...below the eye balls are glowing teeth... they are what you walk through to get into the park. Its an old amusement park, not very big, but very creepy. It is open at odd hours to emphasize the creepiness. But, the good news is, if you turn around this is what you see...
...which is much more beautiful than the creepy face. The opera house is just barely cut off, it would be on the left where the water meets the lights. If you look a little bit more to the left this is what you see...
...the sweet ferris wheel sticking out from Luna Park over the water. Sadly the park was closed so the rides were not moving, but at least they were still lit up! If you keep venturing around the bay, away from the bridge, you get a great view of it all...
...wha-lah! Fin!
and a day and a half back. I thought it was going to be a long trip, but it turns out the bus ride there flew by! I sat next to my friend Sarah the entirety of the ride out there, and it was so much fun, I did not sleep once. We talked about a loooot of stuff currently going on in our lives, listened to music from a few years ago we both loved (odd stuff, hardcore, old popular alternative songs, and some current indie stuff) and sang aloud shaking our heads and what not, it was silly and awesome. We also listened to two sermons from my church back home on men and marriage and women and marriage. It was amazing. We both tried so hard to fight back the tears as we were realizing so much about ourselves and humanity, our generation and how messed up things are. I could go on about this for quite awhile, and some of you have already gotten an earful and I apologize, but I would love to talk about it more so ask me! Well as we got closer to Trilby Station, we made a few stops for photo opps. This was a mine in a town called Cobar. I have never seen a mine from the top before, they are pretty sweet. Can't imagine working outside in the Australian sun though. Ick. We also stopped by the Darling 
river, which also runs through our Outback home Trilby Station. Let me tell you right now, I have never seen a muddier river.... when I found out this was our option of where we could swim I said no thank you! Maybe I should be a tad more clear, it was not the mud that scared me away, it was the fact that many students in the past had gotten intestinal parasites from the river.... that just does not sound like any fun to me! Plus, come to find, there was a pool if we really needed it. This shot from the river was taken from Trilby, a 200,000 acre sheep farm, swarming with kangaroos and emus, in the middle of absolutely no where. A two hour drive to the closest corner store. Crazy. Well their land was so amazingly beautiful, from the sunsets, to starry nights, to the strange attachment and wonder which came from the vast nothingness and massive blue skies. Our first whole day there started with a walking tour by Liz, the owner of the land responsible 
for the guests, (her husband Gary takes care of the animals and land). She showed us a sheep shearing barn, taught us about how that worked... sadly there were no sheep in there at the moment, I guess that only happens once a year. They are so far away from civilization that the area they live in has something called the flying doctor. Each home has a vast array of different vaccines labeled with numbers, so if anything happens you call the flying doctor and he will walk you through what to do and determine if it is bad enough for him to fly out there to help you out. Mind you this is all free.... the vaccines, the service, everything. *Ahem, cough, U.S. you suck at health care, cough cough* Any who, Liz and Gary's property is so big they have to use a plane to heard their sheep and look around making sure everything is alright. He owns two planes and two helicopters.... they fly to get into town because it takes too long to drive. What a lifestyle.
