Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary

After spending all of Saturday outdoors and in the woods and mountains Marisa and I just didn't have enough...We woke up Sunday morning with no big plans; however, Marisa and I feel that if we just let a day go by without doing anything we are wasting our time here. So of course we planned at day at the Zoo!! We got on the bus to take us right there and once we got there we had to buy tickets to get so that we could do the rope course that we read about.

Our first stop when we got there was to hold Koala Bears!!!!! That is one thing I thought I would do as soon as I arrived in Australia I had this image that Kangaroos would be jumping around the streets and Koala's would just be everywhere!! However, I was wrong...I come to find out that in fact Koala Bears are actually becoming extinct and are the most expensive animal in the zoo! When I held Ava(the name of mine) she started pooping and was actually really heavy, but still so cute!!

After holding the Koala's we then went to the rain forest/woodland area where they mix the birds from each environment and the birds were beautiful!! At the zoo we also saw Dingos, Wombats, Wallaby, Echidna and many other animals! However my all time favorite animal was the KANGAROOS!!!!! They were so cute and so much fun; Marisa and I both bought some food and we sat around and played with them and fed them! We also went to see the tree kangaroos and they were also so cute! I also learned that Crocodiles have a point in their lives where they don't eat for 6 months...but the problem is we never know when the 6 months are. 

Marisa and I then went on the 'High Rope Course' which was one of the hardest thing I have done both mentally and physically. We started out on the green course which wasn't too challenging just kind of scary. It involved tight rope walking, zip lining, monkey bars, climbing up high ladders, backwards zip line and other activities and then we proceeded to the red course where we did the same activities but about 20 meters higher and more intense...At this point I was sweating and was so tired, but of course I couldn't stop without finishing the entire course. The black course was ridiculous!!! It was at least 50 meters in the air with the most challenging courses; I felt like I was on fear factor!! At the end of the course Marisa and I were so happy to complete it all and we walked away with sweat dripping everywhere!

After the course we wanted to go back and see the Kangaroos; at this point the park was almost closed and there was no one but us in the kangaroo cage! We had so much fun, we were playing around with them jumping with them and we even got to see a Joey in the pouch of his mom!! Joey (my brother) I was thinking of you!!!

When it was time to leave we visited the gift shop and I bought some coconut and fudge!! I think when my mom and grandma come for a visit we should go back and do the Wildlife night party; it where you go for a BBQ buffet dinner with Aborigine dancers, and a late walk around the park!

One Monday I went to see Mrs. Enno and Lexi!!!! They came in town for about a week! We all went to dinner and celebrated my birthday a little early...It was a great night to see familiar faces and spend time talking about everything we have done so far! Tonight we are going to the Chocolate Bar for dinner and then a movie with the Enno's!  For now though I need to skype Alec and catch up with him! He had his first basketball scrimmage, and I am so proud of him! He is doing a great time balancing homework and his basketball... The other day he skyped me from the library and I almost fell over!!! GOOD JOB ALEC!!!

Now I need to get going to my Psychology Tutuorial, but I hope to post another one soon before I leave for Sydney! Hope all is well at home!! I can't believe it's almost Halloween!!!!!!!! LOOK AT THE SCARY WEATHER!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!
SEEya
lib

ROCKTOBERR in the Glass House Mountains

After a CRAZY Thursday night out at Don's again we spent most of our Friday recuperating and getting some of our materials together to finish our portfolio for photography class just in time to wake up BRIGHT and early Saturday morning to head our to the Glass House Mountains which were about 2 hours north of Bond Uni. On Thursday night Marisa and I came to realize it was to late in the week to prepare a flight and an over night trip so ten minutes before the deadline we signed up to do a rock climbing and abseiling trip to the mountains. This trip was one of the best impromptu decisions I have made.

