The finish line is in view.

Hey everyone!

It's been a few weeks. Sorry 'bout that. Lots going on down here I guess...although not nearly as much as at home I think - since the last time I wrote there have been TWO student productions put up at BC - Jesus Hopped the A Train went up two weeks ago and Putnam County Spelling Bee is happening right now. I feel indescribable sadness at missing both of those ): but hopefully there will be videos.

Anyway, last time I wrote I was on my way to the One Movement music festival in Perth - we spent all day there on Saturday, and what a good time it was. Matt Nathanson played, he was great and very funny, I wish he'd had longer than a half hour set. We met him afterwards and got him to sign our free One Movement tank tops (HUGE tank tops...I look like a baller when I wear mine). He wrote "Kelsey is da bomb" on the back of mine, which I think is code for "I'm going to leave my wife and marry Kelsey." Just a thought. He was very friendly though, and really happy to meet some Americans in this corner of the world. One Movement was a long night - I saw probably 8 or 9 bands, most of them of the folk/rock persuasion. Whoever set up this festival did a really nice job of keeping people entertained - not only were there four stages with music playing all the time, there was a silent dance floor (you get a pair of headphones and can switch between a few stations and dance to whatever you feel like, but anyone without a pair of headphones can't hear what's going on - pretty humorous to watch and to be a part of), and...this was my favorite thing EVER...DUN DUN DUN...a Moon Bounce volleyball court. I know, I know, WHAT?! IT'S TWO OF THE GREATEST THINGS IN THE WORLD COMBINED! Exactly. You can dive after any ball and not hurt yourself. You can jump higher than you ever could on a regular court. I don't know why this is the first time I've come across one of these. I could literally spend all my time on one of these and not be unhappy.

What else has happened since then...introduced some of my friends to the beauty that is Wet Hot American Summer, that was a good time. We've set up a schedule for playing volleyball two or three nights a week - also a good time. On the 21st there was an early performance of Wounds to the Face for the 21st anniversary of Howard Barker's Wrestling School - I got to call the show for the first time, from this strange little stage management alcove just off stage right...very odd, but it went well, the few people that came to see the show enjoyed it overall. Since then we've been having night rehearsals with tech and my enjoyment level of this whole process has increased greatly. The show opens on Wednesday for real, runs until Saturday, then we strike and load-in Twelfth Night for another week of performances. GAH. And no time to study for my one, extremely important exam. I'll be doing ecology flashcards in the green room the whole time most likely.

Friday night a few of us went to a "springtime celebration" party at our friend Willow's apartment. She's got a really nice setup, the backyard has a fire pit and a patio and a hammock (the hammock tips easily, but the ground under it is relatively soft...), and there's a ladder going up to the roof, which is perfect for watching sunsets and sunrises. A few of us stayed over and attempted to watch the sunrise, but woke up juuuuuuust too late. Bummer.

Last Sunday was designated Family Day - Octave, Nelson, Jen, Lauren and I got into Jen's car around 10am and drove to Caversham Wildlife Park, about an hour away. Jen had me navigate, using a MAP of Western Australia - does she not know me at all? I guess I deserved it for sitting in the passenger seat...basically she ended up navigating herself and I just turned the pages. On the way back I was somewhat helpful. The park was pretty cool - kind of like a zoo, but better, because you get to interact with the kangaroos and koalas and the farm animals, and all the other animals are just generally less confined than in a zoo. It was definitely a worthwhile experience...got plenty of pictures of me petting roos and koalas (there were a TON of each...and the koalas actually opened their eyes and climbed around this time), but in general it made me pretty depressed. The animals are all totally domesticated, they have lost their natural instinct to be defend themselves against invading humans...I had a long think about the usefulness of zoos and wildlife reservations after that. But it was a really lovely day, a lot of quality time with the flatmates, and I fulfilled my "me+kangaroo picture" quota.

Keith scored a very legitimate gig at a hotel in North Freo last Sunday night, so a bunch of us trekked out to see that - very, very professional and cool. Keith actually thought about staying down here another semester to keep working on his music. The musical scene down here is a lot better than it is in Miami I guess, at least for the type of music Keith plays, and he's really gotten his name out in the bar scene in Freo. In the end, he's decided to go home, but he'll be remembered down here for awhile.

