Bathurst!

G'day Mates!

So as I wrote in my last really quick post, I just spent the weekend in Bathurst which is a very small town in the middle of nowhere about 4 hours from Sydney. I went with the Sydney Uni Ultimate Frisbee (SUUFA) team for a tournament called "the bathurst stampede" and it was an awesome weekend! It started with getting picked up at 5pm on Friday evening by a "party bus" which was really just a rental 12-person van, but we certainly managed to turn it into a party bus! (I'll spare you the details.) It took us about 4 hours to get to Bathurst and when we arrived a lot of the team had already gotten there and were settling in to our accomidations which were really cute little cabins. We were told to bring our own sleeping bags which obviously I don't have so I had my sheets and then a blanket that Becca let me borrow and thank goodness she did because it was FREEZING! The girls in my cabin were Fiona and Hammer (that's her nickname, obviously) and they were really sweet and a lot of fun to room with! We stayed up and chatted a little bit and then got to bed a little after midnight. The beds were only about 5'5 long and about 2 feet wide so I JUST barely fit in it and I like to move a lot in my sleep so I definitely woke myself up a few times by almost falling out! Needless to say I didnt have the best night sleep and then we woke up at 7:45 the next morning to go to the fields and play in our first day of the tournament.

Since SUUFA is such a big team, we ended up splitting up into basically an A and B team and having two separate teams for the whole tournament. I got to play on the A team which was really fun because it was with the girls I roomed with in the Cabin as well as Mike and Brett who are two guys I have known for a while from training. The first day of the tournament we played 4 games and went undefeated. It was great to play with such experienced players and I felt like I learned a lot and played really well!

The theme of the tournament was "stampede of your dreams" and therefore the home team hosted a pajama party at a local bar. Pretty much every player from all 10 teams showed up at a bar at 7pm in their pajamas which definitely got us some funny looks, but seeing as Bathurst is a pretty quiet town, we made up most of the population at the bar anyway! Not only were we all in pajamas, but the host team also hired a sumo-wrestling company to provide sumo suits and a mat for the players to wrestle each other. I wrestled a girl named Nikki on our team and it was really funny. I don't have any pictures yet but Brett does, so in my next post I'll be sure to get the pictures from him and post them because we looked pretty hilarious in those sumo suits! The rest of night, Mike and Izzy (another player on our team) took me around and introduced me to everyone they knew at the party! It was really nice of them because seeing as I went into it not knowing anyone, they made it really easy for me to meet new people. I learned some new slang, such as "bogan" which is the equivalent to our "hicks" or "rednecks" and apparently the whole population of bathurst are bogans. I also had a guy named Max help me work on my Australian accent...but it didn't go over so well...I'm really bad at saying "mate" properly! All in all it was a really fun night and the best part was when I got back to the cabin I was already in my PJs so I just jumped into my little bed and went to sleep!

Today (Sunday) we were given breakfast sandwiches at the field before our first game which was amazing. Then we played the top seed at the tournament in a bonus game and we beat them by one point! It was really exciting, but we knew that we would have to face them again in the finals and that they would want revenge. Our next game was the semi-finals which we won pretty easily, and then we faced the same team as the first game in the finals. We played really hard and there was a ton of running, but they ended up outplaying us and we came in second. It was unfortunate to go undefeated the whole tournament and then lose in the finals, but we still had a lot of fun and played really hard so it didn't really matter. The funniest part about the second day of games was that after each game while we would shake the other team's hands, people I had met at the bar the night before were all saying "good game Lauren" but I met SO many people that I hardly remembered anyone elses name! I guess they had the advantage of only having one new name to remember.

The last game ended around 4pm and then we got right on the "party bus" and headed back to Sydney. I just got back into my room now, and I have a 2500 word essay to finish before tomorrow!! Luckily I had been working on it last week, but it still looks like I'm going to be up pretty late finishing it tonight. But I don't regret leaving for the weekend because I really did have such a great time...even though now I'm going to be up all night working on my paper and I'm almost completely broke!! (It got to be REALLY expensive after paying for the tournament fee, party bus fee, accomidation fee, food and drinks!!) Anyways, on that note I should really get going on my work but I wanted to write this first because I've been so terrible with the updates lately. Unfortunately I didnt take any of my own pictures this weekend but lots of other people did and I will be able to get them at some point and put them up! Until then hopefully my words have been descriptive enough! :)

SO MUCH LOVE,

Lauren

quick post!!

