Another Week in Paradise!

So Monday came as a harsh reminder that I'm actually here to go to class, not just go to the beach/rainforest/other magical places. But I'm happy to say I have officially survived my first week of Australian classes! :) Classes here are much different than at App. Every class has a lecture and a tutorial, or "tute" as the Australians call them since they like to shorten every word possible. Here is my schedule:

ENS 372: Integrated Marine Systems
ENS 242: Intro to Weather and Climate
GEO 350: Animal Geographies
ENS 222: Animal Diversity and Ecology

Integrated Marine Systems is meant for "third year" students (seniors), so I might be in over my head a little, but I'm SO excited for the class anyway! There are about 8 of us in the class, and I think the material is going to be really interesting to me. AND I found out we're going on a field trip in a few weeks to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world and the only place on the planet where rainforest grows from sand. We're going to do research on birds (Dr. K- wish you could go!) and we'll be there for two nights and it's FREE. I am SO stoked!!!

Intro to Weather and Climate should also be a good class. My professor is really nice and the class is meant for anybody, so it hopefully won't be too tough. I learned about the weather in my environmental science class in high school and found it really interesting so I'm thinking I'll like this class!

I think Animal Geographies is going to be one of those classes that makes you think about things you've never really thought about before. The professor is a huge animal lover like me and I think she'll have some cool stories to tell (she showed us a picture of her with lions!)

Animal Diversity and Ecology sounds like the material will be AWESOME, but I think I'm going to drop it. There is a TON of work to do for it, and if you know me well enough to be reading this you probably already know that I'm an extremely hard worker, but I want to be able to enjoy my time here without constantly stressing about school work. That's why I took 18 hours my fall semester and 19 hours my spring semester- so I could get here and take few hours without getting behind and fully enjoy the experience here. Plus there is a mandatory field trip during our 2 week break, which is when I'm planning on doing a lot of traveling. And the class is my only Friday class so if I drop it I'll have three day weekends to travel. But dropping it could affect my visa, so I need to talk to somebody at USC to figure it out.

Anyway, I have Wednesdays free, so on Wednesday I slept in and then headed to Mooloolaba Beach by myself (after doing an entire sinkful of dishes- Mom, you should be proud!) I brought my book and just laid on the beach and read while watching the surfers and the sunset. It was chilly out but the beach was beautiful, as always!

 There are seriously surfers EVERYWHERE in Australia! I cannot wait to learn; I feel like I'm such a surfer at heart haha!

 And this is a 20 minute bus ride away from my school... am I lucky or what?!

Last night (Friday night), Sam, Megan, Aren, Eli, Erick, Peter and I went to Mooloolaba for dinner. I bought some garlic bread (I didn't want to spend money on a full meal haha) that was basically a pizza and was delicious! Then Megan and I split a caramel chocolate dessert, which was pretty tasty too!

 Our dessert!

I'll definitely have to do some of these while I'm here!

Then last night the roomies + Aren (she's practically our fifth roommate) watched Made of Honor. Then I got to Skype my Sheild family (well, Katie, Ellie and Momma Sheild), which was magical. I loved hearing all about Katie's study abroad trip! Oh and I also got to Skype Monica and Muhammad earlier this week, which was amazing as well! I miss all of my friends so so SO much!!!

Today we all slept in. Then I got to Skype my parents and wish my dad a happy birthday. They're going on our annual beach trip tomorrow and I wish SO badly that I could go on it and then just come back here right after! Anyways, then a big group of us (everybody from last night plus Helen and Brent, Peter's Aussie roommate) walked to a restaurant for a cheap-ish lunch and then went to Sam's, which is a big store with everything from food to toiletries to art supplies. Sam's is the cheapest store we've been to, so it was exciting even though I didn't get much. When we got back to the apartment I went for a run. Best run I've ever been on! SO beautiful! I am so blessed to be here!!!

Tonight, Helen made the delicious lasagna that she, Amy and I bought the ingredients for awhile ago. It was scrumptious! Then Amy invited me to go bowling with her, her roommates, and her roommate's friends. I was so pumped! Amy is lucky and has 2 Australian roommates, who are both super nice.

