Travels.

G'day mates,

Well the parents requested I write a new blog about the trip and since they helped to fund it, I deemed it a reasonable request. So here is goes.

The trip began at 10pm on the 2nd of June; this is when we left the college to get to the airport. We checked in on-line so we said bye to the boys who drove us and headed to security. Everything was uneventful with the traveling. We finally arrived in Phnom Penh after a day and night of travel and got a cab to our hostel. When trying to communicate with the cab driver I think we all got nervous there was going to be a huge language barrier but everything worked out almost everyone we talked to spoke some type of English and we also learned some words in Cambodian and Thai like hi, bye, and thank you. When we would use these, the locals would be surprised or would sometimes laugh.

So…in Phnom Penh we went to:

Killing Field Memorial

·         Choung Ek killing field

·         Russian Market

·         Toul Slang museum (torture prison)

·         Wat Phnom (big hill/temple praying area)

·         Night Market

Those are the highlights. It was packed and busy but so awesome! We booked a bus from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap which was around 5 hours. It was a long and bumpy ride but we got to see so much more of rural Cambodia than if we would have flown. We arrived to Siem Reap pretty uneventfully but once we parked it was literally a swarm of tuk tuk drivers. They were waiting outside this gate and they literally counted down and then charged, it was a frightening experience.



The magic tree. It made the sounds of the tortured and dying people disappear by having a loudspeaker playing music all the time. 



 

Temples at sunrise



In Siem Reap we:



·         Went to the Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom temples as well as some other randoms

·         Saw the sunrise over the temples

·         Climbed the temples

·         Meditated at a temple

·         Got cheap massages which includes the one where you put your feet in a tank and the fish eat your skin

·         Took a Khmer cooking class

·         Found another night market

·         Went out and drank “bowls” and may or may not have danced on a booth J



Cooking class

After 1.5 days we booked a bus to Bangkok so we could meet up with our friend there. The first bus to the Cambodian border was overbooked, luckily we three had seats. There were people sitting in the aisle and a lot of people who didn’t get on. The ride to the boarder was around 3 hours and it was not exciting. Once we got to the boarder we “checked out” and had to walk across the Thailand boarder to enter and go through immigration then wait for our next bus. This day was just a fiasco. While waiting for the second pick up I witnessed a drug deal and learned that Poi Pet (where we were) is known as a Thai vacation places because it offers drugs, hookers, and gambling. How special. Finally after about 8 hours total we arrived to our final destination.

In Bangkok we:

·         Rode Elephants

·         Petted Tigers

·         Went to a floating market (which included a longtail boat ride)

·         Visited yet another night market

·         Got Thai Massages

·         Went to Wat Pho known for the reclining Buddha

·         I got sick

·         Finally we got Starbucks! Haha (we all missed it)

Overall, this trip was the trip of a lifetime. I had an amazing time and the pictures are amazing and the memories unforgettable. However, I was pretty glad to get back to Tommy and see all my friends. Everyone as so excited to have u s back and welcomed us with many hugs. Now it is time to buckle down and study for exams. Only two more weeks until I am done and the Family comes to travel! AND one more month until I return home; I can’t believe this experience is coming to an end…



Floating Market



Barefoot Contessa.

So, firstly about the title…I don’t actually know anything about Contessa or if she is a person or if this is a show but Steph talked about the food and recipes a fair bit last year.  The reasons for this title is because it is a cooking show and had a cooking fiesta on cinco de mayo and it includes barefoot, which is a cultural norm here and isn’t so much at home.

Cinco de Mayo, the fifth of May, is a Mexican holiday that more Americans than Mexicans celebrate. I found this out from Roman, a boy here from Notre Dame. He said that only people in southern Mexico actually celebrate it however we had a nice little cooking party in the kitchenette here. Roman made beans and rice and the girls made steak tacos and guacamole, it was an awesome dinner! And all the Australians were amazed by this Mexican food we were making and this holiday; none of them were familiar with the holiday.

Walking barefoot at home isn’t really ok unless you’re on the beach and even then if you want to go to a shop the regular course of action would be to put on shoes and then go but here it is completely ok to go into a store or even food place barefoot. No shirt, no shoes, no service obviously doesn’t apply. This all ties in to my regular days here because sometimes I appreciate talking my shoes off when I am walking back from class. The other day for a marine biology we went to the river for our lab class. It was awesome to learn outside of a classroom, I have never done that at home. After being in the river I was a bit sandy and wet though so I decided I didn’t want to put my sandals on the walk home and it was perfectly ok.