Hi everyone!

I know I'm getting really bad at these blog posts and this one is going to be super quick because I'm just about to run out the door! I'm off to Bathurst which is about 5 hours southwest of Sydney (I think). I'm going for a weekend long frisbee tournament and I have to go catch the bus in about 3 minutes! I just wanted to write and let everyone know that I am still alive and I promise to write all about this weekend and what I've been doing over the past couple weeks when I get back. Sorry again for not keeping everyone updated!!

Love you all HEAPS and I'll write a nice long post soon!

Lauren

More Adventures...lame title this week because I can't think of anything better...

Hey heyyyy,

I know it's been quite a while since I last wrote but I've been doing a good job of keeping myself busy! I guess I'll just start with a recap of last week. Monday night I played in my first division one frisbee league game and it was SO much fun. It's a co-ed league and I'm not actually on the team but my friend Mike asked if I would play for them for the night because they were missing some of the girls on the team. I agreed and when I got there we found out that our team only had 2 girls and you're supposed to play with 4 guys and 3 girls on the field so that meant we had to borrow a girl from the other team and it also meant that we wouldnt have any subs for the entire game! I was a little intimidated because when I started to warm up before the game I was throwing the frisbee with a girl who told me she's been playing for 9 years!! But once the game got going I started to play pretty well and ended up scoring a few points and doing pretty well on defense so I was really excited. The team asked me to play with them again next week so I have my next game this coming Monday. They were all really nice and I had an awesome time!

Tuesday Wednesday and Thursday consisted of doing lots of school work (crazy I know!) and not really too much else. The girls and I would take some breaks to hang out in my room every once in a while which kept us sane:




Friday (yesterday) I had my gender class and then I took a long nap and went to the gym with Emily before heading out to the Orient Hotel which is a bar on the Rocks that we went to last weekend. Becca has a friend here who was studying in Queensland and his semester is over so he and a bunch of his friends on his program are visiting Sydney for a couple days so they all came to UniLodge and we hung out with them for a while before heading out for the night. We had a really good time with everyone and it was a nice release after having studied all week! Here are a few of the many many pictures that were taken:


Laura, Emily and I in Laura's room before heading out for the night



Alex, me and Justin...he's making an angry face at me because for some reason I did that to him in all the pictures last weekend, haha


Aaron, Emily, Laura, Justin, Me


...aaaand of course what would the night be without some of my signature dance moves?!




So that's about it for now...sorry there's not much to update you on. It's really getting to be that time where our school work gets heavy so we haven't been able to do as much during the week. We only have 4 more weeks of classes and then one week off before finals! Unfortunately it seems like all of my big assignments are due within the same 2-week period so I'm spending the rest of my weekend doing lots of reading, researching, writing and studying! I know...so lame! But I'll continue to write updates when anything new and exciting happens!

XOXO,
Lauren

Wow it's already May?!

G'day Mates!

Well today is May 1st and I can't believe I've already been in Australia for almost 3 months! It's crazy because in some ways I feel like I stepped off the plane a couple days ago, and in other ways I feel like I've lived in Sydney my whole life!! When I was flying back to Sydney from Brisbane, we landed and I said "home sweet home" to Emily and then realized how weird it was that Sydney has actually started to feel like home.

This past week was really stressful because Emily and I had our big presentation for our Gender class and that was on top of a bunch work for all my other classes so I spent the whole week either studying, reading, or practicing our presentation. Thankfully it's Friday now and we got it all done! I got my first grade on Tuesday and it was an A (or Australia's equivalent to an A) which was really exciting! It was in one of my easier classes, but hey, I'll take it! Next week is going to be another big week for school work with two research papers due and a presentation in my Arab-Israeli conflict class. But who wants to hear about all my school work?? On to more exciting things...

