Melbourne: Day 3

Read about the beginning of my trip first!
 Melbourne Day 1 post!
Melbourne Day 2 post!


Yet again, on Saturday we woke up before the sun at 6:30. Noticing a theme of not much sleep here? So were we. That day's tour was the Great Ocean Road tour, which is basically just a long, famous road along the coast west of Melbourne. It had gorgeous views the whole way! On the tour the day before, we asked what the best side of the car to sit on was so we all sat in the single seats on the left side of the van and could see everything perfectly!

After an hour drive - with us sleeping the whole way - we finally got to the start of the road and took pictures with the official sign! Then we started driving and the views were absolutely incredible. I've seen a lot of beautiful places since being here and this might just top the list. We stopped at a few different little pull-over places to take some pictures of the beaches and cliffs. It was honestly breath taking. After driving for a while and taking it in, we stopped at a camp ground that had a bunch of wild koalas just hanging out in the trees, sleeping as usual. There were also a ton of gorgeous birds in around that would come eat bird food out of your hands, which was so cool! Alex is terrified of birds and she did it too! To reward ourselves, we got a little pre-lunch ice cream from a convenience store. Then we loaded back into the van and drove to the town where we had our lunch stop. We had a little time there so we wandered around and took some more pictures!

Our next stop was the rainforest! We got to go on like a half hour hike through the rainforest and see all sorts of cool trees and plants. It's crazy how many different kinds of environments there are in such close proximity to each other here. Beach, rainforest, super dry forests, deserts, they have it all within an hour of each other! Then we were off to the 12 Apostles! 

They're basically a bunch of huge, tall rocks off the shore and it's beautiful! Although there used to be twelve of them, there were only like 8 of them left standing. This was by far the most tourist-y place we went all day. There were TONS of people everywhere. It was absolutely insane. That definitely took away from the beauty a little bit, because people can be so rude.

The final two stops were Loch Ard Gorge, which is basically just a giant cliff formation that makes a nice little inlet and London Bridge, which used to be a giant connected rock bridge, but part of it collapsed in the 90s and left 2 people stranded on it for a while! Both of these were also gorgeous! It's seriously unbelievable to me how beautiful the world is and that it isn't all like the boring, flat corn fields I grew up surrounded by.

Then we started on our long, three hour drive home! This time, we made it back to the hostel before any of our roommates so we were able to pack up and get ready in peace before waking up at 4:30 the next morning to catch our flight back to Brisbane. By the time we got back to campus, we were tired, cranky, smelly and ready to sleep forever. Except we had to do homework, so that was a downer to an otherwise AMAZING weekend with the best friends a girl could ask for! I cannot even begin to explain how blessed I feel right now to be able to see the world and enjoy so many things that most people never get to experience in their lives, and do be able to do it with some of my best friends makes it that much better. As usual, check out my facebook to see all my pictures!! Have a great week everyone!

Melbourne: Day 2

 Read about the beginning of my Melbourne trip first!
 Melbourne Day 1 post!



We woke up bright and early on Friday to head to the Queen Victoria Market, which was highly recommended by a bunch of travel websites. First of all, the weather the entire time we were in Melbourne was less than ideal. It was like 55 degrees Fahrenheit the whole time and we didn't pack for that cold so we set out at 7:30 in our shorts and tshirts and practically froze to death walking the mile to the market. Once we got there, we got some breakfast from one of the cute little bakery stands, and walked around. The food part of the market was really nice and cute, but the shopping part reminded me of a giant garage sale. Everything looked dirty and used so we decided to head back to the hostel to take a nap before our Phillip Island tour instead. Before we left for the tour, we had to leave our private room and switch back into the main building in a six bedroom dorm. This time there were two bathrooms for a floor of like thirty people and we were sharing this little room with bunks with three random strangers, who we never ended up actually meeting. It was definitely a bit of a change from what we had the previous night.

At around 11:30, we got picked up for our tour. After an hour of driving around to various hostels picking up other people, we headed out on our drive, which ended up being around two and a half hours. We stopped half way for a sandwich break, where, of course, Alex, Christy and I stopped to get chocolate. Right before we got to the island, we stopped at a wildlife sanctuary. Although significantly smaller than the one we went to last month, there were kangaroos and koalas and sheep (so exotic...) and such that we took pictures with.

