The Plans

Family, friends, Merrimack community, I am back. Sorry for the short hiatus, but as laid back as Australia is, I have found myself very busy. As you know, I started classes last week and I found that I am taking some pretty interesting courses. I thought my Interpersonal Skills

course was a communications course, but it turns out to actually be a psychology course. I still find it to be interesting and I hope that it will help me better my relationships and my interactions with people, both skills, which will be necessary when I become a world famous politician (it’ll happen, don’t worry). My journalism course seems to be very interesting as well. My tutor is not formally a teacher, but he has been editor at four different newspapers in Australia as well as two newspapers in London. This class is clearly just an elective, but I find it interesting. The first day we learned about grammar, something I thought I was good at, but I was wrong. My hope is that by the end of this class, my grammar skills are close to my sisters, but I doubt that will happen.

Enough with the boring, let’s talk about the fun stuff! Monday nights are taco nights around here so everyone brings their plates down to the picnic table area and we eat tacos and make new friends. Tuesdays, we have a barbecue and then a free bus to surfer’s paradise for the night. Wednesday, we get pizzas for $6, a great deal. And Thursday mornings, the volunteer group Red Frogs cooks us delicious pancakes! I know it may seem that I am not getting my fair share of authentic Australian food, but that is not necessarily true. On Saturday, my friends and I headed out to get our 18+ ID cards so that we wouldn’t have to carry passports around anymore. On the way home, we stopped at a little takeout restaurant and got the most delicious fish and chips I have ever had in my life. Jenna and I shared the fish pack and a “tropical burger” which had pineapple and barbecue sauce on it (the Aussies love their barbecue sauce.) As you know, Sunday nights are “family dinner” so this week we made chicken quesadillas and salad. They were so good!!

There are other interesting things happening besides the food, I promise. This coming Saturday Jenna, Cathy, Julia, and me are taking a tour of Springbrook National Park. There, we are going to walk through the rainforest, try the tropical fruit that is native to the land, and swim in a waterfall. The next weekend, me, Jenna, and our other friend Jill have booked a trip to Sydney. We have plans to stay at the Wood Duck Inn, which is located in King’s Cross. Although I do not know exactly what that means, I’m sure it will mean something to me by the time we leave. We have also made plans for spring break which is April 22- May 1^st. Jenna and I had plans to go to Melbourne for the first half of the week and then head to Alice Springs and see Ayer’s Rock for the second half, however, Cathy and Julia asked if we could wait for them to go to the outback. Therefore, we have decided that spring break we are going to New Zealand. New Zealand was number one on Jenna’s list of places she wanted to go, but it was never really high on mine. I was much more interested in the outback, however, when we looked at flights round trip to New Zealand they were only $350, unreasonably inexpensive. The plan for right now is that me, Jenna, Jill, and her roommate Brittany are going to go to New Zealand for a week. I’m not worried that I won’t get to the outback because I have a three

week study break before finals and I only have two finals, so there will be plenty of time to get out there. And, even if I don’t, I don’t think it would be hard to convince either of my parents to go with to the outback with me. As for Melbourne, it has its appeal, but it’s a city. I want to go, I want to experience it all, but in my opinion, if I go to Sydney, it’d be like going to the United States and seeing New York, but missing out on Miami. It would be awesome to go (and I’m sure I’ll find time for it), but it’s not a priority at the moment. One last place I have recently taken an interest in seeing is Tasmania. I met a girl who lives there and asked her if it was worth seeing. Obviously, she said yes. She said that Tasmania is beautiful and there are a lot of mountains and hiking to do. It sounded like a place I might want to see, but we’ll have to see what other trips I end up taking in my short five months down here. It's crazy to think that I've been gone for almost a month already. Time is flying by and I'm having so much fun. I don't want to think about leaving... ever.

P.s. next post there will be a video, I promise!