I want to be a bird!

This last week has been rather exciting…

Last Saturday, a group of us went and checked out the Sydney Aquarium. It didn’t quite have the effect it would normally of had if we hadn’t just returned from scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef. It was still nice to see some of the more exotic fish, seals, and great white sharks. So, no complaints. After the aquarium, we headed back to the Rocks Markets where we did a little souvenir shopping and picked up a few things. I always find interesting things there.

Once the markets closed, we ventured into Pancakes on the Rocks. The menu is mostly breakfast food with a twist. Like I had Mexican crepes with chips and guacamole and Annie had a breakfast pizza. Sean and I split a dessert… two pancakes topped with vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, walnuts, and bananas. Wonderfully delicious!

At ICMS, I have two “sick” days that don’t count against me at all… Annie and I both have our longest days of class on Tuesdays, so we decided to do a very Australian thing and have a “sickie” (aka play hookie). We went to the mall and explored a little. It was a nice four day weekend since I hadn’t had class since the Friday before.

Nothing really exciting on Wednesday.

On Thursdays, most of us don’t have class anymore, so Annie, Stephanie and myself made the trip to Bondi Beach. It was Beautiful! It wasn’t as long as Manly Beach, but it was like over three times as wide as Manly. Bondi is where the beach volleyball games were held during the 2000 Olympic Games. There were a lot more surfers and it was a younger crowd than Manly’s normal family scene. We grabbed lunch at a small café and just layed in the sun all day. We headed back to Manly and went down to Shark Bar for our late night festivities. Good stuff… Always a good time.

Friday evening, a group of us headed into Sydney. We were meeting up with some friends from college down on Oxford St at The Columbian Hotel. Oxford Street is the road that the Gay Pride Mardi Gras Parade goes down. So, you get the picture. We were hitting up some gay bars… All I knew was that I wanted some crazy lasers and smoke machines. While we were at the Columbian, Annie happened to ask a drag queen where the bathrooms were and the drag queen pointed her in the right direction, but then asked her where she was from. Annie said Michigan and the drag queen looked excited. Apparently, this drag queen studied abroad from Australia at Michigan State!! How bizarre!!

After meeting for some drinks at the Columbian Hotel, we headed down to the Midnight Shift Club. It was so cool. Crazy colored lights all over with smoke machines going off everywhere. It was a riot. About an hour after getting there, a group of drag queens come out onto the stage and perform a couple dances for the crowd. It was hilarious and I loved it! We took a cab home from the city at about 3:00am. Not too shabby of an evening.

Saturday was very unproductive in preparation for Sunday…

At 4:30amon Sunday morning, 17 students from the school met in the courtyard to head to a small town called Picton, about an hour and a half from Sydney. Once we arrived at Syndey Skydivers, I knew there was no turning back. We all got signed in and my group of 6 (Sean, Annie, Caitlin, Stephanie, Brett, and Me) got called to suit up for the first plane. I was not very stable at this point. I was slightly spazzing out. My instructor, Mick, was great. He started videotaping and immediately started making jokes about the parachute not working and he was doing a damn good job of freaking me out.

We started loading into the plan about 7:30am and Annie and I were in the back of the plane. Once the other jumpers and their instructors were piled in, the door closed and we were on our way up to 14,000 feet! After about 20 minutes and no turbulence, the red light turned on. This signaled that we had approximately 3 minutes until jumping. Yellow light switched on, 1 minute until jumping. Mick was bust checking all the hooks and straps and gauges that were connecting us together for our tandem freefall jump. Green Light… GO! Door opens and within seconds, out goes Brett… Then Stephanie, and Caitlin, and Sean. Oh Shit, I’m next. I crawled to the door, crossed my arms, head back…

The view was INCREDIBLE. Supposedly it is really cold up there, but I definitely wasn’t paying attention to that. You could see for miles and miles. Over 50 seconds of freefalling for 9,000 feet. It was still a bit surreal and the feeling wasn’t like falling. I don’t know quite how to explain the it, but I recommend it to everyone.

At 5,000 feet, Mick pulled the parachute cord. Once it caught wind, we were floating. The world was quite and everything was beautiful. It took about 5 or 6 minutes to get into position for landing. While up there, he let me steer the parachute and spin us around. It was really fun. We definitely landed going much faster than I thought we would, but I was still happy to be back on land. I will DEFINITELY be skydiving again.

