Tonight we are young

Just a quick synopsis of my Sunday.

Went to the market with my dear friend Chris. Seemed innocent enough until we walked past a very very angry man who flipped a lid and started kicking in his general direction. He didn't actually hit him, he just kind of flailed like an insane person...

They have...the most delicious donuts I think I've ever tasted at that market. They're fried in like sunflower oil and coated in raw sugar...so good. Don't tell me that it was still bad for me, in my eyes it was a nutritious snack.

So I came back to the P&O to do a little homework when Molly flounced into my room and informed me of her Hungry Jacks craving. It wasn't the best laid out plan because it started raining about halfway through our trip but did that stop us? No. Nothing was about to come between two Bennies and their cheeseburgers, no way.

Um, so then on the way home, we noticed we were really wet. We also noticed the puddles were getting really nice and big... I turned to Molly and said, "if it starts down pouring, I'm coming straight to your room and we're going to go dance in the rain".

So I go back to do homework and I'm in the middle of a Facebook conversation when I hear something thundering out on the patio. I chucked my poor computer in the direction of my bed and pealed down the hair, full-on collided with a screaming Molly, and then proceeded to gallop barefoot through the streets of Fremantle. We got kinda far...we were far enough away from out residence that a passerby, mistaking us for drunk people, asked us if we needed a taxi ride home. "Boooyy, can't you see we havin' a great timmmee?" No, at Molly's suggestion, we went to go find our friend Elliot, which is harder than it seems when you know which building he lives in but not the flat number. So we just rang all of them. To no avail, unless our goal was to annoy the rest of the residents in the building.

This is much less of a synopsis than I had planned...

By this time I'm wet but very hyperactive. Somehow Sydney and I went to grab food in the kitchen and it turned into a wrestling match (which I won, regardless of what she tells you). I then went upstairs to cool down and discovered that my Facebook had been rudely hacked with a status that gave the Facebook world a misconception of my character and I had no choice but to take the perpetrator to the ground. I also won that match, although she might tell you that I lost, seeing as I came out with a rug burn and her with nothing.

Umm...the rest of the night culminated in this little beaut:

If you think this is frightening, you should see the video. Man I love it here...

A great Saturday

Well I told ya'll I'd have pictures from the ball. Will not disappoint.

However, I did climb a mountain and feed wild kangaroos and go to a wine tasting on Saturday as well, but I don't have any pictures so I'm not sure what to do with myself. Just take my word for it, it was really cool.

I DO have pictures from the ball, and let me tell you, the ball was a blast and a half. If you know me at all, you'll know that three of my favorite activities are eating, dancing, and taking pictures and, lucky me, it was a triple whammy.

Now, this is about to get slightly PG, so if you need to save your innocence, please skip the next paragraph. I got slightly intoxicated at said ball. Spare me the appalled reaction and try to understand where I'm coming from...in the words of Jack Sparrow, "drinks all around!"
...it's not every day champagne is free, ok?

Yeah so...it was a good night. Lots of good dancing happened (just not by me, dancing and champagne aren't my best combination) and I had steak for the first time in months. A very happy night. Tippy Amanda = happy Amanda :)

Wanna see pictures? Cool, me too.

I've been working on my wink for a while. You can tell, can't you.

The most wonderful girl ever and I got to sit next to her :)

Remember what I said about the free champagne?...

I swear, this was posed.

Deep in animated conversation

Add caption

Daannngg we all look so good tonight

Soups, ceilings, and sunrises

The latest news here at the P&O:

The sky is falling! And by sky, I mean the kitchen ceiling.

Just...you know...fell off. Well actually, the upstairs toilet picked yesterday to split in two pieces which caused yummy plumbing juices to fall onto the ceiling underneath which caused this little catastrophe. Poor Katie Skuza had a near death experience just trying to get her bread.

And the shower floor cracked open.

Here's a fear surfacing in my mind. I'm showering right above the kitchen ceiling and all the sudden the floor gives way, I go tumbling through thin air when, all of a sudden, I catch on some sharp piece of wood or pipe or something, so not only do I have to be worried about a gash in my side, I also have to deal with the fact that my rear end is hanging out for everyone who comes into the kitchen to enjoy.

Deep seated fears that didn't exist before...

Wednesday was a national holiday, also known as Anzac day. The P&O celebrated by getting up 5 hours earlier than a school day and marching up to the top of Memorial Hill for the sunrise service. Aside from standing for 45 minutes in the dark and cold, it was actually quite...inspiring. I'm not Australian (....yet) but I felt oddly patriotic. Also, the sunrise was breathtaking.

****

Tomorrow is the student ball, with a Turkish theme? It should be a good time. A huge meal and...open bar. I'm sure pictures will follow. Don't get too impatient. 

Shout out to Mama Gay for a moment here. I grew up eating creamy white chili for every birthday of my life and if you don't know what creamy white chili is, just ...receive my utmost pity. Not only is it the best meal ever, it's like having every good emotion in a bowl of creamy, chickeny goodness. It also comes from Taste of Home, but in my mind, it will always be my mom's famous recipe. 