We then got on with our tour, got to Phillip Island, which is where a huge colony of penguins live, and saw the main beach. It was obviously way to cold to even stick your toes in the water, but the beach was super pretty with, as usual, waves bigger than I've ever seen. Then we went to a lookout point that had a bunch of penguin nests, with some baby penguins in them! There was also a big rock with seals on it in the distance, but it was too far to really see. Then, we finally got to the part we had been waiting for all day, the penguin parade!! There are grandstands set up near where the penguins usually come out of the ocean and you can watch them waddle back to their nests! Its the smallest species of penguins so they're only about a foot tall and they're all chubby because they're about to molt. It is seriously the most adorable thing I have ever seen. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures, so the ones here are ones I took from the internet... but we got to stand and watch them walk all the way to their nests. When they're reunited with their mate they make loud noises and flap their wings which was also precious. I'm sort of obsessed.

Anyway, it was super late by the time we drove all the way home and got back to our hostel, which proved to be a problem because the others in our dorm were already in bed. We tried to very discreetly use our phone flashlights to navigate and be as quiet as possible but I'm sure we failed at that. Then we crashed at around one in the morning to be able to wake up at six for our next tour!

Melbourne Day 3 post!

Melbourne: Day 1

"...how did we end up in Chinatown...?"

So I'm going to do my Melbourne blog in three separate posts by day so as to not be too long or overwhelming. I'll post links at the bottom of this post to the next two days once I've finished them.

Thursday morning at 5:00, Christy, Alex and I all rolled out of bed and towards the area where our taxi was waiting. The taxi took us to the train station, where we then took an hour and a half long train ride to the Brisbane airport. Although incredibly tired, we were super pumped for our new adventure in Melbourne! Once we got to the airport, we were amazed at how easy everything was. We had checked in for our flight the night before and got our boarding passes via text message and since we weren't checking any bags, we got to go straight to security. The three of us were all prepared with our little baggies of appropriately sized liquids and everything ready to go, but it turns out security in Australia is a lot looser than it is in the states. We didn't have to show any tickets or identification and could leave our shoes on. They didn't check for liquids, although I forgot to take a pair of nail scissors out of my makeup bag and they confiscated it...

Even to board the plane, we didn't have to show any ID of any kind, just the text that showed our ticket number. We were a little worried because we hadn't heard great reviews of the airline we were using but the tickets were cheap so we went for it anyway. The seats were super cramped, which wasn't a huge problem for my little legs, but a little worse for Alex's. There was visible water vapor coming out of the insides of the plane all over the place thanks to the air conditioning, and aside from it looking slightly concerning, it wasn't a problem. After a quick two and a half hour plane ride, we landed in Melbourne! We grabbed a taxi and headed into the city to get our hostel!

After some research online, we were booked to stay at a hostel called The Nunnery, located only a few minutes from the heart of downtown, which was an old convent converted into a big hostel. They told us they had messed up our reservation and because of that, our first night was upgraded to a private three bed room in the guest house next door, but that we had to wait an hour for it to be cleaned. We left our stuff with the desk staff and headed out to wander the city. The hostel was in an area of town called Fitzroy which we were told was a very up and coming, hipster area. We all agreed as we walked around that we were waaay too mainstream to fit in there, but there were a lot of cute little restaurants and shops. We ended up eating at a little African restaurant called Django Django and it was so good! If you know me well at all, you'll know I'm a very picky eater so you're probably like "Maggie? Eating at an African restaurant?" Well rest assured that I got a chicken schnitzel sandwich (my new favorite meal), which although not quite an African cuisine, was still very very good. On our way back to the hostel, we stopped in a bakery and ate some delicious dessert.

Melbourne harbor

By the time we got back to the hostel, the room was ready so we grabbed our bags and headed next door to the guest house. It was alarmingly nicer, calmer and more quiet than the main dorm and it became obvious why. There were only eight or nine rooms, all of which were private with two or three beds. Our room had three single beds, a big flat screen TV, a fire place, a mini fridge, and plenty of space for the three of us. We were basically in heaven. There were two bathrooms that we shared with only one other room also, which was so nice. Turns out, that room usually books for $185 a night, while we paid a nice $32 for the night... we definitely lucked out!