First and foremost I want to give a little shout out to Dad and Matthew...HAPPY BIRTHDAYS!!! I got to talk to them on the phone this morning (I was a little groggy after just waking up from a fun night out) but it was great to be able to talk to everyone (mom too of course.) After I talked to the fam on the phone for a bit, I had a pretty relaxing day! I wrote some emails, read some of my book, and went to the gym. It was really nice to have a low key day! Last night was our friend Ying's 21st birthday so Becca, Laura, Emily and I went out with her and all of her friends to a bar called The Loft which was a really nice place and we had champagne and cheese and crackers and it was a lot of fun! Ying's favorite color is black so the theme of her party was "little black dresses" for all the ladies. (I borrowed Becca's!) Here are a few pictures from the night:

This is the hallway of the wonderful UniLodge in which we have been living for the past 2.5 months!

Strawberries and champagne!

The weather is cooling off, but still nice enough to enjoy a drink outside!

Not much else very eventful has taken place since I last wrote. I did get to have a quick skype chat with Ashley and Andrea in Peru!! It should have been longer but I messed up the time difference and went on an hour late (woops!) But they both seemed great and we are going to talk again soon! It will be crazy for the three of us to be living on 4 Symphony again in September with all new stories about our world travels!!

The rest of my weekend is pretty unplanned so far. I think we may try and get to the aquarium at some point which I've been dying to do for a while so hopefully next time I write I'll have lots of pictures of Australian sea creatures from behind the safety of a glass case! Monday night my friend Mike invited me to play with his div. 1 ultimate frisbee team which should be a lot of fun and very competitive! I guess it will be a nice chance to see if I can hold my own with some really good players!

Okay well that's all I have for now! I'll write in a few days but until then, I hope everyone had a wonderful time in the crazy 90 degree weather in April (if you're in new england!) and I hope you all are doing well!

So much love,

Lauren :)

Weekend Trip to Brisbane and the Gold Coast!

Hey Everybody,

So the week after we got back from New Zealand flew by! I spent the week trying to catch up with as much school work as possible before leaving on Friday night for Brisbane which is where I just got home from!

Emily and I flew out of Sydney Friday at 9pm and arrived in Brisbane at 10:30pm. My family friend from home, Jess and her fiancé Jamie picked us up at the airport and drove us around the city a little bit before taking us back to their cute house in the Brisbane suburbs. They let Emily and I stay at their place the whole weekend which was SO nice of them and they were really great hosts!!

Saturday was Anzac day which is an Australian national holiday in remembrance of soldiers who fought in the world war. Jamie’s family had a big barbeque and invited Emily and I to join them. It was a great day of relaxing out in the hot sun and eating lots of food! It was also fun to get to know Jamie’s family. They had Emily and I help them plan their trip to the U.S. for Jess and Jamie’s wedding which is coming up in a few weeks!

Saturday night Jamie had a soccer game, so while he and Jess were there, Emily and I went into the city to explore. We ate at a little sit down outdoor restaurant and then walked around the city for a few hours. It is a lot smaller than Sydney and seemed to be a lot more modern as well. It was also really easy to get around and we always ended up back on Queen Street somehow (which is the main strip of the city where all the shopping and bars are.) Jess and Jamie picked us up around 11pm and we went back to their house, watched some TV and went to bed.

Sunday we woke up early and headed for the Gold Coast. It was about a 45 minute drive from their house in Brisbane and is also where Jess teaches at Bond University. We spent the beginning of the day relaxing on the beach and taking walks along the shore. It was absolutely beautiful weather (probably around 80 degrees without a cloud in the sky). It was awesome to be back in the sun since it’s been cloudy and cool in Sydney! After we were all a little burnt and ready to get out of the sun for a bit, we drove down to another beach called Miami Beach to have a barbeque. Jamie grilled sausages and veggie burgers and we ate at a little picnic table in the shade.