So, in an effort to have a little piece of home in Australia, I made a whole monstrous pot of it tonight. I was craving it like all get out, but I can't make white chili and enjoy it all myself. It's unethical, really. So I made lots and shared it and let's just say it was a big hit. 

Nothing feels better than having people appreciate your cooking :) 

I miss home! The USS Carl Vincent docked in Freo two nights ago. That, ladies and gentlemen, is an American aircraft carrier complete with 4,700 American naval men. 

O.o

We went out that night.

It was so cool walking around the streets of the town because you could pick them out immediately. They wear tennis shoes, they have backpacks on, short hair and none of these short salmon-colored shorts and lots of flannel. Ooohhhh home. I was hit with my first wave of homesickness since being here. 

I mean, then we ran into a group of like 6 of them drunk and I remembered what American guys are like. ;)

I met a guy named Danny from Michigan. We bonded. That's all.

Manders

Part Two

Ok so, to be completely honest, I forgot that I had to finish the last blog. I hope some faithful followers are actually reading this, because I'm putting a lot of work into it. I might also be in class right now...

In my last post I talked about being in Exmouth/Cape Range National Park which iisssss.....

...right here, where the A bubble is. That's the western coast of Australia! How exciting.

From there, we woke up at the buttcrack of dawn once again, separated from one of our cars so they could stay in Exmouth to scuba dive, and took a 6 and a half hour drive into the Pilbara, specifically to Karijini National Park. This is the part where it gets real good. I had been having some intense wanderlust up until this point and Karijini was my ultimate destination.
Seriously, I couldn't wait. Karijini National Park issss....

....here! A short little hike across the Australian Desert to Tom Price to fill up our gas tanks. Tom Price is nice. It's like an oasis, actually. You're speeding across the desert at 120 kph and all of a sudden you're visually blasted with a sea of green. Our first sight of fresh green grass in daayysss. It's all right that it's virtually isolated by miles of nothingness from the rest of the country, it's got a grocery store, a gas station, a skate park, and hot girls apparently. All you could ever need in a small town.

On to KNP!

In case you didn't know, KNP is famous for their gorges. Some would say it's a gorgeous place to visit. And it is. Ever been to Hamersly Gorge? No? I didn't think so. Sucks to suck. Imagine twelve sweaty hikers climbing down a gorge to find a clear, blue, freshwater pool surrounded by bright red cliffs (full of anticlines and synclines, Sydney Henderson) awaiting you at the bottom. Imagine rope swinging into the water and swimming down the gorge as far as you want to. Imagine swimming the other way, up layers of waterfalls and pools to find one carved out in a cavity of smooth rock with a small, warm waterfall pouring into one end. Ok, imagine it looking like this:

....No big deal.

We spent the rest of the day there, gettin' all wrinkly and stuff.

That night we stayed at an eco retreat, which is a fancy way of saying "regular-campground-with-little-huts-as-an-option-for-people-who-want-to-stay-in-luxury-and-no-garbage-cans-because-it's-not-environmental". It was cool, they had ice cream and beer. Just no places to throw the empty beer cans away. That was the night we were in bed by 7 and after realising it was nowhere near our bedtime, we went to go get snacks.

So, the next morning I took one of the cars by myself to go get a cool picture of the red road and the mountains in the background, because with all the dust created by our three car caravan the day before, there was no possibility of stopping for a picture without getting rear-ended by an unsuspecting Corey's car behind us. Amanda was unhappy. I wanted that dang picture.

GOT IT.

Off to see all the other gorges in the park! I mean, what can I say? Words cannot describe. Plus, I don't really want to make all my readers jealous.

Actually, I'm not too worried about it.

This was Joffre Gorge. We started out staring down into it from the top and then climbed into the basin. Breathtaking.

 This is Circular Pool. So blue. So cold. So refreshing. 

 This is Fortescue Falls. *Sigh*. Swimming under waterfalls.

By about 2 in the afternoon, Australia had kicked the you-know-what out of all the Bennies and Johnnies. I remember being unable to control my involuntary shaking because my body had absolutely nothing more to give.

The good news is....as a car, we were down to about one open-faced peanut butter sandwich, one and three quarters of a cookie, and a handful of mixed nuts per person until we could drive out of the park and get to the nearest roadhouse the next morning. I believe we had supper at 3:30, which seemed like a good idea until 7 pm rolled around and we were all waiting for one another to croak in the hot sun so the rest of us could have a decent, fresh meal.
Just kidding, but no joke.
Water? Wasn't too bad of a situation until crumbles of Molly's dinner ended back up in the community water bottle. If there is ever a really bad time to backwash, that was it.

'Twas a night of relaxation and bonding while we all clung to each other for survival. I awoke that night at 10 pm, either from the rocks, the black hole in my stomach, or the wild animal snoring in the sleeping bag next to me. From the campsite over yonder, past the outhouse and grove of trees, I heard boisterous, loud, American voices. I'm not sure why, but after listening to their conversation, I got a really strong impression that these people were my friends and I had a strong urge to go and talk to them. So I went in search for the source of the voices.
After searching in vain for a flashlight, I stumbled slowly through the trees to their tent, when I realised I didn't really know the best way to introduce myself to a group of people in a tent, in the dark, in the middle of the Australian Outback. Do I knock...? Like...give a bird call, shake the tent? None of those sounded like good ways to make friends so it went more like this:

Me: "Hey"
*continued boisterous conversation*
"HEY"
*more conversation*
"...HEEYY!!"
Tent: "...is that you Cassie?"
"No, uh...I'm...you don't know me"
"Um, hello"
"Yeah I'm just camping here. I uh...I just, yeah hey, just came to say hey"
"Come on in!!"

