Hello my cold-weather friends,
This morning all of the Aussies I encountered claimed that it was "cold" outside. I had trouble comprehending this because the sun was shining and it was still warm enough to be comfortable in shorts. A guy in one of my classes was actually wearing a scarf! I would like to see them try and survive Minnesota in March.
Course work is beginning to pick up and I am really enjoying the history course I am taking about the post-Cold War period. However, it is difficult to force myself to study when the sun is shining and the beach is only a 10-minute walk away.
I have been doing a little surfing everyday since we bought our board. I hate to admit it, but I am actually getting worse! Each time I get out of the water I have a new bruise or scratch to add to my already battered body. But I am still absolutely loving it! It's such a great way to get out and enjoy the ocean and every once in a while when I am able to stand for a second or two-- it's brilliant. I am going to keep chugging along because I definitely cannot get any worse at this point. . .
On Saturday, I had a brief lapse in judgment and I agreed to allow 3 of my guy friends bury me in the sand. I was completely covered head to toe and was incapable of moving (luckily I could still breathe!). After they had all had their fun and had taken numerous incriminating pictures. . .they forced me to crawl out myself (typical boys)! It took me a good five minutes to get my arms unburied and then I had to dig my body out as well. They all stood around and had a good laugh as I emerged from the sand covered head to toe in a fine layer of sand. . .needless to say I have learned my lesson!
Today we decided to check out one of the local thrift shops where it was rumored that there were $5 wet suits. We had a gay-old time trying to squeeze our bodies into impossibly small wet suits, but almost all of us managed to find one that actually fit. I walked away with a beautiful red and blue wet suit (circa 1980) for only $8. I am confident that I will be the chicest surfer at the beach. . .
This weekend some friends and I are contemplating a trip down south. We want to check out some of the towns south of Wollongong since we have only been north at this point. There is a nice little town called Batemans Bay where we might actually be able to see kangaroos and other native animals. . .I'm sure I will have many stories to tell if we actually make it down there!
Monday, March 16, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Riding the Waves
I made a command decision yesterday. I decided that I wanted to get a surfboard, so my friend and I went on a little shopping adventure today. We were able to find a relatively cheap, used surfboard at a local shop. The shop is willing to buy the board back at the end of the semester for half-price. Two of my friends and I are sharing the board which makes the board a very cheap, but hopefully fun, investment.
I tried to surf a little bit today and actually had some success. The waves, however, were not very good and I spent a lot of time trying to hold onto my board and stay standing. I am pretty excited to have a new goal to accomplish while down here. Hopefully I will be a pro by the time I head home in July!
I also bought a plane ticket to New Zealand yesterday, which is where I will be spending my spring break. I will be flying into Christchurch with 2 or 3 friends and from there we will see some glaciers, bungee jump (them, not me!) and try to see as much of the country as possible. I have heard the New Zealand is absolutely beautiful, so I am really looking forward to this trip.
One last thing. . .I signed up to run a half-marathon in May. One of my friends here is a cross-country runner and asked me to run the race with him (I made sure he knew that I would be miles behind him the whole race). It will be my first half-marathon, so I am trying to get myself in shape to avoid making a complete fool out of myself!
I tried to surf a little bit today and actually had some success. The waves, however, were not very good and I spent a lot of time trying to hold onto my board and stay standing. I am pretty excited to have a new goal to accomplish while down here. Hopefully I will be a pro by the time I head home in July!
I also bought a plane ticket to New Zealand yesterday, which is where I will be spending my spring break. I will be flying into Christchurch with 2 or 3 friends and from there we will see some glaciers, bungee jump (them, not me!) and try to see as much of the country as possible. I have heard the New Zealand is absolutely beautiful, so I am really looking forward to this trip.
One last thing. . .I signed up to run a half-marathon in May. One of my friends here is a cross-country runner and asked me to run the race with him (I made sure he knew that I would be miles behind him the whole race). It will be my first half-marathon, so I am trying to get myself in shape to avoid making a complete fool out of myself!