We left for Bond Uni with 40 of us pack onto this charter bus for a 2 hour drive to our destination. Once we arrived we received a short briefing on how to assemble our gear that we would be wearing for the day, which included a very uncomfortable harness and helmet. After that we were part of the abseiling group, which meant that we would first climb up to the mountain to find our spot that we would be literally propelling off the mountain to the ground. Luckily I was able to watch a few people before me and I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be...That was until it was my turn. I got to the top and the guy told me to walk backwards to the edge and let my heels hang off the cliff, I thought he was crazy and just started laughing. Well unfortunately he wasn't kidding and that's exactly what I had to do...and THEN I had to trust this guy who I didn't even know his name when he told me to lean by completely and fall back. Well of course I did, and then slowly I has going down the side of this cliff and it was AMAZING!!! After I felt really comfortable I did it again! This time however I guess I was so excited that I forgot to put my rope on!! Luckily the nature lover guide reminded me before I almost stepped off the cliff without being attached to anything!!! O well classic mix-up!

After the amazing abseiling experience we hiked up another mountain where we would actually sit on the top eating lunch! While enjoying some snacks we were told some Aborigine tales about how the mountains are the shape they and and why they are called what they are. Unfortunately I forgot everything they told us, so I won't be able to share that information with you.
After lunch it was then our turn to rock climb. This rock climb was different than anything I have ever done in the past. For this it was actually all of us student who would both be climbing and belaying each other. For those of you who don't know belaying is where you partner actually is in control of the ropes and how much slack to give the climber and also is in control of how far the climber could fall! Luckily I was in a group with Marisa, Shauna, and Helen who I all knew and trusted enough to belay me. After some struggles we were all able to make it to the top! The view was amazing and it help like such an accomplishment!
After rock climbing, abseiling, and amazing nature hikes it was time to go home...I was dead tired and slept the whole way home!! Now I need to go to bed to get up again at 6am to see Mrs. Enno and Kiley's younger sister Lexi who will be visiting for a little over a week!!!!

Next up on our travel itinerary is Sydney next weekend for Halloween, Byron Bay the following week to skydive, and Cairns for my 21st BIRTHDAY!!!!
SEEEya
lib

OKTOBERFEST in BRISBANE!!!

I promise I have not given up on blogging I am just a little behind!! I will catch up this week!!

After a stressful week attempting to prepare for my midterms I spent Thursday night at the local Don's Bar and then went to the "Tavern" and enjoyed a night out with everyone. It wasn't the usual Thursday night, where I normally go to Don's and then onto East and normally don't get back until around 4-5am. However it was nice to see other places and new faces and also have a productive Friday which is also something new here ( I normally am bedridden every Friday). Last Friday I spent the day catching up on some homework and readings that will help me for my midterms. I also am still training, I am up to about a 8K now but I have also started biking because Marisa asked me if I wanted to do a triathlon in November so I am training accordingly for that as well. On Friday evening Kiley, Allie, and I decided to have a girls night out  (Marisa went to New Castle to visit a friend). We went to this amazing hibachi restaurant at Promenade in Robina, after dinner we decided to go to a movie and went to see "The Town". It was one of the best movies I have seen in a while, definitely recommend it!! At the movie theater here not only do they have reclining chairs, ice cream bar, and candy bar...but they also have assigned seats and Australian's take it very seriously where they sit in a theater; a bit different than the States. 
Saturday was beautiful here!! We woke up and went to lay out by the pool for a bit, and then we decided on limb to go into Brisbane and see what the Oktoberfest is all about. BEST DECISION EVER!