Thursday morning we are doing the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb. That will take a couple hours, but should be a good time. Heard it’s a great view?!

Today, we spent the day planning our 5 days in New Zealand after our term ends. We are going white water rafting, bungy jumping, and swimming with dolpihins… All with the help of our rented 4-person campervan… and yes, the driver sits on the opposite side of the car than we are used to. This should be exciting.

Hopefully everyone is doing well. I can’t believe I am home in 33 days! WOW! Time has flown by. Talk to you again soon. xoxo.

Love&Miss.
Erica Jo






Annie and I at Bondi Beach



Steph, Sean, Annie, and I at The Columbian



Us with our MSU Drag Queen!



My Australian friend, Matt, and I



I got my Lasers!! Yay!



The Drag Show at the Midnight Shift Club



Walking to the plane! Ah!



On the plane right before jumping...



NO TURNING BACK NOW!



Let the FREE FALLING BEGIN! Dropped 9,000 feet in about 50 or 60 seconds.



Check out the view!!



There's my parachute... It's a beautiful thing!!


My instructor, Mick, let me steer the parachute.

>

Back on the Ground... I survived!



The MSU group that made the jump! :)

I want to be a fish!

What an amazing week I have had!!

Last Friday, the 28th, we left for Cairns. Cairns is a tourist destination for the Great Barrier Reef. It is also the strangest town I have ever been to in my life. On one corner there was Louis Vuitton and across the street there was graffiti and boarded up windows. Things just didn’t make much sense. But we weren’t there for the town, so it didn’t matter much.

We had to be up early Saturday morning to make it down to the dock to catch the boat for our first day trip. There were about 100 other people on this boat with us. Once we got out to the reef, we had time to go snorkeling. We rented an underwater digital camera for the day, so we all took turns with it. The reef is GORGEOUS! It is absolutely amazing to be in the water at the reef with all the fish. 1500 types of coral. 1800 types of fish. So many colors and designs and the pictures don’t do it any justice.

With our day trip, we paid for an introductory dive for the people who aren’t scuba certified. After about half an hour of snorkeling, it was time for Sean, Annie, and I to dive with our instructor. I was a bit nervous at first because breathing with an oxygen tank was rather awkward, but you get used to it quick when it’s your lifeline. The coral was beautiful and the fish were everywhere. It doesn’t bother them at all to have people diving with them. They swim under and over and all around you. It is so cool.

Our introductory dive lasted about 20 minutes and our instructor was nice about taking pictures for us. As soon as I got back on the boat, I knew I had to do a second dive. So we had lunch and moved to a different area of the reef. There we got to do a second dive for about 30 minutes with a little more freedom to go at our own pace and check out the things we wanted to see. There was a sting ray hanging out right by us for a couple minutes. We were also able to touch a clam, but when you touch it’s “mouth” it closes shut. Kinda fun. Diving was such a relaxing experience.

The weather started to suck just as we started to head back to land, which wasn’t a big deal because we could all fit inside the boat. Atleast the rain held out for us until the end of the day.

We got back to land and headed to a bar that had free meals for people staying in hostels. We called it a night pretty early because we had to be up early again on Sunday.

Sunday was a completely different experience out on the water. We were on a small sail boat with about 30 people. It took two hours to get out to the reef and I was kinda worried about how the day was going to be. Once we anchored we were given time to snorkel. But with the rougher water it was very difficult and sorta made you seasick. Not cool. So Sean, Annie, and I decided to pay the extra money to dive again! This instructor was really good and took us around to different things we could touch and feel. First she handed us a sea cucumber that felt really strange. Sea cucumbers are “animals” that lay on the floor of the ocean and eat/clean the sand. Not really much to them. Then she had us feel spaghetti coral, which looks like wet spaghetti noodles swaying in the water. It was really silky. There was an area of the reef that was like a bed of spaghetti coral and she had us lay down in it. SO cool! When I was sitting up from the spaghetti coral, I realized I was in the middle of a school of fish. Intense. Fish surrounded me!