After a brief rest and getting ready, we hopped on the free city shuttle to explore. We ended up getting off at a stop by the harbor first and taking some pictures. The city was absolutely beautiful. It reminded me a lot of Seattle, which just happens to be my favorite US city.

We then hopped on the shuttle again to go downtown, where we spent most of our evening just wandering and getting totally lost in an amazing way. It was seriously one of the coolest things I've ever done. Somehow we ended up in Chinatown several hours later, all the way on the opposite side of the city from where we got off the shuttle.  We were just walking around and bam, there it was, so we decided to stop for dinner! It was very different from the Chinatown's I've seen and heard of in the states. There were no sketchy fake designer shops or really anything sketchy at all happening. Just a bunch of Chinese restaurants. We wandered upon one that seemed decent and gave it a try. I (again being a picky eater) ordered honey chicken, which tasted exactly like funnel cake, which was incredibly alarming. Christy and I both ordered glasses of wine, which were brought to us by the man who had to be the crazy uncle of the family. "Sauvignon blanc?!?!?!?! Great pairing, great pairing!!" he kept saying as he poured at least two glasses worth of wine into our glasses, splashing it all everywhere in the process. Although the food was mediocre, we had a blast and made some hilarious memories! After that, we just wandered back to the hostel and enjoyed our one night in the lap of luxury, not really knowing the next night would be much worse.

Super casual in the Chinese restaurant

Read about the rest of my Melbourne adventure by following these links!
Melbourne Day 2 post!
Melbourne Day 3 post!

Surf Camp

One of the biggest things I was hoping to do in Australia was learn to surf. Within a few days of being on campus, I had signed up for this surf camp trip that offered 3 lessons and a 2 night stay in a campground on the beach. Leading up to it, I was convinced that I was going to be a stellar surfer and just come out of nowhere with this hidden talent. Let me tell you, this was NOT the case.

Friday night the bus came to pick us up and as usual, we broke out the boom box and took the liberty of DJing the 4 hour trip for the 40+ people on the bus. Although I'm not totally sure everyone appreciated it, we had a good time! By the time we arrived at camp, we were exhausted. They showed me, Alex, Christy and Rachel to our hut, in the opposite direction from where they were leading everyone else in our group. I say hut very literally. It was literally 4 tin walls with a few windows and a door, a tin roof and a concrete floor. Inside there were 2 small bunk beds and a trash can. It was so tiny and because there was no air conditioning, everything was a little damp and warm. We got into our beds and were pretty grossed out by the soggy feeling everything had but fell asleep, ready for our big day ahead!

We were awoken bright and early by one of the hottie instructors (I swear it must be a rule that you have to be incredibly attractive to be a surf instructor there) and headed to breakfast. It was super dark when we had gotten there the night before so we got to see the place for real, and it was so cute! The entire place is like its own camp site with a ton of huts like ours, super cute decorations and then some teepees that people live in. At breakfast, we were reunited with the rest of our friends who's cabin was right next to the ocean! After eating my super nutritious peanut butter sandwich, we went to surf school! First we just had to sit there and listen to them tell us all about what could go wrong. Rip currents and sharks and wiping out and every other possible scary event was covered and I started to get nervous. I'm all about that 'don't mess with the ocean' life because, as I've said before, I'm very good at getting totally clobbered by the waves. We put on our wetsuits/rash guards and headed to the beach where we practiced our paddling and actually hopping up onto the surf board. Before I knew it, we were divided into groups, given our instructor and board and sent out! First of all, let me just say how awesome our instructor was. Jan (Juicy J as we started calling her) was a champ and put up with our annoying, loud struggles! My first few waves I would get half way up and then fall but wasn't too discouraged. We were in shallow enough water that I could just grab my board and walk back out to catch another wave.