 Me and Amy! We've been great friends ever since we met in the LA airport! :)

 I bought Sarsaparilla- Australia's version of root beer! I don't think I'll ever be able to say it!

 Me and Amy's Aussie roomie, Bianca, but we all call her B!

 Amy, Me, Pat (the 2nd Aussie), and Mat

 I got a strike and was allowed to spin the wheel...

 I got to pick a prize out of the red bucket! WOOHOOO!!!

...And I got a super cheap plastic bead kit haha

Then when we got back I went to Peter's and joined everybody to watch the Olympics for a little while. I'm planning on going to the beach for the whole day tomorrow, even if nobody goes with me (nobody else is as crazy about the beach as I am haha). 

Sorry this blog wasn't quite as exciting as the others, but just wanted to give everyone an update. Love and miss you all lots and lots!

Hugs from Australia!

Sara

Noosa!

Friday night Sam (my adorable roomie from Tennessee) and I decided we wanted to go to Noosa the next day and we figured out which buses we had to take. When we told everyone about it, they were pretty pumped too! At that point I didn't really know her group of friends, but I always jump at the opportunity to make new friends and they all seemed really nice so I was excited to get the chance to know them all better. So on Saturday morning, Sam, Helen, Aren (from North Dakota), Eli (from Boston but goes to Elon), Erick (from Minnesota), Sebastian (or as we like to call him, Sea-Bass- from Austria), Peter (from Charlotte! Went to Providence and goes to Elon and was an Eagle Scout with Ross!!!) and I got on the bus around 11. We had to take 2 buses and it took a little more than an hour and a half to get to Noosa, which was longer than we expected but so totally worth it. Once we got there we walked around and tried to figure out what to do. We saw the main beach (so pretty!) but kept walking until we found a more secluded beach, called "Little Cove", where we decided we would spend the rest of the day. First we had to get lunch though. Once again, I had brought a PB&J with me, so I ate that while everyone else bought lunch in the food court. I did stop in a store to buy a t-shirt that said Noosa that was on sale for $10 though! I'm trying to buy as many things that say Australia as possible since I don't know when I'll ever be back. To get to "Little Cove" we went through part of Noosa National Park, which was highly recommended in the book Uncle Peter gave me. I want to go back to hike more of the trails though because it was beautiful!

 You can't quite see it in this picture, but the beach is right behind these trees!

 Earlier during the day before we left our apartment we had actually heard and seen an ice cream truck driving past our apartment complex- guess they're pretty popular here!

 Food Court!

 The main beach!

 Helen even looks cute for the beach! 

 Where we spent the majority of our day! 

 We saw DOLPHINS!!! I'm sure you can all imagine just how excited I was!

 Me and Sam! Love her already!!!

Erick, Eli, Helen, me, Sam, Aren, Sebastian, and Peter

I was SO excited to finally be doing what I always pictured myself doing in Australia (other than whale watching, koala cuddling, etc.)- laying on the beach with great friends, enjoying the sunshine and the beautiful view!

Four of us decided to get in the water, even though it was pretty chilly! I'm the one with her arms up in the air (of course  haha :) )

 Eli, me, Sam, and Peter

 This is where the artsy pictures started... me taking a picture of Sam taking a picture of Peter with his frisbee!

 Eli!

 Erick!

I always have to take a picture of my feet in the ocean any time I go to the beach! 

 Right after I took this picture an Irish guy came up to me with his Aussie friend and asked if I'd take a picture of them. Once I did he started talking to me and then asked if he could get a picture with his new friend from North Carolina- he was so excited I was from America!

 The girls! Me, Helen, Sam, and Aren

 Peter, Sea-Bass, Helen, Eli, Sam, Aren, me, and Erick

 As I said in my last post, these bush turkeys are EVERYWHERE

 Can I please just stay here forever?!

 As we were leaving the beach, we passed a wedding. How magical would it be to get married here!?

That night the whole group of us went out together to the same place I went to last time- the Wharf. I met a lot of people including Peter's roommate, Brent, who is from Cairns. He was hilarious and taught me some Australian slang, while also trying to convince me that drop bears are real...

Saturday was a MAGICAL day and was definitely one of the best days I've had so far in Australia!