We had campfires every night and made smores and shared life stories, it was a great bonding time. Our second day there we were split up into two groups and when on a driving tour of the property. This was probably my favorite activity of them all. We drove around for four hours stopping at different places, taking millions of pictures, and getting to experience the feeling of being all alone in the middle of this red stained land. This shot to the right was our bus ride out there, amazingly all four of us roomies were on the trip, which was pretty cool. Might I point out Kelsey in the far back right, cracking up... love her. And poor cat who had dust flying in her eyes so she could not keep them open for the picture. Good thing I just bought handy dandy eye shields, aka massive purple sun glasses. They also helped to keep out the flies, which seemed to attack your face every five seconds out there. Anyway, our tour was amazing. We had a very good group of people who helped make for some really funny stories, my personal fav was taking a picture of Wes jumping off one of the old abandoned cars and getting a sweet mid air shot, then an even sweeter falling on the ground with his feet up in the air shot. Do not worry folks he did not get hurt! We stopped in the middle of no where multiple times, we found some
old abandoned cars, some man made body of water people out there use to use for drinking, and Liz and Gary's previous house. The amazing thing about their old house is that they just let it be. You can walk right in and find dishes in the cabinets, newspapers on the table, clothes in the closets, the beds are fully made, the shower has old shampoo, you get the idea. It is amazing that they could just let it be out there, no worries about vandalism, and since it had been there for 30 years nothing seedy had taken place, which is something that would never happen back home. Their biggest concern is making sure the doors get closed so that animals do not get in. The purpose for leaving the house out there is so that if anyone gets stranded hopefully they will stumble across the home and be able to survive a bit longer than if they were stuck in the hot 
sun alone. This picture to the right is from the bathroom sink, I got so many fun shots of this house it was hard to figure out which one to post, but this is one of my favorites. It gives you a good idea of how the red dirt just takes over out there. Let me just mention 4 days later, I am still blowing my nose and the red dust has not seem to have fully left. It was really fun as we were driving along out there to spot kangaroos and emus running around freely. Emus are probably one of my new favorite animals, watching them run is so humorous. They are basically this big blob of feathers bouncing up and down with tiny little legs and an even skinnier neck. I wish I got close enough to one to take a picture. Well the rest of our trip was full of hanging out enjoying the people and the property. We had the option of sleeping outside every night, however I did not make it through the first, haha. Meg and I decided to give it a go, and the first half hour of just laying there being mesmerized was totally worth it. However the night turned into an icy cold, rocky, uncomfortable adventure very quickly. So around 5 am Meg saw that I was awake as well and asked if I wanted to go in. I had been wanting to go in forever, but we only had one flashlight so I cold not just leave her. Well some other girls got up to
go in as well, and well I could only find one shoe. This normally would not be a problem, but the outback is infested with nasty burrs that hurt and get in your socks just by thinking about walking outside. Such tricky little guys. So I finally came to the conclusion Will was asleep on my other shoe... but being that I was exhausted and freezing and needing to go to the bathroom I was in a very odd state of mind and the thought of waking him up was stressing me out, haha. Meg came over telling me to just wake him up, and Kelsey came over saying the same, but both of them strongly disagreed to the thought of helping me and walked away. So after about 5 minutes of getting even more cold I finally started tapping him, which took awhile. When he finally started to move I said "Will, I need you to roll over" then his head shot out of his sleeping bag and he 
looked at the sky and said something along the lines of "Oh my gosh it is sooo beautiful"...... haha. By this time I was cracking up, and I just repeated asking him to roll over to which he replied "roll over?" then just started rolling and rolling. Thankfully my shoe was under him so I just took off. And apparently he kept rolling for awhile, so I found out the next morning, haha. Well I have rambled on for quite a bit about this trip, but one thing it really did was finally give me the feeling of being in Australia. I know I am here, but I have not felt like it 100%, but the red dirt, and absence of people, and abundance of new life, finally gave me the feeling of "wow, I am really here" which was amazing. Also, getting to go stay out there for three days really made me realize why Aboriginal people are so in love with their land. It has this captivating power which takes over you that you cannot put to words, it is amazing. Despite the burrs, flies, and lack of sleep this was my favorite experience so far on my Australian adventure. I could go on about it forever, and will share much more upon my return. Thanks for reading and I will leave you with a few more pictures...
Oh the red dirt, I cannot get enough!!!! Above were our tours tire tracks... below was edited a tiny bit just to enhance the colors, but I think it is one of my top 3 favs from the whole trip. The one below that was the sunset on the field behind our cabin the first night there, amazing.
