Wait… I have to go to class while I’m here?

This is a really long post… grab a drink, a snack, go to the bathroom first, and enjoy.

When I last left off I had been running errands in preparation for the big trip to Surfer’s Paradise. When we read our horoscopes that Wednesday, mine told me to stay close to home to avoid drama. Now… some might have heeded said advice and had a casual weekend in Toowoomba... but there was no way I was going to miss a weekend at the beach. Plus, it was already paid for.

On Thursday morning we got up early, packed our bags, made lunches, and headed down to the bus stop at the Student Village, to get to downtown Toowoomba. At this point in time, my horoscope was already coming true. I forgot to pack my loaf of bread to make sandwiches for the weekend, I also forgot to pack my pillow, and between my house and the bus $50 fell out of my pocket. However… I still wasn’t going to let these setbacks ruin my weekend at the beach. Plus, it was already paid for.

After a half hour city bus ride to the Bus Interchange, we waited for another half hour or so until our bus left at 11:30. At this point the Toowoomba Transit Coach showed up. TTCoaches is a discount bus/van that travels back and forth from Toowoomba to Brisbane every day, multiple times. The driver told us that we could all get on the bus and that he was going to get a coffee. To the severe misfortune of the other ten passengers on the 1.5 hour ride… we were very excited about the trip. And very chatty. While we waited for the bus driver in the sweltering heat (it is important that I mention we went to the club the night before, no one was in tip-top shape this morning) I really wished I had my pillow to sleep on… and I also wished I hadn’t left my ipod in my backpack, in the trailer behind the bus. As everyone else slept and/or listened to music I basically talked to myself to keep myself entertained. Again, the horoscope.

Once we arrived in Brisbane we had another half an hour to kill before we caught the train to a station about 20 minutes outside of Surfer’s Paradise. This ride was about and hour and a half long and was complete with PB&J Sandwiches: our staple meal of the weekend. For this train ride I was stuck riding backwards. Again, we went to the club the night before. From the train, we had one more city bus ride to go into the heart of Surfer’s Paradise. From there, we had to take a cab 4km north to our Hostel. All in all it was 6 hours of travel. It may have been long… but it was cheap! (I would like to digress from the timeline here to say that a friend of a friend drove from Toowoomba to Surfer’s that same day and it took him 1.5 hours. I hate him.)

As soon as we were checked into the hostel we threw our suits on and ran to the beach. Like children we threw everything down, and went running and splashing into the ocean. Mind you, it is almost 5pm and no one else is on the beach at this time. However, the water was like 75-80 degrees or something “bath-watery” like that and we stayed in for quite some time. As we went back to our hostel we decided that as a treat to ourselves… we would eat out for the first time in Australia. We went to a nice, but overpriced, restaurant right next to our hostel. As we were leaving the restaurant a torrential down pour started… this horoscope may have been coming true. To our luck though, there was a bottle store in the same building our hostel was in. The rain had nothing on us now. So true, that we decided it would be a good idea to go to the beach in the pouring rain. Now, the winds on the beach were probably pushing 20mph and it was raining horizontally. Put that together with the sandblasting effect of the sand/wind and it was like a micro-derm-abrasion. So we snapped a few photos and then ran back to the hostel for some more wine and some card games.

Lauren, Trina, Stephanie, and myself decided that it would be a great idea to get up at 5am the next morning and watch the sun rise at the beach. This seemed great until Lauren was poking me saying…. ‘Get up! It’s 5am!” I somehow managed to throw myself from the top bunk, find clothes to put on, grab my camera,and stumble to the beach. Once we got there though, it completely made up for it. The sunrise was actually really drawn out because there were a ton of clouds along the horizon… so we watched as the sky and the clouds turned different colors until the sun finally rose above them, hit the skyline and the beach, and illuminated all the colors of the sand, the trees, and the blue sky. We hung out there for a while and then I clearly went home to take a nap.

Lauren and Trina went for a run…. Overachievers.

