Study Break!

This week has been study break for exams which are the next two weeks. It has been good to just relax and not worry about class. I can't believe its almost over.

Lets see, last Friday I went to my last class of the semester, Saturday I went to AjHackets Bungy and watched my friends go bungy jumping. It was right in the middle of the rainforest, so beautiful. I did not do it because I could not bring myself to spend $150 on something that I do not find all that appealing..... That night I went out dancing with my friends. Sunday was my roommate Sam's birthday and her parents were here so we went to the beach even though it was cloudy and got lunch at a nearby restaurant. A tavern burger with everything on it and a side of chips! Nothing better. That night we hung out and watched movies and did some serious roommate bonding. Monday started off as actually a nice day so after a quick trip to uni we caught a bust to Trinity Beach. But it was actually very windy and turned pretty chilly! But it was still perfect for reading a book. I am now on the second book of the Game of Thrones series, I would recommend it to anyone! Tuesday I went to the zoo. What an exhausting day! I did my usual cleaning and handling of the snakes, met a girl who is visiting from England and volunteering. In the afternoon we got to carry around a huge Burmese python. It took three of us to carry her. See the pictures! Then we had to do some hard manual labour, moving these cement bricks from a garden and lugging them across the zoo in a trolly to the maintenance section. So that evening I was too tired to do much else! Yesterday I spent the day doing pretty much nothing but reading, until that night when I went to Zumba. It is so nice to be able to workout again! All that is left on my foot is giant red scar. Today I got up early and went to Smithfield shopping centre with Cat to pick up a few things, I got a QLD State of Origin shirt! This afternoon we have a sort of end of semester ceremony where study abroad students get a certificate for their time here. And thats it for this week, only a couple more to go.....

Bungy Jumping! 

The golden orb weaver, larger than my hand.

The lovely rat room at the zoo

Me and the Burmese python

Cute koalas 

3 weeks....

I'm not sure how but somewhere along the way I went from daily blog posts to weekly ones....

Anyhow! Last Friday I gave two big presentations, one of which was my final for that class. No more Effective Speaking!! That night I went to bed early because I had to wake up at 6 am Saturday to go to the Great Barrier Reef! Well I slept through my alarm and actually woke up at 6:55.... so I had to throw everything together super quickly so my friend Amanda and I could sprint to the bus stop and catch the 7:07 bus into the city. I don't think I have ever gotten ready so fast. What a lovely day it was! It was on and off rainy all day but the water was warm. We went to the wharf and got on the Sea Quest boat which took us out to Norman Reef. It took about an hour to get to the outer reef and am very very glad that I took ginger pills before we left! It was pretty choppy. But the current made snorkeling really good exercise! A friend of mine from class was actually working on the boat! He's from Ecuador. I started out by snorkeling, then I did an intro dive with an instructor, then we had a delicious buffet lunch, went to a new location, and I did another snorkel. It was beautiful! The colors of the corals and fish just blow me away every time! You can't get enough of it. I enjoyed the diving but I think I like snorkeling better. I'm just not comfortable with being that deep underwater, it freaks me out if I think about it too much. But its something you need to experience. There was someone taking pictures of us diving underwater so I have a good picture to share with you. It was a long day and I was exhausted by the time we arrived back at the wharf around 4:30. But the day wasn't over. That night I went to a bonfire on the beach with friends. I left early though because I was so tired!

Sunday was a day of relaxing with the roommates and finishing my essay due last Monday with my partner, Greg. I feel good about our work. We should do well.