Last week was pretty quiet...lots of rehearsals, a few more gigs, some salsa dancing on Thursday night, Nelson's birthday...a lot of work. There's one week of classes left - ONE WEEK - and then we have a week of studying and then exams start. I've only got one exam and it's very very early, so really my semester is almost over. I'm feeling bittersweet already. Uncle Mike and I have made some great New Zealand plans though, and I think that will be a good distraction from this third home that I'll be leaving in a few weeks. Oy. I think everyone is starting to feel that race-to-the-finish-line syndrome...we're all working a lot, and spending as much time together as possible. Leaving is going to be tough.

Oh I forgot one thing - I went surfing on Thursday! Well, I attempted surfing on Thursday. Not at all successful. Kevin has a surfboard and a wetsuit, so he, Keith and I went to Scarborough, which is about an hour and a half away...loooong commute, the beach is beauteous, but GOSH is surfing difficult. Keith was the only one of us who managed to stand up once. I knelt on the board once and rode in, but mostly I was underwater and the surfboard nowhere near me. Once my exam is over I'll have a ton of free time, so maybe I'll find somewhere to get a surfing lesson and actually ride a wave...but I'm not promising anything.

I've also started teaching myself to play guitar...Octave and Nelson have guitars that they let me use whenever I want, and the online lessons are actually pretty good...maybe I'll be able to play a few songs when I get back, but again - not promising anything. I love it though - the fingers on my left hand are sore all the time from trying to learn chords; I can actually play a few pretty decently. If Jake lets me steal his never-used guitar when I get home I'm gonna keep this up.

TTFN - ta ta for now (:

Miss you guys!!!

So much sunshine.

Hey everyone!

A few highlights from the last week:

Rehearsals for Wounds to the Face continue to go well, but I will be beyond happy when I don't have to work with this director anymore. He's probably the least-respectful director I've ever worked with - talks over his actors every time they're onstage, doesn't let them make their own decisions, doesn't let his designers do their jobs...the rest of the cast/production team doesn't really know that what he's doing is wrong, I think, but I still hate it, they deserve so much more than that. The cast is doing such a good job, working so hard, and I'm actually enjoying watching the show more and more instead of getting sick of it.

Saturday Lauren and I explored Freo for awhile and found the COOLEST thrift store in the whole wide world - I don't need more clothing, but it was so cool. I tried on like twenty dresses. Then we returned home for a fondue party at our friend Emily's place - delicious, many chocolate-covered strawberries were consumed. Everyone was so, so tired afterwards though, there must have been something in the cheese...so Lauren and I went home and made a love nest, I can't remember if I've told you guys about this yet - we push the two couches together in our common room and it makes a nice little box of cushiony fun, then we put blankets and pillows in it and do homework or watch a movie or read or whatever. Lauren usually naps. It's the best thing ever - I think Jess started the trend, and I hear that now people do it all over the village. We usually love nest at least once a week. It's so cuddly.

The weather is BEAUTIFUL now, it's been at least 75 degrees every single day, and has started to get even hotter than that this weekend (today it's supposed to be 92, eek), so we spend a lot of our free time playing volleyball and jumping in the pool. SO Australia. I feel like a bum sometimes, but then I remind myself that I am here to experience the culture and meet people and enjoy Australia, and as long as I can get everything else done, I can play as much volleyball as I want. So I do. One night I played with a bunch of French guys - they were really, really intense and I thrown off-guard. Needless to say I was the worst one there, but they let me play anyway, and I learned a lot. I won't be surprised or offended if I don't get another invitation, however. My game has definitely improved since I got to Australia - so that's something (:

Tuesday was set building day at the theater, and out of the whole cast only four of us showed up...Serge was in a terrible mood, so that was a ton of fun. I shouldn't complain this much; here I have a great opportunity to stage manage a show, coming from very little stage management experience, I'm lucky that they let me do it. But me being lucky has little to do with how grateful Serge should be towards his cast and designers. I will be so happy to return to BC theater, that's all.

