My Marvelous Monday

So, every Monday I have an 8:30 am lecture and then I am done for the rest of the day. This particular Monday I intended to hole myself up in the library after class to finish some much needed work. However, when I arrived at my 8:30 chemistry lecture, one of my classmates and friends asked me if I'd like to head up to Royal National Park today with him. Hmm. . .fun Australian adventure or the library? Any guesses which one I picked?

My friend Celli (an Aussie) had also invited 3 Dubliners and a Coloradan. Two of these guys live in International House with me so we already knew each other. We hopped into Celli's car and started driving. He took us north of Wollongong through all of the adorable little suburbs. The suburbs sit right on the ocean and the beaches in these towns are absolutely beautiful. Celli told us that as we approach winter it is fairly common to see whales along these beaches because they are migrating. We didn't see any on Monday, but I am definitely going to check these beaches out again.

After a little driving we arrived in Royal National park. It was an absolutely gorgeous park with dense trees and the ocean coming in and out of view. Celli drove us through the park pointing out interesting things and stopping for us to take pictures. I had no idea that the area around Wollongong was so beautiful (called the Illawara region). At last we made it to our final destination-- a little cliff overlooking a lagoon which is "an area of shallow water separated from the sea by low sandy dunes", according to dictionary.com (do you like my use of references?). Celli informed us that we would be
Celli and me looking out at one of the suburbs

jumping off the cliff. (Sidenote: before you freak out Mom, the cliff wasn't too high, Celli had jumped there before, and we checked the depth of the water before we jumped.) I was pretty scared at first, but I finally worked up the nerve to do it. My friend Robyn (one of the Dubliners) held my hand as we jumped because I was a little nervous. But I really had no reason to be afraid because it was absolutely amazing! I jumped one more time and then we swam around in the lagoon for awhile (the calm water was a nice break from the rough ocean waves).

Celli then brought us back to his house in Austinmmer (one of the little suburbs of Wollongong) and we had a little bbq (yes, Aussies actually do have a LOT of bbqs). In Australia a bbq consists of sausages (pretty much like breakfast sausages) and bread (not buns). Australians believe that hotdogs should only be cooked over the stove and that sausages are meant for breakfast and bbqs. Although there
The lagoon.

was a lack of hotdogs, the bbq was lovely and we were able to see a variety of colorful birds eating from his birdfeeders. Seeing a rainbow colored parrot on these feeders is as common as seeing a crow in your backyard in the states. Celli wasn't too excited about them, but the rest of us grabbed our cameras and went crazy taking pictures.

I had to back in Wollongong by 3:30 for SCARF (an African refugee volunteer program). I am tutoring primary school kids and this was my first session. We jumped on the train (nearly missing it!) and I met my friend Lydia to walk to the SCARF office. We worked with 2 brothers and a sister for an hour and it was a lot of fun. The kids are recent immigrants from Africa and are therefore far behind their classmates. They were really sweet kids and we will be working with them each week.


One of the colorful parrots.

**Sorry that the labels for the pictures are all out-of-whack. I'm not sure how to do this quite yet. The italicized words describe the pictures for those of you who are confused. . .