A little footie, a lot of koalas

Well it's certainly been a fun few days... I'm still getting settled and trying to figure out the town. Turns out Brisbane is massive and there are lots of little neighborhoods. I'm in Kenmore with 6 other people, so we are officially the Kenmore Krew, which makes taking the bus everywhere a whole lot more fun. Also, we discovered that the Maccas down the street (Maccas is what they call McDonald's here) has soft serve ice cream for 30 cents, which is amazing, obviously. Everything here is crazy expensive so cheap ice cream has definitely been a highlight. Another thrilling find are Tim-Tams, which are essentially oreos dipped in chocolate and crack. And when you dip them in Milo (a hot malt beverage) they become liquid gold on your tongue, I will be bringing back cases of them, don't trip. Vegemite is not good. End of story. Even on Tim-Tams, vegemite could never be good. It's like a salty soy saucy dirt-flavored pungent spread that for some reason instills a lot of pride in Aussies. Sorry guys, we love your cookies (or biscuits, as they would say) and your accents, and I'm even getting used to the short shorts all the guys wear, but let's ditch the whole vegemite deal.

There are a lot of little phrases they have here that we don't have, as you may have noticed. A chicken is a chook. A BBQ is a barbie. And instead of YOLO they say STREYA, like Aus-Streya, because, let's be honest, this country rocks. There are certain things I'm not supposed to say around immature males, I've noticed. "I'm stuffed" and "doodle" have completely different meanings here, beware. But I'm getting used to it. I've even started looking right first and then left when I cross the road, which believe you me, is an incredibly hard habit to break. I haven't been run over yet, so the only things I have to worry about surviving now is the blue-ringed octopus which can paralyze you for 6 hours, deadly box jellies, and that crocodile that just ate someone. When we were in Girraween we found a snake skin of the 7th most venomous snake in the world, and it was 6 feet long. Australia will keep you on your toes, my friends, let me tell you!

A group of us spent a very relaxing day today at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary (pictures attatched) where we were able to hold, pet, and love on some adorable little koalas. They are cute in pictures, but they are even cuter live when they jump from branch to branch and chill back and enjoy the sunshine. They had over 130 koalas at the reserve, and even had them in separate pens based on age: kindergarten pen, retirement pen, cubby house... Unlike Girraween where we slowly meandered to get within 3 meters (oh yea, metric system baby) of the wild kangaroos, we could literally lay with the ones at the reserve. They were hilarious and let us do everything but ride them, not that I tried =] They are incredibly soft and well tempered and love to cuddle! We also saw wombats, platypus, dingos, crazy talking birds, crocodiles, pretty much everything you have to see when you go to Australia. It was delightful!

Sunday night we attended an Australian Rules Football game, basically rugby with different rules. We arrived early to get our face painted and play with baby goats in the petting zoo, so I was obviously very happy since my obsession with goats has skyrocketed within the last year. The Brisbane Lions played the Bulldogs and won! Yay! I've been rooting for them my whole life... kind of. Then, after the game, we went out to a bar to celebrate a friend's birthday. There was a live musician who basically played any song we requested- Brown Eyed Girl, Sweet Home Alabama, Allstar... it was so so so fun. He said we were the best crowd he's ever had. Um duh... we're from California, it's what we do. We danced our little patooties off and had a really wonderful time =]

Oh and I'm taking classes too...

Here at last!

Well, exactly one week ago I landed in Brisbane, Australia, ready to venture into the rest of my life. I'm here on a Marine Biology and Terrestrial Ecology Study Abroad program, studying at the University of Queensland. There has not been a single boring second and I just know it will only get better.
Here are the highlights:

-Met the 38 other UC students I will be spending the next 3 months with, and love them all
-Took a nature walk to "South Bank" where Brisbane has its own man-made, completely land-based beach (since everything in the ocean is so deadly here, Australia plops little swimming lagoons with beautiful white sand and everything, right in the middle of the city so we can still get our tans on)
-Saw a man juggle fire, and a baby
-Started class at UQ! John Hall is more story-teller than lecturer and he inspires us daily
-Field trip to Girraween National Park! Hiked a lot, saw TONS of roos and wallabies, learned about sclerophyll leaves, froze our little buns off
-Had my first tim-tam slam
-Saw Saturn, and all its rings, through a telescope
-Met my host family! A wonderful pescatarian with a 16-yr-old son and a dog and a cat.
-Nachos for dinner. Oh yea.

To expand.... Giraween national park was absolutely phenomenal. And absolutely freezing. Actually, it was below freezing, and we were not exactly prepared. We crammed as many people into our tents, put hot water bottles in our sleeping bags, wore about 6 layers at a time, and were still chilly. But we learned to cuddle and suddenly we were all best friends. Giraween actually reminded me a lot of California chapparal-- it is a very dry climate and is dominated by small shrubs and eucalytus and acacia trees. There were many hikes in the day, leading up to beautiful vistas on top granite boulders, which have been carved out after millions and millions of years. John Hall, our wonderful lecturer whose passion for nature and ridiculous puns kept us always smiling, taught us all about the wonderful botanical Terra Australis. Our field tasks included crayfish (or yabbie as they call them here) mark and recapture methods, Banksia seed pod counts, profile diagram drawings, and conducting kangaroo population estimates, which included picking up and feeling their scat (starts with an "s", ends with a "t", comes out of you and comes out of me...). And the kangaroos are EVERYWHERE! It's really very astounding- we could get up to 2 meters away and they would just keep chewing away their grass. We saw many mamas with joeys in their pouches, which is just the cutest thing ever. The joey sticks his head out and his little paws to take a look around at all the crazy Californians, his nose all red and furless until he's ready to leave the pouch. On the first day at Giraween, John pointed out a mountain known as "the pyramid" with a steep granite rock face and told us we could hike it if we wanted at the end of the trip. We laughed as we looked up at the nearly vertical side with virtually nothing to hold onto, then we realized he wasn't joking, and then we climbed it. And it was awesome. There were definitely moments that if you didn't bend down when the gust of wind came, you very likely could have gotten blown off the side of the mountain. But the view and satisfaction from the top was amazing. The joy of being in nature is just so indescribable. It just blows my mind that all the time that I'm in California, marveling at the beauty of the redwoods or oaks, there are just as beautiful things growing and living and being on the other side of the world. The earth is so alive! And God has so much passion for all of it. He puts so much care into every little flower, and even if it is never seen and appreciated by human eyes, it is still worth all of His energy and thoughtfulness. I am just beyond grateful for the simple beauty that exists here, and I cannot wait to see what else He has in store for me.

"Beauty is not a need, but an ecstasy"

the sphinx

sunset in Giraween

cold babies

a roo!

camouflage

joey in the pouch!

on top of the windy Pyramid hike