Easter/fall break

So I'm not used to Easter and fall breaks coinciding, but that's what you get down under. We had over two weeks off from uni, starting with Good Friday and continuing through the second Sunday after Easter. The first few days I just hung around college doing nothing in particular. There were a fair number of people around at first, but they slowly began to trickle off as the days passed. By the time I left early Friday morning, there were only a handful of kids left around. So I was happy when my trip to Cairns began.

Cairns is FANTASTIC. It's up in northern Queensland, which is in the northern part of the country, so it's pretty much tropical. It's basically a gateway city to both the Great Barrier Reef and the World Heritage Rainforest, which were two of the things I most wanted to see while in Australia. Not bad, killing two birds with one stone. It was a great time of the year to go as well. The peak tourist season is from May to September, when the weather is relatively cool and the rest of the country is in the middle of winter. By the beginning of April, the main part of the wet season is over, so the area is in transition. It still rains occasionally, but for like 10-15 minutes every few hours, as opposed to for days on end. But since it wasn't the heart of the tourist season, there weren't too many people around, which made it easier to do everything I was looking forward to.

I got into Cairns around noon on Friday, and after checking into my hostel I set out to explore the city. I was staying at Tropic Days Backpackers, an awesome hostel about 15-20 minutes walk out of the main part of the city. The city itself was pretty standard as far as tourism destinations go -- lots of souvenir shops, restaurants, travel agencies, etc. The weirdest part of the whole place was the Lagoon, a man-made pool-like thing about 15 meters from the beach. It's not safe to swim in the ocean close to the mainland in that part of Queensland because of crocodiles. It also happened to be jellyfish season, so that's a double no. So instead, you get to swim in a man-made lagoon that's onshore and look off in one direction and see the ocean not far away. Kind of a cool compromise, but a bit strange at the same time.

On Saturday morning, I got up bright and early to go on a snorkelling trip out to the reef. It was amazing. I had never been snorkelling before, so it was a bit weird at first, especially because the snorkel they gave me had gotten messed up in the storage tub so water kept coming in every time I breathed. But I figured out how to fix it, and then the whole thing was awesome. It's cool how much you can see even from just under the surface. It was a bit cloudy that day, so the coral didn't show up in all of it's full color (i.e., the pictures don't look like still frames from "Finding Nemo"), but it was still really pretty. The trip I was on stopped at two separate locations. First we went to Michaelmas Cay, which is a small sand island in the middle of the reef. It was a good location for first-time snorkelling, since you could return to shore as needed. The shallowness of the water also made it really easy to see everything. After about an hour, we reboarded the catamaran and moved out into the reef itself, away from all land. The water was deeper here, but there was more coral around, so it was just as cool. I saw all kinds of fish out there, including a clown fish. The people who went diving saw a few turtles and even a reef shark. The trip was fantastic, but by the time it was over, I was exhausted from so much sun and swimming, so I was more than ready to crash by the time I got back.

The next day (Sunday), I took a ferry out to Fitzroy Island, a rainforested "steep mountain-top peeping from the sea" (according to Lonely Planet). It's a protected national park, so there's almost nothing on the island except a small resort. There weren't very many people on the island that day either, so I got some much needed alone time. I spent the whole day hiking over the island's different trails, including one up to the lighthouse and then up to the summit. The views from those two high points on the island were fantastic. The water was so blue, even compared to the sky, and at points you could even see the dark patches where the reef was particularly close to the surface off shore. It was so beautiful. After spending several hours at the island, I took the ferry back over the the mainland, where once again exhaustion set in.

Monday marked my departure from the city of Cairns into the small rainforest village of Kuranda. There are several transportation options between the two locations, but I chose to take Skyrail, the longest sky cable car line in the world -- over 7.5 km! It travels over the canopy of the rainforest, stopping at two spots along the way so that you can look around. The first stop is in the middle of the rainforest, where a park ranger takes you along a boardwalk and points out different plants (and animals if you're lucky enough to see any). The second stop is close to Barron Falls, a waterfall in the area. Since it's no longer the wet season, the falls were not in full torrent. I would love to have seen it in full flood, but it was still spectacular. The rest of the Skyrail journey was just over the top of the rainforest canopy, providing great awesome views both down into the rainforest and out over the city, the coast, or the mountains.

