Swim Carnival and The Strand

Pictures:
1. McDonalds. 5am! Bars can be open pretty late as well, even though other things close pretty early here, unless it is thursday.
2. Wring Australia in the sand at The Strand.
3. Swimming Carnival!
4. At the carnival with two of my friends. The yellow stuff on my face is Zinc. Sporting the colors of George Roberts Hall! :)
The swim carnival went well, but I dont know how well my residence hall did. One of the events of the day was to see how many people from your residence hall could get across the pool in 5 mintues. The trick was that only 4 people could be in the pool at a time. Another event that cool was the clothes race. You put on a hat, shirt, and shorts over your swim suit (or Togs, in Australian slang) and you had to give them to the next person after you swam a lap.
I went to The Strand this evening with some friends. The Strand is a beach front along the ocean. It is full of playgrounds, piers, areas to swim, statues, and other random things. It was nice to walk along and hear the ocean. We stopped at a gelato shop, which is a type of ice cream shop. I got three different flavors - mango, passion fruit and cherry.
Tomorrow I am going to hike Castle Hill. At the top you can see a view of Townsville!
Here are some other interesting things:
Mackers = McDonalds
Mozzies = Mosquitos
When you push a button to go aross the street it will make a noise to let you know when you can cross.
On the bottom of Queensland licence plates it either says "The Sunshine State" or "The Smart State"
They have Cold Stone here but it is called Cold Rock.
You cannot find Reeses here.
Hope that all is well! Let me know what you guys are up to!!
Cheers and take care!

Swimming Carnival!

The swimming carnival is coming up in 30 minutes!! All of the residence halls will be there. I am swimming the 50m breast stroke. Kind of nervous but it should be a good time! Almost everyone is wearing their residence hall tshirts in support of the event! It is very cool, black and yellow everywhere! Go George Roberts Hall!! There are other fun things at the carnival like a noodle race, over and under race (going over and under ropes), clothes race and others. At lunch today we had steak burgers and they were played music to get used excited for the event. I will have to post some pictures on here later!
Hope that all is well with everyone!
Cheers!

Pictures!
1. A snake statue by the Lagoon.
2. Here are just a few of the turtles that we saw walking to the Lagoon!
3. A picture of campus.
4. Op-Shop Formal! My wonderful outfit. haha.
5. A picture of my roommate and I during Op-Shop Formal.

Its been a while...

Hey Everyone! Sorry that it has taken me so long to write! Lets see, for things that are new here. I went to the Lagoon a few days ago. It is an outdoor swimming pool that is very nice! There are trees all around and it is located next to a river. There was a bridge that we had to walk over to get to the Lagoon and there were TONS of turtles hanging out underneath it! My friend and I counted 15 of them! They were just floating on the top of the water, with their heads sticking out. It was very cute!!
Tomorrow I am taking part in a 'swimming carnival', which is the same thing as a swim meet here. We are playing against the other residence halls at the university. Last week we had a night called Op-Shop Formal. Everyone dressed in terrible looking clothes and we just hung out and partied. It was fun to see what everyone had to wear.
Here are some random things that I have noticed:
1. For breakfast we have fish sticks and spaghetti like pasta that looks like it comes out of a can.
2. Its illegal to not wear your helmet when you ride your bike.
3. The seats in the classrooms don't have that much space in front of you, which makes it hard if you are sitting on the inside of a row to get out!
4. cop shop is the police station
5. They have fox 8 instead of fox 9 for a tv channel.
6. Rice bubbles = rice crispies
Take care you guys. Thanks for visiting!! :)

Toga Toga Toga!

Here are some pictures from toga night at a club on campus!! It was pretty fun but it was so hot there, even outside. Toga night is a big night for o-week (orientation week). There were some interesting togas - for example: elmo, dora the explorer and a pirate. Today I am going to take a bus tour of Townsville and there is also a market extravaganza where there will be clubs to sign up for and other cool things. Later tonight I am going to The Exchange, its a bar that is sponsoring our residence hall. So that will be fun to go to. Talk to you guys later! Take care.
Cheers!

G'Day!

Hello Everyone!
Today is going to be a busy day on campus! I am going to get my ID card and there are a lot of activities like an international student welcome session, learning to kiteboard, and toga night!! :) Yesterday it rained pretty hard and I was able to walk home through it. Its amazing at how much it can flood on campus, there was running water everywhere!
In case you havent seen this and would like to check it out - here is a story and video about 'Sam the Koala'. Its pretty cute!
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,2198 5,25038852-661,00.html.
Here is a list of the pictures!
1. While its raining on campus -you can see a pool of water.
2. A stream that is on campus - its a really cool place!
3. Hanging out with a tree! Check out its fruit!
4. Cane toad. They are an introduced species to Australian and do nothing but harm.
5. Climbing a tree on The Strand!
Well, I am off to have some Brekkie! (breakfast) Talk to you later!

Living Down Under!