Heyyy there lovely people! Well these past 5 days have been full of fish filled adventure. I have spent the past five days in sunny Cairns, Australia. Now before I go any further at all I must tell you how to pronounce Cairns in case you ever go there, and do not want to be laughed at. It is in fact pronounced "cans". Yes, that is right folks.... ignore that "i" and "r" because they really serve no purpose at all. There were a group of 9 (10 at times) ladies who decided to head up to Northern Australia for our first spring break of the school year to go snorkeling on the great barrier reef. When we arrived we found our hostel, which said it included linens, gave us only a sheet.... good thing it was between 30 and 37 degrees C the entire time.... except of course in the middle of the night, but that is a different story. Also, I do not know about anyone else, but when you thing Great Barrier Reef you think of ow amazing the beaches must be.... well you would be wrong. There actually are no beaches close by at all. There are just muddy shores which could be infested with crocodiles.... interesting. Luckily Cairns has this huge man made lagoon, which is safe to swim in (see picture above and to the right) and has a sandy shore on one side, with an infinity pool effect looking out into the ocean. It was really nice needless to say, I felt like I was chilling by a pool at a really nice resort. 
Our first full day there we just lounged by the lagoon and surveyed the little town with all of its shops, cafes, and restaurants. It was really nice to just lay out in the sun and know that we had no agenda, no places we needed to be. It was very relaxing, just the break I needed in the middle of this very long, daunting, study abroad trip I am in the middle of.... (sarcasm.) The girls in the photo to the left starting from the left are my roomie Meagen, Natalie, and myself. Do not be mislead this was in fact not a nude beach.... although I hear they do have those here.... I will not be visiting one though, haha. Well day 2 was snorkel day. I took so many pictures on the boat out to the reef, which is about an hour and a half trip one way surprisingly, it was hard to pick which one to show you, but I choose this one because it is a look back at the mountains to the south of Cairns with come nice tropical fog settling, so beautiful. Well the boat ride out was absolutely relaxing. Just 
an hour and a half of open ocean, lounging on the outside deck looking at the beautiful colors of the sea. Our first snorkeling spot was at a reef they do not get to go to much because the wind and currents usually do not allow it. It was amazing. The reef is massive and colorful, as are the fish. I sadly did not have an underwater camera with me, but some of the other girls did so I will try to put some of those up when they get them processed. Needless to say you can tell God ad fun creating the ocean life, because it is absolutely breath taking. After this we got back on the boat for a healthy catered lunch, which was one of the best meals I have had my entire time in Oz, so that was fantastic. Our second snorkel spot was known as "the fish bowl" and indeed it was a fish bowl. The reef entering in was fairly close to the surface of the water, but after you swam over it a bit it dropped down to this massive bowl shape carved out of coral. It was full of brilliantly colored fish. However the current at this spot was going away from the boat and it was super 
strong, so it took all of everyone energy to get back to the boat, haha. Thankfully everyone made it. This was also the spot with the "scary coral". I had my head sticking above water and I was chatting wit Meg... the current was super strong so it was moving us the entire time... pretty soon I realized it had pushed us so there was coral barely below our feet so I decided to start swimming again to get away from it. Well when I put my face in the water I was a bit startled because all I could see in any direction was this crazy coral that looked sort of like millions of intertwined fingers. It is very hard to explain, but it would be the perfect setting for an under water horror movie, haha. None the less it was very cool, and of course I made my way out with out any problems what so ever. The boat ride back was amazing, especially after 5 hours of snorkeling, it was really nice to just lounge about. The picture to the left is Sarah and I enjoying the ride back to shore. I do have to say this was my first real hostel experience. The first 
night was the hardest.... not knowing it got cold and having to put on a million layers and cocoon in my sheet to stay warm. Plus there were four of us sharing a room with another random girl who was not very friendly, and I am pretty sure she moved everything she owned into that room. And she was super loud any time she got up or went to bed, which was always at the crack of dawn.... but regardless it was an interesting experience. I loved the buildings at the hostel tough. The only rooms with doors were the bed rooms and the toilets. Everything else was open to the elements. It looked like a tropical oasis, shaded by palm trees with 4 hammocks and a mini pool. It was a pretty cool place to get to stay in. We met some random people, most seemed pretty nice. I do have to say I have never seen so many guys walk around in their underwear.... no shame in Australia I tell ya. Also, random side note, I have never seen so many people make out in public before, on trains, beaches, in the middle of the street (I kid you not), on park benches, in cafes.... oh the snogging, haha. Its awkward when they are blocking doorways doing this and your trying to make your way through... regardless this only happened 
once, but I feel like it could easily happen again. Anyway... our last night there Sarah, Meg and I ran around the town to take random pictures and do some exploring. It was a really fun evening full of laughter and silliness, and Meg finding out that "in that one picture it looks like I have two legs" hahaha. Oh dear. This trip once again taught me a lot about myself and a lot about God. I am such a weirdo. I like to have alone time and it is hard for me when I cannot easily get it. Do I isolate myself or suck it up? Meh. Well I will leave you with his last picture just so I can brag a bit about being tan, because lets be honest here this never happens, and this is maybe the second time it ever has, haha. 