Tuesday afternoon I did another photo shoot with Lauren - actually I'm not sure if I told you guys about the first one; she's doing a project for her photo class on the human body and movement, so she's had Octave and I come in and do Kendo (that's Octave's specialty) and ballet/dance stuff. I love this...not only does she take wonderful pictures (it's amazing what a good camera can do), but it's made me realize that I miss dance SO MUCH. And it's really cool to have a big open floor to see what I am still capable of doing...which is a lot of stuff, surprisingly, but the days after each shoot I was so, so sore.

Wednesday I worked at the hospital again, went to the market to get some produce, played some more volleyball...no big deal. Thursday was another open mic night - Keith played at Moondyne's, this time in the sports bar, which was a HUGE venue, he played a few new ones and he and I sang a few together...we do a cover of Oh My Sweet Carolina by Ryan Adams now, and it went over really well this week - HOORAY. I had a sudden "wow I'm gonna miss this a lot" moment at Moondyne's that night...thinking about how sad it will be when I'm home and it's Thursday night and I'm not at some random bar in Fremantle with a group of Australians and other Americans watching Keith play, maybe getting to sing with him...now is not really the time to think about it (there is never a time to think about it while I'm down here), but the time is going so, so fast now. We've got four weeks of classes left, and then another 3-4 weeks in Australia. I had a conversation with a few girls last night about how everything down here is pretty much "everyday life" now - we're totally settled in, it's almost not a big deal that we're in Australia anymore, this is just what we do. There are always more adventures to be had, and I try to have at least one a day, but I feel like I've been doing this for years. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. It feels like home, that's for sure. Not like my home in Uncasville or in Boston, but a home.

More rehearsal yesterday, more time by the pool, more volleyball last night, and a bunch of the girls went out to a Thai restaurant called Roxby - deeeeeeelicious. I haven't had Thai food in forever; it's just as good down here as I remember it in Boston. We got ice cream afterwards too, then went home and made a love nest. Today we're off to a free music festival called One Movement in Perth - I don't know most of the bands playing, but MATT NATHANSON is going to be there. WHOA. So really I just want to see him (and I'm totally going to try to meet him afterwards and ever so coolly get his autograph), but we'll hang out for awhile after him and see some of the other bands probably.

Oh the only other semi-exciting thing to happen this week - I got bit/stung by an ant like six times. The poor guy was stuck inside my shirt and I was lying on my stomach and he was freaking out trying not to get crushed probably...anyway he survived, I've got six huge welts on my stomach now that itch like crazy...go figure, I live in Australia, home to sharks, jellyfish, snakes, spiders...a ton of animals that will bite you if you mess with them, and I get bit by an ant. Seriously. What is my problem.

That's all for now - down under and OUT.

These are better days, baby.

I have the best flatmates in the whole wide world. Really. My experience in Australia has been so, so wonderful because of them.

Hi everyone (: Jess and I survived the week-long ecology project (we boosted our energy with several delicious dinners cooked by her flatmate Darren - tacos, curry, Asian cuisine one night, mmmmm) with only a few (read: TONS OF) scratches and mosquito bites, and at least fifteen hours staring into microscopes...overall I really enjoyed it though. The biology geek in me was in transecting, dissecting nirvana. The follow-up lab reports I have to write will be pretty difficult, but I have awhile before they're due...so if I get motivated to work on those soon, I should be alright.

Jess and I went to see a play in Northbridge one night - a one-man show called The History of Drinking. SUCH a cool concept. The audience is at most 22 people, and with your ticket you are given a drink menu, with about 25-30 drinks on it. Most of the drinks are alcoholic, but there's also soda, water, coffee, tea, etc. The actor, who's about 25, he also wrote the play, he acts as a quizmaster before every scene. If you get a question right (the questions are super easy, it's mostly a race to raise your hand first) you get a drink off of the menu. The catch is that each drink can only be ordered once, so you want to get a question right pretty early on to get what you want. After you get the question right, the actor will turn into a very sarcastic, very bitter waiter, and he'll come to your cafe table, ask you what you want and make it for you onstage. Then he'll give you your drink and do a scene that has something to do with the drink, or maybe just the name of the drink, whatever. Some of the scenes were hilarious, others were really tragic. It was a great night. Our friend Dave was stage managing, so we hitched a ride home with him - awesome.