Kondalilla Falls, Maleny, and Mary Cairncross Park

Kondalilla National Park

Sorry it's been a few days since I updated my blog, but I've been super busy! I've been having such a magical time though! At orientation last week I signed up for Friday's "Golden Key Bus Trip" without knowing exactly what it was. Man, was I in for a surprise! For some reason none of my other friends signed up for it, so I was going to go alone. But luckily, Megan (my third roomie who got here on Thursday) said she wanted to go on it too even though she wasn't signed up for it. Fortunately, that didn't matter and the woman let her go anyway.

We got to Kondalilla National Park around 9:30. When we got off the bus we were told that we had until 12:45 to go explore on our own. Megan and I started talking to two girls who go to the University of Wyoming, Andrea and Erin. The 4 of us hiked together to the falls. The hike was slippery at some parts, and of course I fell, but only once which was pretty impressive for me. The hike was absolutely beautiful! It was in a rainforest (ahhh so cool!!!), and there were so many incredible trees.

 HUGE!!!

When we got to the falls they were like no other waterfall I have ever seen (only ones from pictures). The waterfall was SO tall. I took a ton of pictures on both of my cameras but none of them turned out very well because the lighting was weird. The picture below is a picture I found on Google, but I'll post a few of my own too.

Kondalilla Falls

(Stole this from here: http://www.derm.qld.gov.au/parks/kondalila/images/knp-kondalilla-falls-c.jpg)

Erin, Megan and I decided to climb up a bit!

 Then we decided to get in the tree!

 Once we left the falls, we continued walking in a different direction (the hike was a loop). Once we got towards the end of the hike, there was another smaller waterfall and a beautiful view that reminded me a little bit of the Blue Ridge Parkway.

We got back to the parking lot about 45 minutes early so we just relaxed in the sunshine. I was a little bummed that we hadn't seen any wildlife (we had been told there was a good chance of seeing snakes, goannas, koalas, bush turkeys, and many kinds of birds... we hiked pretty fast though because we were worried about missing the bus since we didn't know how long the hike was, so there probably had been wildlife and we had unfortunately just missed it). However, while we were sitting there all of a sudden we had a few visitors...

 There were a few bush turkeys there, and now I'm seeing them everywhere I go!

I believe this is a goanna (Uncle Peter or Dr. K- do you know?)- he was huge!

Maleny

Then we got on the bus to go to the Hinterland town of Maleny. Maleny is a cute little town that seems to be Australia's version of Boone. First we got lunch (I brought a PB&J in order to save money, but I did get a yummy mini gelato). Then we walked down the street and went into a produce store. Everything was so much cheaper than at the grocery store! We were so excited and all bought fruits and/or vegetables. I got some scrumptious apples and strawberries and a little thing of white chocolate dip to go along with them- SO tasty!!! 

 This is totally my future car :)

 Tastiest fruit ever! And almost all of it was grown here!

Mary Cairncross Park

About an hour later we headed to Mary Cairncross Park. The main reason for going here was for the incredible view of the Glass House Mountains. These "mountains" are really the cores of extinct volcanoes. The view was beautiful and the extinct volcanoes were so cool!

Me, Erin, Megan and Andrea.

Unfortunately we didn't have enough time to explore all of Mary Cairncross Park (I think I might go back at some point), but we went on part of the trail and saw some more amazing wildlife.

I think these are fig trees, but I'm not positive. Whatever they are, they're AWESOME!

 THESE ARE SO ADORABLE! They are called Red Legged Pademelons, which are rainforest wallabies. My SLR doesn't work well in low-lighting so I couldn't get a great picture, but oh well!

This bush turkey got on the table when there was still food on it and the woman who worked at the restaurant had to chase it away, which didn't really work because the turkeys here are so used to people that they're not scared of them.

I would have liked to spend more time there, but we had to get on the bus to go back to USC. On the walk back the sun was shining and what is essentially our backyard looked gorgeous so I took a picture...

Seriously still can't believe this BEAUTIFUL land is my home for 5 months. I miss all of my friends and family so so so much, but I want to stay here forever!!!

More posts about my weekend are soon to come, so check back soon! :)