The ride lasted about an hour and a half, bringing me into Kuranda around 11 am. I then set off to wander around the village with all the other tourists. It's a typical tourist town, with lots of shops and restaurants along a single main drag. I stopped in several of these, and then after a quick lunch set off to find the Kuranda Rainforest Accommodation Park. It was a good distance out of the village center, and was really located in the middle of the rainforest. After walking the long way around to find it, the owner pointed out a shortcut to me in the event that I wanted to head back into the village. That day, however, I chose just to hang around my room and read and listen to the rain. It was some much needed relaxation. That evening, I went to dinner at the on-site restaurant, which was the best fish and chips I think I have ever eaten. And certainly the biggest portion. Every Monday, the restaurant owner shows an old movie after dinner, so I hung around to watch "The Magnificent Seven", a western starring Steve McQueen among others. It was a good ending to the day.

The next day, I slept in later than usual, since I had no specific time table for the day. Around 11 am, I headed back into the village. I didn't really want to spend all day wandering around the shops again, so I chose to hike out to Barron Falls. It was 3-4 km each way, so it was a decent hike, but it was well worth it. After I got a bit out of the village center, the whole walk was through rainforest, and the views from the lookouts along the trail were spectacular. The final lookout was a bit closer to the falls and from a different angle than that of the Skyrail stop, so I got some fresh views. After spending some time there, I headed back into the village and got an early dinner before going back to my accommodation and just hanging out there for the night.

Wednesday was the day of my return to Adelaide, so I woke up early to head back into the village and catch a bus back down to Cairns. It wasn't nearly as scenic, but there was no need to do Skyrail twice, and the bus was only $2. Upon my return to the city, I stopped by Tropic Days to pick up my luggage and then took a shuttle to the airport. And here I am, back in Adelaide. Okay, so I've been back for a week and a half, but I'm just now updating my blog (terrible, I know). I just got so excited as people kept coming back to college that I completely forgot that I had never written about my trip. But here it is, in full long detail. Hope you enjoyed it, because I sure did.

The Cup Part 2: swimming and cricket

Competition for the Intercollegiate Cup has been in full swing ever since it kicked off with tennis last Sunday. On Thursday evening, a big group of Lincolnites headed down to the Aquatic Center to watch our swim team take on the other colleges. There was a fair bit of pressure on the swimmers, as this is the one sport that we ever do very well in, having won the past two years. So we wanted to give them as much support as possible. And it all paid off. We won all but I think two of the events, finishing with a total of 80 points and destroying all of the competition (Flinders Hall came in second with around 42 points). The Lincoln crowd was going crazy for the entire 90 minutes of the competition. We had some organized cheers, but my personal favorite was when the Americans in the crowd pulled out the Tomahawk Chop when one of the American guys swimming won his race. At first the rest of the Lincolnites were a bit confused as to what we were doing, but they joined in soon enough. It was awesome! Unfortunately, I screamed myself hoarse during the competition, and I still haven't quite recovered all of my voice (4 days after the fact). But it was so worth it.

Some of the swimming performances by Lincoln were ridiculous. One of the guys, Aaron, blew the competition out of the water during the 50 m butterfly. He finished at least 10-15 m ahead of everyone else, which is almost unheard of for such a short distance. I mean, we all know he goes to the gym all the time, but geez... During the last race, the Mixed Medley Relay (two guys and two girls from each team), one of the American girls, Vanessa, was the anchor for our team, doing the freestyle. The other teams had guys for this portion of the relay, since guys' times tend to be a bit faster in general, so you want them to bring up the rear. Not Lincoln, however, and it was awesome. Vanessa had told us to watch out for her freestyle at the relays, but I have to admit, I didn't think it was going to be that awesome. Going into the last leg, we were slightly behind one of the other teams (whose final swimmer was a guy). But over those 50 m, Vanessa managed to not only make up the difference, but to overtake him by probably 5 m. Ridiculous.