Sunday, March 8, 2009
The Blue Mountains
I just returned from a fun-filled weekend of hiking in the Blue Mountains. The Blue Mountains are about 2 hours west of Sydney and about a 4 hour trip for us by train. Nine of us boarded the train in North Wollongong on Friday afternoon and headed to a little town called Blackheath. We arrived around 8:30 pm and spent a little time searching for our cabin. For our first night we had a 4-bedroom cabin with a large living area. The town of Blackheath is tiny and contains only a few restaurants, 2 pubs, and a grocery store with 3 aisles. After ordering some pizza and settling into our cabin, we spent the rest of the night relaxing at one of the local pubs.
The next day we set out on our first adventure. We caught a train to Katoomba, a small town about 15 minutes away. Many of the "touristy" parts of the Blue Mountains are located in Katoomba. We were able to see the Three Sisters which is a pretty neat rock formation. I was looking forward to seeing this all week because I wanted to take a family picture :) Unfortunately, the rocks were not quite as beautiful or chatty as my sisters.
We hiked down a massive stair case after seeing the 3 sisters and by the time we got to the bottom I was shaking. The stairs went right down the mountain and were a little frightening (but I'm glad we were going down and not up). Once we made it to the bottom we hiked a few miles to the world's steepest incline railway in the world. It was basically a backwards roller coaster. We loaded into cars and then were pulled backwards up the mountain. This was also a little terrifying because we were not strapped in. . .but the ride was definitely worth it.
We called it a day after that and grabbed dinner in a small cafe in Katoomba.
Sunday morning we decided to do some real hiking, since we took it pretty easy the day before. We settled on a 3-4 hour hike that would take us through the Grand Canyon (seriously, that's what it was called). It was probably the most beautiful hike I have ever been on. We hiked down into the canyon and were surrounded with a canopy of trees, ferns, and bushes. Most of the hike took us right alongside the tiny stream that carved out the canyon. We saw waterfalls and caves and heard a lot of birds. The second half of the hike consisted of climbing out of the canyon, which is no easy task. I tried to take a lot of pictures of the hike, but my photography skills did not do it justice :) We think we hiked at least 10 km on Sunday, so most of us are sore today!
I think I have caught the travel bug because I already want to start planning my next trip! Autumn break is coming up quickly and I will be heading to New Zealand with some friends. I hope you are all doing well. . .feel free to email me (hoconnel@gustavus.edu) or skype me!
The next day we set out on our first adventure. We caught a train to Katoomba, a small town about 15 minutes away. Many of the "touristy" parts of the Blue Mountains are located in Katoomba. We were able to see the Three Sisters which is a pretty neat rock formation. I was looking forward to seeing this all week because I wanted to take a family picture :) Unfortunately, the rocks were not quite as beautiful or chatty as my sisters.
We hiked down a massive stair case after seeing the 3 sisters and by the time we got to the bottom I was shaking. The stairs went right down the mountain and were a little frightening (but I'm glad we were going down and not up). Once we made it to the bottom we hiked a few miles to the world's steepest incline railway in the world. It was basically a backwards roller coaster. We loaded into cars and then were pulled backwards up the mountain. This was also a little terrifying because we were not strapped in. . .but the ride was definitely worth it.
We called it a day after that and grabbed dinner in a small cafe in Katoomba.
Sunday morning we decided to do some real hiking, since we took it pretty easy the day before. We settled on a 3-4 hour hike that would take us through the Grand Canyon (seriously, that's what it was called). It was probably the most beautiful hike I have ever been on. We hiked down into the canyon and were surrounded with a canopy of trees, ferns, and bushes. Most of the hike took us right alongside the tiny stream that carved out the canyon. We saw waterfalls and caves and heard a lot of birds. The second half of the hike consisted of climbing out of the canyon, which is no easy task. I tried to take a lot of pictures of the hike, but my photography skills did not do it justice :) We think we hiked at least 10 km on Sunday, so most of us are sore today!
