Fun Filled Photos

So just as a warning, there are a lot of car pictures in this post - For my daddy.

Wedding progression outside of the Sydney Opera House. Pretty awesome cars to be getting in after getting married in the Opera House...

Australian flags on Australia Day!

Chinese lions, in the Australia Day Parade.

Kelts and bagpipes in the Parade. 

Bollywood ..in the Parade 

Coat of Arms burger!

Star Wars... IN THE PARADE!

Emily, Britha, Maddy and me getting ready to eat the kangaroo/emu burger.

Awesome car in the car show at King's Domain after the parade. 

Shrine of Remembrance - to remember all fallen soldiers.

Me chowing down on the coat of arms. Attractive, right?

Another awesome car.

There were two - one was pink and the other was green.

Danish pancakes.....so good...

More cars :)

Racing cars? Not sure the proper term for these.

So cute :)

Emily, Maddy, Me, Alec, Katherine, McKenzie and Sophia at Federation Square - with fireworks!

I swear there were hundreds and hundreds of cars.

Me, Alec, Sophia, McKenzie, Emily, Britha, Maddy and Katherine about to eat Thai food. 

View out of the bathroom at the cafe where we had breakfast this morning :)

Lazy Morning

Hey everyone! I’m so excited for our travel break! I won’t be able to email while I’m gone, so there won’t be any posts for about a week. We’re leaving Tuesday morning for Brisbane and will spend about a day and a half there before flying up to Cairns. While in Cairns we will be staying on a boat for two days, snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef and Ella and I are also doing a crocodile boat tour on one of the days. Other than that we mostly plan to explore, shop and relax on the beaches. So exciting! Last night, after my post, we went out to dinner and then to the firework show at Federation Square. The show was pretty cool, but it’ll really didn’t have anything on the Fourth of July. We walked around for hours, looking for a dance club and by the time we were relatively close to one, I was exhausted and opted to go home. This morning, everyone slept in and when we did finally get up, we went out for breakfast. I had French toast and bacon. I have to say, bacon is far more delicious here, but we have better hash browns. We then headed over to the Queen Victoria Market for a little while, just to investigate. It was pretty cool, and all of the food smelled delicious.

Today, most everyone is scrambling to finish their papers and biology presentations, I’ve been printing and making sure everyone has flight papers and things we will need. Hannah and Ella have dubbed me “Mom” on the trip. Not that I mind, I like knowing that they appreciate my help :)

Tonight we are going to the Eureka Tower, the tallest building in Melbourne and possibly to a rooftop bar.

Anyway! Gotta go,

Love H. 

Australia Day!

Hey Everyone,
today is Australia day, which is celebrated to remember the landing of Captain Cook. It's a hugely contraversal hoilday because many people believe that we shouldn't be celebrating the day that the Britsh decided to claim a land that was not really theirs to claim.
Anyway, we went down and saw the parade this morning, which was truely interesting because so many different club, cultures and groups of communities partisipate in the parade. I'll post some pictures later to illistrate what I'm talking about. But just to get an idea the parade included a Dr. Who fan club, a Star Wars club and a knitting club...so yeah.
After that, Maddy, Britha, Emily and I went in search of a hamburger joint, called Grill'd because we were told that if you walked up to the counter and said: "I want to eat the coat of arms", they'd give you a burger of emu and kangaroo.
We'd tried to order this burger at another Grill'd location, but it seemed that only one location was offering this treat. We found the place, ordered our burgers and....it was actually pretty good. There were beets, tomatos, lettuces, a special "bush" sauce and little berries that I cannot name in it. It was quite good, and I assume we looked like tourists, snapping photos. I promise to post these.
Other than that, the past few days have been quite uneventful. Mostly school and writing papers. I finished all of mine on Thursday. We're going out again soon, we were just cold and tired so me came back to school for a little while; it's not really sunny today.
The other day, everyone was writing papers, so after lunch I wandered down to Lygon St. by myself and purchased a baby sized soomthie for me and two larges, one for Hannah and the other for Ella. (I did this to keep them motivated and prevent them from coming up with a reason to procrastinate more). I made it all the way back to the school, only to reach into my bag for my keys and gracefully drop my baby smoothie all over the ground. Sadly, I hadn't even gotten to taste it. :P
Anyway, we'll be leaving soon for Brisbane and Cairns, I'll post again soon.
love you all.

As Promised - Pictures!

