Rotto

I just got back from Rottness Island--an island about 20km off the coast of Fremantle. Gorgeous place, but yet that is what I have been saying about all of Western Australia. It was more beaches with more ocean views. I'm almost getting tired of ALL these gorgeous beaches:) All in all we had a blast this weekend. There were 6 of us that stayed on the island in a little cabin. It reminded me of a resort up north in MN or something. Coral reefs make for fantastic diving and snorkeling, hidden bays and deserted cycle paths wait to be explored. The small marsupial quokka--a bit like a small kangaroo--only exists on this island, and have become very tame. The thirteen shipwrecks and exciting diversity of life in the marine reserve surrounding Rottnest attract scientists and recreational divers and snorkellers from al over the globe. We got to see jelly fish, a pack of about 15 different dolphins, cool looking fish, a lobster, crabs, and some sort of shark. There were also the first sightings of a hump back whale while we were there--this is whale watching season.

These two are a birds eye view and a map of the island. To get around you either can walk the trails, bike them or take the bus. We chose to take the bus because we wanted to make sure we saw everything. We wanted to bike the second day, but it got too windy. The island is very hilly and the wind does not help the bike trip. While Saturday was one of the most beautiful days we have had in a while (It was mid 80s, not a cloud in the sky and not too windy), sunday was extremely cold and windy. There is a huge storm coming and will stay here for the next 2 days. We are already feeling the wrath of it--heavy rain and flood warnings.

View from our cabin

a bird that came to hang out

Soo happy they are here :)

That same bird hangin out

OH LOOK, we have a visitor in our cabin! Quokkas are native to the island and they are found everywhere on it. Very friendly and cute, but annoying at times--like when they come in your cabin for a visit uninvited.

One beach on the island

another one.

Having some fun

One of these was our cabin right on the ocean.

the light house

just hanging out

and yet, another beach

look who came to join us for lunch! Such cool animals on this island. We had also had an encounter with a poisonous snake! eeeek. It was a snake that was part of the rattle snake family. luckily we were inside the bus and not on bikes at the time.

The ferry we took over and back.

Overall, a wonderful weekend! Just what I needed to take my mind off of finals and this 15 page paper I have due this week. UGHH. Can't wait until finals and HW are done. I am excited to go back to the states but also decided I am going to miss my two favorite things: Iced coffee and Starburst babies. Why can't the states get these!?! The iced coffee is like coffee flavored milk that has caffeine in it--delicious! and the Starburst babies are kinda self explanatory--starburst gummies in the shape of babies. Weird, I know, but SO DELICIOUS. 

Well I am done because my mouth is watering just typing about these two things. YUMM. One of my Laura friends goes home on Wednesday(sad), On Thursday my paper is due, Friday I am going on a party bus with my CSB/SJU friends for an end of the semester thing, and then Saturday I am off to Thailand! EXCITING. It is winding down here pretty fast, and before I know it--I'll be back in the US of A.

Cheers<3.

I have friends.

MY FRIENDS ARE HERE TO VISIT! My roomie, laura, and our other friend laura. I prefer to call them laura squared. I LOVE HAVING THEM HERE! but at the same time, having them here makes me miss home a lot. I try not to think about it because, heck, I AM IN AUSTRALIA. When will I ever be here again?! But yet, it's been a whole 4 months since I left. It's the big and little things that I miss about America. like the prices for one, everything is a million more times cheaper there. I definitely miss American food, everything here taste different, even if it is the same thing like McDonalds or Subway. I can't put my finger on it, it's just not home. I miss American ketchup! Here the 'tomato sauce' has a sweet taste to it. I should probably stop venting because when I get home I will definitely miss a lot of little things about Australia, like the iced coffee for one. It is like a iced latte (expresso, milk, over ice) but instead of it being over ice, it is over ice cream! DELICIOUS. How come I never thought of this wonderful invention?! I will also definitely miss the fact that I can walk anywhere I want to go or take transportation and be basically anywhere within 30 minutes. I can walk to the market, grocery store, the shops, the bars, the ocean, and the train station to take me into perth. It is quite a good life here. I just have to keep reminding myself of everything I love about being here so I don't miss home as much. Because before I know it, my home for the last 5 months will be all gone.

