2 Crazy Sheilas

Okay, so I didn’t go to Penguin Island to see Phillip, but I did go to Phillip Island to see the Penguins! I know I haven’t written in awhile but I really was just focusing on getting through my homework week!

 In the last entry I think that I said that I was going to go to a concert in St. Kilda, well lets just say that the time of it wasn’t very clear. We headed into the city (on SLOW public transportation) and then past it to the beach subard of St. Kilda to see a really good band play at a bar there. We all thought that they played at 8 o’clock, and when we got there we found that they actually didn’t play until 12:45 a.m., almost 45 minutes after the last tram heading back to campus was. Needless to say we didn’t get to see the band play…maybe next time? OF COURSE!

This last weekend was tons of fun, let me tell you! After I handed in my two huge papers on Friday, Miranda and I decided to go into the city and go out with a few European friends. We went to a bar called the Deck thats probably my favorite bar in the city. Its located on the top of a building thats in the middle of the city sky scrapers and it also had an amazing view of the Yarra River! Can’t wait to go another time, as every time I have gone thus far it has proved to be a blast! So after a fun Friday night out in the city with friends I had to get home and get ready for my day tour to Phillip Island!

Saturday we (Keesjan, Shoerd, Anne, Miranda, and I) booked a day trip to Phillip Island to see the penguins.  Before we could do that we made a few stops in Victoria.  We stopped at a place called Mauri Conservatory and got to see all kinds of Australian animals (such as Tasmanian Devils, Dingoes, Womabts, Wallabies, Koalas, Kangaroos, and even Alpacas and Emus!) and even got to feed a few. Amongst all of my animal encounters at the conservatory I did decide that I want to take a dingoe home with me, wombats are sleepy during the day, Aussie alpacas are crazy, and that kangaroos look great in shades! It was a really cool experience because we all got to see and pet most of the animals and get up close and personal My favorite part of the visit was feeding the wallabies and kangaroos, and even an albino kangaroo! It was really great to get so close to the kangaroos and pet, feed and accessorize them! After spending some quality time with some Australian animals we headed down the road and made a stop at a really beautiful beach.  The tour guide let us walk down the beach and he picked us up at the next stop, even though the Koolen 5 were a little late getting back (we had a little too much fun playing in the water and sand I guess).  You are all probably wondering who the Koolen 5 are, well obviously it represented the five of us that went on the trip! The tour guide gave us the nickname because the reservations for the trip were under Shoes’ (Sjoerd) last name, Koolen, and he suspected that we were going to be trouble, which was a valid suspicion ;), and gave us a name to be remembered by! It made for a good laugh! After the nice stroll on the beach we headed onto Phillip Island to watch the penguins come home from the ocean after a long day.

Once we got there the five of us walked down to the beach and parked ourselves in the front (with all the kids by the way ) to ensure we got the best view.  Apparently seeing penguins were a very big tourist attraction as there were hundreds of people there.  What it entails is watching the cute 33 cm (which I must add are WAY smaller that I had imagined) penguins come from the ocean just after sundown and waddle to thier burrows for the night.  It was really funny to see the penguins, which are only found in the southern hemisphere, come out of the water and weeble wabble their ways to their burrows.  The tour guide told us that they come out of the ocean and find thier burrows after dark because they are scared of predators and they head back to the ocean in the morning before sunrise. I also learned that the penguins burrows can be anywhere from a few meters from the ocean to kilometers away!  I couldnt imagine them waddling kilometers away from the ocean to get to their homes, it would take them forever! After watching the penguins head home for a little bit we decided it was time for us to do the same and make our way back to Melbourne!

