Pictures from Lecture Recess at Sydney

So as I'm sure some of you know, I went to Sydney a couple of weeks ago for lecture recess (spring break). I went with two of my friends, Lindsey and Amy. We had a grand ole time and visited a lot of different places. Most of our activities are shown in the pictures below. In addition to those, we also went to see the musical Wicked which was amazing, the ballet The Silver Rose which I really enjoyed, on an double-decker sightseeing bus tour which I have a lot of architecture pictures from, saw Avatar in 3D on the largest IMAX in the world which was epic, and shopping in Darling Harbor where I bought a new pair of shoes! If you guys want to see anymore pictures (cuz I took a lot) feel free to leave a comment, and I'll see what I can do. Enjoy!

Me, Amy, and Lindsey on our first night in Sydney!
Me with my surfboard post lesson.
Beach that I learned how to surf on!
A view of the Chinese Garden. This is one of the only such gardens that can be found outside of China!
View of the Chinese Garden. I have a lot of really beautiful pics, but since this is going to be such a long entry as is, I'm only going to post more than these few if someone requests it. Btw one of my favorite spots in Sydney, it was gorgeous.
Picture of the main lake at the Chinese Garden.
A picture of the Sydney skyline from the Sky Tower. I have a lot of these, so just leave a comment if you want to see more!

I have a lot of pictures from Wildlife World which I should put right here, but I'm feeling lazy. It has a lot of the same animals as Billabong Sanctuary does, but if I get a request to put some of them up, I will happily do so.
One of my best pictures of the Sydney Opera House.
Part of the Sydney skyline.
Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bay Bridge.
Guy on a 12-ft unicycle!
Opera House at night.
Luna Park at night from across the bay. I always meant to get there, but I never got around to it...
The Harbor Bay Bridge at night. This picture was taken from the Opera House.
One of my favorite pictures from Sydney. I took this after going to the ballet at the Opera House, and I have no idea who the strangers are who are casting the shadows.
Flying foxes at the Royal Botanical Gardens. There're killing all the trees, so they plan on running them out using sound disturbances. There were close to a hundred of them in the same small space!
You're supposed to rub the warthog's nose for good luck, that's why it's the only part of the statue that isn't tarnished.
Sydney Aquarium and Wildlife World were both on this Where's Waldo kick; however, in Australia they call Waldo Wally for some reason... Also, I have a lot more pictures from the aquarium than the ones I featured here. If you want to see more, send me an email or leave a comment, and I'll create a dedicated update.
Adorable platypus at the Sydney Aquarium. These cute little guys only get to be about a foot long and are found in Northern Australia.
Penguins at the Sydney Aquarium. They were so cute. There are wild penguins in southern Australia.
One of the many sharks at the Sydney Aquarium.
Hostel that I stayed at with Lindsey (top) and Amy (Bottom).

Pictures from Billabong Sanctuary

Me with a very happy looking kangaroo.
Me with the lizard falling onto my face. I have a picture where he was more content to stay on my head, but I thought this one was funnier.
Me with a baby croc (I don't remember if it was a fresh or saltwater) in front of the scenic billabong!
Me with a really big python that I cannot remember the name of right now...
Me petting one of the baby koalas. They were too young to be handled, but they were simply adorable. As a note, baby koalas eat their mom's poop so that they can digest eucalyptus leaves... yum!
Me with a red-tailed cockatoo.
Me with the wombat. He was so cute!
Me holding the koala bear. He didn't really want to look at the camera... As a note, they have vicious claws...
Another of me with a kangaroo. The ones down South are so much bigger!


Until next time!

Hello avid readers! I'm going to begin this post with an apology for such a belated update on what I've been up to, or rather what I was up to three weeks ago.

In my last post I promised an intriguing adventure to the beach and Billabong Sanctuary. We'll start with what has become pretty typical here, a trip to the beach on a Saturday. This Saturday was nothing new except I actually remembered to bring my camera with me, so I was able to take pictures of the very cute waterfall that I walk by on my way from the bus stop as well as some of the really cool trees that they have all over the place here. I've included a picture of both the tree and the waterfall. As a note, what I think is so cool about the tree is that it's roots actually grow downward from the branches. This gives it a very unique look. One of my friends always takes the time to braid these roots (before they've reached the ground) saying that one day her grandkids will think it looks pretty :).


Now on to the more interesting topic of Billabong Sanctuary. Queensland (where I am) is just about the only state in the world where it is legal to hold koala bears (not that you want to go grab a wild one or anything!), and Billabong Sanctuary is one of the few places in Queensland where you can hold one of the cute things! So while I was at Billabong, I got to hold and take a really good photo with both a koala bear and a wombat. They also have a slew of other animals there including snakes, lizards, cassowaries, kangaroos, and crocs, so I also got pictures with all of those except the cassowary. All in all it was a pretty amazing time, and if you ever come to visit me in the states, I can show you the pictures of me with the koala and wombat. I'm also gonna include the ones I took of me holding them, but they are not nearly as good.