Us three girls got ready and ventured off to Brisbane; at the bus stop in front of Bond we met this group of girls and they were also going to Oktoberfest!! We spent the rest of the day with them; they were really fun girls and they live right next to us at Bond so we will definitely be hanging out with them more!! We arrived at Oktoberfest and it was this LONG line of people up the street! Luckily it went by pretty quick and once we got in and got a wrist band we headed straight to the "drink coupon" tent; where we purchase a stein and beer tickets. We then proceeded to the beer tent where I decided to try a "Slander" which was 3/4 beer and then lemonade although I don't like beer it was pretty good!! We then walked around a took in the atmosphere and different cultures. Kiley, Allie and I decided to try a Chicken Schnitzel; I didn't like it though. As we were walking around it reminded me so much of the Spassfest  back at home; there were guys wearing lederhosens all over and it reminded me of my family! After meeting a lot of people and and polka dancing and a couple drinks (I may of been the only person there drinking wine instead of German beer) we decided to head home. It took us about 2 hours to get back home, when we got back we were all dead tired and just called it a night!
SUNDAY=LIBRARY ALL DAY!
My midterms have started this week and I spent 10 hours of my Sunday in the library preparing for them. I had my Love, Sex, and Relationship midterm yesterday (Tuesday) and I think I did really good on it! I am now currently getting my Photography Portfolio together which is due on Monday and also preparing for my English presentation which is also Monday. I will show you some of the pictures that will be in my blog, and you can see all if you have facebook. Tonight we have Goon Olympics, which is an event where we all much bring a box of wine (much like Franzia in the States) and we participate with our team in different goon drinking events! So I am interested to see how this goes! Marisa and I are trying to plan where to travel this weekend, I think we are going to go to Moreton Island which is near the Great Barrier reef; while we are there we will be doing hikes, boating, and just enjoying the scenery! Kiley's mom, sister, and grandma are coming here on Sunday and I am so excited to see them!

I will update soon on our finalized plans for this weekend! Hope all is going well at home!
SEEEya--
lib

Byron Bay Adventure!

The Girls!

I know my posting has been slacking but I promise I will catch up soon!! After my crazy week in Perth I need to sleep, study, and DETOX! The week after was a long week but some how I managed to study and sleep...We are approaching midterm week so I need to start getting all my studying caught up because I don't want to fall behind. The week after Perth was pretty laid back, nothing too special besides the fact that we had a monsoon; literally 50mph winds and pelting rain for 4 days straight, I felt like I was on Noah's Arc and I forgot to get on the ship! I started attending most of the free exercise classes that are offered to all students. On Wednesday Kiley, Allie and I went to boxing first and then pilates to calm down; both classes were great!! Boxing kicked my butt but I loved it! On Thursday we thought we would try spinning and we thought that it can't be too hard just riding a bike and all....We were VERY wrong!! One of the hardest workouts I have ever done!! Thursday night we went to Don's, the same thing we do every Thursday night..but this time is was a blast because we knew so many more people because of all the new friends we met in Perth!!

Us and the European Guy

On Friday we decided that we should take a trip to Byron Bay which is about 70 miles south of the Gold Coast. Student Flight on campus was organizing the whole trip for any students that wanted to go. In the package for the trip it included transportation, lodging, 2 hour surf lesson, VIP at Cheeky Monkeys (a nightclub), BBQ on the beach, and SKYDIVING!!!! We left at 5am on Saturday morning and we arrived at the surf hut at about 7:30 because it as day light saving time in New South Wales. Allie, Kiley, Marisa, Adam, Jeff, and I were in the group to surf first and then skydive. We all got our wet suits on and grabbed a board and we were off to the beach; however, the weather was not great and we were surfing in choppy waves with a really strong current working against us!After about 30 minutes in freezing cold water and rain pelting us all the girls decided it was time to go in and get warm! Although we cut the lesson short I did manage to stand up on the board 4 times so I was happy about this!! After surfing we received information that because of the weather conditions we would not be skydiving; despite this minor set back they would give us free transportation to Byron Bay and a free skydive anytime we would want to come back! So then we headed to our hostel where Kiley, Allie, Marisa, and I were sharing a dorm style room and connected to our room there were four boys, one from Switzerland, one from Finland, one creepy Jewish guy, and a guy from Minnesota. We didn't see the guys much but they were all from Bond so it was nice to meet other people. After we settled in the leaders of our group came around and told us in an hour there would be buses to take us on a Brewery tour, of course we couldn't turn this down! Once we got to the Brewery we found out we would drink for free and just play games and hang out for awhile (keep in mind this is 2pm). Well at one point some of us wanted to play 'flip cup' so the leaders had us American's teach everyone else how to play.