Monday I began my final assignment of the semester which I handed in today! Nothing more until exams!!!!! I can't believe it. I worked so hard this semester it is good to be nearly done. Oh and I went swimming in the pool in the rain :) Tuesday I spent the day at the zoo. Another great day of volunteering! I love spending time with all the snakes and lizards. I had lots of free time this visit to handle whatever reptiles I wanted. And this time I didn't do painting, but gardening! I ended the day with some weed pulling. But I even enjoyed that.  It was fun working with another zookeeper who works in reptiles named Hirani. Wednesday was my last long day of class. After class we walked to the shopping center and were going to take the bus back because we had a lot to carry and then it was a half hour late! The bus actually showed up at the same time as the next bus that comes after it. Wednesday was also the State of Origin. It is kind of an all-star Rugby game. Queensland picks the best players from their state and faces off against New South Wales. Maroon vs. Blue. A very big deal here. Obviously I back the Queenslanders! They won :) And there was a great fight during the game! I felt very Ozzie watching the game with my Australian friends ;)

Today was spent doing nothing special. I handed in my last assignment and went to my second to last class! Tomorrow is the last day. Then a week off before finals begin!

Oh and here are some photos of my campus at uni! 

The boat!

The ocean!

The walk to uni from the lodge.

Cloud covered mountains at campus!

Entrance to campus

Me scuba diving and kneeling on the ocean floor! Yes that is a real fish in the picture.

One month to go!

I cannot believe I come home exactly one month from today. It is unbelievable. It has gone by so fast. I have one more week of class before exams! This week went by especially quick. I will try to remember everything I did.

The weekend was nothing special. Just hanging out with friends. I met someone from France! That was a new one I think. Monday I did work and got my stitches out!!!!! So exciting. It is so nice to be able to walk around properly again. But I'm not used to paying at the end of the appointment so I was so distracted and happy I got my stitches out that I walked right out and forgot to pay! They had to bill me, another Meghan moment. Tuesday I got to back to the zoo for the first time in 2 weeks! It was so great. I missed it so much. Lots of cleaning and snake handling. A really good day. Oh and I painted a fence for the croc park. Felt very Tom Sawyer. And I got black oil-based paint on my leg that WILL NOT come off. That night I worked on my group project due tomorrow. Wednesday was spent at Uni.... Today I did work that I needed to do and finished my group project and my final assignment for Effective Speaking. I only have one more assignment to do before exams!! Thank god. I am getting burnt out. For the first time I am actually starting to look forward to coming home. Of course I have always missed everyone, but I really miss some things now. I feel out of the loop! And I'm getting poorer by the second.

Oh and sad news. No more dingo fieldwork :( Of course I miss my last two sessions because of my foot and then she unexpectedly ends the fieldwork early! Oh well. She is having a party for all of us who helped her and I will be able to use her as a reference in the future.

Sydney on wheels

So on Saturday we got a ride to the airport for our 720 flight. I checked in and got my first wheelchair of the weekend. Woo! We even got to use the elevator. Pretty special. I thought the D they put on my boarding pass was for disabled when it was really just for domestic since we were leaving from the international terminal. Typical Meghan moment.

We got to board the plane first and I slept the whole flight it was great. Then we took a shuttle to Nomads West End Backpackers in central Sydney. After dropping our stuff we made the first attempt to get a wheelchair at a pharmacy in the world square. Unsuccessful. They told us we should go to a hospital and that pharmacies didn't do that here. None were nearby so I just gave up on it for a bit. Sushi and miso soup for lunch! We then went to the botanical gardens which were lovely, but my foot was in serious pain so we went to the Sydney hospital which was actually really pretty. But they were mean there and told us that essentially we were stupid to think they would have  wheelchairs to rent and gave us a list of pharmacies to go to. So the pharmacy people from before did not know what they were talking about. None of the pharmacies were close so we went to the Art Gallery of NSW. The paintings were amazing! From 17th to 20th century. No pictures obviously. From there I decided the wheelchair was necessary so we took a quick cab to the nearest pharmacy, got the wheelchair and took a taxi back. It was pretty funny though as we were trying to leave the pharmacy. I am in the wheelchair one minute and my friend Annie pushes me out the door, but there is ledge so it gets stuck and she nearly dumps me into the street. We were quite the sight. The wheelchair took some getting used to. We then returned to the botanical gardens and went deeper into them and started up the walkway along the harbor to Mrs. Macquarie's chair. We saw hundreds of flying foxes! So cool. There was an especially funny moment when I was actually in tears from laughing because the feet of the wheelchair fell off and Amanda had to actually use this wrenchlike tool to get them back on, we made a complete scene right tin the middle of the walkway. However, we got a spectacular view of the harbor, the bridge and the opera house. It was a lovely day, chillier than we were used to. Low 70's with a brisk breeze. We then walked towards the Opera House and got a look of it up close. At this point we came to Cirqular Quay and walked around there for a bit. We then had a long walk/ride back up to the hostel. Annie and Amanda certainly strained some muscles pushing me up all those hills.. I felt so bad! I wouldn't have gotten it if I really didn't need it. Oh, and the whole day I got weird looks whenever I would stand up to get a closer look at something or to pose for a picture. I think people thought I was a faker. Once we got back we were ravenous so we made some pasta in the hostel kitchen and then we to see The Avengers at the closest cinema. IT WAS HUGE. It was so big that we had assigned seats. Anyway, the movie was amazing and everyone should see it.

