Phillip Island Adventure

More exciting things have happened! I’ve already been here a month! Wow. I’ve kept busy and kept doing new and exciting things to make this past week go by faster. Sometimes I wish I could just pop back home for a minute for a hug, or a short conversation face to face, or a bite to eat, something just for a minute. But it’s all good, I already know I will in absolutely no way regret this experience, it’s a once in a lifetime incredible opportunity that has already made a big impact on my life. I keep meeting lots of new people and have made some good friends already and only look forward to making more. I’m starting to get to know my housemates a little better and they all seem really great. It’s really great having Loretta and Jenny here even though I really didn’t know them at all before we flew over here. Loretta’s housemate Tom almost feels like a little brother to me, he’s such a nice guy. And we’ve made some pretty good friends with Marc from Ohio and Nick from New Jersey. It’s cool to have so many K-State people here as well, it’s kind of an automatic connection to home.

Okay, so what’s been going on the past few days. I went to all my lectures, and had one tutorial as well. I only need to pass, which is a 50%, to get credit for all my classes back home, but it’s still going to be a good amount of work. I think it will be fairly difficult for me. It’s hard right now to get back in the swing of things since I’ve been out of school awhile and have been on the “vacation” of my life so far here. The hardest part for me is the fact that we don’t have many assignments at all. We have to read every week by ourselves, because we will need that info for our tests at the end of the semester. That’s a lot of self discipline! We also have questions to do every week that we talk about in the tutorials, but again it’s all up to you. Most of my classes have two assignments and one big test at the end. Finance has a three hour test at the end, along with a multiple choice test the week before! But he promises it should be an easy class for us. We’ll see, he has a lot of enthusiasm and is a little out there, but usually that helps! International Econ sounds like it’s going to be a really interesting class. It might be quite difficult though because I have to do the tutorial part all on my own since it clashes with another lecture I have and she couldn’t move the time at all. So I guess I’ll have a good relationship with that teacher since I’ll have to have one on one, yikes!! Business Communication looks to be fairly easy and probably quite helpful. I’m most excited about Australia Today! It’s only for international students and they teach us everything about Australia, the culture, the history, the people, the land, all of it. And all of that interests me a great deal, and is a big reason I came here in the first place, to fully immerse myself in and experience a different place in the world. It’s strange only being in four classes, but I really do feel like I’m in class a fair amount of time and will have plenty of work to keep myself busy with. It’s a little difficult to adjust to a new system of learning, they do things a little different here although I’m not really sure what exactly all those differences are.

I’ve been trying to organize all my school stuff and figure out my calendar for the next four months, it seems like it’s no time at all!! We’ve also been watching movies and such to keep ourselves entertained and busy. Friday night Tom took me and Loretta to the grocery store, bad idea since we were hungry, but really a good thing as I got some Cookies n Cream ice cream so I can pig out whenever I want! J We went to get ingredients to make a quiche, though. Tom got his Mum’s recipe and decided to make it for us. It took quite awhile to make and was a bit of an adventure, he didn’t exactly know what he was doing, we didn’t have a spatula so the bacon grease kept splattering and it hurt badly, there were a few egg shell pieces in there and the flour didn’t get sifted, just poured. But it ended up tasting quite delicious. I reckon I’ll have to get the recipe from him.