As for the update about spring break, the trip was amazing! I saw so many things! My highlights would be snorkeling with a whale shark, sea turtles, and real sharks, sand boarding, hiking through gorges, and visiting a province. I was pretty scared when I saw the first shark. I was just snorkeling around the reef by myself and this shark swims into vision it was around 5 feet, I kind of froze and it kept going about its business I tried to snap a picture so we’ll see if I have the proof when I get my camera developed. I need to expand a little on the province. This guy was a wheat farmer and didn’t like Australia’s tax laws so decided he didn’t want to be part of Australia anymore. He did his research, found some loop holes, went to court and they declared him his own province. This man is now in his 80s and he declared himself prince of his province. The province has its own constitution, flag, currency system, and so on (It was all a little bit crazy).

School, the reason I am here, is going really well I had two mid semester tests and did really well on both! They don’t release the finals schedule until late May so I am anxious to find out when my finals are so I can get them over with and finally get the family over here so we can travel!

I think that is it for now. I’ll leave you with a couple of pictures!

at pinnacles

gorges

left my mark on a road sign

with prince leonard

sand boarding

emu

hehe

Easter.

As this wonderful time of the year approaches ever so quickly, I find myself sad that I will not be getting a visit from the Easter bunny this year. Although many may find this tradition a pastime and long ago retired practice, I have always looked forward to receiving the peeps to blow up in the microwave, the assortment of chocolate eggs, and most importantly the egg shaped Reese's. I love Easter surprises. Although I am now too old for Easter egg hunts, I cherish those memories when we ran around stealing each others eggs and trading candy. In addition to the hunts, I always enjoyed dying hard boiled eggs and then doing the crack contest. All Easters were spent with my grandma and I miss them, she always had a hunt even though we were too old and insisted on making eggs for everyone even if they weren't going to be there. These memories are irreplaceable and these traditions will live on. This weekend at the college there are many services and different rules to honor the holy triduum (since it is a catholic college). A lot of students have already headed home for break and we leave for our trip north on Monday morning. We are heading up to ningaloo reef in hopes of swimming with some manta rays and diving with whale sharks (don't worry steve, even thought I will be glad to be reunited I WONT swim away with my whale family).

In the past couple of weeks since my last update I have taken a trip to Margaret river. We went to a couple wineries and breweries where we did tastings and took a lot of pictures, the trip was a blast! We went to a surf competition on Saturday that weekend and an American won and then a concert that night to celebrate the end of the competition. It was awesome! We hope to take another trip down to Margaret river in May and go camping.

In other trip news, I booked a flight to Thailand for our study break in June, I can't wait. So many life experiences! I can not thank my parents enough for giving me this opportunity!

School is going really well, I am soo happy that we have break now though. I was getting pretty tired of it. I handed in a huge marine bio report today worth 16% of my grade and had my first exam Monday. Hopefully it went ok. I have one the day we return from break also. I got back a health assessment report and got 10/10 and its worth 10% of my grade so that's a nice start. I am enjoying my classes overall, but can't wait to get back to U of I. I have met a couple Aussies coming to U of I next semester and have promised to show them a good time once there even though Dad plans on retiring and coming to live with me and relive his college years! Cant wait for that either.

I think that is all for now. I will leave you with some pictures and will update after my trip!
Also when I gave out my address here I gave the wrong number so here is the updated one but everything makes it here eventually so its alright :)

St. Thomas More College
Mounts Bay Road
Crawley, WA 6009
Australia



at Voyager winery



This is my neighbor, Trent...

In Busselton on Margaret River Weekend

Surf Lessons

Caving at Margaret River

Julie and I as grapes for River cruise

RAIN.

It finally rained in Australia. I can't believe I saw rain for the first time in ages. I have missed it terribly.

Sorry I haven't updated in ages either! School has been picking up along with other commitments. I would have updated last week but I found myself pretty useless after getting sick. Last Wednesday I started feeling really terrible like feverish and had a bad sore throat. I went to the 'medical centre' here and when the doctor looked at my throat she said 'ew, gross.' Bad Sign. She put me on antibiotics and sent me on my way. I started to feel a bit better so decided to play rugby that night. It was really awesome, I had never played before, but it probably wasn't best for my illness. I took the rest of the week and and weekend to recover and finally started feeling better on Sunday just in time for ultimate frisbee. I think we placed second in rugby and frisbee (we lost one game each time).

School is going fine, I have two midterms next next Monday so I am starting to stress about those a little bit. My grades do transfer back to U of I so I need to do well. I register for my classes next semester tonight at midnight due to the time difference. I will be glad to have that done, I'm so nervous for my senior year!! Wah! I don't know what to do with my life! In other news for U of I, I think I convinced a student from here to study abroad there. That will be fun!

I think we might be traveling to Margaret River this weekend with a friend. Her mom is going to give us a tour on Saturday of all the wineries and such and then Sunday we are going to watch a huge surfing competition. I also can't wait to travel for break. We are heading up north the exmouth and nigaloo reef, it sounds awesome. Lastly some girls are talking about traveling to Thailand for our week study break so we might do that as well. I love all these adventures because I might never be over here again, sadly.