On second thought, I'm just going to put those pics in a different update, because they are a pain to add under all this text... I should be writing another post soon on my trip to Sydney over lecture recess!

Elusive bush turkey that I finally managed to get a picture of outside of the dining hall and neglected to mention in my post!

Giant Cassowary from bus stop

Coral from first dive site

Parrot Fish at the second dive site

Hey Guys! Long time, no update. I know me bad... Anyways, a lot has happened since the last time I updated, not the least of which was Easter, so Happy (very) Late Easter to everyone. This was a pretty big weekend for me, actually, and one of the main reasons I have been putting off updating for so long is because I was waiting on pictures from that weekend. Well still no luck on some of the pictures but I included some of the ones I have! Anyways, I left with a couple of my friends early Friday morning (1:20am) on the overnight greyhound headed north to mission beach. Once there we had to chill at the bus stop for a couple of hours waiting for a shuttle to pick us up to go white water rafting on the Tully River. The rafting was Amazing! It was mostly class 4 rapids, and we almost flipped our boat, and it was epically awesome. I really enjoyed it and didn't even blink when I skinned my elbow up, and broke my swimsuit. Well actually the broken swimsuit did take a little bit of work to make decent for the rest of the journey, but we figured it out. Any ways, these are the pictures I don't have so no luck for you guys here, but I am including a pic of the bus stop we were waiting at for forever because it had a giant cassowary statue in front of it that was just hilarious.

Later that night, we checked into our hostel which wasn't too bad and explored Cairns, pronounced Canz, a little bit. We had some really good portugese for dinner and looked around the night markets which were right next door to our hostel. We also went to bed pretty early because we were all exhausted after a full day of rafting, and we had to get up early the next day to go snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef! Snorkeling was amazing and I got some pretty decent shots on an underwater camera that I had brought. I've attached a couple of those. We went to two different dive sites and both were pretty amazing. As a note I'm hoping to finish my open water diving certification within the next month so that the next time I make it up to Cairns I can go diving instead of snorkeling!

That night we spent a lot more time shopping, and I managed to buy most of my souveniers for my family. I even managed to find Harley tshirts for the Rents. There were also a couple of snakes at the night markets which I held, which was a lot of fun. For some reason, I only have a picture of me holding the little one, so you guys are just going to have to imagine me holding the one that you can see in the background of the pic below!

Another update should be following shortly with what I did last weekend, including a trip to the beach and Billabong Sanctuary! Ok so I don't know what's going on with the pics, so I guess those will be added later in a separate post.

Hey Guys! Sorry that I haven't updated in a while, but you know how I am... So anyways last time I talked to you I mentioned that I was going on a pub crawl the next day. It was so much fun! I made some horns and a tail by hand, so they looked a little grungy but it was pretty sweet. Oh by the way, a pub crawl is the same as bar hopping, and for this one there was a heaven and hell theme. Anyways, I'm going to attach a couple of pictures from that night of some friends and I. (The guy in the second picture is Marty. He lives in my townhouse.)

Later that weekend, as some of you may know there was a cyclone (hurricane that spins the other way) headed towards Townsville. It hit here and was rated a category 3; however, the rating system here is different from the one they use in the States, and it was very minor. As a note, though, my friends and I did have cyclone party which was a lot of fun even if it was sunny outside!

Last Friday, I did the usual which included going to Bludgers at Uni Club. Bludgers is just a party the club has every week with a live band. So last week it was a reggae band, and they were actually really good. Later that weekend, I went to the beach with some friends which was also a lot of fun. We went swimming and had a grand ole time. Sorry, no pics, but we did see a really pretty waterfall and I thoroughly regretted not bringing my camera!

So this weekend is looking to be a big weekend for me. Since it's Easter, we have a 5-day weekend, and I'm going up Cairns to go whitewater rafting and snorkeling on the outer edges of the Great Barrier Reef. I'm so excited, and I'll try to remember to take pics, but there's only so much you can do when you need to keep your camera dry! Anyways talk to you after I get back.

So I'm going to try this new thing called posting more, Yeah! So yesterday was St. Paddy's which I've got to say is one of my favorite holidays of the year. I always like how many random people you meet on St. Paddy's for some reason. Anyways, me and a bunch of friends went out to a nice bar, drank, met up with other friends. It was a lot of fun. We hit two different Irish pubs and concluded the night in our favorite tavern Mad Cow. Overall, it was a really fun night, and I think everyone had a good time. I've attached a couple of the photos from last night. The first is an Irish band(?) maybe. The were really good and paraded through the pub we were in. The second is just a group shot we took with a couple of random people we had met!
Also, thanks to Maria for putting her pics on facebook already, so I could steal them and put them on here for everyone else!