Week 12

I got back from Whitsundays on Monday pretty early. I just relaxed and had Don's steak night for dinner. I stayed in Tuesday to finish my terrorism paper. It was over 2600 words. I think it came out pretty well. I had to figure out how to stop the terrorist problem caused by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in Sri Lanka. If anyone is interested in reading it, please let me know. Maybe you are looking for an employee in a policy forum.. Hey I am looking for a job when I get back! I also had to finish a paper on "Is popular culture in Australia distinctive and if yes, how?" So boring. We had to write it on several movies we watched in class:
Bra Boys (Surfing gang in Sydney)
The Dish (did you know that without Australia and the help of their crew and the use of their satelite down in southern Victoria the world would have NEVER seen the first man walk on the moon???)
Crocodile Hunter (it was corny because the FBI was searching for some stupid lost transmitter and a crocodile ate it)
Chopper (has anyone heard of him? he's nuts! he killed several people and went to jail and wanted his cell changed so he had his ear sliced off to move cells. now he is free and is a celebrity! he even stars in a don't drink and drive commercial YouTube clip of it: http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=XpQeZEmien4 ) Watch the clip. Also the star of the movie was Eric Bana! (from Munich etc.)
Rabbit Proof Fence (a sad movie about 3 Aboriginal children who were taken from their mother and put into white camps over 5000 miles away. they ended up escaping and 2 of them made it back to their mother. it is intense. imagine a 12 year old and a 7 year old walking 5000 miles while cops and everyone is looking for you. they ended up being taken away a second time and escaped and walked home a second time. one of the women's daughters was taken from her when she was older and she hasn't seen her since. this is a true story. :( ......
One television show either Summer Heights High or Underbelly. People if you like you will like The Office you will like Summer Heights High. I heard it was actually going to be piloted in the US soon. Check it out. I wrote about Underbelly, a show based on true events in Melbourne from 1995-2002. It's just like an episode of Sopranos. Very good. I actually was able to get all of the episodes and am now watching episode 5. Very good series. The courts wouldn't even allow it to be played in all of Victoria (the state which contains Melbourne) until recently only 4 episodes have shown because there are still several murder trials going on!

Thursday Kayte, Brooke, and I left for Brisbane on the train and then caught a flight to Christchurch, New Zealand on the South Island. We got in and it was already 11 o'clock, but we met some Americans in the hallway of our hostel and ended up catching a cab to the city center and going out until about 4 AM. The guys were real nice, one is a fire fighter in NYC and the other a international money trader in LA. We drank and danced. The Kiwis (name for New Zealanders) were actually really sketch. The cabbie who drove us there was cool as. (Okay you may see me use this type of lingo "cool as" "sweet as" its a line used here and Australia very often and I like it alot. Sweet as translation: I confirm that what you are proposing is good by me" so cool as in this specific context would be: I confirm that this guy was cool. Get it? Got it? Good.) So why was he so cool you wonder? 1. He was like it's illegal and I could use my job and I have never done it but what the hell sure all five of yahs can get in the taxi! 2. He dropped of us of at a good spot and 3. He is a Crocodile Hunter Impersonator! Straight up! Someone in the front seat was like hey man you look like Steve Irwin! and all of a sudden he whipped out a business card saying he did impersonations. We were like noo way man! But he was like I was in Brisbane all last month, I swear! Okay, in Brisbane is "The Australia Zoo" which unfortunately I never got to but that's okay and besides the point. This zoo is the zoo created by Irwin and his wife many years ago and is famous really. So yeah! Cool aye?r>
The hostel: The hostel I found online is called Jailhouse Accomodation. It was a jail for almost 100 years! There is one cell they left completely untouched and it has scratching on the wall and what not from past inmates. It feels eerie inside and it's kind of cold. Everything is concrete. It is pretty cool. Definitely one of the coolest hostels I have ever stayed in. The beds were crafted for athletes who played in the Cup games in 2002, aka they were so comfortable. The showers were perfect temperature and water pressure. aka this place was better than my dorm at Bond! lol. Very cool place to stay for sure. Cheap too. Kayte and I got our own room so we didn't have to bother sharing with 16 odd people in a dormitory.

The next day we got picked up and went on jet boats which were cool. Jet boats are boats that propel water through the boat and make it go very fast virtually sliding on the water. They are actually much safer than other boats because they have no engine dropped into the water. I asked why they don't use them more often and he said I wish I knew! I wish they did! It was cool we got soaking wet. Christchurch was pretty damn cold but that's okay. Then we went on a horse ride near the water and what not. It was okay. Kinda slow and stuff.. My horse kept eating all of the plants on the side of the road. It added some excitement to it.. lol We then chilled at the farm for about an hour and had tea. I chased around some of the sheep because they were so annoying and they kept running away from me. There were four sheepdogs here who were awesome! They loved to play catch and were real smart dogs, fast too. One of them was so pregnant she looked like she was about to pop.

We got home got dolled up alittle bit and took a taxi to the gondolas. Little did we realize how expensive this taxi was going to be. WOW. So we got to the gondolas and took the ride up. It was cool. We were able to see all of Christchurch and the mountain side. New Zealand has hundreds of sheep everywhere on all side of you at all times. Bah!!! Some are so annoying. Some seem mean. We chilled at the top and then got dinner. We asked for the side best for the sunset and she put us on the exact opposite spot. What a loser. We were all pretty mad, I'm telling you. How long do you need to work somewhere to not understand which side looks 100 trillion times better when the sun sets.. Ugh. The food was good but it wasn't enough. We were still kind of hungry. Then we left. Hopped on a bus and then another and got back to the hostel. We were pretty beat so we watched tv and chilled. I saw this book called like the Yiddish Policeman's Union or something and really wanted to take it from the Take One Leave One book rack but I didn't have a book to leave so I was going to hold off until Monday to take it.. Of course come Monday the one book on the entire shelf that I was interested in was gone.. For real who in their right mind wants the same book as me like that in a 2 day radius?? The cameras alic;">must have been on me and then realized they wanted it and took it before I could. Jeesh. (lol)

Saturday we got picked up in the morning and headed towards some 'natural hot springs' at a spot called Hamner Springs. It was a gorgeous ride up there! Huge mountains. Rolling rivers. Sheep.. Obviously.. Cool bungy jump spots. We got to the little country town and shopped around. Strange shops. Bizarre shops. Very weird.. Then we had lunch.. or I had potato salad and carrots while everyone ate sausage.. :( I told them no pork ! grrr.. There were over 40 huge ducks chilling around the picnic spot. They would bite at our toes asking for food so I snatched one of the chicks and held her. The pic makes it seem likes I'm choking her to death by I swear I wasn't lol. Don't worry Mom I washed my hands afterwards. Then we went to the hot springs. It was kind of weird too.. They were like regular pools.. Seriously.. but.. just.. hott... I guess it was all natural heat from underneath though. Some were 40 degrees celcius which is like 107 F about I'd say. Those hottest ones wreaked of sulfur. I didn't mind the smell too much. We then shopped around alittle more (for what I don't know lol nah I actually got some chocolate fudge that was out of this world yum yum!!). It was a cool experience at least.

Sunday we woke up all extra early and stuff to go White Water Rafting on the Rangitata River!! Wahoo right?? Wrong. They canceled it and never called us. We called them and they said the river had bad conditions and was too dangerous to go rafting that day. Ugh. The one main part to the trip was canceled. What a bust.. So we walked into town and shopped and had lunch and stuff. Then we were out ideas and options to do really so we got beer and went back to the hostel. I got beer with Stein in the last name cuz I thought it made me look cool.