Plus, who does not love a nice headless statue? I know I sure do. People on the street were lagging at us for posing with him... that is always funny. Thanks for reading!
I was walking home the on Friday and it was crazy windy! I mean there where whirlwinds of leaves on the sidewalks blowing up into my eyes making my eyes water. So pretty much I looked like a sobbing mess walking home with blurry vision trying to avoid walking into a leaf cyclone. It was pretty exciting. But the good news is when I got out in front of my building all the wind stopped so I decided to take a picture of my apartment building for everyone to see. We have that pretty fountain and tons of tropical landscaping. It is pretty much like living at a resort. Across the way we have a gym, pool and a sauna. It is the life!!! Today was absolutely amazing. I do not understand how I have lived in Sydney so long without going to Bondi Beach. It is only a bus, two trains, and another bus away, haha. It takes about and hour to get there. It has the softest sand my feet have ever felt, and it is so light and fine. No rocks, no shells, just creamy white sand. Amazing. Well My friend Talia and I decided we just needed to experience this for ourselves. We had an amazing day just
laying in the sun, people and surfer watching. Surfers own the water at Bondi. There were a few men who were absolutely amazing. They cut across waves like no ones business, it was really fun to watch. Other than enjoying the beach we scoped out the shops near the beach and stumbled in upon an Aborigional Art gallery. All the pieces there were painted by people from tribes all over Oz. The colors and designs they choose are so beautiful. I really wanted to buy something to take home, but anything of decent size was about $150. Not worth it when I have a reef to go to in a week! That is all for now!
All along that middle red path are the Oz embassies and war memorials and important governmental buildings. Very exciting I know! Our first stop was the capitol Parliament house.... not very exciting in my opinion. Just a waste of money on a huge marble creation of a building, with so much marble and gold coated empty space.... really? Is that necessary? After that we went to the Aboriginal embassy.... which people kept calling the "tent embassy". I figured tent would mean something a little nicer than what it was, a camping tent out in front of the old Parliament building (which was basically the size of our white house). We stood out in the rain for an hour listening to two aboriginal men talk about how the government does not acknowledge them as the original inhibitors of the country and how they destroy their land, wildlife, and plants kicking aboriginals out of their homes and not giving them anything in return. Obviously standing out in the rain in front of this beautiful building which cost billions of dollars to build listening to two guys speak in the rain about how they have been taken advantage of. They spoke so kindly and humbly to us, but you could tell there was so much anger behind their words, but I would probably feel the same way if I were them. It was heart breaking and opened my eyes so much. I don't even know what I can begin to do to help them, and when we asked what we could do for them they just asked us to spread what we have learned here. Help people to become more aware of what is really going on. When you see it first hand there is no way you can possibly deny it unless you are really good at lying to yourself. Even so I still see it as quite the challenge. Well after that we were all soggy and freezing we headed off to the Indonesian Embassy, of which we heard an hour an a half lecture from a man we could not understand a word from, while we were wet and cold. Fun fun fun. Needless to say it was very hard to keep the eyes open. Our last visit of the day was to the American Embassy. I have to say it made me want to vomit. It has been over a month since I have been exposed to American arrogance.... ugh the lady speaking telling us that America is so far ahead of everyone and blah blah blah and everyone else just needs to deal with it and acknowledge our power, ughh, kill me now, no wonder no one likes Americans. This is what they think we are all like. They were trying to convince us how we are so influential and what not that other countries would have to have so much progress for so many years to even catch up to us, which in fact may be true, but do they really need to come off like that? I mean if we don't want to start getting bombed it might be a good idea to be a little more humble about our power? Maybe? Well I could vent for hours, but I will try to contain myself. That night we stayed in a hostel, for my first time ever, it was actually a pretty cool 
