Thursday, March 31, 2011

Heading to Heron Island! (Or, a long blog post)


As one of our orientation activities, the program staff taught us how to play cricket.  It was fun once we sort of figured out how the rules work.  It is more or less like baseball, only you run back and forth in a straight line between two sets of posts and have two runners at a time and you hold/swing the (flat) bat like a combination of a baseball bat and a golf club.  My team accidentally hit the ball into the tree you see in the background, which gave us the cricket equivalent of a home run.

The last few days have been hectic.  This morning, we moved out of our hostel.  This was a big ordeal, as we had to haul all of our luggage (two big suitcases per person + backpacks, etc, times 18 people) on the city bus system to campus.  We had our second full day of classes today.  The teachers are very entertaining.  The terrestrial ecology teacher (who taught us for the entire day today) tells us stories, and always ends his lectures in a very epic fashion that makes you want to clap and think deep thoughts about the subject at the same time.  He uses props, like dinosaur heads and giant fake orchids and Stitch (of Lilo and...) stuffed toys, to demonstrate his points.

We are leaving this evening on an overnight bus.  I will be off in the wilderness for the next two weeks, with minimal internet access for the first week and none at all for the second.  We are first going to Heron Island to study marine biology.  'Tis the season for baby sea turtles to hatch and run down to the water!  We are also going snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, among other activities.  Then, we are going to Carnavon Gorge, where we will be camping, and will hike around and look at lots of cool rocks, plants, animals, and Aboriginal rock art.

I finally got a cell phone, which has been quite an ordeal.  I had to head back into the city at lunch today, because the folks at Virgin Mobile gave me a faulty sim card which didn't activate.  This was a better option than waiting for the customer service folks (with whom I spent an hour on the phone) to take 10 business days to fix the problem.

Some Australian vocabulary for you:
Chook = Chicken
Mozzie = Mosquito
Maccas = McDonald's
Lollies = Candy
"Off like a frog in a sock"

I'm very glad that I take public transportation everywhere, even if it is very expensive.  I'm pretty sure that driving in Brisbane would be a miserable experience.  It has a lot of one-way streets, roundabouts, pouring rain, and construction.

Many things here are expensive, particularly food.  The best cheap options so far have been grocery stores, farmers markets (we got a HUGE bag of fruit on special for $5!), and bars (which often have dinner/beer specials).  Vegetarian food is slightly challenging.  Most restaurants have at least one vegetarian option, but let me just say that there are a lot of veggie burgers.  Oh!  An interesting thing: here, they often put a slice of beet on any burger you get.  It is surprisingly tasty.  There also appears to be no mustard other than honey mustard.  There is definitely no Mexican food, but I was expecting that.

Hostels are interesting places.  The residents range from sleazy, drunk guys to the little girl who sang "Mamma Mia" really loudly in the kitchen this morning.  My roommate fortunately obtained a fan for our room a couple nights ago, so it wasn't boiling at night and I could avoid waking up to the jackhammers at 4 a.m. (we were next to a construction site, and our window was on the street).  I still haven't been sleeping well.  Myself and some of my fellow students went out last night, and even though I went to bed semi-late, I still got less than 6 hours of sleep.  This length of rest is becoming an unfortunate habit.  The overnight bus tonight will probably not help.

Looks like the other students are heading off to dinner.  Since I didn't eat lunch (due to the cell phone fiasco), I think it would be a good idea for me to join them.

Cheers!

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