Our Adventure to Perth!!!

Our First Team Jager Bomb!

If your a first time reader I will give you a little background about why I am traveling to Perth for the week. Earlier this summer an email went out asking for athletes to compete in the Australia University Games that would be held in Perth this year. I replied and let them know the sports I play, and unfortunately they weren't sending Basketball or Soccer over for girls. But they did ask me to play on the Beach Volleyball team, and I thought o yeah it can't be that bad Julie could help me....Well right when I arrived on campus we started having training sessions and at first they were pretty intimidating and Marisa and I didn't know what to expect, but after about 3 weeks we got the hang of it and we were really enjoying it. So that is what I will be doing in Perth; competing in 'Mixed 4's Division' for the entire week with a Canadian girl and an Australian boy. So now that you have a little background about what brings me to Perth you will understand. 

Team SLU

On Friday night (09/25) and Marisa, Kiley, Allie, and I decided to go see a movie and have an easy girls night which was well needed! After the movie we walked around and waited for a cab, after about a half hour of waiting we decided to call one which took an additional 30 min. When we finally got back to school around 12am Marisa and I realize we have yet to pack for Perth and we would be leaving in 5 hours!!!! We ran around like mad women and just threw a bunch of clothes in a bag (much of what we never needed, you will figure out why in a bit). At about 2:00am we called in a night and took about a 2 and half hour nap to be woken up by my 'Asian Morning' ring tone letting us know it was time to get on the first bus of the day! We crawled outside and all got on a charter bus to take us to Brisbane airport, which is about an hour away. We went to meet up with TEAM BOND and we walked in knowing only 3 people, which were the ONLY 3 American's participating in the Games and ALL from SLU.

Beach Volleyball Team

Once we got on the bus I sat next to Jon and I slept the entire drive. We then arrive to chaos in Brisbane's airport where we were in line for group booking along with a HUGE clan of Chinese adults.  We had an hour before our flight took off and we have still not received our boarding passes or checked our luggage. Luckily some nice guy helped us all out and we got everything taken care of and we were off to security checks. In Australia there is no rule about liquids, wearing shoes, a jacket, and even your laptop so we flew through security. We got to our gate about 5 minutes before it was taking off so NONE of us ate breakfast. As soon as I got on the plane I was placed with Michael who was from Sweden and was getting his master at Bond Uni he was playing on the basketball team and that was about all I could understand from him right before I passed out for the rest of the 5 hour flight. If you didn't know Perth is in Western Australia and Bond Uni is in South Eastern Australia. Once we arrived in Perth we were all dragging and starving!! We then had to get all our baggage and catch another bus out front to take us to our hotel. Well unfortunately for me my baggage was lost and would not make it to our hotel until 9pm that night. We finally made it to our hotel in East Perth and we were all placed in rooms with our teammates. Well since we have a coed team Marisa and I would be rooming with Sarah, who was our other teammate. Once we got our keys to our room we quickly found out that it resembled a room like the 3 little bears; honestly, it was 3 tiny beds, with VERY little room for activities, so needless to say we would become very close throughout the next week.

Killer and the Roo

After we settled into our room we ventured out to East Perth and found a small cafe to order a salad and then found a cute little alcohol shop and quickly became friends with the owner, you will hear more about him later. After getting some small drinks we went back to the hotel to meet up with everyone else and figured out our plans for the night. We found out we had the welcome ceremony at 8pm and an after party followed at 'The Library' where we would wear our tracksuits to represent BOND (luckily for me because I still have no luggage at this point). In a few hours I figured out exactly how much fun I would be having and how much fun the rugby team is. We started to 'pre-drink' which, is a term they use in Australia when they want to drink before an event, we all hung out in the rugby room and quickly met some new friends!!! A little before 8 some 'maxi-taxi's' came to transport us to the venue where the welcome ceremony was taking place, which was this AMAZING amphitheater called 'Northbridge Piazza". During the welcome ceremony all the athletes received a shout-out and then a mascot dance/contest. However, the Bull Shark for Bond didn't win we still enjoyed the ceremony and all the event that were in it. I can't go on without mentioning how one of the Rugby boys the infamous "Killer" (which is his nickname) decided to jump on an Asian photographer and pin him to the ground because he thought for some odd reason it was a kangaroo. This might be all you hear about him because I don't know how appropriate everything else is that he accomplished throughout the week, but needless to say he was a special 27 year old who some how is a lawyer...(Law is an undergrad in Australia). After this event I knew it was going to be an unforgettable trip! The night went on with us all going out and drinking a little too much but meeting SO many new friends it was such a fun night!!

Since this post is already long I will have another one summarizing the week and I really can't wait to tell all the APPROPRIATE stories! Hope you enjoy!!!
SEEEyaa--
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