Saturday a few of us went to Cottesloe Beach to celebrate our friend Blaine's 21st birthday - WHAT a nice day. The weather has finally decided to cooperate - no more rain, it's about 75 degrees every day now. Perfect. The beach was really, really pretty. It's pretty small but it wasn't too crowded, and even though we didn't swim much (or at all - too cold), we had a lovely time. Threw the frisbee, laid in the sun, read for awhile...very relaxing. And no sunburn in sight. The people-watching down here is a lot of fun - there was a dad and two boys (one belonged to him, the other was probably a friend or cousin) playing cricket - easily the most boring game ever invented, but they were having fun...there were two wedding parties taking pictures, there was another dad telling his teenage daughter to be home before dark...and probably some locals looking at us looking at them and saying "look at them. They're American."

So I've also had an amazing birthday down here. I feel like my birthday lasted about three days - Lauren made me dinner Sunday night - chicken carbonara with asparagus, as well as birthday cake and a really nicely decorated living room. Jennifer made chocolate macadamia fudge, muy delicioso. We had a little family dinner and watched Australian Idol and Knocked Up afterwards. Also, Lauren got me a bottle of champagne AND she made me the coolest scrapbook (she's the best scrapbook maker I've ever met) full of pictures of BC and a few of our time down under so far. I looooooove it and can't wait to show everyone at home. I am so lucky to have the flatmates that I have.

Yesterday was my for-real birthday, and I didn't have any classes, so I spent a lot of the day lying in the sun outside Jess and Keith's flat, had some champagne, threw the frisbee around for awhile, played some volleyball...a very sunny, very relaxing day. Darren made burgers, and he put fried eggs and Japanese mayo on them. Sounds weird, but it may have been the best burger I've ever eaten. Even better than (BC people don't get mad) the burgers in Hillside, I KNOW it doesn't sound possible, but I think it may be. THEN we had a little shindig at our flat, which I was pretty nervous about, but it turned out to be wonderful. I think everyone had a good time, I definitely did, and we totally didn't get fined for noise violations. We did get asked to be quiet by who we think was an RA, but she never came back after that. What a night. Had some serious clean-up to do this morning when I got up, but it was totally worth it.

I guess that's all I've got for now (: I got to Skype with many members of my family this morning, which made me cry, in a good way...and talked to Crystal for awhile after that, got all caught up on the happenings at UConn...life is good. I wrote a whole dang essay today too. I think we're going back to Cottesloe tomorrow - weather forecast says sunny with a chance of beautiful.

Until next time!

More videos.

I posted a few more videos - from Sustainability Week, at our tavern event - on the link at the right. Enjoy (:

My (guy) roommates wash the dishes TOGETHER.

HEY EVERYONE. I'm itching for stories from the US lately...if you've got some good ones I'd love to hear 'em. Uncle Mike and I even managed to Skype last night - I'm getting better at it! My computer is not...it still freaks out whenever anyone calls, but we usually get it sorted eventually.

So a fairly normal week, whatever that means in Australia...took awhile to recover from a birthday party last weekend, but I finally found some motivation to get a LOT of work done...I've been lacking that necessary element since we got back from the Northwest Trip. Classes are going pretty well though; just started a week-long ecology project today (we have this week off of classes, it's our second "study break"), and it looks like it's going to be fun...at least I get to spend some time outside in the sun (sampling plants and ants!) rather than in a lecture hall. I shall not complain. Today we took a lot of plant samples, measured abundance of plant species, and caught ants! Here's a tip, if you ever want to catch a lot of ants in a relatively short amount of time: get some ethanol and a paint brush, put the ethanol on the paint brush, gently tap the ant with the paint brush, and voila, you have a stunned ant. Much easier to put into a vial and take back to the lab for identification. We had to put ours in vials that also contained ethanol, so the ants died...my soul needs some repair after that. But we spent a really really long time trying to identify them, and I learned a lot from that...so perhaps they did not perish in vain. MAN does it take a long time to ID ants. You put them under a magnifying glass and it's so, so cool to see all the hairs (setae) and body parts that are way too tiny to observe when they're just running around in the sand, and what's really, really awesome is how different each species actually looks. They're extremely diverse, but the naked human eye can't do them justice. Anyway, I give EO Wilson mad props for what he's done - ants are really difficult to study, but a lot of fun in the end.