That day we lathered (I use this term loosely) on our sunscreen, packed up our towels, made some PB&Js and went to the beach. Now… some of you may be aware that Australia has many parts that lack a strong o-zone layer. If you aren’t aware of this, sit in the sun for more than 10 minutes and you will shortly understand very clearly. I was well aware of how intense the sun was, so before the trip I ran (not literally) to K-Mart to purchase some sunscreen. As I looked through the meager and expensive selection, I came across a moderately priced tube of sunscreen from the Cancer Council of Australia. Now I assumed that this council was preventing cancer, by way of their sun block. How little do I know? Apparently, they WANT you to get cancer… and not just any kind of cancer, but SKIN CANCER! I used this “sunscreen” (I’m assuming it was just hand cream) at least every two hours. At the end of the day, myself and many others, were so red that it hurt. My foot, my entire left side, and my neck looked like I was tanning on the sun. Our next purchase was obviously a huge tub of Aloe Vera… and a creemie from McDonalds for good measure.

That night we walked our crispy selves down a path near the beach to an outdoor craft market. It was really interesting. Some of the things were actually very artsy… such as some pottery, hand carved cutting boards, and some didgeridoos. Some things… were not. My favorite of the “not-so-artsy” things were pink and camo baseball hats that the sales woman had taken glitter-glue and written many common names onto. I didn’t look at the price, mainly because if I looked and saw them being sold for more than $5 I would have burst out laughing… but I seriously thought about getting some of them for all of you. You know, some genuine Australian gifts.

Saturday was probably our most fun day. We signed up through our hostel to have SURFING LESSONS! Now I said to myself before hand… If I can stand up on the board once in the two hours, I’ll be more than impressed. However… I was standing up in just about an hour’s time. Granted, we were on HUGE learning surfboards, but nonetheless… it was so cool. After a while though I was so exhausted from constantly fighting the waves to get out to where I could ride one back in to the shore. It was so fun though, and we all did so much better than we anticipated. I definitely want to try surfing again. I was so beat from the surfing that all I wanted to do was take a nap. Then we found a mall… I bought a new bathing suit. I did end up taking a nap, only after eating a PB&J first though. After dinner (a BBQ put on by our hostel) we got all dressed up and went into town to meet some friends and go out to the clubs. It was a pretty fun evening, but we were so sore/tired from surfing that we called it an early night.

Now, this picture has a water bubble RIGHT over my face. I swear that it is me. It was one of the best pictures of me surfing... sadly my face was cut off. Try not to cry.

On Sunday we had to check out of our hostel by 10, but we weren’t leaving Surfer’s until 3. Luckily we could store our bags there while we went to the beach. Now, I was still pretty charred from Friday and the last thing I wanted to do was be in the sun. So when I got to the beach, I buried my legs in the sand, kept my shirt on, and used Trina’s rain umbrella to shade me. I looked like a complete idiot. But, it was 90 degrees out that day and I was keeping myself cool and no more burned than I was already. Sadly, we got back on our 5 leg journey back to Toowoomba. 5-6 hours later I was back in the Grasshopper Den conserving water.

On the 5^th day, I rested.

Tuesday was the first say of class!! I was really nervous at first because our schedule seemed so confusing, and I didn’t even have a notebook yet, and I already felt behind. But once we got to class everything seemed fine. The classes here are interesting. Usually, there is a main lecture once a week and then every class has what is called a tutorial, once a week, which goes along with the lecture. This tutorial basically reinforces what was taught in lecture. I think they’re going to be very helpful in studying and retaining the information. Today we had our Situations in Clinical Practice course, our Episodes of Nursing course, and our tutorial for Episodes. We were supposed to have a lecture for our Mental Health class, but we found out that the first 5 weeks have recorded lectures and powerpoints online for us to watch whenever. Tuesday is our longest day, but it didn’t seem too bad today.

Last night and tonight we played Ultimate Frisbee in the field and did a little exercising as well. We’re trying to make it an every night thing. We’ll see…

Other than that things are going well. Hopefully this post wasn’t too long to absolutely bore you to death. But this weekend was pretty eventful!

Oh! Trina, Lauren, and I are going to Sydney this weekend. I know, I know… such jet-setters. But our friend Melissa will be there from Perth this weekend and we’ll also visit our friend Aaron who is studying there. Should be another fun weekend!

Hope all is well at home!

Miss you all!