Yesterday was one of the most amazing experiences since I’ve been here. I signed up for a trip through DUSA (the student association) to go to Phillip Island to see the world famous Penguin Parade. I must say the transportation was a little frustrating, but everything else was incredible. We had to go to Melbourne to the Burwood campus of Deakin to meet the bus. Well, that took us way longer than it should have because the bus took another strange route we didn’t understand, and the tram from inside Melbourne out to the campus was crazy long. Then the bus to pick us up was a half hour late and we didn’t have anyone to call, there was no Deakin representative there or anything. But we got on it and got on our way just fine. I’m just glad we didn’t have to be there until 2, seeing as we started out from here at 9:30 in the morning! I believe there is such thing as too much public transportation in one day! We had another hour or two drive to Phillip Island, although it’s just straight across the bay from Geelong, we had to go all the way up and round the bay. So our driver stopped in a little town called Tooradin so we could get out and get a drink or whatever. That was an interesting stop. There was a little lake, more of a pond, by the Café we stopped at and there were these two boys and their mom there. The two boys were running around and swimming in the pond while the mom just sat there. The boys were a little chubby and both needed to pull up their trunks a little, but they were just having fun, whatever. Well then they decided to go over this bridge there that was maybe 6 feet above the water, and they climbed over the rail to stand on the edge and then jump off. It took both of them forever to get up the courage to jump and they just stood up there, dancing around with their mom yelling at them! It was a source of huge entertainment for all of us that were waiting on the bus. One of them decided to pee from up there as well, since he couldn’t get back over the rail and wasn’t ready to jump off I guess! We couldn’t believe it! This was in no way a secluded place, and his brother and mom were right there watching him pee off the bridge!! Anyway, long story, trust me it was quite hilarious to all of us, and we all got some pictures of them! So we were on our way again. We passed through towns of Canbourne and San Remo as well. When we got on to Phillip Island we went to a Koala Conservation Center. That was pretty amazing. They have a boardwalk you walk around and get to see a bunch of koalas in the trees. It’s high off the ground since they always live up high in the gum trees and the trees themselves can grow quite tall. We got to see quite a few of them, and most of them were actually awake and eating as well! That’s an exciting thing since they sleep for 20 hours a day. That’s not just because they’re lazy though. The eucalyptus leaf is one of the worst in nutritional value, and when they eat it, it actually ferments in their stomach and essentially you have a drunk koala. So they sleep both to conserve what very little energy they get from their food source, and because they’re a little intoxicated! Anyway, a couple of them were actually moving around in their trees. One even decided to climb down from his tree onto the railing of the boardwalk, and he took a good long stroll around the railing! It was incredible. I got a few good pictures, but when he did it I was on the opposite side, and there were people all crowding around him and stuff by the time I got over there. The rangers were trying to keep him moving along and keep everyone back since it was a lot of work for the poor fellow to move so much and he wouldn’t if people were too close. Very interesting to watch these little guys! I also saw a kookabura in the tree and along another walk they had we saw a whole bunch of wallabies. They were pretty cute, in some small way they reminded me of hamsters or squirrels! So needless to say I liked them. They would look up at us with their little hands hanging down and let us get fairly close and then hop off! So that was fun. Then we headed to Cowes, a town on the island, to eat dinner and walk around. That was fun and it was quite gorgeous by the beach there. Finally we went to see the Nobbies, some rocks off the coast, one of which a colony of seals lives on, and to the southern most point of the Island, and essentially of Australia. Across the straight was Tasmania, (too far to see) and then south of Tasmania a ways is Antarctica. So it was actually quite chilly there with the strong wind and the sun slowly going down. It was breathtakingly gorgeous though. That is some of the roughest sea in the world, but with the waves splashing up on the rocks that were all made from volcanic lava and ash, it was a beautiful rugged coastline with the sun setting in the distance. We headed to the Penguin Parade then since it’s good to get there before the sun goes down to get a good seat. They have bleachers set up and some room to sit on the sand in front. We took the sand, a front row seat! One of the most stunning views I’ve seen just sitting there with nobody in front of me, watching the ocean with the sun setting. It was absolutely incredible. That right there was a good enough show for me! It was kind of in a little cove with cliffs around and the waves were fairly large coming in, and we watched the entire sunset waiting for the penguins. Then the “Little Penguins” (so named because they are indeed the smallest penguins in the world, but used to be named fairy penguins) started appearing out of the ocean! They’d just pop up when a wave rolled in and shake off and waddle up the shore a little ways. They huddled around and waited on the water line for quite awhile until they got up the courage to come up the beach and go back into their burrows. They go out to the ocean to fish, and they always go alone, but they come back across the beach together for protection from the seagulls, foxes, snakes, and cats. When they are out at sea a group of them are called a raft because they float along the top when they are sleeping. Then they are called a waddle when they come home since they really do waddle up the beach. They go out for a few days or weeks at a time to fish, which they do by diving to the bottom of the straight (sometimes up to 60m) then catch fish on their way back up, all in two minutes. They sleep in the ocean floating along at night, and continue to feed and get fat while they’re out there. They come back a lot to either breed, lay eggs, take care of the chicks, or mault and get a whole new set of feathers. They are monogamous so if their mate dies, they are done breeding forever. They were pretty cute to watch come up the beach, and they were pretty slow since they were so fat from feeding, some even fell over a couple times, or took a short rest on their bellies! There was always a fearless leader and a straggler of the group. Then when we left we could see them all up the hill going back to their burrows. They made this loud noise too, like talking before bed or something. It’s incredible that they just do this all the time, even with the people there like it’s nothing. Every day more come out of the ocean and more go out. It’s also a little crazy people can make millions off of this, but it was worth seeing. There was this one seagull who kept coming really close to me on the beach squaking and puffing up his feathers, he was really mean chasing all the other gulls off, too! All in all the experience was pretty incredible and I enjoyed the day a lot, it was great to take so many pictures as well!! (Although photography and video were strictly prohibited at the penguins) It was a long ride home to Geelong, but worth every minute and penny.

So that’s been my exciting news! Now it looks to be another boring old week, although I’m sure new and exciting things will come up, because I’m in Australia for goodness sake! I’d love to hear from you, no matter how boring you think life’s been for you lately. I miss you and would really love to hear how back home is going. Have a great week and I’ll try to as well!
Love, Alissa