establishment. Lots to do, pool (both kinds), lounge areas, video games, regular games, bars.... however I was way too tired to take much advantage of the accommodations. But it did ease my nerves for my trip to the Great Barrier Reef in two Weeks where we will be crashing in a hostel for 4 nights! Woo!!! Anyway our next day in Canberra was a little more exciting and artsy. Our first stop was the national portrait gallery, which after taking art classes was a pretty amazing experience. Followed by the museum of Aussie history and culture. It was awesome!!!! Did I forget to mention museums are free in this country!!! Its spectacular. Sadly my camera was on its way out so I did not get very many pictures, and when your exhausted the last thing you want to do is be creative. After that and a 
nice lunch of subway on the bay we headed on to an art museum. Which was a lot cooler than the ones in the States, and I am trying to figure out why this is, and I think it is because they have such a new collection of pieces than we do back home everything is new and exciting. Plus everything seems to be more exciting in the land of OZ. Our last stop of the trip was the Canberra war memorial, which was amazingly cool. We have been learning a lot about Australian history and events it was actually interesting to see some real pieces from wars. Plus, how they had the place set up was very educational and un-boring =) Real technical term there. They had huge models set up of different battles giving you a good idea of what the conditions were. They also had real helicopters and planes you could play in (which of course I did, don't even think I didn't) and faux submarine set ups you could go 
through. It was really fun. I think all historical war monuments should be this fun. Plus the architecture was not bad either. Excuse the crooked angle I was leaning against a column, haha. Well the trip ended on a note of about 9 out of 25 of us being sick, and I think now almost everyone is sick. I spent the afternoon yesterday waiting in a waiting room with my romies and Mum, it was way too much fun. However, I do have to say the man at the counter was very attentive bringing us drinks and out own boxes of tissues. That was rather entertaining =) At the moment I am still healthy with 3 sick roomies, so I am praying for good health and for all of them to quickly recover. All of the classes were cancelled today (Monday) for the Americans because they want us to rest and feel better. So basically we are under quarantine, haha. Oh the joys. As for now I am off to take a nap, I am doing my best to stay healthy and try to fight the sicknesses!! Wish me luck!
As we were out on these rocks exploring we were discussing how many different poisonous creatures there are in Australia and how when we are going out on rocks we should probably pay attention to the signs we pass without looking at twice just in case they are home to come poisonous swooping bird who preys on unsuspecting Americans or something. Crazy I know, but you can never be too careful here!
Obviously we were being very careful =) From the left to right we have Kat, me, Meg, and Marissa. We get along well, it is pretty wonderful. Anyway after Kaima we drove to this little town in the hills, I forget the name, but it was artsy with lots of little restaurants and shops. Gail introduced us to the Australian delicacy of meat pies.... which come to find out is like a chicken pot pie, but better. They are super big on them over here, its great. I had a chicken curry pie in case you were wondering, and I think you were! Mmm! After that we stopped at this beach where Kangaroos roam free. Because it was sort of toasty they made there way into the shaded area, which is odd because basically it is a mobile home park. I guess the people who live there just let the kangaroos coexist with them. It is really cool because you drive through to the beach and you just see roos hopping through the mobile homes or just chilling in the sun. They are so soft and wonderful. I made a new best friend and saw one with a baby in its pouch =)
And this was the view from the back. I am pretty much dying to live somewhere like this some day. Waking up to that view every morning would n
ever get old!
