Around For A While: Massive Catch up

Hello all!

I am sorry I am so bad at keeping up with this blog. If it makes any of you who check this consistently (erin....), I have also been bad at studying my creole lessons which I told myself I would look at once a week here. Oops.

Australia has fallen into a good routine. I go to class. I watch/read Game of Thrones (I am on the third book and the second season of the show just came out, basically I am obsessed). I hang out with people. I haven't been going to the beach as often as I did earlier this semester but the weather has become much more rainy and slightly cooler. Last night, I even put the fleece on my bed.

School has been going pretty well. I haven't been putting much effort into it, so I haven't been turning in really quality work but the grades I am getting back are grades that I wouldn't be too upset with at Notre Dame.

The dorm here has become very close as well. There are dorm events at least once a week and they range from a charity tennis tournament (yeah I tried playing tennis) to bake offs to balls and river cruises. I do love the community that we have here and I am really glad that ND puts us in Tommy More.

For our spring break, or as the austrlian's put it, fall break, five of us went on a road trip up the coast of Australia and went beach hopping for a week. Then we cut inland and saw an absolutely beautiful national park, some amazing rock art, and some really cute outback towns. Whatever anyone tells you, Cue is the best town ever. We drove over 4000 km on the left side of the road and although we came close a couple times, we never ran out of gas or water. It was absolutely beautiful and I was really impressed with the diversity of landscapes that we saw on our trip. Australia has so much to see and I just want to see all of it.

The end of the semester, even though it's 2 months away, seems like it's so close as well. I have the next four weekends booked solid and will not be in Perth for any of them. I am going south to Margaret River, then to Bali, then north to the Pinnacles, and finally to Rottnest island. Then we only have one more week of class, then a break for finals, during which I will hopefully be visiting Thailand) and then we have 2 weeks of finals. After, I hope to travel to the East Coast of Australia, where everyone lives and see New Zealand before heading home. Not enough time. Can I just stay in Australia forever? Answer: No. There is no Caribou Coffee here.

Here are more pictures with appropriate captions that will hopefully show you all a little more of what I have been up to (the highlights of course). Enjoy!

Brian and I checking out and properly appreciating the stromatolies at Shark Bay. Very appropriately I was wearing my department of biology t-shirt for this photo.

The pink lake near Kalbarri national park. There was very little water in this lake (as you can see) but all the pink is salt that gives the lake it's coloration. It was so cool. Nature at it's finest.

Us on top of Walga Rock, the third largest monolith in all of Australia. One part was covered in aborignal rock art and the nice lady in town told us how we could get on top of the rock and explore. If you look closely you can see a small speck that is Brian running ahead. For scale those boulders in the distance are about twice as tall as I am, and this picture shows about 1/10 of the length of the rock.

At the intercollege ball this past weekend. Almost all of the Tommy More international students. I love these people so much.

A side view of Walga Rock. In that indent is where all the aboriginal rock art can be found.

Also at the intercollege ball. This was our attempt at a ND group photo. I love this so much.

The emus that we had to chase off to get to the water on our road trip. Blasting music from the car worked quite well.

Suzanna, Brian, and I on shell beach, which was arguably one of the greatest places we went. The beach was completely made of shells and the water was crystal clear. You can also walk out ~200 meters without it getting any deeper than your waist. Perfection.

The road trip crew at the ball. We still love each other despite spending the whole week in a little car together.

An example of some of the rock art we saw at Walga Rock.

TROPIC OF CAPRICORN! WOO!

Overlooking Perth on a hike we took a while ago. It was beautiful but we ran out of water and got lost. That was an adventure. The trails should be better marked.

All the girls before the ball. It's like prom all over again.

One of the best stories from the road trip. So, remember those boulders from the picture of us all on the top of Walga rock? Well these are them up close. That is also IRISH '88 painted on the side of that rock. The chances of us finding something IRISH on top of a rock that is 50 km from the nearest town in the middle of the outback? A lot higher than I thought they were.