After swimming, we had cricket to look forward to. And I am sad to say, we didn't quite live up to the hype. No one was expecting us to do as well as in swimming, since the other colleges in general have better athletics than we do. But I don't think anyone was quite prepared for the debacle of the girls game against Flinders Hall. I mean, with an American captain (myself) who had never played before last Monday, they should have been expecting a pretty poor show, but this was a bit much. After winning the coin toss, I elected to have our team field first, so that we could get a better idea of batting before we had to do it ourselves. In the 20 overs (one over consists of 6 bowls), Flinders scored 114 runs. They have a very good team, so they did well for themselves while batting, but a large portion of those runs were due to mistakes in bowling on our part. We had entirely too many wide bowls (bounces outside the crease before it gets to the batter), which are worth 1 run each, and no-bowls (can happen several ways: the ball bounces too many times on the way down the crease, or the bowler bends her arm, or...), which are worth 2 runs each. Then it was our turn to bat. We knew pretty well that we were going to lose, but I think we had hoped to get more than 3 runs. The girls bowling for Flinders were insanely good. After the game, one of the Lincoln guys told me that the lead bowler for the Flinders team would probably be the number two bowler on our guys team, and we have some good bowlers. She bowled out two batters in the first three bowls. But regardless of the final score (to recap: Flinders 114, Lincoln 3), we had fun. And the other two American girls on the team put in a good showing: Sarah got 3 of our 4 outs (two catches, one bowled wicket) while we were fielding and scored our one run not due to a wide, and Mary did a fantastic job as wicket keeper (almost getting someone out three times).

After we got destroyed in our game, most of us stuck around to watch the guys game against Aquinas, as they had gotten up early to support us. They did pretty well in batting, but they had a few unlucky breaks resulting in our best batters getting out early, so the showing wasn't quite enough for the win. But in the first round, only one team is eliminated, based on who loses by the largest margin (the winning team from the year before gets a first round by, since there are 5 colleges). And since Flinders Hall beat St. Ann's pretty soundly, the Lincoln guys will be playing again next week, likely against St. Mark's (last year's champions). After a few more trainings this week, they should be able to put together a strong showing. Hopefully we'll be able to get them a larger support side for the upcoming game. I know I'll be there.

fun in the sun

I spent more time outside this weekend than I have in a longgggggg time. It was awesome. Since I don't have any classes on Fridays, I headed down to the beach at Glenelg with a handful of people. Most of the other Americans also worked out their schedules to not have classes on Fridays so that they could travel if they wanted, so we had a pretty good sized group. The water felt amazing! And I stopped being able to touch the sea floor before I stopped being able to see it, it was so clear. Doesn't happen too often on the Atlantic coast.

Then on Saturday, some of the guys from college (Jimmy, Russell, Jeff, and Bing) had a scrimmage for their soccer team, the Adelaide Blacks. Brittany and I headed down there to enjoy the nice weather and cheer them on. And of course it's always a bonus to avoid doing school work for just a bit longer. That night we played an intense game of Monopoly. I lost pretty handily, although two people did go out before me, so it wasn't too bad. Fun times though.

Sunday marked the beginning of the Intercollegiate Cup with tennis. The Cup is between the five major undergrad residential colleges here in Adelaide (Lincoln, St. Ann's, St. Mark's, Aquinas, and Flinders Hall). So I got up bright and early to go cheer our team. Lauren and Sarah beat the 1st girls from St. Ann's, which was the first match Lincoln had won in tennis in about 3 years! Go team! Our 1st boys team almost won a couple of their matches, going down to the wire twice. Lincoln is generally pretty bad at tennis, so we were thrilled with coming in 4th in the event (by beating Flinders 3-2). Way to go team for not starting out last!