The Tickets are Purchased, The Hostel Booked

Final plans have just been made for our trip to the Gold Coast this weekend. Nine of us are traveling via bus and train from Toowoomba to Surfer's Paradise on the Gold Coast. I hope to have some amazing photos to upload by the time we get back. Since we last spoke I haven't done too much. This weekend a group of 10 of us went downtown to go clubbing... it was a lot of fun.

Sunday was one of those "family orientation" days on campus. We kind of forgot that it was a real college with real freshman and real parents who would be crying as they dropped their kids off that day...haha. However, it was great for us because there was free food, free music, and some fun things to do including a rockclimbing wall!!!! Trina tried to get me to give a thumbs-up here... but I clearly did not want to let go.

After the orientation BBQ we realized that it was our friend Casey's , from Canada, Birthday. We decided to throw him a surprise party at our friend Emma's house because she has a pool and a grill at her townhouse. We got Casey's fiance, Michelle, in on it and we bought all the food, blew up some balloons, and threw a party. It was actually a lot of fun. We swam a bit, finally had a cheeseburger or two, and then had ice cream. We all had such a great time just hanging out and finding things out about one another.

Monday and Tuesday were more full of errands that we needed to accomplish. We went to Kmart to get a few things, we ran around campus trying to finalize our schedules, we got our IDs taken for school, and we of course went online. :) On Tuesday morning we had our faculty orientation... which was essentially the college of nursing introducing themselves to us. It kind of got us energized for class... not really though... haha. I can't believe we still don't start class until next week. I just talked to some of the nurses from home and they are almost halfway through their semester already.... I can't believe that. After the orientation there was free pizza... clearly a plus. I felt like I was getting a cold yesterday and in order to prevent being sick for Surfer's Paradise tomorrow I decided my time was most well spent sleeping all afternoon (from 1-6.) After that I got up, had some dinner, and then everyone came over to play some games. We played cribbage, catchphrase :), and then an interesting game of telephone involving drawings and interpretations. It was absolutely hilarious! Especially with some of the language barriers.

Today is more errands. My laundry is currently being washed next door at the laundromat and I'm getting things in place for Surfer's Paradise TOMORRRRRROW! I cannot wait. Pictures will come. :) Oh, and new photos are up on Facebook too.... more from rockclimbing and some from Casey's Party.

Miss you all!! :)

Bush Dance... maybe as fun as an Obama Dance

Last night all of the international students crammed our sweaty selves into a small cafeteria to participate in a traditional Australian Bush Dance... what we might call a line/square dance.
The bush dance was complete with a bush band, 50 international students (most of which have a slightly hard time with English,) and very little air flow. As temperatures rose, the sweat fell, the dancing got harder, and the laughing got louder. It was a riot in there! Everyone was trying to understand the caller as well as try to understand the dance at the same time. I think I got more of an Ab workout from laughing so much!This is a picture of the band. The main singer (in the middle) had this stick with tons of beer bottle caps nailed to it that would rattle. He would stomp the stick on the ground and whack it at the same time with some other type of stick.

At the end of the bush dance it clearly had to start pouring! I've finally figured out the weather here... in the morning it is cloudy and muggy. By noon the sun comes out and it is sweltering! When the sun sets around 6 it gets cooler, and then when 9 or so rolls around it rains. Now the rain is hit or miss... sometimes it's a mist, other times it's a torrential downpour. But there is one thing for sure: it will rain, you just don't know when.

During the day Wednesday we took a bus tour around Toowoomba and we were then dropped off downtown so we could do some more than necessary shopping! I bought two things that I will hold so close to my heart until I leave... a pillow, and a Brita pitcher!!! Not having a pillow was almost unbearable and I have a pretty killer one now thanks to Target :) Also the water here tastes like it came straight from a public swimming pool, so to have filtered water every day now is just amazing! On the bus tour we went to what I think may be the highest point in Toowoomba, called picnic point. There is a giant Australian flag on top of this hill, and I could see that when we first drove up the mountain to Toowoomba. From here I could look down on the highway that we took to get here. This picture is looking east towards Brisbane.

That seems to be all for now... I've been having a great time hanging out with all of the international students.... Germans, Canadians, Americans, Indians, Malaysians... it's been so much fun. We are planning on going for a hike sometime this weekend and we're also planning a trip to Surfer's Paradise for next week some time. Google it. It's beautiful. I think we're also going to head into Toowoomba this afternoon to venture.