Flip Cup!

In no time at all we had a giant 25 person team flip cup game going! After the Brewery we went back to the hostel had a BBQ and then got ready to go out to Byron Bay's best night club called 'Cheeky Monkeys'. We had a great time at Cheeky Monkeys and it was hard to wake up the next morning to pack our stuff and return back to campus. On the bus ride back they ran our of seats and Marisa, Allie, and I had to sit on the group for the whole hour and half ride back; we were miserable!
Although we didn't have the greatest weather Byron Bay was amazing! Definitely a place that I would visit again; we have already decided that a weekend in November we are all going to go back and stay in the hostel and go skydiving then!! Byron Bay reminded me a lot of Seaside Florida with all these cute little shops and marketplaces, definitely a surfers town!! I was also glad to add a pin to our map!--Marisa and I have posted a large map of Australia up in our room and we have decided to put a pin for every place we visit, we are hoping to visit every territory in Australia; as of right now we need two more!

Hope the fall weather is treating you all better than the monsoon we are having here!!!
SEEyaa-
libby
OYEAAA 1 month till I turn 21!!!!

Night Life in Perth

When I signed up to go to Perth to "play volleyball" I was actually thinking that it was going to be this huge athletic competition and I thought it would be perfect for me, because I love to play sports and I love to compete. However, after I arrived at Bond I was quickly informed that the Uni Games is very comparable to spring break with a little bit of sports. As many of you know partying with a little sports is the PERFECT combination for me! About 3 weeks before we left all of the athletes were given a tentative schedule of "social events" that would be taking place each night in Perth. Each "social event" had a venue (ALWAYS a NIGHTCLUB) and also a theme (BEST PART OF IT ALL). So Marisa and I were thinking that we should get costumes and be so prepared for each night; due to our lack of procrastination and busy schedules it was the night before we left and we didn't have anything. As you will read this was no problem at all!

So as the previous post talks about our first night in Perth, which was Team Colors themed. The next nights theme was "Beauty and the Geek", so of course we went as the Beauty. When I say "we" I mean Sarah, Marisa, and I decided that each night we are going to try in some way to match each other so you can tell we are teammates. So for our wardrobe we thought it would be good to dress in a black skirt and a white tank top and wear big sunglasses with a scarf over our head. For Monday night we had a team dinner at this Vietnamese place where they just brought out a lot of vegetables, meat, and rice.  I really felt bad for the people who were at the restaurant thinking they would enjoy a nice quiet dinner; because, that is definitely not what they got. It was about 40 of us in this restaurant BYO (which is very common in Australia, it means bring your own alcohol) where majority of us brought boxes of goon, and finished majority of the goon. After dinner we went back to our hotel to hang out a bit before the buses took us to the venue for the night. Unfortunately I didn't make it out that night; the wine and cruisers at dinner got the best of me.

 On Tuesday night the theme was "Retro Sports" and this night it got a little out of control. We had another team dinner at this great Italian place where again it was BYO. So we are put in this back corner of a room and I sit down at the rugby table across from Marisa and Sarah; however, Killer (crazy 27 year old "lawyer") sits down right next to me again! He talked the whole dinner, telling VERY inappropriate stories, jokes, and finally shut up after he drank too much and he had to run outside and did not return. We then thought we would just walk to Northbridge (where all the bars are) which is about a 2 mile walk. We finally arrived at the night club, and we were informed that Sarah, Marisa and myself were to witness the rookies on the rugby team complete their challenge list. This is when the lists started; the older rugby guys thought it would be funny that the younger ones would complete a list of ridiculous and VULGAR task. Needless to say, we were unable to witness most, nor did we want to. This is also the night where Marisa and I picked up our "klepto antics".
We challenged ourselves to gather as much memorabilia from whoever we could. The entire night we had our eye on this dump truck that we saw earlier in the night. Unfortunately when we finally found it after searching for over an hour we were upset to learn that this dump truck was literally handcuffed to this guys arm. I think we ended the night with about 3 other teams hats! It was a great night for us and our headache in the morning was proof.