Anyway now that everyone realizes just how nerdy I am...last week! Volunteered at the hospital on Wednesday and had a great time, got to talk to a lot of new people - actually maybe I've never mentioned this before, come to think of it. So on Wednesday mornings I go to the Fremantle Hospital and work for a few hours with this lovely woman named Jeanne (she's French), pushing the library cart to patients' rooms in case they want some magazines or books. She had been doing it by herself, and she totally could continue to do so, but I really wanted to do some volunteer work while I was down here and I think Jeanne just wanted someone to talk to, so they let me do a few hours a week. She reminds me a lot of Great Grandma (or what I imagine Great Grandma was like when she was 72). Anyway I get to talk to patients, hopefully cheer them up a bit...it's just nice. And I get Jeanne's life story, as well as the stories of her four children and her husband's mother and her daughter's ex-husband...she's got an unending arsenal of stories. After leaving the hospital I usually hang out in Freo for awhile, then stop at a market on the way home (the CHEAPEST produce I've ever seen - a huge bag of carrots for a mere 79 cents...), and meet some more interesting people while I wait for the bus. Wednesdays are good days. They are also VOLLEYBALL days. Hooray. I'm going to miss volleyball when I get back to the states; I don't play it nearly as much at home as I do here. Gotta fix that.

Thursday Keith got a paid gig on campus, right in our courtyard...he played for an hour (I sang a bit with him too, which was cool) while people looked at the stalls of books and movies, etc...then that night we watched Glee (Lauren, Jennifer and I are obsessed, along with many other Americans) and I went to see Keith play another open mic.

Friday: Bogan Bingo. What a night. So "bogan" is slang for "hick," or "white trash" basically...as in "Britney Spears is such a cashed-out bogan." Not a very nice stereotype, but apparently a pretty common one down here. Every Friday night there's a bar in Canning Bridge that hosts Bogan Bingo. You are to dress up like a bogan (people actually asked to borrow my clothes...flannel shirts are IN at this thing), show up at 8:00, play bingo, and don't ask questions. There are two rounds of bingo, complete with a lot of yelling when certain numbers come up, an air-guitar contest, a best-dressed contest...and at the end they just turn the music up and everyone dances for a few hours before beginning the long trek home. We had SUCH a good time. Most of the crowd is older than us, so we college kids were a big hit - we'd only brought two guys with us and they got a lot of invitations to dance. I almost won once, too. In which case, I think my prize would have been a free beer. Ah well. Anyway if we go again this Friday there will be news crews there...not sure why exactly, but they're filming a night of Bogan Bingo, and we're all supposed to work really hard this week on our bogan costumes.

Saturday morning I was whisked away to Earthdance - a music festival on a nature reserve in the middle of NOWHERE...the town does have a name, it's Bencubbin, but its town center doesn't even have a petrol station. Just a bar that sells bags of ice. Anyway Earthdance is a three-day festival out in the boonies, you bring camping gear and set up wherever you like, and go listen to music and meditation sessions and "laughter yoga" sessions and dancing and whatever you want. I went with about ten other people (mostly Australians, but Lauren, Jess and Heather were there) and I had a GREAT time...we were a little out of our league, to say the least...it's definitely something to research ahead of time if you plan on attending, it's a pretty intense cultural immersion. But a worthwhile one, in the end. I hear they have them in the US - I gotta look into that for next year. Anyway it was a relaxing weekend, but it's nice to return to a really, really busy week this week. Whenever I get out of ecology early enough (it runs 9-5 each day but today we were done identifying our poor ants around 4pm) I have to go to rehearsal...my director is really not happy with me about missing so many this week, but I care more about the grade I get on this project, so, yeah.

That's about it for now. Oh yeah - I have the best flatmates ever. Really. I wish everyone could meet them...I may try to stuff them all in my carry-on luggage on the way home. They're all small, it should work.

