Melbourne

For the past few days, the Recreation and Tourism Management group has been in Melbourne, Victoria. They compare this city to San Francisco, California. We have been around town going to the markets, different shops and cafes, going to bars, and the largest casino in the southern hemisphere, Crown. We wont talk a lot about the gambling because I am a little bitter about the whole deal....
Aaannyways, we went to a place called Phillip Island, which was about a 2 hour drive from our hostel. On the way we stopped to feed kangaroos!!! We also stopped at a chocolate factory on the island and took a tour of how the chocolate was made! We went to watch the Penguin Parade there (we weren't allowed to take pictures because it would scare the 2.2 pound penguins :( ). We watched the penguins come in from a few days at sea, and hobble to their little niches.
We are headed off to Sydney tomorrow where we will meet back up with the other groups!!
I will put some more pictures up soon, but I am too lazy to download them to my computer right now :) I miss everyone!!!

Darwin and Kakadu!

so these past few days i have been in no civilization -- aka in the outback of Australia. we went to Kakadu National Park. i held a snake, saw some WILD crocodiles up close and personal, seen the most beautiful places in the world, eaten kangaroo and buffalo, and camped out in the middle of nowhere. its been aweeesome :)

when we traveled back into darwin, we (me and my roomates) went out to dinner at a pizza place across the street from our hostel. then we proceeded to go to the rooftop bar, and then went on to The Vick (a bar down the street).

this afternoon/tonight we went to the markets of darwin and watched the sunset on the beautiful beach and bought a few things!

DAY 3

We arrived in darwin at about 1:00 on Monday (we just skipped sunday all together) and came to the hostel that we are staying in. we were assigned our roomates: Alyssa, Jen, and Paulette.

We then went out by the pool at the hostel and ordered a bottle of wine! We ordered wine because for one beer it is five dollars, rather than 16 for a bottle of wine. ya'll would be surprised how much money everything costs here! for a 24 pack of corona, it is 57 australian dollars!!!! (which is a little over 50 american dollars!) outrageous.

we then went to dinner with a big group at a place called monsoons and had a 14 dollar wrap. it was realllly good! and they gave us free 'chips' (french fries) for the table with a side of 'tomato sauce' (ketchup). then we went on a walk and met some homeless aboriginal people and made conversation for awhile! haha. that lasted about an hour and by that time we were dying from the jet lag and went to sleep pretty early.

Tuesday we woke up and went downstairs to get our phone and internet set up. then we went to the grocery store and bought food, so we could make it instead of going out every meal and spending so much money. then we showered and went to orientation. UNSW then held a welcome reception for us at a bar called Lizard somethingorother. they gave us appetizers, which ended up being very good. we sat there for awhile with a bunch of people and kept getting pitchers of beer. we then went to a few bars around on Mitchell Street. We went to this bar and celebrated TOT... which will be a story for another time...

Today is Wednesday and we laid out by the pool for a few hours and then got ready and went to class. class was from 1-5. it seems like it will be very interesting. we are going to be doing a lotttt of field trips, including 2 theme parks, seeing penguins run out from the water, going to a wine tasting where we will be able to pet kualas AND kangaroos! i will update you all more on those things once they happen. but tomorrow we are headed off to Kakadu national park and it is supposed to be one of the best things from the whole experience! i will be eating some crocodile and kangaroo! wahoo!

thats all for now. pace.

i made ittt

i made it to australia!!! this is my second day and it is about 1215 a.m. here right noW! we caught up on sleep last night and have met a lot of the people doing the study-australia program today :) we went to a few of the bars around town, met our professor, and hung out by the poool. its been great! classes start tomorrow -- boooo.
thanks for making the blog, cay haha. i'll write more tomorrow/wheneverrrr.
yay for being in darwin!

4 dayss!!

so im going to the outback in 4 days. GET READY!!!!!
- im going to miss you ryan

the first postttt

hello all,

so this is Cayte. Ryan's computer smart friend that decided to make her a blog for her Australia adventures this summer. ENJOYYY!!!

<3