Wednesday night the theme was "Emergency Services". I apologize in advance that this part might not be suitable for younger kids. However, I do want to share what we dressed as. We were really struggling to find a costume, that was until we were cleaning our room up a little and I came across the condoms that they passed out when we got to Perth (No Worries they were NOT used and they came in EVERY ONES bag) and I thought we should be "Emergency Contraception" we just all wore white and pinned a condom on us and wrote Emergency Contraception on a small orange paper that was pinned to us. We didn't have a team dinner this night but a large group of us decided to go to this Asian restaurant, where yet again it was BYO. This was the night that the older rugby boys had a list, and it was beyond ridiculous. The list was so repulsive that I can't talk about any of their task on the blog. We were also given a list but ours was fine and it was just challenges; such as, have an epileptic fit on the dance floor, lick the top of a pepper shaker, and do random shots.  This was also the night where Marisa and I managed to walk out of the club with 13 different emergency service hats, and a toilet seat. I think it is safe to say we are officially kleptomaniacs. GREATTTT night!!! 

Rugby Guys

Thursday nights theme was "Gender Bender" so you can only imagine how ridiculous our costumes were. Since we are great friends with the rugby guys we borrowed some of their clean jerseys and some spandex as our boxer briefs. This night we had another team dinner at the same Asian place that we ate at on Wednesday. It was a great night full of girly boys and jockey girls. O yeah I want to add that EVERY night at dinner I have had the privilege of sitting right next to Killer, this made each dinner so interesting. 
Friday was our last night to go out and it was definitely a great one... according to my pictures. The theme for Friday night was "Go for Gold", we were to dress up in ALL gold. Well since I didn't have much gold I thought yellow would be suitable. This was our last team dinner of the trip and we went back to the first restaurant. At this dinner we did "kangaroo court" where the captain of our team has to tell about the highlight of the week and who deserves the beer. Clearly I received the beer for saying something really funny on the volleyball courts that made almost every other UNI remember Bond. Last dinner next to Killer and I have some GREAT videos of him singing this time! Our night ended when Sarah, Marisa, and I decided to have a sword fight with our gold swords and they all broke!

Every night in Perth was amazing!!! It really was like a spring break for me, I loved everything about it. Not only did I get to go out, and play volleyball everyday but I also met some great people who I love hanging out with. We also got to see a beautiful city with amazing night life!!! Perth so far has been my favorite place to visit!!!  The pictures on the right and left show you our entire room with 3 little beds and one really messy tv area. I really hope you enjoy this post, unfortunately I can't put everything on the blog I don't think my parents would appreciate it...But, I would love to tell all my stories to those asking!!!Ok so now I need to catch you all up on what we have been doing for the week since we got back to Bond Uni, but for now I need to do some homework and catch up on my sleep. 

But just for a little update; this weekend I went to Byron Bay and had a blast surfing and going on a brewery tour! Lastly I would like to note that it has been raining for a complete week; and when I say rain I mean pouring and SO windy!!! Marisa and I were talking tonight and we really feel like we are on Noah's Arc. So pray that we get some sunshine soon!!!
SEEEyaa

Beach Volleyball in Perth

Our Volleyball courts beach side all week!

Of course since I went to Perth because I was on the Beach Volleyball game we had to play a little volleyball while we were there and not just party the whole time; So I am going to let you all know how we did with the volleyball aspect. The way the tournament is set-up is that we have pool play for the first three days and then we are ranked to continue with the tournament. So after the Sunday night out at the opening ceremony and the first bar we had to wake up Monday morning at 7am in order to get to the courts in time to play our 9am game. Needless to say we were all dead tired and hungover, but pulled it together to play. Our first game was against UTS (University of Technology of Sydney)...I think they took it pretty serious, and have had a little more practice together than us, but we played great and only lost by a few points each set. However, we all had a blast playing together diving around and laughing about "skills". After that game we had to "duty" which means we had to ref the game. The only think I know about reffing is 'in' and 'out', however, there are many more rules that we didn't follow in our first game. Such as, you play to 18 and every 6 points you switch sides and you can't set a serve, so I was a pretty worthless ref. After our duty we just decided to lay out all day and take a nap until we play again at 2pm. Unfortunately we didn't know they gave out free sunscreen so we were all toasty red when 2pm came along.

