Sonoma on Monday, LA and Vegas by Tuesday, Denver on Wednesday, Chicago by Thrusday and Wash DC by Friday!

3000 miles coast to coast, 5 lbs fatter from fastfood, lots of conversation with Ryan and an amazing couch is what was waiting for me DC. Thank you Christiana for picking up my phone when I was in Kansas trying to figure out what I'm going to do Friday night. I had the weekend to build my work wardrobe, figure out my route to work, and see a little of the city - too easy.

Top 10 Aussie Photos

soon to come...

New Zealand

standing on the worlds steepest street in the world. Grade: For every 1m horizontal 2.89 meters vertical

The crew

We did a lot of driving... had to keep busy somehow in the camper van

Morgan Brett met me in the airport, immediately went to the parking lot were she introduced me to our camper van home for the entire road trip and without letting me even put my bags away we were off to see New Zealand. Joining us were her friends from the winery where she's been working for the past couple months - 4 south africans, 3 californians and a brit in total. We did everything from walking up the steepest street in the world (our camper wouldn't have made it up), see wild penguins and lots and lots and lots of hikes. Spent a week with crew before I had to head home early due to finals back in Melbourne.

The Ball

The galvatrons played. Amazing food was eaten. Laughs were shared. We all looked dead sexy. What more could you want.

23km

Only 6 km to go! One of my happiest moments ever

Getting pumped with kellen before the run

8 km mark...still looking pretty fresh

we did plenty of touristy stuff too

I am not a runner. I'm not good at it, I would much rather participate in sports or ride a bike for fitness but I still agreed to run a half marathon. My thought being that this would give me motivation to stay in shape during the semester and what better way to see the Great Ocean Road other than running in! Yea maybe not the best of my ideas, but I still did it. Me and an American friend (Kellen) from Queens ran a steady slow jog (only stopping for the occasional koalas in trees and water stations) completed it in just under 2:30:00. We decided to dress up for the run because if people saw us decked in ridiculously clothing then they wouldn't take us seriously because we thought we were going to be at the back of the pack. We stayed with a friend and her family who live on the great ocean road, ate a great meal before hand, checked out their family surf shop and shared many laughs. Note: I'm never running a marathon again.

Rowing Day

Kovacs - our star rower

Queener's Racing

Hair cuts of the guys seconds

ok wow, so it's been a while since i've posted on this thing. I've been back in California for a few weeks now, working on campus at Poly. But first I have to wrap up my Melboune and and Oz trip. I'll throw in a few of the big events leading up to my flight home - starting with Rowing Day.

Yup woke up at 6am, was down by the river eating breakie at 8 watching the races until Noon. At queen's the sport we take most seriously is by far rowing. With this said it's obvious that the ENTIRE college would be watching as well. We won all 4 events: Men's 1st, Women's 1st, Men's 2nd's and Women's seconds. This amazing feat has never been done in the history of University of Melbourne and many said will never happen again. Needless to say the celebrations were high spirited and lasted weeks. To keep us entertained between races were the traditions of Watermelon heads which entails making a helmet out of a watermelon and bang heads until one breaks...whoever's lasts the longest wins (i didn't participate...haha) and the hilarious haircuts the Men's seconds (for aeronautical reasons of course) revealed that morning.