After our barbeque, the plan was to go to Spring Brook which is a rainforest in Brisbane (the hinterlands.) We got about half way up the mountain and came to a road block saying that there was a detour and it would take us about 50 minutes to get to the top. At this point the sun was already starting to go down and we didn’t have much time to spend in the hinterlands, so we decided to change the plans and go to Mount Tambourine which is another mountain that is a bit more commercialized than Spring Brook but just as beautiful. When we got to the top, we went on about an hour long hike through the rainforest and came to a beautiful waterfall. I took my chances and stood right on the edge and looked down over the cliff. It was really cool to be so close to such a huge natural waterfall!

the view from the top of the waterfall, looking down

the view of the waterfall from a lookout further down the path

When we finished our hike, we ended up at a lookout at the perfect time to see the sun setting over mountains in the distance. Of course being obsessed with sunrises and sunsets I took about 5000 pictures, but I’ll spare you and just include one of my favorites:

After the sun set, Jamie drove us home (I slept the whole way) and then when we got back Jess, Emily and I went out for Sushi which was scrumptious! Then we came back and Emily and I decided to get some of our homework done.

A little side note: Emily and I are in the same Gender and Human Rights class and were supposed to have a presentation this Thursday, but in our last class, our teacher made an announcement that there is a university-wide strike and that there would be no classes held this Thursday, and therefore all presentations would be pushed back. Thrilled that we didn’t have to spend our whole weekend in Brisbane working on our presentation, we decided to enjoy our weekend here and work on our presentation when we got back to Sydney. Well, to our dismay, our teacher had sent out an email on Saturday saying that the strike was cancelled and classes would now be held as per usual, therefore our presentation was moved back to this Thursday. Needless to say, we both panicked and got really stressed out and upset over this, but we’ve calmed down a bit and realized we just have to do the best we can do in the short amount of time we have to work on it. We got up early this morning (Monday) to get a bunch of our research done and we’re already making some good progress. We didn’t want to miss out on seeing the rest of Brisbane though, so around noon we left the house and went into the city. Emily and I shopped around while Jess finished grading some papers. We had a successful shopping day (mom don’t look at my bank statement!!) and then we met back up with Jess around 4 to go for a run around the city. Emily went off on her own and I decided to run with Jess which probably wasn’t the best idea seeing as she was the captain of the BU track and cross country team…needless to say I couldn’t keep the pace that she would usually run but we did have a good run around the city and went over the Story Bridge which is Brisbane’s version of the Sydney Harbor bridge, but a lot smaller. After the run we quickly showered and went out for a really nice Indian dinner before coming to the airport!

Right now I’m sitting in the Brisbane airport waiting to board my plane and I don’t have internet so I am typing this in a word document and will post it when I get back to Sydney. I have quite a busy week of school work coming up which is going to be a little stressful but I’m going to try and stay calm and get it all done!

I miss everyone TONS and realized that tomorrow it will be exactly 2 months until I come home!! Crazy that more than half of my trip is already over!

Love you all heaps,
Lauren

The Rest of New Zealand!

Hi Again!

I just got back to my Sydney apartment a couple hours ago after the most incredible week in New Zealand! I wanted to write every day but my internet connection was terrible at the hotel so I have a lot to catch you all up on now! When I last left off, I had told you that our sky diving trip had been postponed. Well Wednesday morning we got picked up from our hotel at 9am by the New Zealand Skydive company van. We were driven about 45 minutes outside of the city to an extremely remote area with lots of grass, cows and sheep (pretty much what the majority of New Zealand looks like.) When we got there we found out that there was only one guy to do the tandem jumping, so we were all going to have to go up in the plane separately. At first we didn’t like that idea but then we realized that we would be able to take pictures of each other from the ground which ended up being pretty cool. The guy who strapped us in and did the dive with us was named Roy and he was super friendly and made us all feel really comfortable (or as comfortable as you can feel jumping out of a plane at 12000 feet!!) We had the option to jump either 9000 feet or 12000 feet so obviously I chose the latter. When we got to 12000 feet, Roy had me dangle my feet out of the plane and all I could see were the clouds below me and at that moment I actually felt nervous for the first time. Then Roy pretty much just leaned out and off we went! It was the most unbelievable experience of my life and I would give anything to relive it! The free fall lasted for about 30 seconds, all of which I was screaming and trying and then the parachute opened and it was the most incredible view. Skydiving had always been on my list of things to do in life and it was everything I had hoped it would be! Here are a few pictures of my sky diving experience:

After skydiving, we were all pretty exhausted and went back to our hotel, watched a movie and went to bed. The next day (Thursday) we took a little road trip to a place called the Waitekere Ranges which was an area with lots of forrest and beaches. We pulled over at a spot where we found a waterfall and Laura and I went exploring a bit through the forrest to find the bottom of it. Here are a couple pictures of that little adventure:

We also walked around the beach for a while and just did some exploring. After that, we drove to parnell street which was supposed to be Auckland's big shopping area, but by the time we got there most things were closed. That was probably a good thing though because I wasn't tempted to spend any money! Then we went back to the hotel and tried to get to bed at a decent hour because we were waking up Friday morning at 3:30am to start our drive to Rotorua! The plan was to meet up with 6 of our friends who were travelling up from the South Island and to go sledging which is a form of white water rafting, but instead of being in a raft, you have an individual sled that you stick your arms in and you kick with your feet down the rapids.

We got in the car at about 4am Friday morning with packed lunches and lots of road trip snacks and CDs for the ride. The drive was supposed to take a little over 3 hours and our sledging trip started at 9am so we wanted to leave plenty of time incase we got lost. I drove the whole way and we actually didn't get lost at all and ended up being a couple hours early so we slept in our car until the group we were meeting showed up. At 9am we started to get in our wetsuits and met our guides who all had dreadlocks and seemed pretty crazy! They drove us out to the rapids and gave us a quick lesson on how to use the sledges and then we all jumped in and were on our way down the river! The first rapid was quite a shock...I don't think any of us expected to be completely submerged and flipped around...but I loved every second of it. Here are a couple pictures from sledging:

I was the first one to jump in...don't mind the cheesy face I'm making!!

BEFORE

AFTER

Here's a group shot we took at the end. We were all trying to make serious faces but as you can see many of us, including myself, failed miserably!

After sledging, we got out of our wetsuits, dried off, and headed about 20 minutes across town to go zorbing. Zorbing is essentially rolling down a hill in a big plastic ball filled with water. If you think that sounds ridiculous, you're right! To get a better idea of what I'm talking about, here is a picture of the zorb:

This is my friend Arjun and me flying down a steep hill in a big plastic ball...who comes up with this stuff?!

And a little jump for joy after the ride!

After zorbing we were all getting pretty tired so the two groups went our separate ways and planned on meeting up again the next day in Waitomo to explore in the famous Waitomo caves. Waitomo was another pretty long drive from Auckland, but luckily we had made our reservation for 2pm, so we were able to get a decent amount of sleep that night. When we got to Waitomo we were driven about 20 minutes out to our assigned cave: Tumu Tumu. Our tour was titled, "tumu tumu toobing." This was because the cave we were exploring was filled with water, so for parts of the tour, we would have to sit in tubes and "black water raft" until we were able to walk again. This was definitely the most terrifying part of the trip for me because when we got in our tubes, the tour guides made us shut all of our head lights off and it became pitch black in the caves. Most of you know that I'm terrified of the dark and on top of it, the tour guides were making scary noises that echoed throughout the cave! The girls made fun of me because I'm always the one who wants to jump out of planes and do anything physically scary, but once I got into the dark caves I turned into the biggest wimp ever!! The only cool thing about turning our lights off was that we were able to see the glow worms that the caves in Waitomo are famous for. Other than that, I enjoyed the parts where we had our lights on and were walking through the caves much better!

We finished our cave tour around 7pm and met up with the other group to caravan back to Auckland. They had been driving in a camper van all week so we offered to have them stay in our hotel room for our last night in New Zealand. We all piled into our hotel at around 10pm and had a great last night in Auckland! Becca, Emily, Laura and I had to wake up at 5:15am the next morning to return our rental car and catch our 8am flight. We packed all our things, left the others sleeping in our hotel room (they later got kicked out by room service) and headed for the airport. When we got there we ran into Kate, another Northeastern girl who was flying home with us, and she informed us that our flight was delayed 10 hours!!!