Here are some pictures of where I live! Thought that I should put a few of them on here!!
1. My desk.
2. The livingroom that I am going to share with 3 other people. My door is the one with the yellow flyer on it to the left.
3. A view from outside my door.
4. Right outside my door.
5. This is the block where I live, D block. :)

Grim Reaper Mascot

The residence halls that we have here are called colleges. Each college has a mascot and our is the Grim Reaper! Its pretty cool. Better than the Prior Lake Lakers having a Sailboat! :)
I get to wear a headband on my head that says my name. (picture attached) This lets everyone know that I am a fresher (first year at the university). I am really enjoying where I live and the people here are great! I also bought a t-shirt for my hall that has the Grim Reaper on it. (picture attached as well). The colleges, or residence halls, have sporting events between each other so that will be interesting to experience. I do not have too many plans today. Just to finalize my schedule for school and go to out and meet some people.
Cheers!

MORE Aussie pictures!

Random Aussie Pictures! :)

I thought that I should get a few more pictures up on here. Hope this works! :)

Townsville City Experience!

So today I went into the city to get some fabric for Toga night. During o'week (orientation week) they have a night where everyone dresses up in Togas and goes out and what not. So my friends and I got our fabric we throught we would try to find The Strand, which is a beach front in the city. After walking around trying to find a bus we found one that went down there. It was beautiful! We walked along the beach for about 30 mintues, taking our time to look at sea shells that have washed up. There were TONS of them, everywhere! :) I now have a little collection in my room. Once we were done, we thought to head back home. We couldnt find a bus stop to get us back so we spend about an hour wandering outside in the heat, trying to figure out where a bus stop would be. We found a few but they didnt have times on them or anything so we wondered if a bus would even stop at that. So we just ended up going to the stop that the bus orginally dropped us off at and took a long ride through the city. As long as I was on the bus, that is all I really cared about. We ended up spending about 8 hours getting our stuff for our Togas and visiting The Strand. It was all worth it though! :) Here is a little list of some interesting things I have noticed in Australia:
1. Toilets have two buttons that you can push, its kinda interesting.
2. Water does not flush backwards in their toilets.... its a myth.
3. Their cross walks make noise to let you know when you can cross! Kind of helpful when you space out
waiting for your turn to go.
4. Not only do people drive on the opposite side of the street but they have their escalators on opposite sides as
well....
5. There is a lot of Aussie slang and they like to shorten up names by ending a word with 'ie'
Some cool slang.... Togs = swimsuits, stingers = wetsuit type thing to wear so you dont get stung by jellyfish
Freshers= those spending their first year at the University, Fossils=those who have been
at the Uni for more than a year, Brekkie =breakfast, sunnies = sunglasses.
6. The bus system is not as good as back in the US. They are known to not come on time and just do not seem a
as efficient as it is here.
Right now I am living in a residence hall that has 3 other students - two guys and a girl. We all share a common area that consists of a bathroom, shower, livingroom and fridge. Its a very nice place and I love living here! :) One of my roommates is already here and has been since I moved in. He is very nice.
Well, I am going to head out! Hope everyone is doing well and keep me posted with your happenings! Take much care and hope to hear from you soon!! :)
Bobbi

G'Day from Cairns, Australia!!

I have been in Australia for over a day and a half now. Once I arrived at my hotel I showered and pretty much slept for the rest of the day!! Lets just saw that the plane ride really took a toll on me! In about an hour I get to meet up with my AustraLearn group and we are going to go over some things about our orientation in Cairns and figure out what we will be doing over the next few days. We are going to be snorkling in the Great Barrier Reef, visitng a zoo and an aboriginal park. After my four days here I am going to my University where I will have an orientation week before school starts and then its off to studying!! After my semester I am going to traveling along the eastern coast of Australia down to Sydney, where I will be leaving the country July 7th. Things are already different here! For one, you drive on the opposite side of the road and there are no yellow lines.. just white ones everyone! There are roundabouts and people drive on the right side of the car, instead of the left like we do! I walked down to the beach today and saw some pelicans and mudskippers! I am really looking forward to seeing a koala or kangaroo though!! :) When I was at the beach it started to rain... which was not too fun. Thank goodness the walk ways have overhangs so I didnt get as wet. Well, I have a group meeting coming up soon! Wish you all the best!! Take care.

Pre-Australia!

Hey Everyone! :)
I thought that I would set up a blog to keep contact better. I do not know how often I will write in here but I will try to update it at least once a week. I have four days until I leave for Australia! It is crazy at how fast time goes by! When I arrive in Australia I am staying at a place in Cairns for a program introduction with AustraLearn. Here I will be able to do things like scuba dive, explore the Great Barrier Reef, go to an Aborginal park, and go to a place to see Australia wildlife. After the 4 days I get to go to my university and experience what they call o' week (aka: orientation week) and then I get to hit the books for a semester! This has been the longest winter break that I have had so it will be nice to get back into the swing of things! Pretty much all of my friends have been in school for a few weeks now!
Well, I will trying posting again soon! Take care everyone.