After lunch, we went back out and Jan led us out past the wave break point so we could catch some bigger waves. Getting out with the surfboard was much more difficult this time. The waves were bigger and there were some places that I couldn't touch so just picture little Maggie with a 9 foot surfboard trying to maneuver these huge waves without getting hit in the head by my board or anyone elses. Once we got out there though, the water was super calm and I could literally just lay on my board while I waited for my turn. I got progressively better and was able to stand at least a little bit every time! The waves just kept getting bigger though and after one particularly bad wipeout, every time I went to grab my board and head back out, I got hit by another wave, sending me and the board spinning in opposite directions which would then end in me getting dragged by my ankle. In that brief period, a wave caught my surf board sideways, came up and nailed me square in the face, leaving me with a nice busted lip and bruised nose.

That night, there was a big beach party and we taught all the Australians and Europeans how to do the classic American party dances like the wobble, wop, dougie, etc. Then someone came along and changed our music and put on techno, which is horrible to dance to, so we left. The gross damp hut smelled and was even more damp with our wet swimsuits and towels but we managed to sleep until our lesson this morning! The waves were even worse, but thanks to Juicy J, I finally managed to get one good wave in where I stood for more than 3 seconds! Then we packed up, covered in sand and salt water, and got on the bus for the long trip home.

Surfing is an incredible workout between actually surfing and simply maneuvering the board in the water, so I am very very very sore! It was disappointing that surfing isn't my undiscovered talent, but at least I had the chance to try it and learn a little bit!

There will be pictures at some point, I promise!! The surf school hasn't posted them to their website yet so I'm still waiting on them! As soon as I get access to them, I'll post them all, there's some quality ones of me mid-fall!

How I thought I would look after surf camp...

 How I would actually look if I got onto a surfboard...

A picture of my surfing injury because it makes me feel more legit. I know, that surfboard really got the best of me, its clearly a huge wound.

My Trip to the Hospital

As you know, I spent most of last week quarantined in my room because I was sick with strep. Well, my doctor apparently wasn't very bright and only prescribed me 5 days of antibiotics when he should have done 10 days. So although I got better and felt stellar all weekend, Monday, I started feeling a little sore throat again and by Tuesday I was practically walking death. I tried to see the doctor but they didn't have any open appointments til noon Wednesday so I stuck through my classes and tried to survive until I saw the doctor. By the time I woke up Wednesday, my tonsils were so swollen they were stuck together and I could hardly swallow water let alone advil or painkillers.

The doctor refused to admit that this was potentially his fault and tried to write me another 5 day antibiotic prescription plus order a mono test. When I told him I could hardly swallow my own spit he became slightly more concerned and immediately wrote me a referral to the emergency room, told me to find a friend (Alex Mai is a saint by the way) and get a taxi pronto. So, after going back up to my room and crying for a good 30 minutes because I had no idea what to do or expect without my parents there, Alex and I got a taxi and headed out.

After checking in, we waited for a solid 2 hours before we heard anything. We were surrounded by puking people, bleeding Mormon missionaries, and kids with bizarre skin rashes, which was not comforting. Although the two hours seemed like a long wait, we overheard some other people talking saying that the wait for the Gold Coast City Hospital was 7 hours, and the wait for the Melbourne hospital emergency room is a whopping 17 hours. Soooo, I was very lucky to have been sent to the Robina Public Hospital. Once I got a bed, I sat there for another solid 30 minutes before any doctors or nurses came to talk to me. It's been a while since I've been to an American ER so I can't really compare the wait times... you tell me. Anyway, the nurses finally came and started asking me a million questions. Then they put in an IV, took some blood and started me on fluids. Don't worry, I only cried a little bit. When the doctor came to talk to me, he dropped the bombshell. I had to stay the night in the hospital. I was under the impression that I would be in, get some IV antibiotics and get out. But no. They moved me and my lovely IV pole into the short stay unit and where I got a bed along with 7 other people in the big open room. The bed across from me was occupied by a man who was bit by a scorpion and then had a tick crawl into his scorpion bite. It was alarming.