Luckily the airline gave us a free hotel room to stay in while we waited, so after an exhausting rush to the airport that morning, we all just crashed in the airport hotel until lunch time. Then we got a free lunch and were finally taken back to the airport around 4pm. Our flight didn't end up leaving Auckland until about 7pm...almost 12 hours later than expected! Needless to say we arrived safely back in Sydney and now 2 days later, I'm still recovering from our crazy week in New Zealand!

I hope you enjoyed reading about all my adventures! I'm going to add pictures to my previous post so you can see Mt. Eden and Piha beach, so be sure to check that out as well! Miss you all!!

Love,

Lauren

First Couple Days in NEW ZEALAND!

Hi Everyone!!

Well I arrived in New Zealand on Sunday evening and right now it is Tuesday night...and boy have we already squeezed a lot in!! Sunday Becca, Laura, Emily, Kate and I landed in the airport around 5pm NZ time. At this point, Kate went off to do her own travelling, while the rest of us got a ride to our hotel in Auckland. Our hotel is an amazing 2-bedroom suite with a kitchen, huge living room and a balcony! It also has 2 gyms (yes, of course i've already hit them up) and a roof top pool and hot tub! The weather here has been partly cloudy and about 65-70 so not too bad!

Monday (yesterday) we decided to start off with a little tour of Auckland so we got a ticket to an on and off tour bus that takes you all around the city to the main hot spots and you can jump out at anytime and explore and then hop on the next bus that comes around. We walked all around the main street (Queen Street) and did some window shopping and then we got back on the bus and were driven to an amazing lookout spot where you could see the whole city and all the little islands around it.

Tuesday (today) the plan had been to get picked up at 9am to go skydiving!! However, when we got to the lobby, we got a phone call saying that our pilot called in sick and we had to reschedule our jump to tomorrow. At first we were pretty bummed but we decided to not let the day go to waste, so we took a cab down to the airport and picked up our rental car a day earlier than we had originally planned. I was nominated to be the driver and it was pretty weird at first!! Probably the most confusing thing of all was that the blinker and the windshield wiper functions were switched, so every time i went to make a turn, I would flip on the windshield wipers instead of the blinker!! It was actually pretty amusing. Driving on the left side of the road was pretty tough at first and rotaries were a little confusing but I definitely got the hang of it.

The first pleace we decided to drive to was called Mt. Eden which is Auckland's most famous volcano. When we first saw it, we thought it looked more like a grassy hill, but once we got to the top, we saw the HUGE crater and then it started to look more like a volcano! The view from up there was incredible and since we had all packed lunches, we decided to have a picnic on top of the volcano. It was a great start to the day.

Here you can see the crater at the center of Mt. Eden and the city of Auckland in the background

Laura, Me, Becca and Emily before our volcano picnic!

Next we decided to take a road trip to a place called Piha Beach. It was by far the most beautiful place I have ever been in my life. The beach has black sand which was so unusual, and right in the middle of the sand were these huge rock formations that were absolutely breathtaking. I climbed up the rock (there was a path...I'm not that adventurous) and the view was incredible! The ocean was an amazing shade of blue/green and there were all these mountains and hills surrounding the water. We stayed at Piha for the rest of the day and then it was time for the drive home. I probably should have mentioned before that the drive to Piha beach was the most insanely hilly, curvey and narrow road I have ever driven on...nevermind the fact that it was my first time driving on the other side of the road!!! I wish I had taken video because it was unbelievable and I was pretty much holding my breath for the entire 30 minute drive up and down "scenic road." The way back seemed a little easier...maybe because I was more prepared that time...but in any case we made it back alive without any damage done to the car so I was very pleased with my driving perfomance! Here are a couple pictures of Piha:

This was a view from a lookout over a cliff that we stopped at to take pictures

An awesome picture taken by Laura!

After doing a handstand in front of the big rock, I decided to climb up and check out the view from the top!

And this black sand message goes out to everyone reading this blog!!

When we got back to the hotel we hit up the roof deck pool for a bit, then came back and ate dinner and watched a movie. So I would say that for a group of girls who had their plans pretty much thrown out the window, we made the most of our day!! Now I'm about to go to bed and hopefully the next time I write I will have actually jumped out of a plane!!

LOVE YOU ALL,
Lauren