Mucho amore.

Oh hey!

Hey guys - sorry it has truly been forever since my last entry, and given that I haven't even finished writing about the Northwest trip, I should probably get on it...

SO. Day six. A lot of driving, nothing terribly exciting, except for many more opportunities to push-start our bus, and when we reached our sleeping spot (KARIJINI NATIONAL PARK YESSSS!!!), we saw a ton of dingoes, and we got a constellation lesson from Terry. Here's the deal with the dingoes: SO COOL to see them up close, literally two feet away, and they just look like really pretty German Shepherds or something, but they're totally domesticated. They live in this national park, so people are always camping and giving them food, so now they just associate humans with free meals, and aren't afraid of people at all. No good ): so while it was great to take pictures of such a beautiful creature, we needed to shoo them away ASAP. When it got dark Terry taught us how to find the Southern Cross and the Scorpion and a few others...very, very cool. If he's got grandkids, they're lucky people.

Day seven: Karijini adventures. Our itinerary described this day as "FULL ON!" and boy was that right. The pictures do it much more justice (though nothing compares to the real live thing) than my words can (I put up all the pictures by the way, click the link on the right!), but I'll give it a shot. Took a rough morning hike down into Weano Gorge, which included a lot of steep cliffs, a ladder, and...dun dun dun...THE SPIDERWALK. Basically, the walls of the gorge are only about two meters apart, and the rocks under the water here are too slippery to walk on, so you put one arm and one leg on each wall, and spider-walk yourself through. A little scary to start, but it's easier than it sounds, and tons of fun. Terry and Fi supervised the whole time, of course. Once you get past the spiderwalk, it's cliff-jumpin' time. It's really dark in this part of the gorge because the walls are so tall and block out most of the sky, so the water is FREEZING, and the rocks all around the pool we were jumping into were wicked slippery (we had a few falls), so getting out of the water once you've jumped in is another story, but the jump itself is lovely. Not too high either - 20-25 feet maybe? We had a good time trying to get pictures of people in midair. I took a nice, long, chilly swim down the rest of the gorge with Keith, Gabe, Blaine and a few Danish guys...I felt very small. The walls are so high, the water is so deep...you just look up and can see a sliver of sky between the rock and all around you is more and more rock. What an unbelievable place.

Hiked a bit more to another place to swim (Hancock Gorge? Handrail Pool? I know I've been to these places but no clue which ones are which), where we also found Joffre's Waterfall - the waterfall is situated so that you can climb up the side of it and sit somewhere in the middle, what a nice view.

We were exhausted when we got back to camp that night, and you're not allowed to build campfires in Karijini, so most of us went to sleep pretty early. Fi, our boisterous female tourguide, was lucky enough to have another close encounter with a dingo - one stole her pillows. BRILLIANT. She chased it down and managed to wrestle one pillow away, but he made off with the other. Fi of course found it hilarious, her saved pillow was covered in red dirt, man was it entertaining.

Day eight: another hike in Karijini, this one not as treacherous as the day before...we ended up at Fortescue Falls, a nice place to swim (though also freezing), an even taller cliff for people to jump off of (I declined this one)...lots of great geology to take pictures of, and tons of sunbathing spots for post-swim naps. We swam there awhile, then hiked a few hundred meters to Fern Pool, one of the few spots in Karijini that Aboriginals still have total control over. There are signs everywhere reminding visitors to be quiet, to respect the area, not to jump off of cliffs or trees...and how glad I am that they have these. Fern Pool is paradise. The water is warm and sweet, there's a waterfall on the opposite side of the pool that you can swim to and sit under (you can actually get a decent back rub out of this thing, it's got a lot of pressure), the vegetation surrounding the pool is beautiful...what I would give to be able to swim here every day. I think I'll just move to Karijini, set up a tent somewhere and become friends with the dingoes. Sounds good. Anyway, we swam for a few hours, then had to head back to camp to pack up and get moving. A few more days of driving ahead of us, oh boy. We ended up at Newman that night, a mining town, where we got a lot of funny looks from the locals when we went to buy groceries...we were a huge group and pretty loud, I guess. We went to a bar that night and had some lovely conversations with miners...they're friendly enough, but they're all of the "sailor on leave" mentality - they're cooped up in this town for a few months at a time, not much female contact, so you just gotta be careful. Some of the guys on our trip had a great time trying to get male miners to buy them drinks though.