After about 5 hours, the doctor finally came to tell me my blood test results. Not mono and probably bacterial. So they started me up on antibiotics, steroids to shrink my tonsils and more fluids. I also got some pain killers distributed to me in an unpleasant manner. The best part is that my doctor kept sending in nurses and med students to check out my tonsils because they were so big. I was like the freak show bearded lady in the circus or something. Throughout the evening, Alex, Christy and Rachel all stopped by to visit and brought me food, which I was finally able to eat. Aside from nurses coming in every so often to check my pulse and blood pressure, I literally saw no medical staff. I switched between watching the Olympics and sleeping through most of the night. Every so often they would come in to give me antibiotics or check my vitals some more. Finally this morning, I talked to a different doctor who prescribed me a much more effective and longer dosage of antibiotics and I was free to go! I survived my night alone at the hospital! I'm feeling so much better already and I got the okay to still go to surf camp this weekend! All in all, the whole thing could have been a lot worse, and the best part is that all my services were free because of my student insurance. However I also saw the downside to that because my waits were longer and I got significantly less medical attention and they always felt rushed when I did see a nurse.

Happy Valentines Day everyone and have a great TEC weekend to all my girls on team!! Praying for ya! Love you all a ton!! <3 <3 <3

As cute as a picture of me in my hospital gown would be, you get this beauty from our trip to Moreton Island last weekend instead. We found STARFISH, my favorite animal! We tried to steal the ones that we found dead but then our tour guide yelled at us and made us feel bad so we had to put them back. Major bummer.

Moreton Island

(This post is super long and as soon as you think it's done, it's probably not, just a warning.)

I survived my week of quarantine and sickness! Alex and I went absolutely stir crazy, made our own "Do You Want to Build a Snowman" video from Frozen, and got absolutely nothing accomplished, but I am back to feeling almost 100%! Which is good because we had a super awesome exciting trip this weekend!

Our bus!

Saturday morning at 6:30 am, Alex, Tori, Christy, Cameron and I, along with some other Bond students, got picked up in the most bizarre looking busses of all time. They sort of looked like garbage trucks with seats for people instead of garbage. Turns out they're special off roading busses because the island we went to has no roads, only sand. 

We drove the hour to Brisbane and then took another hour long ferry ride to get to Moreton Island. From the moment the ferry docked, I could tell this would be the most beautiful place I've ever seen. I know I say that about pretty much everywhere here but it's true! The water is crystal clear and the sand is so white. Like I said, there are no roads and it's an all sand island so there's really just lots of sand and some trees, or really anything civilized other than one resort, on the island so it was a very very very bumpy bus ride, getting thrown out of my seat. 

We finally got to the place we were going to sandboard and my first thought was 'so... where's the chairlift or something to bring me up to the top of these dunes...' and obviously since they're all made of sand, there wasn't one. So we grabbed our boards, which were just long slabs of plastic/wood, and started the hike 200 meters to the top. To give you perspective, that's like a 60 story building. That we climbed. In the sand. And it was so steep. Every step you took basically sunk you back to where you started. After a very difficult, hot, horrible climb, we finally got to the top and the view was so worth it. You could see all the beaches and everything on the entire island. Then it was time to slide. The drop was really steep so it was kind of scary, but nothing horrible. The guides said we'd probably get up to about 45 mph, which is pretty decent speed. We only got to go down like 100 meters, but it was still really fun! I dropped the front of my board at one point so I got super sprayed with sand and ended up with a nice mouthful of it. Alex had our groups only major wipeout on the sandboarding because the guide sort of pushed her sideways and she ended up going down backwards and then rolling down a big part of the hill. From this moment on, there was not a second that my body was not totally, annoyingly coated in layers of sand and sunscreen. Please just ignore the totally horrible, disgusting sand spit in my mouth at the end of this video...

The guides set up lunch and we all just hung out on the beach and played in the ocean. Then we got back onto the bus and headed towards the shipwrecks for snorkeling! As we were driving, we saw thousands of little soldier crabs running in huge groups along the beach. It was so cool! 

We suited up in our wetsuits and started snorkeling! There were a bunch of sunken ships and TONS of amazing fish! We got to swim with sharks and sting rays too. They had food for us to feed the fish and they would just swarm you trying to eat it. Then we saw a bird swallow a fish whole which was just lovely... but other than that it was absolutely perfect!