Tram! We were given Myki cards when we got here, which allow us to ride these practically anywhere in the Melbourne area. 

Inside of the dining hall, as promised in one of my first posts. Kind of hard to capture it's full beauty because it is circular. 

View at the top of the lookout tower at Mt. Donna Buang. 

Sunset on Phillip Island :)

Loch Ard Gorge. Awesome rock formations.

Aboriginal art in the National Gallery of Victoria. 

photo by Ella. 

Awesome architecture around Melbourne University. 

Emu at Healesville Sanctuary. 

Dingo at Healesville. photo by Ella. 

St. Paul's Cathedral in Melbourne, close to Federation Square. 

photo by Ella. 

Flinders Street Train Station on the left. 

View of Federation Square. Just showing how there are some really modern buildings in Melbourne (on the right) compared to the gothic architecture. (straight ahead). 

Huge crowd watching the Australian Open in Federation Square. 

A lot of events happen in the square. 

View of the street. (Requested by Mom). 

Inside the Public Library of Victoria. Yes, I could get married here. 

School Week

Hey Everyone!
Sadly, this is our last full week in Melbourne. I don't have any pictures to upload at the moment but just wanted to give an update.
I don't know if i mentioned this in my last post but I'm pretty sure it was close to 115 degrees in Sydney on our first day there. It was so uncomfortable, you could feel your skin frying under the sun and forget about breathing, it felt like you were breathing hot coals.

Yesterday we had a free morning. I woke up terribly sick, and stayed in bed working on my papers until lunch time. After lunch Ella, Hannah and I went in search of cold medicine and coffee before having to get on the field trip bus at 1:30. I'm seriously starting to hate these buses, the air just dries me out and I feel icky after I get off. But we went up to the summit of Mt. Donna Buang. Since Mt. Donna Buang is sort of shaped like a body, the name translates to "the body of the mountain". Or something close to that. I can't quite remember off the top of my head. It was about 26 degrees C. at the top of the mountain and there was a huge look out tower. The look out tower was amazingly high but the view was spectacular. Being a little afraid of heights, it was a little scary but hey I made it up there and back down. Coming down the mountain, we made two other stops: The Ten Mile Picnic Ground and The Rainforest Gallery. We made all of these stops for our biology class, because we were taking about plants and as we made our way down the mountain the types of plants changed.
The majority of the trees on Mt. Donna Buang are Alpine Ash and Myrtle Beech. Alpine Ash are very old, some 300-400 years old, but there are wood beetles killing the trees and as the trees get weaker the Myrtle Beech trees take over.

Our last stop was in Kingslake where we had a presentation on some of the severe brushfires that have devastated that area. Then we went on a night walk, looking for Greater Gliders. It was hard to see, walking around in the dark forest at night but with the few flashlights we had, we did find some gliders. They are white and gray in color and about the size of a house cat. They sit high up in the trees eating the eucalyptus leaves. It was so freaking cute, Ella said it made her think of Rupert. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures because it was far too dark.
The last thing we did was walk down to a reservoir. At the reservoir a bat trap was set up which essentially looked like a giant harp but was really some metal tubing and fishing line.
The bats get tangled in the fishing line and fall into a waiting canvas ditch. This does not hurt them and researchers use the technique to tag and release them.
There was one little bat in the bag when we were there.
It was about the size of my palm and was a fully grown male. We got to pet him, and let me tell you. I would love a bat pet. He was so soft and adorable, though he did bite our guide, and it looked like it hurt. The bat may be tiny but it had little sharp teeth, kind of like a vampire bat.
Again, I couldn't take a picture :( but I can just tell you how cute it was :)

Today, we are in class again and have a field trip to the public library. Yes, I am excited for this, I love libraries. I'm pretty sure I told my mom once that I wanted to get married in a library....
Anyway, I have two out of three papers done. and I'm feeling a lot better today!
Love you all,
I'll keep you posted.

Sydney Weekend Pictures

Craig's car in Bendigo. Craig is a friend of Bruce's and has been helping with the study abroad groups for the past thirteen years.

Stone lion in the Chinese History Museum in Bendigo. Actually from the Emperor's place in China.

Post Office/War Museum in Bendigo. 

Side view of the Sydney Opera house. So amazing!

The group of us heading to La Soiree. Alec, me, Hannah, Katherine, Britha, Ella and Maddy in the Bounce Hostel.

Ella and I  in the Three Wise Monkeys.

Outside of the Three Wise Monkeys. I took this picture the next day since it was dark when we were here the first time. 