The picture does it absolutely no justice but it at least conveys an idea. Needless to say this was pretty much the best road trip ever. Coming back was hard, but this week has been fun. I have constantly been getting made fun of for my lack of ability to say Australian words. I was trying to get taught to say "Yobba" which is a red neck but for some reason is came out "Yoburt" alas I finally have a nick name, haha. Oh dear. We had a couple girls from school over for dinner last night and talked about some of the strangest things. However we learned that what our prof has been telling us is true.... Aussies don't see themselves as having much of a culture. I think that is crazy because they definitely do. But being that their country has only really been here about 200 years (weird!!!) they don't think there has been much time to develop one. Also they find their history rather dull (I disagree) and find it weird that we eat peanut butter on anything other than a pb&j sandwich. Also, they really don't use dryers, they like to hang their clothes outside to dry, which I think is kinda cool unless you are in a hurry. Lets see - to go is called take away, if you ask someone where the "rest room" is they will give you a very weird look so you have to ask for the "toilet", instead of saying something like "very very very cool" or something to an extended degree they will say cool as, or sweet as, or mad as... definitely with the accent does not sound at all like "as" =) That is all the fun cultural differences I can think of to share with you for now, so I will leave you with this sweet picture I took at the beach. Who would have known all those little shell guys do so much crawling around?
...and in case you are wondering if you look like your snorting something when you do a Tim Tam slam, I will also show you...
Ah yes, life here is very hard. On a different note, I know I mentioned classes before but they continue to impress me. I am taking a life drawing class, of which we will be getting to study the bones, muscles, and skin of the human body. I don;t know what any of you know about life drawing and private Christian Universities but most don't have it and if they do the models are definitely clothed. Well ours are not. Our teacher (In Aussie they are not called professors, they just go by their names) for life drawing is an amazing man. He can draw people like no ones business and use to be a priest in the Catholic church. Random I know. So he spent the first class explaining to us why it is important to take life drawing as an artist. He also fueled us with info on defending it from a Biblical view point and took time to talk about art vs porn, naked vs nude... It has been really really interesting, and I mean that in the true definition of the word. Needless to say all the teachers here basically just come to teach one class a week and work the rest of the time in the field they teach in (for the most part), so your getting the newest, most up to date, "in style", trendy, accurate, info possible. It is great. Also the new discussion topic in Faith and the Contemporary Artist was "are miracles real & do they prove there is a God?" Once again absolutely amazing. This teach, I forget his name at the moment, also amazing, shoots documentaries and has so many friends all over the board from a religious and occupational stand point. He always tells us stories of his agnostic/atheist friends and their discussions on a greater being. But what I really love about the class is that we all come from such different back grounds and believe different things, some may not believe anything at all. But at the end of the day no matter what happened in class everyone walks out as mates and it is like nothing ever happened. This all might be a little repetitive from my last post but it is so new and so good to me I cannot get over it. I am so pleased and so honored to be in a class full of people who are willing to put their faith on the line for you to test it and so they can test it themselves just so that they can get one step closer to knowing who God really is. I will leave you with this picture I took the other day at observatory park in Sydney on the opposite side of the Harbor bridge from the opera house.
Ok and maybe this...
And maybe this...
...the opera house well never not look like helmets from mid evil times again =)
I am sure you all know what this is, but just in case you don't it is most definitely the Sydney opera house and Harbor bridge taken from a ferry cruising around the harbor. Our group got to go on an hour long cruise around the harbor, and it was amazing considering it was sunset, however it was freezing and super windy. You could tell who the dedicated photographers were, they were about the 9 of us who stayed up on the observation deck through the rain and wind to get the good photos =) I know this one is not amazing by any means, and it really is not one of my favorites, but the internet here is terribly slow and I wanted to post a picture which had both the bridge and the opera house!
