at the top right of this page

Ultimate Freedom

Hey all sorry for the lack of updates, a lot has been going on since my last post and I will do my best to remember it all for this one. Second week of classes went by with no drama. One of my classes is a sociology class on fame and celebrity , which is very interesting, but a lot of reading. Everyone in the class picks a celebrity for the semester, which we then try to relate to the readings and discuss in our tutorials. I’m doing Jay-Z, he is a very successful hip-hop artist but also a very smart businessman, which I thought, would make it interesting. My Australian roommate Aja made us all burritos one night, which was delicious. I miss Mexican food, there’s non-here, not even Tostitos and salsa. So the week was pretty standard but the weekend was when exciting things happened

Ever since a friend of mine from DU who studied aboard in Brisbane told me how he bought a car, drove it all over while he was there, and then sold it for only $200 less than he bought it, I knew I had to do the same. So after a bunch of research I pitched the idea to my parents (who are soooo awesome) and they were open to the idea. So I searched on the Internet for cars and found one close by that looked good. I went and looked at it on Friday (Aug 7^th) and it was pretty much exactly what I was looking for. It’s a 1992 Holden Commodore Wagon, which are known to be very reliable and very popular among backpackers traveling throughout Australia. So the buy the end of the day I had a car. This opened up a whole new world of possibilities. The freedom to explore that a car provides is just unmatched compared to other forms of transport. I was so excited to get out and see Australia.

Driving on the left wasn’t to hard to pick up, you just have to re train yourself to look in different directions when you turning, changing lanes, etc. I named the car "Great White" or Gradie for short. The next day Cooper (goes to DU), Kerby (Australian) and my self drove to Burleigh Heads, which is south of surfers paradise. It is one of the many point breaks on the Australian East coast and a great surf spot. We had some lunch, relaxed on the beach and walked around for a bit. On the way back we stopped at a huge used surfboard at the suggestion of Kerby. I had been trying to find to a board ever since I got here and I was able to find one there.

So now that I had my surfboard I needed a wetsuit (it is “winter” here). Luckily Coopers roommate, Bryce (Australian) works at the billabong store and was able to get me a discount on an already on sale suit. So I ended up with a $400 wetsuit for $90 which it pretty much the bargain of the year for me. I didn’t get my suit till Tuesday and was busy until I finally got to get in the water on Saturday morning. We were leaving for Brisbane at 10:30 (which is my next post) so I woke at 7 and headed down to main beach. The waves were 2-3ft which is pretty small but the wind was offshore and it was breaking really nice. Besides waking up and skiing powder I think going in the ocean in the early morning is probably the best way to start your day. I figured this out lifeguarding in New Jersey and it holds true here. I’ve never really surf a straight up shortboard before so it’s going to take a bit of getting used. So not surprisingly I took a good amount of falls but I’m getting there, just need some more time in the water.

All right well that’s the last two weeks in a nutshell, Brisbane trip is up next.

p.s. i don't know why the font is changing like that, i gave up trying to fix it

First Week of Classes

After a great first week and weekend of pure fun, i had to try to get serious for my first week of classes. I'm not sure how but without even trying all the classes i wanted to take were only offered on Wednesday and Thursday, so on Monday and Tuesday i did things like join the student guild, join the gym, shop for food and get organized in general. Classes turned out to be nothing to scary, all the professors seem good and i didn't have any trouble understanding their accents (which apparently can be hard sometimes). All my classes consist of a large lecture and then a smaller tutorial at a different time. I'm looking forward to seeing how things are done differently as the semester going on.
This is the first time i have had to cook on my own and although I'm terrible at cooking I'm kind of enjoying it. For breakfast i have been having toast with peanut butter and jam and this incredible Kelloggs cereal called "Crunch Clusters" its kinda like Honey Bunches of Oats but on steroids, and it is delicious. Ive also been hard boiling some eggs, which is great not only for breakfast but also for a quick snack. Lunch i have on campus some days or i make a sandwich of some sorts. Dinner is where i need help. I can do pasta, frozen chicken frozen pizza, and canned soup but that's about it. We only have a microwave/ oven combo unit so that makes it a bit difficult but if anyone has anything easy that they would recommend i would love to hear it.
Didn't really have anything planned for the weekend so i stayed around here, went to the beach and enjoyed the beautiful winter weather (its been 70's and sunny everyday since Ive been here). I'm hoping to plan something fun to do next weekend so we will see what happens. That's all for now.

My room