Hannah, Ella and Maddy on stone steps at Sydney Harbor. The steps lead up to the Botanical Gardens. Which were beautiful but nothing like the Bellevue Botanical Gardens. 

Strange little bird..anyone have any idea what this is?

Update on the name- Thanks for the comment saying this was an Australian coot. My biology teacher also called it a Masked Black wing. 

View from the Gardens of the Opera House and the Bridge. That bridge is the one that Ella climbed. 

Sydney Weekend

Hey everyone, so we got back from Sydney this morning. Man are we all exhausted. We left Thursday morning for Bendigo to go visit some museums, which was a two-hour train ride. The museums were really cool but it was very hot in Bendigo around 104 degrees so it was hard to enjoy being outside. Everyone was a little grumpy. We found some cool shops and had a long lunch in an air-conditioned café. Then took a two-hour train ride back only to hop on a twelve-hour bus ride. Luckily the bus was over night so we could sleep, unfortunately for those of us who were/are sick, sleeping on buses only seemed to make things worse. Everyone managed to find a comfortable spot though, some of the students sleeping on the floor of the aisle and between the rows of seats. We got to Sydney around 6:30 am; unfortunately we couldn’t get our rooms until noon. We made our way to the hostel, Bounce, and they stored our luggage in an empty room and allowed us to shower. A group of us went down to Coogee beach; we got there around 9am so we had the beach practically to ourselves. We went wave jumping and Maddy and I fell asleep in the sand. Ella stayed behind at the hostel with Hannah and they went out and explored Sydney. I got sunburned and we headed back to the hostel around 1:30. By that time, our rooms were ready and we were able to change clothes, and unpack.

That evening, a group including Ella, climbed the Sydney Harbor Bridge. I didn’t do it, fearing that I would pee my pants in fright. Sadly, they weren’t allowed to take pictures while up there but Ella said it was beautiful. It was also really rainy and there was lightening that evening; I can’t imagine being up there while lightening was going on around you. Alec, Katherine and I just explored the city, we got lost and found the Opera house and that’s when it really seemed to set in that we’re in Australia. It was truly amazing. The next day we went to this huge City Market and got lost of souvenirs and fun items for relatively cheap. In the evening we dressed up and went to the Opera. We saw La Soirée, which was a sort of circus/musical show. Ella and I were very excited that some of the acts were to Queen music. It was a spectacular show.

After the show, we went bar hopping (sorry Mom and Dad). We actually didn’t have much to drink but went to two really cool bars. The first was called The Three Wise Monkeys and the second was the Shark Hotel. We met some really nice Irish guys and had a fun evening, dancing. On Sunday we had to check out around 10:30am but got to leave our luggage again in a storeroom, and just wandered around the city until we had to get back on the bus.

We got back here around 6am and had classes at 9am; it’s been a very long and brutal day. We are all exhausted. But Sydney was amazing and fun. Though I have to say that I like Melbourne a lot better. Sydney reminded me a lot of Seattle, it was a little too dirty for my taste. I’m happy here in beautiful, clean Melbourne. Anyway, got to write my essays. I promise to get some of Ella's pictures on here tomorrow or Wednesday.

Love you all. 

The Beginning of My Week

Hey everyone, not much to say right now. Have a lot of papers coming up; school is getting a little intense. Monday we had classes all day and Tuesday we had a field trip to Cape Schanck. Which was a fun day, it was very hot but we got to poke around in the tide pools. Then we went on a long hike through the brush to a hidden beach, which was beautiful (I’ll post a picture) and the waves felt so good after the long hot hike.

Today we had class and then a tour of Parliament, which was interesting. The inside of the Parliament building has between five and six million dollars worth of gold flaking in the architecture. It’s amazingly beautiful.

Most of us are still suffering from sore throats, which have mostly turned into coughs. Sadly, this sucks even more than a sore throat.

Tomorrow we have an all day trip to Bendigo to see a War, Chinese, Art and City Museums. Directly after we return, we will be jumping on an all night bus to Sydney. We won’t be back until Monday morning, so I promise to fill you all in on how that trip went as soon as I can when we return.

Cape Schanck. 

The beach we reached after the hike. So refreshing.

Walking down the street in Melbourne. Modern buildings mixed with Gothic looking architecture.

Parliament of Victoria.

My collection of shells :)

Inside of Parliament. In the House of Representatives. 

Ceiling of the Senate in Parliament.