I think I have caught the travel bug because I already want to start planning my next trip! Autumn break is coming up quickly and I will be heading to New Zealand with some friends. I hope you are all doing well. . .feel free to email me (hoconnel@gustavus.edu) or skype me!
Monday, March 2, 2009
My Address
A few people have asked for my address, so here it is:
Hayley O'Connell
International House
University of Wollongong
Wollongong, NSW 2522
Hayley O'Connell
International House
University of Wollongong
Wollongong, NSW 2522
Sunday, March 1, 2009
The Hardest Way Possible
Hello Everyone!
Well, I am officially an Australian student. I had my first class this morning and it turns out that the first day of class is “syllabus day” no matter what country you are in. I don’t have any other classes today because not all courses meet the first week. It’s a very strange feeling to be in class when you feel like you are on vacation. I think that I will find my courses very interesting though.
After our exciting adventure in Sydney on Friday, we decided to lay low for most of Saturday. I took a quick trip to the mall with some friends and then spent the afternoon at the beach. The waves were the biggest I’ve seen them, so we all had fun body surfing them J
Sunday we decided it was time for another adventure. The tallest mountain (or it might be a hill) in Wollongong is Mount Keira. It’s about a 35 minute walk from the dorm. So, four friends and I began our trek to the mountain at around 10:45 Sunday morning. We had heard that the hike got a little long, but shouldn’t be anymore than 3 hours. Lots of people warned us about the leeches. . .apparently most people who hike Mt. Keira end up with at least a few leeches attached to their ankles by the time they get off the mountain. Before we left we grabbed a couple handfuls of salt packets in anticipation of the leeches—fortunately for us we never needed to use them.
We arrived at the mountain around 11:30 and the trail was pretty much vertical from the get-go. Luckily the climb wasn’t quite so steep the whole way. It didn’t take long before we got to a junction where we had to choose from a few different paths. We consulted a map and trotted down a trail that looked promising. The path promptly turned into a vertical climb over rocks and through thicket. Unfortunately, I was with four determined boys (actually, I was just as determined myself) and it took us about 1 km to finally admit that we had lost the trail. We climbed back down the rocky slope practically on all fours and got back to what appeared to be a path.
After multiple wrong turns and about 2 ½ hours of hiking, we finally made it to the summit only to find out that they don’t have water at the top. We ate our lunches though and took some beautiful pictures. The view was quite amazing and definitely worth the journey. After a little rest we began our trek back down. We hopped onto a little back trail that we though would deliver us down the mountain, but once again we found ourselves lost. We finally got to a point where we hit a dead end and admitted defeat. We stopped a car that was passing on the road and he pointed us in the direction of Wollongong. Little did we know that it was probably the longest possible way to get back to town. We finally made it into town around 4 pm and discovered that we were still an hour away from our dorm. It was at this point that we found a bus stop. The bus ride brought us to within around 20 minutes of our dorm. We were so tired by this point that we barely said 2 words to each other ask we walked the last 20 minutes.
We were all pretty proud of ourselves by the time we were finished. As one of the guys said, “We didn’t take the easiest route to the top- in fact we probably found the hardest possible way to get there.”
We are thinking about going to the Blue Mountains (a range about 2 hours west of Sydney) next weekend, but we learned a valuable lesson from this hike: Walking uphill does not always bring you to the summit and walking downhill won’t always bring you home.
Well, I am officially an Australian student. I had my first class this morning and it turns out that the first day of class is “syllabus day” no matter what country you are in. I don’t have any other classes today because not all courses meet the first week. It’s a very strange feeling to be in class when you feel like you are on vacation. I think that I will find my courses very interesting though.