Shark!!

We spent most of the evening just chilling at the beach by our campsite watching the sun set before we ate a lovely pasta dinner made by our guides! Almost immediately after dinner (but not before eating a piece of cheesecake of course) we headed back to our tent and got ready to sleep. We were all exhausted and we knew sleep was gonna be necessary. There were four of us in our little tent and it was pretty cramped. There are a lot of big, scary bugs and lizards and snakes here in Australia so we were all a little freaked out at the idea of one of those getting into the tent. 

After surviving the night, we had some pancakes for breakfast and headed back to the bus to continue the tour. We went to Blue Lagoon, which is a freshwater lake in the middle of the island with water clean enough to drink and the kind of mud sand that they use in super expensive facials. At lunch, we went to Honeymoon Bay where they had big rocks that we could climb on and obviously we turned it into a giant photo shoot opportunity. 

The final stop on our adventure was a lighthouse/lookout point on the highest point of the island. Again, the views were spectacular. From where we were standing, so high above the water, you could still see turtles, sand and the fish that were in the water. I've never seen water so clear and bright blue. 

 That little darker spot in the middle is a turtle!

We finally got back on the bus and we are all lobsters from being in the sun for two days straight. But even the sunburns didn't stop us from having a great time! Everything here is peachy, but I'm not looking forward to going back to class after my nice little 11 day weekend with my quarantine time! I've got lots of big papers to write this week before surf camp next weekend! Don't worry, I'll keep you all up to date on the exciting things and not all the boring time spent in the library! Have a great week everyone!

Quarantined

I went to bed last night with a little bit of a sore throat and woke up this morning with insanely swollen tonsils and a fever. Alex had been sick the last few days so I figured I had whatever she's been dealing with but after a few hours, I knew I needed to go to the doctor. I was expecting something similar to the student health center at SLU, and it was in some ways, but very different in others.

They only had one doctor and one nurse on staff. Since Alex and I decided to go together without an appointment and an hour before closing, I assumed we'd be told to come back tomorrow. Instead, after filling out some forms, we were called back, together, to talk to the nurse. It was a pretty quick process and we hardly spent any time waiting, unlike at SLU where we would have waited more than an hour for a walk-in. I'm sure the two of us were quite a sight. Alex was sitting there sniffling and hacking her lungs up and I sat there looking like the personification of death. After taking both of our temps, the nurse informed us that they were exactly the same. Apparently after spending so much time with someone, even your body temp syncs up. We both had a fever of 37.9 degrees Celsius. The nurse told us that 37 was normal, so I just assumed that was a pretty low grade fever, but turns out its like 100.2 degrees Fahrenheit. After doing the normal nurse-y things, she was like 'yeah, you're both in pretty bad shape, I'm going to squeeze you in to see the doctor this afternoon.'

Because we don't have government issued insurance we had to pay a hefty co-pay of $5 before we could see the doctor. He took one look at my throat and said 'You have the largest tonsils I have ever seen!' Such a charming compliment. Without even doing a strep test, he put me on antibiotics - which cost me a whole $10 - and told me I was under quarantine for the next 3 days. I'm excused from all my classes Tuesday and Wednesday (which is all of my classes in general...) and can't leave my bed basically unless I'm getting food. I'm already bored and it's only been a few hours. The good news is Alex is also quarantined for the next 3 days for a respiratory infection so we get to be bored together!

The moral of this story is that I'm in the most beautiful place on earth and I can't leave my bed. Therefore I won't have anything interesting AT ALL to blog about for a bit unless I find a really good movie on Netflix or something. Send non-sick thoughts my way please!! We have a camping trip planned for this weekend and I'd really like to be able to go!!

Free Fallin'

14,000 feet. That's 2.65 miles. And it's several thousand feet higher than most jump sites in the US.