The Asian and Awkward Girl.

In our second game we played against AU (Adelaide University) which was NOT our favorite team. We were playing so good and then this Asian out of no where came and served his wicked serve and was on a 7 serve roll. So we lost the first set, and then we pulled it together and won the next set. In the third set we played good again but some how this very NONATHLETIC team walked away with the win, and when I say they weren't athletic I mean they had two girls with bows in their hair, this Asian who looked like he didn't play sports EVER, and another girl who was just awkward. Although, we found out later in the week that they won our pool.

Bond Rugby

 On Tuesday we only had one game and it wasn't until 3pm, so we were able to sleep in and recover from the night before. So on Tuesday we went to show our support for Bond and went to watch the Rugby team and the Soccer team, both walk away with a victory! It was nice to watch soccer again, and also rugby; all the guys on both teams are so nice and we then sat at their fields for awhile to just hang out and talk with the guys. Because of the bus system during the Uni Games we are required to take the "red bus" to the rugby fields and then get on the "yellow bus" which will bring us to the beach, its quite a long process but a nice way to relax each day. So from the rugby games we got on the "yellow bus" and we got to the beach around 1pm and just hung out again until out game at 3pm. In our 3pm game we played against Notre Dame University in Australia, which of course made me think of my cousin Lily!! Who I miss SOOO much! But they were a great team, and it was a close match we lost the first one 19-17 and the next one also 19-17, both great game though! If I remember correctly we all played so good in this game we decided that we all deserved drinks to be bought by the rugby team for the entire night. I don't think the rugby guys liked this too much!!

Action Shot

On Wednesday we played JCU (John Cook University), this was by far my favorite game; not only did we win but we had a blast playing against them! They were such a fun team who also didn't take it too seriously and we playing just to have fun. This was our final game for pool play and we ended being seated 4th out of 5 teams, which of course wasn't ideal but it was fine with us. On Thursday we started the tournament and we decided we needed to enforce rules that would make us try really hard. So this is what we came up with...If we missed a serve it was a drink at the bar, and if we didn't go for a ball and just let it drop it was Jager Bombs for the whole team (which is a $50 penalty).   So we started our first game for the tournament we had a little more hanging over our heads. We played our game at 11am and we played against the 1st ranked team in division A and we actually played a close game with them. We won the 2nd set but unfortunately lost the 3rd. Overall, it was the best game we played yet, and we were all happy with how we were progressing throughout the week. We had another game at 2pm and again lost, I don't really remember anything significant that happened but we were still able to play in the final round on Friday because of our scores during our pool play.

On Friday we played our last game of the tournament and won!! It was a good game and it felt great to walk away with a win! All and all it was a great tournament and I am so happy I decided to go, even though we didn't win many games I loved every part of it! I also realized that even though I may not be the best volleyball player I still really enjoyed playing and I am going to try to stay consistent with it while I am in Australia. I actually recently just joined a social league at Bond University where we play twice a week! It just a great activity to keep me active while I am here! I hope you enjoy reading about my volleyball during my week at Perth, my next post will be about the night life while I was there! 
I can't forget about my training; although, Perth set me back a little with my training for the half-marathon/ maybe triathlon I was able to hit the gym hard this week really focusing on getting my time for my 5K faster and also started biking and swimming laps!
I called my mom yesterday and she told me it was getting cold at home, it's so hard for me to comprehend what cold weather is like. Today it is 85 degrees here and beautiful, I haven't been in weather less than 70 degrees in about 5 months!! I hope everyone is enjoying the fall football weather!!
SEEEyaa-
lib

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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