While we were diving, we saw some Nemo fish (yes, I know they are really called clown fish), another sting ray, and some other types of coral that weren’t at our first dive sites. Then, just as our time was ending, our instructor lead us back to the boat and signaled for us to watch for sharks. They had told us about black tip reef sharks that hang out in the area. So we were watching for them under the boat. Just as we are getting ready to climb back in the boat, we see one! It was swimming on the other side of the boat! It didn’t stay where we could see it for long, but still… We saw a shark. I was very pleased with that dive. Then just as we finish lunch, the crew starts throwing the leftover chicken into the water. Four sharks came to the boat and were fighting over the chicken! SO cool to see! They weren’t huge, but they were big enough to not want to mess with them.

After our little shark session, we get a little boat ride over to Green Island. This is a small island that is owned by a 5-star resort. We got to hang out on the beach and swim in the water. Damn near paradise! We were on the island for about 2 hours before boarding the boat again. Then we were on our way back to land. On the trip back, we were given cheese and wine, fresh fruit, and desserts. I was in heaven! After a while, the captain had the crew put up the sails and turn off the motor. So we were actually sailing home. It was very calming. Loved it.

Monday morning we caught a bus to Cairns Tropical Zoo. The first thing on our agenda: hold a koala! Adorable. They are so damn cute! They sleep like 19 hours a day! I would love that! There was a koala maternity ward area with baby koalas by their mothers. Too precious! Then we checked out the red pandas, the dingoes, the wombats, the wallabies, the cotton topped monkeys, and a handful of other animals. There was a crocodile show that we went to that was crazy to see. They were like taunting them and feeding them. Not a job I would ask for. There was also an area that you could go in to hand feed the kangaroos. Too cute. They would eat right out of your hand and gather in a line in front of you. Loved it! We flew home on Monday night, but had to be up for my 8am class Tuesday morning. Yuck!

Last night (Thursday) was Auction Night at the college. People volunteer to auction themselves off with the profit going to Bear Cottage, a donation based children’s hospital here in Manly. Caitlin was being auctioned off. She did such a good job and brought in $350. Impressive. But the best act was two guys from New York. Two very beautiful and ripped guys, all oiled up in nothing but pants and a tie. No complaints here. They were hilarious and did I mention beautiful?! They went for $650. Not too shabby. Overall, the auction raised $5000. When the auction ended, we all headed down to the bar. We went to a bar that I had never been to, Henry Afrikas. Thursday nights are salsa dancing there. So much fun! I suck, but it’s still fun.

Few things I am learning about myself:
-If I find a good book, I LOVE to read. I have read 3 books since I have been here and I have two going at once right now!!
-I can talk myself into doing just about anything, even if I know it’s something I wouldn’t normally do back home… ex. Skydiving, spending too much money too often, etc.
-My mouth waters thinking about Cadbury chocolate… Hershey’s sucks.
-I LOVE tartar sauce.
-Champagne is my weakness. $20 a bottle and my night is set!
-I love how big Michigan State is. Whatever happens in Manly, everyone at ICMS knows. It’s like high school.
-Thumb drives are amazing. There is one on my key ring at all times.
-Hmm… I know there is more…

School is no fun. Dr. McRae is still a psycho. I love my events teachers. And hopefully I pass all my classes. Mom and Dad will kick my @$$ if I don’t. Classes here are harder though. The teachers are very vague and expect you to read their minds about assignments. It’s funny, but it sucks. Lots of group projects and assignments. 70% is passing here, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed!

Heard it got up to like 60 degrees one day this week back home?! Nice! Spring is finally there.

Hope things are going good for everyone. I can’t believe I am home in 43 days. So weird! I don’t know if it is like, wow I am going to be back home in 43 days, or if it is like, dang I have already been here for 66 days.

Tomorrow we are going to the aquarium and The Rock Markets. Then on Sunday, I have class from 9:30am-5pm. We learn EventsPro, an event management computer program. Not excited to sit in class ALL day for that.

Love&Miss.
Erica Jo




Red Fish. :)

Yellow Fish. :)

Annie, Me, and Sean on our introductory dive. <3

Me checking out a "small" clam... There were many MUCH larger than this one.

Two of the black tip reef sharks by our boat.




Nemo! :)

The first sting ray that we saw.

Sean, Stephanie (Texas), Caitlin, Me, and Annie with the koala.

Adorable! <3 I wanted to take it home with me!

This was the small crocodile, the female. The male was HUGE, like 15 feet long.

This was amazing. The kangaroos were too cute!