Back Down Under

Hi Everyone!

Well, I'm back in Sydney safe and sound! It feels great to be back but obviously I'm missing everyone at home. The weather's been pretty good since I got here, a little cold and rainy at first but now its sunny and mid 20s. I had orientation for college on Friday which went well, I have four courses each trimester. This trimester I have Understanding Advertising, Understanding Marketing, Understanding Personal Relations and Management Principles and Practices. I'm actually really excited to start, probably the first time I've been excited for school since my first day in kindergarden! I have a week off before classes start so I've just been hanging out a bit and getting over the jet lag. I will keep you all posted on how classes go and for now here are some beach shots I've taken since I got here! X

Palm Beach - About an hour North of Sydney, where "Home and Away" is filmed, an Australian show I've become obsessed with

Coogee Beach, just down the road from where I'm staying

Coogee Beach again

Fiji

Tim and I went to Fiji for my second last week here. It was so amazing! It started out a little rough, when we landed it was pouring rain, torrential downpour! We waited for our hotel transfer but it never came after an hour so we got a taxi, the roads were brutal, just basically dirt roads so we were bumping along the whole way. The hotel we booked was completely away from anything else and nowhere near the beach, surprising since it's called "The Beachside Resort". When we got there we realized we were the only people staying there! It was deserted, and not the nicest place so we asked to use their internet and booked another hotel closer in. We were at the first hotel for about an hour. Luckily the second one was a lot nicer and the next day the sun came out. We were staying in Nadi (pronounced Nandi) which is on mainland Fiji so we did day trips out to the surrounding islands. The first day we did a sailing trip on a boat called Seaspray which has apparently became famous on an Australian tv show about it. We went to Modriki first, which is the island Cast Away was filmed on, it's complely uninhabited. We snorkelled there for about an hour then went back on the boat for lunch, then onto Yanuya which has a small village on it and a boarding school! It was really cool and we saw a traditional ceremony where two men from our group had to drink cava which is made from a root, they use it for medicine sometimes because it numbs your mouth a bit. We watched the ceremony then we all got to try the cava, kind of tasted like muddy water but it did kind of numb my mouth! After that we sailed back to another island to catch the boat back to Port Denarau where the marina is.

Seaspray

Modriki Island

School on Yanuya Island

On Yanuya with Modriki in the background

Sunset on the way back

On the next day we went out a little further to Mololo Island which was well worth it. We kayaked out to a tiny island you could cross in ten steps then did some snorkelling and sun bathing. On our last day we went to the closest island, South Sea Island, because we had a flight at 6 pm so we had to be back in time.Both days were awesome and it literally looked like we were in a postcard. Paradise!

The ferry that took us around every day

Mololo Island



On South Sea Island



Last Day of Work

For the last Friday of every month my boss takes everyone out for drinks and dinner at a bar down the road from our work on his tab. By conincidence this also happened to be my last day at work! We all got dressed up and went down for drinks for my farewell, my boss also said some nice things for my goodbye and they all signed a big card for me, it was very sweet. I will definitely miss everyone I worked with, I actually really liked the job even though what we actually did wasn`t too exciting. Hopefully I can keep in touch with everyone once I`m back home.

Melbourne

I went to Melbourne for a weekend in May, unfortunately yet another camera broke at the end of my roadtrip so I couldn't get any pictures but thought I'd fill everyone in on what it was like. It was pretty cold and rainy when we went so not the best conditions but it was still a really cool place to visit. I wish I'd had more time to go so I could have gone up the Great Ocean Road but oh well. We went shopping downtown the first day, it reminded me a lot of Montreal. Really artsy districts and funky architecture, a lot younger crowd than Sydney as there's a lot of universities in the city. Could have just been the area we were in but that's what it seemed like to me. The big distinctive thing about Melbourne is the trams, streetcars to us I guess, you don`t really see them in any other cities here. We went to a comedy show on the first night, it was hilarious. Luckily Aussie humour is a lot like ours, he only made one Canadian joke and it wasn't too bad. There was an American in the audience so he kind of got picked on. The next day I went to an AFL game, Aussie rules football, which was pretty cool. It`s a strange sport, kind of a mix of soccer, football and rugby. I had a lot of fun in Melbourne, it`s weird because when I was deciding to come here I had to choose between Melbourne and Sydney,who knows what it would have been like if I`d chosen Melbourne! My computers being really slow so I can`t get any pictures off the net but if you google Melbourne architecture you can see some of the cool buildings.

The adventures of Papa Bear continue

Here are the new additions to the continuing adventures of Papa bear from the roadtrip!

There was a friend for him at our villa

Roadtrip!

For Easter in Australia it was a five day weekend because of Anzac Day (kind of like our Rememberance Day) so I took the rest of the week off after and went on a roadtrip up the coast with Tim. I flew into Coffs Harbour and met him and his friends there and we set off the next day. We went to a few places I'd been on my Contiki trip that I hadn't gotten to see enough of and some places I'd missed. The first day we went to a water park near Brisbane but it absolutely poured, there were some sunny parts but when we were leaving we got absolutely drenched.

After a mad dash to the car!

After a few nights out on the way back to Sydney we stayed a night in Yamba, a small beach town up in norther New South Wales. I've heard about it from a few people so I figured we might as well check it out. It ended up being a lot of fun, not exactly the most exciting place but it was a nice break. We went to a movie in town and it was the smallest theatre I've ever seen. It was a small little cinema with only one screen and chairs all set up, very cute. Here's Yamba's very own cinema!







We made lots of stops along the way whenever the sun was out as it rained a lot along the way. When the sun came out and we saw a beach we would stop and soak up the sun until the rain came back. Here's some shots from our stops.

For my birthday Tim surprised me with a villa in Port Stephens for the weekend. It was a really nice weekend and we went on a dolphin watching cruise on our first day. The ironic part is that we saw more dolphins later that day at the beach then we did on the cruise. I think photos do it more justice...

And last but not least I bet you didn't know this but I actually spent my birthday in Toronto..

Out in Castle Hill

I agreed to go out with a girl from work one night around where she lives, Castle Hill, not knowing really where it was. I found it it's an hour outside of the city, kind of like the equivalent of the suburbs around Toronto. It was a cute town, a lot like Oakville in some ways, but it was so weird being at her house because shes a year younger than me and still living at home. It was the first time since I got here that I'd been in a family situation, made me so homesick! She lives with her mom and 4 brothers, they were all really sweet. We went out to a local bar near her and everyone was wondering what the hell a Canadian was doing in their town, not exactly a tourist hotspot! It was a lot of fun though, here's just a couple pictures from Emma's phone. I'll update more soon, too tired to put up any more right now!