After our epic disappointment last weekend, we woke up this morning ready for the biggest adventure of our lives. Christy, Tori, Caitlin, Rachel and I, joined by Alex, who finally got the permission to jump (!!!) got to Byron Bay and after about an hour (it was hard to tell how long it actually was... I was too nervous to pay attention), we got all suited up in our super cute pants and harnesses. By this point, I was visibly shaking and totally freaking out. I honestly don't know what I was afraid of... I wasn't afraid I was going to die, I wasn't afraid of the falling or the parachute... I guess it was just the anticipation and the unknown. One of the ladies working there pulled me aside and tried to calm me down, which sort of helped. She told me that as soon as I landed, I had to find her and hug her, and she gave me all sorts of tips. After a brief training session (it literally was less than 5 minutes) telling us body positions for the jump and the landing, we met our tandem partners and loaded the plane. If you think I wasn't in full blown panic mode by this point, you are wrong. The little tiny plane had all 6 of us SLU girls, plus our tandem divers, plus another girl and her tandem, plus Christy and Tori's dedicated diver photographers. That's 16 people in this little bitty airplane. We started to take off down the non-existant runway and the plane door was wide open so I was certain that Christy was going to just get sucked out. After we had been in the air for a few minutes, I looked at my partner and was like 'So we're getting pretty close to our jump height now, right?' He just shook his head at me... we were only at 2,000 feet, only 1/7th of the way to our jump height. That's when I started to hyperventilate. I had my eyes closed and was just trying to breathe, apparently it looked like I was going to puke. When I was able to look out the window, the views of the beach were absolutely beautiful. You can see them in my video that I'll post a link to at the end of this post. Before I knew it, my partner was making the final adjustments and telling me to put on my goggles (which were incredibly attractive obviously).

Then all the sudden, Christy's photographer was hanging off the side of the airplane like a ninja and it was time for Christy to jump. The most terrifying part of the whole experience was watching my friends disappear over the edge of the plane and hear their screams die to silence. I literally screamed more and louder when I watched Christy, Tori and Caitlin jump than I did in my own jump. It was my turn then and as my partner sat on the edge of the plane, I was literally dangling over the side, 14,000 feet in the air. And then I was flying. For the first like 5 seconds I could feel the 'roller coaster free-fall' feeling and then that was gone and I felt like I was floating. It was incredible. 60 seconds later, the parachute was pulled and we spent the next 5 minutes just gliding down to the ground! Even though I'm horribly afraid of heights, I didn't feel scared or nervous at all anymore! Once we landed, I was ready to do it again! Skydiving is an impossible feeling to explain but I highly recommend you do it!!! I'm officially obsessed!

To see all my pictures, go to my facebook album 'Aussie Aussie Aussie' or friend me if we aren't facebook friends! There's a link at the bottom of this post to the actual video of the jump!

 All suited up and ready!

 Back in November, Rachel and I made a 'you jump, I jump' pinky promise!

Bye bye airplane!

Here's the link to the skydive video! It should take you to the video if you just click that! Warning, I am the most awkward person ever.

Dreary

All week it has been super rainy and gloomy here so we haven't really been able to do anything exciting. Monday, I slept until 11, which was much needed and then we all dressed up and went to a nice dinner for Rachel's birthday! The restaurant we went to was super nice and delicious! Then we went to The Hub, which is a little cafe by campus and got desserts.

Tuesday morning I had to get up early for a job interview via skype. The exciting news is that I got the job!! I will officially spend my summer in Decatur, Michigan at Lake of the Woods camp as a cabin counselor and cheer/poms instructor as well as an assistant gymnastics instructor. I'm really looking forward to this opportunity! Then I sat in class all day, boring as usual!

Thursday, Alex, Christy and I went to Surfers Paradise to hang out, but it was rainy so that was kind of a bummer. That night, the bar on campus had an 80s night so we all got dressed up and went to that! It was definitely a night full of memories!

Sorry, this post is really short but I wanted to get all of this stuff in it's own post so I could dedicate the next one to my skydive!! I'm going to post that one as soon as possible but I'm still working on getting the video to upload so I'm just waiting on that!!

 80s night! I know I'm not dressed for the occasion but I'm working on a limited wardrobe.

 Rachel's Birthday dinner

Everyone here thinks I'm like 5. I got a kids menu at the restaurant and everyone always says 'How much did you pay for this fake?' when I show them my ID!