Day nine: driving driving driving until we got to Wogarno Sheep Station for our last night. I would love to live here - it's a sheep-shearing farm run by a family of parents, 15 year-old son, and a two year-old daughter. The farm is huge, and everywhere you look there's artwork. Most of it is made of rusted metal, probably old farm equipment, in shapes of horses and sheep and chairs and beds, but my favorite was the shadow of a tree created on the ground out of stones. I asked the son how they got there, and he said they invited art groups to visit their farm and do whatever they want. Some of them are kind of creepy (as in, some are made out of bones, and coming across them in the middle of the night by yourself may be scary), but SO creative. A few of us had a wonderful conversation with this kid, he told us about how he and his father had gone hunting that evening for kangaroos and emus, they caught a few. He has to take a week or two off of school (he goes to boarding school in Perth; there aren't any public schools in the area) for the hunting season. It truly is a whole other world out here. We slept under the stars that night, and woke up freezing, but worth it.

Day ten: home again home again. We drove all day long and returned to our wonderful roommates and hot showers.

DONE. Yay. Sorry that took me so long...the pictures may actually tell a better story than the blog, but I felt that I should finish it anyway. Gives ya something to read.

Life since then has had the volume turned down, for sure, but I'm finally back into the swing of things here. Found out I only have ONE exam, and it's on the first day of exams, so I have some travel plans to make for the middle and end of November if I still have money left...may head over to Sydney, who knows. Turned in my first assignment, had a wonderful time rock-climbing last weekend, sang a few more songs with Keith at our Sustainability Week event at the Tavern on campus yesterday (I'll post those soon), going to a Northwest Trip reunion this weekend, GOT TO TALK TO CLAIRE MATHIOT ON SKYPE LAST NIGHT, absolutely made my life...last weekend was audition weekend at BC so I got a lot of emails about that and was feeling pretty homesick, but talking to Claire made everything sunny and happy (:

Rehearsal time - miss you guys, hope you are well!

More tales from the outback.

Day three: Monkey Mia.  It's a little seaside town, mostly a tourist destination, and the place where we would get to see dolphins up close and personal.  So we awoke, as usual, to Terry hollering "TIME TO GET UP" (it sounds annoying, but actually it was endearing, I love that man) and sure enough, on the road by seven.  Monkey Mia is mostly a place to relax on the beach, but it was kind of cold for that...we did a lot of dolphin watching (they feed them right along the shore so if you go at the right time you can see a ton of them in really shallow water; nobody is allowed to touch them because their skin is really really sensitive to oils, but definitely the closest I've ever been to a dolphin.  Also, they pee every ten minutes), some pelican-harassing, and then had a fierce and fun game of beach volleyball.  That was really the highlight of the day.  On the way back to camp that night we stopped at a few different look-out points to hunt for sharks and sea turtles - no luck, but we may or may not have seen a whale.  WHOA.

During our third night we had another bonfire (after getting charged at by a kangaroo - not really - and watching another gorgeous sunset - really), and this time we were joined by Shane, the man who owns the land that our tents were staked on.  He's a middle-of-nowhere Outbacker - which means he's got a long beard and not all his teeth and tons of stories, many of them having to do with snakes and near-death experiences.  First he told us about the brown snake he got bitten by.  He reached his hand into something and the snake latched on; his first instinct was to break its neck.  Then he walked calmly into the store at his campground and asked someone to drive him to the nearest hospital (which is at least an hour away), because he only had about an hour and a half to live.  When he got to the hospital, there were no doctors there who were actually licensed to administer the antidote, so it took a little while for him to get the injection, but he survived.  He went home, put the snake in a bottle, drove straight to the bar, and put the bottled snake on the bar next to him for the night.  The other story he had was about the water python living in his shed - supposedly it's about 14 feet long, he found it awhile back and decided it couldn't live in his shed any longer, so he managed to get it out and put it in his truck, so he could drive it to the dam up the road.  Only problem: he didn't put it in the back of his truck, he put it on the passenger seat.  So by the time he got to the dam, the snake was wound around both him and the seat, and there was no way he was getting out.  So he took a cigarette lighter to it, (there may be some embellishment in this story, but it's a good one nonetheless) got it off of him, and threw it in the dam.  A few days later it was back in the shed.  He got a French guy to help him (Frenchie had to hold the snake in the truck, so this time he was the one who got squeezed), threw the snake back into the dam, and drove home, only to find it already in the shed when he got back.  So now the python lives in the shed, unbothered.  Obviously we wanted to see this python, so Shane took us out to the shed (first he showed us the museum on site, which used to be a telegraph station, one of the first in WA, and is also home to the only living stromatolites in captivity IN THE WORLD.  And it's a little shack in a no-name town, not commercialized at all - you gotta love Australia), and we couldn't actually find the snake, but we did find some of its skin.