After our exciting adventure in Sydney on Friday, we decided to lay low for most of Saturday. I took a quick trip to the mall with some friends and then spent the afternoon at the beach. The waves were the biggest I’ve seen them, so we all had fun body surfing them J
Sunday we decided it was time for another adventure. The tallest mountain (or it might be a hill) in Wollongong is Mount Keira. It’s about a 35 minute walk from the dorm. So, four friends and I began our trek to the mountain at around 10:45 Sunday morning. We had heard that the hike got a little long, but shouldn’t be anymore than 3 hours. Lots of people warned us about the leeches. . .apparently most people who hike Mt. Keira end up with at least a few leeches attached to their ankles by the time they get off the mountain. Before we left we grabbed a couple handfuls of salt packets in anticipation of the leeches—fortunately for us we never needed to use them.
We arrived at the mountain around 11:30 and the trail was pretty much vertical from the get-go. Luckily the climb wasn’t quite so steep the whole way. It didn’t take long before we got to a junction where we had to choose from a few different paths. We consulted a map and trotted down a trail that looked promising. The path promptly turned into a vertical climb over rocks and through thicket. Unfortunately, I was with four determined boys (actually, I was just as determined myself) and it took us about 1 km to finally admit that we had lost the trail. We climbed back down the rocky slope practically on all fours and got back to what appeared to be a path.
After multiple wrong turns and about 2 ½ hours of hiking, we finally made it to the summit only to find out that they don’t have water at the top. We ate our lunches though and took some beautiful pictures. The view was quite amazing and definitely worth the journey. After a little rest we began our trek back down. We hopped onto a little back trail that we though would deliver us down the mountain, but once again we found ourselves lost. We finally got to a point where we hit a dead end and admitted defeat. We stopped a car that was passing on the road and he pointed us in the direction of Wollongong. Little did we know that it was probably the longest possible way to get back to town. We finally made it into town around 4 pm and discovered that we were still an hour away from our dorm. It was at this point that we found a bus stop. The bus ride brought us to within around 20 minutes of our dorm. We were so tired by this point that we barely said 2 words to each other ask we walked the last 20 minutes.
We were all pretty proud of ourselves by the time we were finished. As one of the guys said, “We didn’t take the easiest route to the top- in fact we probably found the hardest possible way to get there.”
We are thinking about going to the Blue Mountains (a range about 2 hours west of Sydney) next weekend, but we learned a valuable lesson from this hike: Walking uphill does not always bring you to the summit and walking downhill won’t always bring you home.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Flying Cats and Irish Duos
Yesterday some friends and I took our first adventure into Sydney. We hopped on the train and rode north for about 1½ hours. The train ride was beautiful because we followed the coastline the entire way. Once we got to Sydney we decided to get all of our “tourist tendencies” out of our system. We took tons of pictures and walked a LOT (we estimated at least 6 miles). We saw the Opera House which is one of the most well-known sites in Australia. We also saw the Sydney Harbor bridge, the New South Wales Parliament building, and the Botanic Garden. The Botanic Garden was absolutely beautiful and was filled with an assortment of flowers, ponds, and birds. Also, to our dismay, the Garden was a hot spot for bats. At any point along the path, you could look up into the trees and see dozens of bats sleeping. I have to admit that I was a little disgusted. A local Australian woman told us that around 4:30 (when it starts to get dark), they all swoop down in search of fruit. She said it is a frightening sight because, “they’re like cats with wings.” Needless to say, we steered clear of the Garden after dusk.
After a lot of walking, we went in search of food. Earlier in the day every other store front had been a restaurant, but now we could not find one. We searched for nearly 45 minutes and finally stumbled into a mall food court completely famished. We had dinner and then continued our adventures. We found a delightful little Irish Pub and settled in to listen to an Irish duo. After enjoying the music, we spent a little more time in the city and then caught the train home.
We start school on Monday and it is pretty hard to believe! I am kind of looking forward to having a schedule again though. So far I am loving Australia and I hope you are all doing well back home!
