Today was the first day of classes...and it was a field trip to a rain forest in Dorroughby (about 45 mins away.) My only class on Mondays is the "Australian Life and Culture" class and it was pretty interesting. I actually had to sit in a lecture for about an hour but it wasn't bad at all. The professor is a pretty laid back old guy that sounds like the Gieco geko! He briefly discussed a little bit of history, geography, politics, current events, and economy of Australia...and he talked about Obama...A LOT. I've found that many aussies seem very interested in the new president. I'm very excited about this culture class. Australia is a fascinating country... and most people do not know much about it. Everyone associates OZ with the sterotypical kangaroo or kaola but this places and more wildlife than imaginable. 80% of all that lives in Australia exists no where else in the world! It's home to the largest living thing on earth...the Great Barrier Reef...which I will be visiting over spring break. We have a scuba meeting tomorrow night to discuss when the lessons begin. I have my first surf lesson on Friday...should be interesting! I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it, but it's worth the try. The waves here are incredible!
After the hour lecture, we headed to Dorroughby. The scenery on the ride there was breathtaking. We were around some old vocanoe that had been extinct for many years. The rain forest wasn't what I had expected. I overheard the "tour guide" say how it was too wet to give the full tour, so we had just a 30 min. hike through parts of it. I have never seen anything like it. (I'll try to post pictures on here, but the connection is slow and it has been taking forever!) It was rumored that we were going to be seeing a waterfall, and I'm sad to say, that we never did.
After the nature walk, we went to an old school area that was built for the all the local dairy farmer's kids (yes, we saw many many cows around there...I felt home haha) There, we were fed kangaroo, crocidile, amoung other "normal" things. The kangaroo tasted just like beef, and the croc was just like chicken...but both were very tender and juicy and DELICOUS! After lunch, we had a boomerrang lesson from the tour guide and aussie bus driver. Let me just say, boomerangs are dangerous! ...I stayed at a distance...I don't have very quick reflexes and I was not about get one of thoes wooden things in my face! (you all know that I would be the one to get hit...hahah)
The two girls, Erika and Stacey, moved out of the cabin today and into their nice new cabin..and it's a lot less crowded! Six girls to the ONE fridge was not a good combination.
One of my goals this trip is to get into the ocean at least once everyday..and it's about to get dark here so I better hop to it.

Hope all is well in the states :)

ps GO STEELERS (that's for you Kristy!)

love.