I can't wait for the family to come visit once I finish the semester. I miss them lots :)

Well, I should head off the class. I have a lab today to talk about the data we collected from our beach field trip. We had to snorkel around the reef and count species. I could have never done that at home!

Blarg.

This wonderful title is from my N-block neighbor, Trent. I wandered into his room and explained I needed to write a new blog post and he stopped me and repeated blog as if he coudnt understand what I was saying. After he repeated it he went on to explain how I say it wrong and spelled out how I say it. He spelled out b-l-a-r-g. So here is it, my new blarg post...

Well this weekend was as exciting as I thought it would be. It stated out with the Ball Friday night. It was pretty fun and filled with wine, mimosas, pictures, and dancing. It was overall a fun time except for the gash in my leg and two pieces of glass we had to dig out of my feet.
The next morning we awoke at 7am and headed to rockingham so we could visit Penguin Island. Apparently during low tide you can walk from the mainland to the island but after hearing some tried last year and got swept away we decided to pass. After arriving on the island we walked around and took lots of pictures. We then went to watch a penguin feed; the little guys were so cute! After that was a glass bottom boat tour where we found some sea lions. It was rather exciting. After all of that we decided to head back to college so we could catch some march madness basketball coverage. Saturday night I decided I couldn't be bothered going to the Senior Common Room opening and decided to take it easy.
Sunday morning was another early morning for intercollege softball. We ended up winning both of our games and have two more next weekend. After that we went and watched the Tommy More boys play cricket. I finally understand the game I think. Its obviously just too boring for America to have a team :)
That brings us to today. I woke up early so I could live stream the illini KU game online. Unfortunately we lost, but we put up a good fight. After the game I went to class, nothing too exciting. This week is just another 'normal' week. We are looking forward to the river cruise that Tommy has on Friday.

Thats it. I'll update soon-ish.

St. Patricks Day.

It's a new day here and I'm feelin' good. Last night we had our swimming carnival. It's basically a big swim meet that all the residential colleges participate in. It was pretty fun. Tommy did alright but I don't think we won. I won however and was the only winner from Tommy! I was so nervous to jump back in the pool and swim competitively again since I ended my career in high school, but I was signed up for the 50 breaststroke and ended up getting first place! The all girls college had some really strong swimmers but I beat their swimmer by half a body length apparently. I don't mean to sound too proud if that's what this is coming off as it was just a rush and so exciting! After the meet everyone headed to the Tav which is the campus tavern for drinks and socializing. It was a good night and we got to mix with the students from other colleges.

As for this weekend, it looks exciting. Today is St. Patricks Day and we are doing a little bit of celebrating. Tomorrow night is the intercollegiate ball which hasn't happened for 5 years so it seems like a big deal so I will be attending, I even got a new dress for it (pictures up later). Saturday is the opening of a exclusive senior room here so we will have a little get together for that. And lastly Sunday the girls are playing softball and the boys are playing cricket for the intercollegiate sports. I will update after all these events in another post on Sunday night. So be on the lookout!

Hope all is well in the states.

p.s. it is a HOT 91 degrees today...just thought you all should know :)

Sunshine.

Two of the finest RAs and myself

I feel like I should blog because its been awhile, but I feel like I don't have to much to say.

School is going well so far, no new updates there.

Residential college life is going really well, never a dull moment. We always find time to hangout in the JCR (junior common room) or time to go out on the town. This Friday night we also had our first formal dinner of the semester. We all had to dress up, attend mass and a 'pre-drink' session, and finally the actual dinner. It was really well put together and such a nice event! I think all the free wine and alcohol may have gotten to a few people though ha it was a memorable night! Today (Sunday) the Morons (St. Thomas More residents) are playing in an inter-college basketball tournament. Throughout the semester, the college offers many different sports for us to compete in against the other colleges. This coming Wednesday is swimming so I think I will give it a go. That's all for that.

Lastly, I shall talk about relationships and thoughts. There are a lot of great people here that I have had the opportunity to meet. Last night we decided to stay in after the exciting formal Friday night and watch a movie. After the movie Anna, a "local" and I had some good life chats. It is the new people and experiences like that which will impact my experience and life. I am just trying to make it a point to branch out because a good friend from home (Aubree!) wrote me a letter before I left with 5 rules/pieces of advice so i MUST follow them right? Other than that, I am just trying to make the most of every experience and take opportunities as they arise so that I can look back and know that I did everything right for a 'perfect' experience.

I miss everyone from home, I really do and I love when everyone sends me messages and comments randomly so I know that I'm not forgotten about hehe. Oh and the tsunami and earthquake didn't hit here at all for all who have been asking.

Until next time..