After a lot of walking, we went in search of food. Earlier in the day every other store front had been a restaurant, but now we could not find one. We searched for nearly 45 minutes and finally stumbled into a mall food court completely famished. We had dinner and then continued our adventures. We found a delightful little Irish Pub and settled in to listen to an Irish duo. After enjoying the music, we spent a little more time in the city and then caught the train home.
We start school on Monday and it is pretty hard to believe! I am kind of looking forward to having a schedule again though. So far I am loving Australia and I hope you are all doing well back home!
Monday, February 23, 2009
G'day Mates!
Hello Friends!
I have been in Australia for just over week now and I love the country and the people.
We spent 3 days at a lakeside resort doing a study abroad orientation with about 150 other study abroad students. We took a tour of Sydney Harbor, visited the zoo, and had a surf lesson. The surf lesson was super fun. . .but also a little difficult. I still have bruises from my many attempts to get up J
I moved into my dorm, the International House, on Friday morning. There are about 220 students living in the building. It has a very community-oriented feel to it and so I have been able to meet a lot of people. I think about 40% of the students in I-House are Australian and the rest are from all over the world. Although students from the US make up a disproportionate amount.
I have yet to meet an unfriendly Australian. . .It seems like there might be some truth to the easy-going Aussie stereotype.
I live on a floor with 18 other students- both guys and girls. I was shocked to find out that our floor bathroom is co-ed. It hasn’t been a problem yet, but I did have to remind the boys to put the seat down J
The Aussie vernacular has been more difficult to catch onto then I was expecting. They shorten everything, so board shorts are boardies, sweatpants are trackies, Wollongong is the Gong, and a truck is a ute (as in utility). I usually have to ask Aussie’s to repeat themselves multiple times before I actually understand what’s going on.
Tonight the Uni (or University) is sponsoring a Salsa dancing night. Apparently salsa dancing is pretty popular in Australia. I am very excited to go take a lesson and then make a complete fool of myself with my two left feet.
I hope you are all doing well! I would love to hear what is going on in your lives. We have an internet quota at our Uni, so facebook and my Gustavus email are difficult for me to use. If you would like to email me, my Wollongong address is hboc452@uow.edu.au.
Hopefully I’ll hear from you soon!
I have been in Australia for just over week now and I love the country and the people.
We spent 3 days at a lakeside resort doing a study abroad orientation with about 150 other study abroad students. We took a tour of Sydney Harbor, visited the zoo, and had a surf lesson. The surf lesson was super fun. . .but also a little difficult. I still have bruises from my many attempts to get up J
I moved into my dorm, the International House, on Friday morning. There are about 220 students living in the building. It has a very community-oriented feel to it and so I have been able to meet a lot of people. I think about 40% of the students in I-House are Australian and the rest are from all over the world. Although students from the US make up a disproportionate amount.
I have yet to meet an unfriendly Australian. . .It seems like there might be some truth to the easy-going Aussie stereotype.
I live on a floor with 18 other students- both guys and girls. I was shocked to find out that our floor bathroom is co-ed. It hasn’t been a problem yet, but I did have to remind the boys to put the seat down J
The Aussie vernacular has been more difficult to catch onto then I was expecting. They shorten everything, so board shorts are boardies, sweatpants are trackies, Wollongong is the Gong, and a truck is a ute (as in utility). I usually have to ask Aussie’s to repeat themselves multiple times before I actually understand what’s going on.
Tonight the Uni (or University) is sponsoring a Salsa dancing night. Apparently salsa dancing is pretty popular in Australia. I am very excited to go take a lesson and then make a complete fool of myself with my two left feet.
I hope you are all doing well! I would love to hear what is going on in your lives. We have an internet quota at our Uni, so facebook and my Gustavus email are difficult for me to use. If you would like to email me, my Wollongong address is hboc452@uow.edu.au.
Hopefully I’ll hear from you soon!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