Tasmania

Spirit of Tasmania

Brekkie 

Wineglass bay

Yup, we tore apart the broken stove and did it cave man style

Proof that I drove...a manual too

Cradle Mountain

My spring break...er rather Easter Break was spent in the cold cold Australian state of Tasmania. From what I've picked up, Taz and Tazmanians are always at the receiving end of any bogan, worthless Australian joke. I however found out that it's gorgeous there. Me, an American (Jules) and two Australians (Sarah and Mel) took The Spirit of Tazmania over (a giant ferry) and Mel's very tiny car. We packed that thing full of tents, food, sleeping bags, mats, toilet paper, pots and all the essentials. We did a 5 day, 4 night road trip/camping trip which we covered most of the state. We hit up the popular Cradle Mountain, Wineglass Bay and the capital, Hobart. In Hobart we stayed with a friend from college where we appreciated the warm shower, great food and a bed. We also went through many small towns. We counted roughtly 50 roadkill a day!! Mostly wallabies but a few tazmanian devils. Our first dinner, we quickly found out the gas stove that we brought didn't work and from the picture above you can see how we manned up, and cooked over an open fire (ended up taking about 2 or 3 hours to cook pasta and chicken this way since we couldn't find any good logs to put on the fire without a hatchet). As you can imagine we only did this method only the first night and instead resorted to cooking with these free electric stove BBQ type things that were randomly around Taz. The last morning we were awoken to POURING rain and our tent collapsing on us due to the STRONG winds. We got soaked, our tent got almost gross...good thing it was the last day! While hiking around Dove Lake (pictured above) right below cradle mountain it snowed on us...up the hype was right - very cold but beautiful.

Carlton vs Richmond

Field trip to the game! That's right, we "had" to miss class that day and instead go to the MCG to watch Melbourne's greatest sport, footy. The southern state of Victoria has 10 teams (8 of them being practically in Melbourne), and then Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, and Adelaide each have 1. Trust me, Aussie's in Victoria LOVE this sport. They will talk to you for ages about anything and everything football and they insist that you pick a team to barrack. I couldn't make up my mind and I currently go for three teams - The Carlton Blues because Queen's college is in the Carlton district, the Brisbane Lions because I lived there last semester and also Geelong Cats because they're expected to win the grand final this year. Don't worry, Carlton smashed Richmond that night and even injured Richmond's best player. Yes!

  

MCG and Aussie Open

I took a tour of a sports museum (which focused mainly on the Olympics, cricket and australian rules football (called footy)) at the MCG, which is Australia's biggest sporting arena holding over 100,000 people. It was where the  1956 Olympics where held and the footy grand final is held there every year. It is walking distance from the city centre and therefore a very short tram ride for me from uni. Literally across the tram tracks are the grounds for the Australian Open. I was unable to go too deep in, but I was able to take a few pictures while waiting for my tram.

Conservation Weekend

 Saving Australia one branch at a time!

We did this a lot.

    The team

   Our humble abode

      Roo steak!  It's a little chewier and stringer than beef but still very good

       This one is for you Dad

    See it's a Peninsula 

Through the program I am studying abroad with, I was able to sign up for a volunteer weekend where they house you, feed you and give you transportation. About 3 hours outside of Melbourne, 8 other Americans and I headed to the Mornington Peninsula where an old WW1 and WW2 base is still maintained for tourists. It's located in a national park at the very tip of the mouth which is the only inlet to Melbourne. While working I was stunned to discovered how common it was for huge freighters to pass. I ended up doing simple things like cutting and trimming all sizes of trees and hedges around the base. However the best part by far were the nights where we just relaxed in our cottage type house and just cooked and cooked and cooked. Our home was literally in the middle of nowhere - stores of any type were a 20 minute drive. Kangaroos in large packs were very common to see out of the windows at dusk. At one point we were cooking kangaroo meat on the BBQ we bought from the store, one hpped up curious about the smell. We got a pretty good laugh.

 

3J Bachelor Boy's

My room at Queen's is located on the third floor in the Johnston Wing. The college as a whole has a majority of girls, but my floor has only 4 and about 15 unattainable extremely sexy bloaks (guys). We have been given the name The Bachelor Pad and are always on the lookout for maintaining our loud, crazy reputation. We do have a constant rivalry with the 2J boy's for the few of them are definitely not amateur's in the college scene. Above you will see me and a few of the 3J boy's before our commencement dinner, the commencement dinner itself (and if you look closely you'll see our black robes that we wear every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday on the chairs) and a typical turn or "gathering" that Queen's throws every now and then.