Never underestimate the power of the foot

This was the first week of classes, so everyone has been getting school supplies, ordering books, and finding their classrooms ahead of time. My first class I missed because the time got changed without my notice a few days before the start of class, so I will be filling you in on my GIS and remote sensing class next week. Then I had River Basin Processes which has two more exciting field trips coming up, both of which I will be bringing my camera on.

When I was on campus I joined the Newcastle University Student Association (NUSA) that offers countless benefits to members. One of which is a weekly $10 crate of fruits and veggies… and when they say “crate” they mean it. Devin brought my crate home because I wasn’t on campus that day and it was literally like 20lbs worth of produce. Cantaloupe, cucumber, eggplant, carrots, lettuce, apples, bananas, zucchinis, onions, and bok-choy, were all part of this fantastical little treasure find.

We spend the weekday evenings doing a variety of things. Wednesdays are big going out nights here, and all the pubs are usually packed. So this Wednesday we found out about a stop light party, which is where you wear a shirt and colored bracelet according to your relationship status. Red = in love and taken, yellow= it’s complicated, green = 100% single, and I, of course, wore red. J  We also went to this place called the Brewery that is one of our favorite spots because they have student discounts and it sits right on the water.

But on non-Wednesdays we will often invite all the guys over and make them dinner. This week was the first week we got our veggie crate and decided to have “Veggie Fest 2010” which included grilled zucchini and eggplant, a big “Elaine-style” salad, and to finish it off, Devin had the great idea of making apple crisp, and we topped it off with vanilla ice-cream. It was literally the best meal I’ve had since I’ve been here, and everyone got pretty excited about it. 

We also like to play games at night. We’ve played Newlyweds, where everyone is randomly paired up with someone of the opposite sex. Then the girls and the guys will come up with a list of 10 questions separately and answer them. Then when we reunite, the guys will be asked the question and try to figure out what the girl’s answer was, and vice versa. Whatever pair answers the most questions right are the winners. It was funny how different the questions were between the sexes. The guys asked questions like “Do I pee in the shower?”, while the girls questions were more, well, girly and consisted of questions like “What month did we get married in?”

We also like to play Family, where everyone writes down the name of a person or character on a piece of paper and throws it into a hat. All the names are read off twice, and we then will go around the circle and get to ask people “are you Chewbacca?” if they say yes, then they become part of your family, and families work as a team to acquire more family members.

Whoever is head of the biggest family is the winner. My characters the other night were Tom from Myspace and Mrs. Teapot. I usually ended up in Taylor’s family. Laura’s were Dale Earnhardt Junior and Jigglypuff, which were very tricky to figure out.

Brian was having some trouble getting along with the other family members.

Devin and I decided to a little exploring while the other girls were enjoying themselves at bar beach. I should probably mention that we got a car from a lady named Jean Carmen that we met a church. It's a Holden Commedore.

Yeah, I know, its pretty kickin'. We're still working on a name...and on how to fit 7 girls in it.

 So we drive around for a bit and find this little nature preserve and take a little hike. We came across a kookaburra, which made me feel very australian.

We then found this beach on the other side of the preserve and it was a long, beautiful, empty beach surrounded by jungle that I am sure we will be revisiting in near future. Then it started to rain so we left.

Bebe lizard!




The other night Devin and I decided to go for a photographic walk before the sun went down. So we travelled to the top of the Hill and got some brilliant views of another Newcastle sunset, a rainbow over the cathedral, then we decided to go exploring in places we haven't yet been. Right when the sun pretty much goes down we are on our way to the top of this hill where there's this old cement building we were aiming to explore. But we had to hop a fence to get there. So I hop over it, and Devin does the same, but after she clears the fence we hear this 'clunk' down below (by below I mean inside the sewer that ran under the fence) and Devin's phone is suddenly MIA. Well by now its like completely dark and we are trying to look in the sewer, I call her phone but no answer, we can't see anything, the situation is looking grim. Then we remember that our phones (well, my phone at this point) comes equipped with with a torch light. So after some fervent searching with my head inside the sewer sifting the mucky waters, I spot her phone half submerged in the far corner. Not quite sure how it got there, but it was to far to reach with our arms, so Devin got to use her trusty feet to recover her phone, which was still ON when she recovered it. Girls - 1, Sewer - 0. Bam.






Today was pretty rockin for a Monday. Devin and I dropped the girls at school and picked up Marshall (our friend who is moving in across the street) to take him to get a mattress from this mattress warehouse. So we go around back (where the free ones are) and there is a pile of mattresses on the ground and we pick one out (the cleanest one happened to be a queen, the dirtiest had all this red/brown/green gunk all over it), load it into the back of the commedore (somehow?) and drive it back to the hill where we grabbed some Subway (they have $7.00 foot longs!) and then hit up the hub which is where I am now. I have GIS and remote sensing from 5-7 today so I will be heading that way soon. Thats all for now. Cheers ya'll (yeah, I'm giving in...its just way easier to say that "all you guys" or "you all")

I too scared!