My apologies for not updating in forever. It’s been a busy past few weeks. I suppose I should start from where I left off.
The weekend after the 11th week of classes I traveled with Mike and his two friends, Michelle who goes to Berkeley and another girl who goes to BU, to the Dandenog Ranges park. We did a hike called the Kokoda Trail which mimicked a tail in another country. We couldn’t exactly figure out why the replicated it in Australia but enjoyed it none the less. Part of the trail was called the 1000 steps. They weren’t kidding about it being 1000 steps. For a few days after getting home I was insanely sore from doing the hike. There was another hike that we did as well to see a dinky little waterfall. We weren’t really impressed by the waterfall but the rest of the 3 mile hike was beautiful. We also had a really great time driving around and getting lost in the mountains.
Last week was the last week of classes at Melbourne University. I really enjoyed a few of my classes so I was sad for them to end. On the other hand, I’ll never have to listen to my patronizing biochem professor ever again which will be a delight.
On Saturday I went snorkeling with Dawit, Mike, and Brian. We went back to the Mornington Peninsula to the towns of Portsea and Rye. We went out by the piers and swam under them. We saw tons of life: puffer fish, a school of salmon, star fish, kelp, weedy dragons (sea horses), and rays.
On Sunday we studied.
On Monday I went surfing with Mike, Abdul (Mike’s roommate), Michelle, and Brian. I was wearing a pink wet suit and used a pink surf board and called myself malibu barbie all day. I stood up! I had so much fun. I want to do it again and again until I’m amazing at it. I love being in the water so much. After getting out due to exhaustion and unattaching myself from my surf board I decided it would be a wonderful idea to go swimming. I took off my wetsuit, which was possibly the best feeling ever because I had been in it for over 5 hours, and went back into the water. It’s so interesting how different swimming feels after surfing. I was no longer intimidated by the waves that I had been surfing on but I would have been had I not gone surfing. I was easily able to swim out past the surfers which I found funny because as a surfer I had trouble getting to that point (even with my “floatation device”). By the time I had gotten out of the water everyone else was fully dressed and had almost entirely loaded the car. I could have stayed in longer but I figured people wanted to get home.
On Tuesday there was a state holiday, the 149th Melbourne Cup. It is the largest horse race in the world. 100,000 people attend from all over the world. People show up in their best apparel and wear fancy hats (the women most often wear fascinators which are funny feathery things that stick up out of their hair) and spend the day boozing and schmoozing. My friends and I bet between ourselves, each picking two horses and whose ever horse came closest to first would win the money. Abdul won both races and had actually managed to pick the winning horses. Although he was excited by his net profit of $26, he was disappointed that he hadn’t bet with the bookies; neither of the horses were set to win and had AMAZING odds. His $5 would have been over $100. Meanwhile he had convinced everyone around us that he had bet several thousand dollars and so had everyone congratulating him after the race. It was hilarious. We met a woman from Queensland who turned out to be the highlight of our day. Brian was made to wear a “monkey” suit but had no shoes to match and so wore his trail running shoes (black suit with brown/blue shoes) and this woman was asked what she thought about it. In response she took a bite out of his PB&J and proceeded to tell him that his sandwich didn’t make up for his style. She then gave us “high fives for Jesus” and screeched, “YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!” She’s pictured with Brian at the top of this page. Later I accidentally befriended a woman who was trying to cut in front of us to get a better view. She caught the evil eye I gave her and said, “it’s all right, I’m on a mission from God.” We introduced her to “Jesus” and they hit it off quite nicely for a while. She was one of the people who was convinced that Abdul had actually bet big money on the race. After the races were over we went out for pizza and had a quiet night in after being in the sun all day.
It’s back to studying for me. Finals begin next week and mom comes to visit!
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