I went to the premiere of Hangover 2 tonight with about 40 of my American friends. It was exactly like the first one and got me in the mood for Thailand. It takes place in Thailand, so we got to see where we will be in the movie. Perfect timing for that movie to come out. I leave for Thailand in about 2 weeks. SOO EXCITED! :) and I am heading to Rottness this weekend for the whole weekend. It is an island off the coast of Fremantle and apparently gorgeous. I'll obviously blog about it after the weekend.
For now, here are some photos from the previous week:

swimming in our kitchen!

When to a place where they have a million different Asian foods. AMAZING, Asian food heaven! Every single Asian food you can think of: the typical chinese, then you have Malaysian, Thai, and even have indian, freakin sweet! I wish we had Asian Heaven at home. It is called Old Shanghai. YUMMM. Talking about it all makes me want some.

Us with our Asian food!

After, our asian food, we decided to head into the arcade to play some DDR. Josh got his wallet stolen from right underneath him! He got it back from some random person that found it. Luckily it was only ten dollars lighter and because of this, the arcade guy gave us $30 of arcade games free! What a nice guy!

Being goofy on the train to Perth for the night. A lot of fun!

Drove our friend Levon's car home because he drank a little too much. I navigated and Lez drove with Levon in the back. Interesting experience driving through the city to say the least. We got through it tho!

These our the host sisters! Mackenzie(15) and Macy(10)

A guy painting on the side walk in Perth, AMAZING!

The footy oval. I blogged about this once before, but this time I was at the Eagles game and not the Dockers.

The face off!

Kels & I at the game

Final score: Eagles:175 Bulldogs: 52, for those of you who don't understand footy, that means that the Eagles beyond dominated. They haven't won by that much in a very long time!

G'Day until next time.

It's rainning.

This week has been an interesting one to say the least. I have had 3 papers due and have had 2 over nighters because of them. Both over nighters were interesting. I sat in the common room all night and experiencing everyone coming and going. On wednesday night, two of my friends came back from just being in a fight. A fight broke out on the train and my friends didn't even do anything. We have learned that a lot of people don't like us here just because we are American. There are a lot of guys here that want to pick fights with our guys just because of that fact. It gets scary at times. However, moving on, Thursday night I went do to the kitchen for a late night snack and it was pouring rain. No, not outside .. but INSIDE our kitchen. A pipe burst upstairs and water was pouring down through the celling. It was crazy! There were puddles in the kitchen everywhere. I have a video and photos of that I will post later. Today (Sunday) I went to the Eagles-Bulldogs game. My host family took me to it and it was a ton of fun. The Eagles won by 123 points! Such a good game!! News report <--click there if you wanna read about the game. It was really intense. My friends and I decided that the footy players are a hybrid between American football players and soccer players. They are GORGEOUS! mmmmmm. I wouldn't mind bringing one of them back to America with me. haha.  A lot of the boys are between the ages of 18 - 25ish. They are very young!my favorite player, Josh Kennedy!  SOO gorgeous.

On another note, I go home in about a month! CRAZYY!! I can't believe I only have a month left. Laura  got here today, but she is staying overnight somewhere tonight so I don't get to see her until tomorrow. Bummer. :-/ I am excited she is here. And Addison's older sister just left today, she came to visit this whole last week. It makes me miss home having people we are close with at home come and visit. However, I am only in Australia once, I can't concentrate on missing home. Well until next time...

Taste Bud Tours

This past week I had dinner with my host family once again. We made them tattor-tot hotdish which turned out to be a success. Kelsey, Heather, and I wanted to make a dinner that was traditionally a Minnesota dish. Macy, the youngest, loved it so much that she wanted to bring the leftovers to school the next day. I love my host family; they are so nice and inviting.

Today I went on a taste bud tour around Swan Valley, which is out past Perth. We went to vinyards, a brewery, where they grow and make coffee, a chocolate factory, a place where they harvest honey, a lavender farm, and a place where they make their own candy.

Here is the first stop and my favorite: Where they grew coffee

The Lavender Farm

A biscuit and jam and tea all stuffed with delicious lavender

Lavender wine!!

A family owned business

Winery

Various wines

The group

Lez and I

A Bee Farm

Who knew?!

DELICIOUS.

A Brewery

The crew in front of the Brewery

Chocolate Factory

SOO MUCH CHOCOLATE

The whole group