Five minutes later, I was spooning with 4 strangers from Boston who were studying abroad near Fremantle and who were traveling up north for Easter break. I don't even know what they look like because it was too dark to see anything.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Oh good lord. The next day, we got up at 6 and drove 16 hours home. My car was the best car. We had so many good road trip moments. Deep conversations, dance parties, video logs, road experiences, and good naps. It was lovely.

Our caravan also got pulled over on the way home, but being the wonderful Bennies and Johnnies we were, they gave us a warning and let us go. :)

Thank you God, for not letting anything go terribly wrong.

Australian red dirt. Gets everywhere.

What a fantastic trip :)

I'm so blessed.

Manders

It seems as though I have a lot of catching up to do

I don't really know how I'm going to go about this...

Um.

Well I just got back from a week-long trip into the outback BUT I also never blogged about our Study Abroad excursion to spend time with the Aboriginal people SO...sadly, I'm going to leave that part out because I don't have the patience or the time to write about both. Sorry 'bout it.

This trip....epitome of my Australian experience. IMO. Now that I've been up north to see the outback and all the way up to the Pilbara to see the mountains and the gorges and everything else wonderful, I'm satisfied. Totally and completely satisfied.

How about some good highlights and then cool pics, eh?

Hmmmm...
So we rented these cars. Super cool because although the plan had been to campervan it again, that didn't work and we saved like 200 dollars on the cars. NOT cool because they didn't give us the sedans we ordered, they gave us four Toyota Corolla hatchbacks. In case you are unfamiliar with them, imagine trying to fit four people's things, food, and camping equipment for a week into this:

Yep. No trunk space. See that one behind it? That one has trunk space. We were supposed to get that one. 

We miraculously fit everything though. Our pillows and sleeping bags formed a wall in the middle back seat, forcing the two passengers to communicate via flashlight Morse code. 

We also had to leave behind the sleeping mats which we regretted when we soon found out that the Australian outback provides you with a nice mattress of boulders and jagged rocks to sleep on. I have bruises on both hips, the reason being that if one is a person who prefers to sleep on one's side, one must awaken on the hour to flip side to prevent the rocks from piercing skin. 

Anyways, I digress.

Our first stop was the Pinnacles. Google them, I'm not keen on going into detail. I have limited time and space here.

Our first night, in spite of the ground, was a party in the four-person tent. Gurl bonding time, awwww...

The next day was a trip to Kalbarri National Park to visit Nature's Window. It was like a big hole in a rock formation. Not that I wasn't excited about it or it wasn't cool, but IMO it was a mediocre experience. Too touristy and advertised for something that wasn't life-changing. 

I believe this was our first dirt road experience. As Kaylee likes to call them, the roads were full of "chatter bumps". The only way to handle said bumps is to turtle it at <15kph or floor it and take it at about 50 kph. We did the latter. I learned two things. One, that the handle located above the car doors is affectionately referred to as the "Oh Shit! handle", and two, that my calm bravado does not hold up on chatter bump roads. The rest of the car learned that I scream like a young girl when threatened.

Oh hey, later that day we hit a kangaroo! To be fair, we only nicked its tail, but it was cool to say we hit one and didn't have to really suffer the consequences. Oh, and to be really fair, Alecea was the only one who hit it.

We drove up to Coral Bay that night and spend the night in the backyard of a hostel. That was an ordeal. It was a prime holiday day and every other place was full, but hey, here's to adventure!

The next day we snorkeled there! It was wonderful. So wonderful. Picture yourself stepping into the Little Mermaid or Finding Nemo, and you'll get an idea of what it was sort of like. Only cooler because nothing was animated. There were like...bright blue and purple and yellow and orange and red fish.

The NEXT day, part of the group went to swim with whale sharks. I mean, I would have gone, but I had better things to do with $380 dollars...
No, they had a lot of fun and so did we! We went to Cape Range National Park in the Exmouth region and did a bit of sightseeing. We went down to the end of the park and did a nice little hike along the top of a gorge, which was absolutely breathtaking.

I mean, this picture doesn't really do it justice, but it will have to suffice. I'm sorry I don't remember the name of the canyon...

Another night, another mattress of rocks!

On the upside, the stars are absolutely beautiful way out there. I have never ever seen a sky full of stars like that. We literally saw a black hole, thanks to Sydney's astronomical expertise, and shooting stars every few minutes.

:)

Also, over the course of the trip we all watched 7 sunrises and 7 sunsets. Our schedules were closely attached to that of the sun's. Which meant that most nights, we were in our tents ready for bed by 6:30 pm.

To be continued...

Tune in next time for Spring break road trip part 2!

- Manders