OHHHH! I almost forgot... I BOUGHT A BIKE! It's a special bike... needs some TLC, but I think it'll do the trick to get me to the store and back. I'll post a picture of that soon!
Miss you all!

Grasshoppers Everywhere

Every evening Lauren and I don our exterminator gear and go throughout our town house to murder the tons of grasshoppers that try to inhabit our house with us. However we must have missed one last night as when I was showering today I looked down to see one of the little buggers washing up with me. Needless to say he didn't make it to the end of the shower.

Aside from the grasshoppers things are going great! I have gone grocery shopping, gotten some needed supplies for my room/house, went RUNNING!!! (shock, I know), went to the bottle shop last night (aka Pearl Street Beverage.)

Toowoomba and most of Queensland has been in a drought for like 15 years or something crazy like that so the city is on a Level 5 Water Restriction. What that means, I have no idea. However... that does mean that they want people to only use 140liters per day. This may sound like a lot... but let me run down through some common water usages (all of which are posted on a sign in our townhouse)

1. A shower: 1 minute = 12 liters. We have little hour glasses in the showers that suction cup to the walls. We are only to take a 4 minute shower, as governed by the hourglass.
2. Doing dishes: 9liters/minute
3. Using the toilet: Our toilets have two flush settings. 1 is just a mere 3 liter flush... for the casual pee. Then if you need to call in reinforcements there is a second flush that uses a whopping 12 liters... clearly you can imagine what that might be used for.

We have met a very cool girl from the UK/Hong Kong, 3 very nice German girls, some guys from the US, and we just got a new roommate today who is a guy from Germany. He seems very nice.
We have orientation class a little later... something on multiculturalism (basically alana... ha)

Anyway, miss you all!
I'll send out an email soon...
Daniel

Palm Trees, Beautiful Weather, Shorts and Flip Flops... oh... I'm in Australia!!!

So i finally made it to Toowoomba! I got here at around 2pm Sunday local time (11pm Saturday EST) and have been loving every minute since. Immediately after getting settled into my town house I took the most desperately needed shower in history. 30 hours of travel time really worked up a stench. :)

After I was clean enough to not clear a large room of anyone with a nose, Lauren, Trina and myself wandered around a bit. There is a little plaza of some small shops across the road from the Student Village. There is a bakery, a small grocery store, pharmacy, liquor store, a computer store, and some other shops. The dilemma is they're only open from 9-5 Monday through Saturday. We then came home and made some dinner.

Today was the first day or orientation for the international students. We thought it was going to be all people like us who are in college at other locations and are staying here for a semester or two. However, it was mostly people who are coming to college for the first time, but are from outside of Australia and will be staying here the entire 4 years. Most of these people seemed to be much older than us.

The climate here is soooo beautiful! The weather is amazing... blue skies and sunny! The temperature is probably near 80 degrees, but it doesn't feel that bad because it's not very humid here. I would say the landscape is a cross between northern Maine, or Vermont, Florida, and Kansas. When we started driving out of Brisbane towards Toowoomba it was very green and luscious and full of rolling hills. Eventually it flattened out and stayed flat for sometime. Then as we kept driving there was a large mountain range off in the distance. The bus driver told us that Toowoomba was on TOP of this mountain range... and he wasn't kidding. The climb from the bottom of the mountain to the top was a 4km switchback road that was very steep... 10% grade. I think our top speed was maybbeeee 8mph. He had it down in 1st gear I'm pretty sure. At the top we were in the middle of toowoomba. It was really weird. Oh, and I did see my first kangaroo!!! Unfortunately... it was dead on the side of the roads. Sorry to get your hopes up... haha.

Anyway... things are going great here! We're going to venture down into town later today and see what's around.

More to come!

35 Hours

So in roughly 35 hours from now I will have been on 21 hours of flights, 5 hours of car rides, and 10 or so hours of waiting and will have arrived in Toowoomba. The bags are packed... some heavier than others, and I think I'm ready to go. Obviously my computer is the last thing to be packed up.
I'll post again when I get there!!!

Tozier's

Oh... and check out the new website for Tozier's Restaurant... made by yours truly.

www.toziersrestaurant.com