This morning I had made plans to have a relaxing sleep-in and day with a little homework in between movies.  Lets just say I didn’t exactly get what I wanted, although in the end I would much prefer the day that I had. I was awoken at 9 am by my phone with a call from a friend (who is also the inter-college sport coordinator) asking me if I could play footy for the Chisholm girls team.  At first I was thinking no way, I’m just a spectator and would NEVER play, well needless to say she convinced me.  I have played sport for Chisholm already this semester against the other colleges (dorms as we call them) on campus and lets just say that Chisholm has the reputation for losing, which today was no exception as the girls lost 125 points to zero, sad huh! Anyway footy is a sport that is completely new to me and I was not looking forward to the tackling part, death was ringing in my ears, especially when I saw our competition, which consisted of the biggest and bulkiest girls (if you could call them girls) from the other college. I swear I thought I was going to die!  But in the end I learned that getting tackled was actually fun, and tackling other girls was even more fun!  I actually didn’t do so bad, for an international, as my Aussie teammates pointed out! I’ve got a few bumps and scrapes now and WOW am I sore, but we have another game next Sunday and I’m looking forward to it with all my tackling might!  I hate to say it but Australian Rules Football is really growing on me, almost to the point that its overcoming my love for American Football! I have probably made a few of you hate me now huh…well I’ll tell you, just watch a few games,  its very addicting and fun! Although you may need an Aussie to explain the rules, because at first it just looks like a mess!  Well I need to go ice some joints and cover a few wounds (just kidding) oh yeah, and send a few sorry letters to the girls of the other college for tackling them like no other! Haha, just kidding on that one too!

Will write more once I have more news, and I am sure I will because there is a huge Australian holiday on Friday, Anzac Day, and I dont have classes, so you know what that means….

Oh yeah I almost forgot, I heard from a little bird that its getting pretty nice over there in the US? Getting colder here….so enjoy your beautiful Spring days as it is Fall/Winter here now!

~Claire

Yesterday Claire and I, along with our friends Keesjan, Anne, and Sjoerd, went on a day trip to Phillip Island to watch the Penguin Parade.  At our first stop along the way we got to get up close with some other awesome animals.  The first animal we saw was a baby wombat named Wilma.  Because wombats are nocturnal, Wilma just snoozed in our tour guide’s lap while we all got to pet her.  After feeding a koala and checking out a crocodile and tasmanian devil, we entered the best part of our tour.  Each of us grabbed a small container of food (okay so I grabbed two) and went into a pen where we got to feed wallabies, a sheep, a goat, alpaca, a mule, a miniature horse, and kangaroos!  We also got to get close to some koalas and emus and even pet a dingo.  The sheep, alpaca, and miniature horse were  pretty aggressive in trying to get food and the goat even got his head and horns stuck in the fence, but the best part was feeding the wallabies and kangaroos.  They would grasp our containers of food or our hands that they were eating from.  While feeding them we were allowed to pet them and check out their tails which are extremely muscular.  There was even an albino kangaroo!  All of this was a lot of fun, but the funniest part of our little experience was when our friend Keesjon (we call him K) started putting sunglasses of the kangaroos and wallabies.  The animals were so focused on eating they really didn’t seem to care.  Our entire tour group was laughing as we took pictures with animals wearing shades.

The first part of our trip was so much fun I probably could have been happy to end there but we went on to a beautiful beach.  We took a walk on the soft sand and dipped our feet in the cool water.  We goofed around, taking pictures and writing messages in the sand before heading back to our bus.  Next we went to The Nobbies where fur seals sometimes come.  We didn’t see any seals but we saw the beautiful black rocks around the water as the sun was heading down.

Our final stop was to the Penguin Parade.  We made our way down to the beach where a huge crowd of people gathered, waiting and watching to see the Little Penguins make their way from the water to their homes.  We sat front row and waited under the moon for the sun to go down completely behind us.  Soon there were little tiny penguins coming out of the water, getting nervous and running back, then coming out again..  Groups of them would come out together and begin their journey towards their little burrows.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures because the flash is said to blind them but on our way back to our bus we did get to see them up close under some of the walkway lights.  The day was sunny and warm.  I’d say it was one of my favorite trips that I’ve went on here.