Day four was driving driving driving until we got to Warroora, where we'd stay before our big exciting day at Coral Bay.  Day four was also "bus break-down day," so we spent a good amount of time at an automotive repair shop.  Not the most exciting day in the world, but with drivers like Terry and Fi it's never boring.  Let me tell you about Fi: I want to be her.  Or at least be related to her.  She loves Australia.  She's loud, she wears hiking boots probably every day, she's got crazy curly blonde hair and she knows so much about the towns and sights to see in WA, and she's got a great, infectious laugh.  She's one of those people you never forget, no matter how short a time you've spent with her.  Having her as our driver definitely enhanced the experience - she played the music on our bus really loudly (we usually passed around iPods, but she also got us into Matt Gresham, an Australian singer - we actually saw him in concert just last night, what a blast), made sure we were up to speed on our "random facts about Australia" know-how, and just kept us generally entertained the whole time.  She and Terry had walkie-talkies to talk to each other on the road, and we could often hear those hilarious conversations, even from the back of the bus.

The broken-down bus slowed us down a bit, but this actually provided for some really wonderful moments later on in the trip.  The bus was never totally fixed, so once in awhile it wouldn't start.  Enter the bus-pushing, ala Little Miss Sunshine.  Ten or twelve of us would line up behind the bus and start pushing it while Terry tried to get it started - gives you a nice sense of accomplishment to start the day off.

Spent the night in a warm room with Lauren - resort-like accommodations compared to our dilapidated tent.  Had another kangaroo experience in the early morning - had to pee, opened the door, kangaroo standing right outside.  Nice.  We caught the sunrise one morning here - I can see why a lot of Australians are early-risers.  It's addicting, seeing literal start of the day.

Day five: CORAL BAY.  One of my favorite days.  It was really windy, so there wasn't actually much we could do at Coral Bay (we couldn't go kayaking, boo), but what we did totally made up for it.  We took a glass-bottomed boat ride over Ningaloo Reef, which is a smaller, but much better preserved reef than the Great Barrier; on the way out we saw a ton of coral, lots of brightly colored fish, a sting ray, and a sea turtle through the glass.  We also spotted a ton of turtles (the area is a sanctuary for them) on top of the water, as well as dolphins, rays, maybe a whale?  THEN WE WENT SNORKELING!  I may need to move to Florida or the Caribbean, because snorkeling rocks.  Tons of neon fish (no Nemos, but a few Doris), lots and lots of really intricate coral...it's a science geek's dream.  Just before I got back onto the boat our boat-drivers decided to feed the fish right off the edge, and literally hundreds of these huge fish called Spangled Emperors swam right up to it, surrounding Lauren and I - a really strange feeling, but a pretty cool one, to be covered in fish.  We didn't do much after that - Keith and I went to an outdoor cafe and spent a few hours amusing ourselves trying to catch lizards and making up games using salt and pepper shakers and coins.  Terry and Fi brought everyone to happy hour at the bar - lots of fun (I was the only one who got carded - apparently I don't even look 18), Fi let everyone out of the bus on the ride home for a pee-break in the outback, good times.

So ends the second installment...I'm off to climb some rocks.  Indoors.  With harnesses on.  No worries (:

Until next time - miss you guys!