The Cup keeps going this week with swimming on Thursday. We usually do pretty well in the swimming competition, and our teams have been training hard all week. And then Sunday kicks off...cricket! I learned the rules and how to bowl (re: pitch) on Monday, and today we're supposed to have our first real training session (fingers crossed!). I'm pretty excited about it myself....

p.s.

Yeah, I forgot to mention two important things. One of them I "forgot" because I hadn't actually done it yet at the time, but now I have, so it sort of counts.

1. I have been chosen (or rather, I volunteered because no one else would) to be the captain of the girls' cricket team for Lincoln College. Apparently it doesn't matter that I have no idea how to play, because I told them that and they didn't seem to care. So yeah, now I have to learn how to play cricket. And try to convince a bunch of girls that they really want to play too.

2. I now have a picture website! (This is the one I hadn't done by the time of my last post.) It can be found at:

http://picasaweb.google.com/lrpiper


Right now it's just pictures from O-Week, but there will soon be more...hopefully. Enjoy!

finally!

So I know, basically, I suck, and haven't yet gotten around to starting up a blog and making posts.
But today, the first day of classes for me, I finally decided that I should do that. One, because I'm getting yelled at by more and more people. Two, it helps me put off the 15 pages of reading that I have to do for tomorrow. Not that it's going to take long, but I don't particularly want to do it right after spending 3 hours in class.

Like I mentioned before, today was the first day of classes. Well, yesterday, but since my schedule is awesome I have no classes on Mondays...or Fridays. My economics professor seems like he's going to be a fun guy, as he spent 10 minutes of today's hour long lecture bashing the United States for various economic and foreign policy moves of the last 40 years. Which was made even funnier by the fact that he's clearly American (based on accent). The tourism class seems like it's going to be pretty awesome as well, though I think the final project is going to be a killer one. I don't have my EIA class until Thursday (one 3-hour lecture per week, hopefully it's not too boring), and I'm still shopping around for a good fourth class. Looking for something in the history or politics departments, but as I'm trying to avoid classes on Mondays and Fridays, there aren't a whole lot of options. We'll see.

Last week was college O-Week, and it was basically like being back at summer camp. I had a blast. Some of the main activities were: Barn Dance, Scavenger Hunt, Movie & Games Night, Beach Day, and Op Shop Ball (op shop = thrift store). Op Shop Ball was definitely the most entertaining -- some people found some ridiculous clothes at the nearby thrift stores. Based on these events and running errands around the city with other students, I've gotten a decent idea of the layout of the city, but I'm still working on it.

I've met a bunch of cool people, especially here at Lincoln College. The college atmosphere really forces you to get out and meet the other people living here, which is definitely a bonus. The rest of the American exchange students are fun to hang out with, and it's nice to have other people from home to talk about the stuff we miss. (Example: Jimmy grew up in Fluvanna and now goes to William & Mary, so we talk about Virginia every once in a while -- though we mostly just complain about the lack of bagels in this country and how much we miss Bodo's.) Though I've mostly been trying to get to know the Australians, as all the other Americans are leaving in July, so I want to make sure I'll still have friends here when they go. I haven't yet found an awesome group of girls to do everything with, but I'm working on it, and in the meantime there are more than enough cool people to hang out with.

That's about all for now, since I don't want to make this post go on for pages and pages (it's already a bit lengthy). The weather here is AMAZING, especially now that it's cooled down somewhat. For awhile it was getting up to 40 degrees Celsius in the heat of the day, which is around 107 or 108 degrees Fahrenheit. TOO HOT. It's still a bit warm when you have to walk 15 minutes from uni at 2 pm, but what can you do, and it should cool off for good within a couple of weeks.

I'll do my best to keep this updated regularly...but no guarantees, sorry :)