Hey all! Sorry I haven’t written in a few days I have been pretty busy with homework and papers, well school actually. To catch up on what I’ve been doing I guess Ill start with last weekend! Friday night was a pretty low-key one for me. A bunch of people from Chisholm College (my dormatory) went on a camping trip but I wasn’t feeling to well so I decided to have my own movie night and rest. Saturday night I went to another footy game, Essendon vs. Carlton. My friend Sam got tickets from a friend and we got to sit in the best seats in the house, right in the center line of the field and on the second deck, perfect! I don’t think we could have asked for better seats, although I was a bit dissapointed that I didn’t bring my camera, it would have opted for some great pics! As for the school week I have been catching up on some left behind homework in preparation for a big paper due next Friday!  Tomorrow (Friday) a group of us are going to a footy game in the city and Saturday I am going to a concert in St. Kilda (a subarb of Melbourne) so I’ll be sure to let you all know how my weekend pans out at a later date! Heard the weather was getting a little better in Wisconsin! Who Hoo!

All for now, will write again when I have more news
~Claire

You are probably all jumping out of your seats at the sight of my post because I have heard from a little bird that many of you have been waiting to hear about my spring break. Quite frankly I couldn’t blame you, it was great! Ok enough with the jokes and more of my break:

I’ll give you all a little timeline of my week, sound good? Hope so!

Monday: As said earlier Ian and I along with a few other friends (including Miranda) went to a footy game. The Essendon Bombers against the North Melbourne Kangaroos. Also, I am elated to tell all of you that yes, the Bombers won!!! Broke their streak of the 7 season loss! I was pretty excited to go. There was a group of 7 of us and unluckily enough the game sold out right in the middle of our group. But luckily enough the last four of us got standing seats, which almost prompted us to leave the game early. Good thing we stayed because we got to witness history! Sounds as if the Bombers are a pretty good team huh…well not so much considering this Sunday they lost to Geelong by 99 points. Bummer. Anyway on to Tuesday…

Tuesday: thinking, thinking….oh yeah! I almost forgot about what we did Tuesday! Yeah right, how could I forget So Tuesday we did A LOT of walking! Ian, Miranda, Shoes and I woke up early and visited the Queen Victoria Market. Oh and just a little fun fact for you all, I read that the market is on top of what used to be a cemetary. Supposedly there are around 9,000 people buried under the parking lot! Also, some of the first people to be executed in Melbourne are buried under the lot, freaky huh? I couldn’t believe how huge the market actually was. It sold everything from tennis shoes, to hopping kangaroo toys, to fruits, veggies, and meats. You think of it, its probably there. Yes it may be knock off brands, but hey they’ve got it! After we all enjoyed a little fruit and shopping we decided to take a walk to the skydeck.  The skydeck is in the 89th story of an apartment building (the tallest in the southern hemisphere) in the city center. We got a 360 degree view of the city center and its attractions. After we all got over our fear of heights (especially Miranda ) we headed to the Fitzroy Gardens.  The Fitzroy Garden is basically a big park with a conservatory and a ton of cool trees, plants, and blooming flowers. I read that the pathways in the park make out the design of the Union Jack (the United Kingdoms Flag design) which I thought was pretty cool, although I read later it was accidental! Tuesday night we went out to dinner at Flanagans and headed to bed, we had a busy day planned for Wednesday!

Wednesday: Wednesday the four of us (the Tuesday crew) headed to the Melbourne Zoo.  The zoo turned out to be really huge and full of really cool animals, 300 species to be exact (including lions and tigers and bears! oh my ) although it rained off and on much of the day, and decided to pour for quite some time in the afternoon.  After our wet visit to the zoo it was off the the Jack Johnson concert for us! For the people that do know Jack Johnson and like him you will be glad to hear that it may have been the best concert thus far in my life (besides last weeks of course) apart from the rain the first two hours. Lucky for us there wasn’t a performer to watch while it really rained and by the time Jack played it was clear skies for the rest of the night! The concert turned out to be a pretty late one, Ian and I rushed home to get some sleep before our wine tour on Thursday!