The next day we took the free local bus back down to Cirqular Quay to the wharf to catch the ferry to Manly. I absolutely loved it there. We walked (well I rode) around the cute shops and went to Manly and Shelly beach. We relaxed and tanned a little in the sun (obviously elevating my foot out of the sand). There were big waves and lots of surfers. We then walked along the Esplanade and through the markets, had a peanut butter sandwich (the main meal of the weekend), and went along the manly scenic walkway before grabbing the ferry back. We had to leave fairly early to make it in time for the rugby game at ANZ stadium between the Sydney Roosters and the Newcastle Knights. We were only 20 minutes late. I love rugby! It is a fun game to watch. And the roosters won even though they had been doing bad lately so I like to think that we brought them luck ;) That night we were all exhausted so we just chilled.

The next day Amanda and Annie woke up early to catch a train to go hiking in the Blue Mountains, I obviously could not join them on this so I had booked a 4 hour spa treatment instead. :) I slept in before catching a taxi to a tall swanky building, 99 on York Street. There I took an elevator up to the 7th floor to Ayurve Spa. So nice. I got a body scrub, body massage, manicure, pedicure and facial. It was just what I needed. Ultimate relaxation. We all arrived back at the hostel at just about the same time. Since it was our last night in the city we decided to have a nice dinner out. We had to return to the wheelchair back to the pharmacy in Paddington so we had dinner there. We somehow stumbled upon the MOST expensive restaurant possible, La Scala, but it was extremely delicious. How I love risotto! It was a perfect end to the weekend.

The next day we woke up at 3:30 am for our 6 am flight. We arrived back to Cairns at about 930 so we had the entire day still.

I would just like to say that after this trip I am officially an expert at hailing cabs!

The rest of this week has been quite boring so far. Tuesday I napped and went to the pool to tan. Wednesday I had class all day and Thursday I just did work and class before hanging with my friends.

Today I had class. I had to present a debate arguing against the world adopting China's one-child policy. I think it went pretty well. The rest of the day will be spent reading Game of Thrones!  

 The world square

Hyde Park

Good times in the wheelchair

Flying foxes!

On the ferry

Manly beach

Rugby time

Sydney Today!

Hello everyone! Happy cinco de mayo! Not a very popular holiday here. It's 5 am and we are about to leave for the airport to go to Sydney until Tuesday!

So this week. Wednesday was a long day on my foot with all my classes. My foot got really sore so I did not go to class on Thursday, it was not worth it for the short time I would be at Uni. To avoid walking I have been biking to class! I know it sounds weird but it puts a lot less pressure on my foot and I get there much much faster. Thursday was spent recovering on the couch. Friday I went to Uni for one class then came back and went to my doctor's appointment. Essentially he said I was doing a good job taking care of it but that I needed another week with stitches. So combined with that and the fact that the side of my foot was starting to hurt from walking on it funny. I have decided to do Sydney in a wheelchair. There will be just too much walking and I will otherwise slow my friends down. I am sure that will be some great pictures to go with it! Last night we also celebrated my friend Danielle's birthday and went out to dinner at this cute Italian place in the city. I left early and managed to get a decent amount of sleep.

Time to go! Blog you soon.