Thursday: Wow was it early to get up at 6 am and get to the city by 8 am for the wine tour! Especially when we didn’t get to bed until 2! I suppose all you elders are saying “you’re young!” but it was still a little early for me, I mean come on, it was still dark out! Although I found it to be completely worth it as the day progressed. First we made a stop in the Dandenong Ranges and fed some cockatoos, where some people got bit, and had tea and cake. Also, if you were brave enough you could have tried Vegemite (a yeast derived spred) and crackers (which I opted out of, that stuff is gross)! Then we head to the Puffing Billy steam engine train and got a little ride to out next stop about 20 minutes away. The first winery we went to, Fergusson, Ian, Miranda, Shoes, Matt and I decided to opt out of the 30 dollar dinner, eat some sandwiches, and get right into tasting the wine. We got our fare share, and Ian, Miranda and I decided to get in on a three bottles for $60 deal. Ian and I each bought a bottle of Shiraz and Miranda opted for a dessert Port. After the first place we went to anythor winery, I wish I could tell you the name but I am drawing a blank, although I do know it was one of the oldest in the Yarra Valley! While we were there we all expanded our knowlege of wine as well as my collection because I bought a bottle of chardonnay! On to the last winery, The Chandon, which is co-owned by the owners of Louis Vitton and Dior and such companies as that. They actually specialized in sparkling wines. We were able to tour the factory here and at the end we tasted some sparkling wine, and opened our pocketbooks again when the five of us decided to buy a few bottles to share! By this time were were wined ( ) out and tired as can be so we headed back to Melbourne and called it a day!

Friday: Ian, Miranda and I woke up early and headed to the airport to pick up our rental car and head to the Great Ocean Road for our little weekend get-a-way! We headed through Geelong and made a lunch stop in Torguay and did some window shopping. We then headed down the way, with a few pit stops, a picture stop to snap some shots of koalas in the trees along the road, Erskine Falls (a 30 meter waterfall in the Ottway National Park), a light house on the coast, and Bells Beach (where we caught the tail end of packing-up from the Rip Curl Pro, the biggest surfing competition in Australia) and finally stopped at Apollo Bay and stayed the night. That night we went out to eat and to a bar and listened to some live music and watched footy on the tv. Then off to bed for us, as Saturday was the real sight seeing day!

Saturday: We woke up early and headed right out (after breakfast of course) to see the sights of the Great Ocean Road. I wish I could explain how picturesque the southern coast of Victoria really is. We made tons of stops along the way, including tourist spots like The Twelve Apostles and London Bridge, as well as other places such as The Grotto, The Razorback and Bay of Islands. We then went through Warnambool and made a stop at Tower Hill, which is an unactive volcano. We climbed to the top and took some really cool pictures and on the way down we got some see some real Aussie wildlife! We saw a kangaroo and a joey, and an echidna (its like a porcupine, but native to Aussie) and a ton of emus! After our little hike we decided to stay in Port Fairy, a small town along the coast. We had some dinner, drinks, and a good sleep in our rental House .

Sunday ended up being a really lazy day with an afternoon of driving home along the Princess Highway back to the big city,  followed by a night of footy on the tv, some packing from Ian and unpacking from me. Monday morning marked the end of Ians trip and I say my good-byes and mourned the end of my break as I headed to class and realized the large amount of homework I had for the week ahead, which I am still trying to finish. All in all it was an AWESOME break and I wish Ian could have stayed longer. Although it was nice that he could come for a week, not long enough to see the whole of Aussie but long enough for him to understand why I don’t want to come home!  Wow I hope you all are satisfied, it has probably taken you a long time to read this massive entry (but not as long to write it ) and I hope you enjoyed hearing about my break! Back to homework as I said I have a lot to do and not enough time (hence the homework break to write this I am at a loss for time now) Wish me luck and productiveness as I now have some catching up to do!

Over and out

~Claire