Gold Coast

Well Hello there!

Do not worry, I didn't get lost or anything. I've just been a little slackertown on my blog. So about a month later, I finally decided that I should post stories of my latest happenings. Besides my trip to the Gold Coast this past weekend, there really isn't much to talk about.

School is boring, but going well nonetheless (well at least as far as I'm aware). I dropped that terrible "Genres in Cultural Context" class, so now I only have 3 classes to worry about, which makes most of my friends pretty jealous. I had my first paper due a couple of weeks ago, I have another one due next week, then I have two debates the week after that. So it's starting to pick up, which is making the time go by way too fast. I can't believe I've already been here for 2 and a half months! So that was my life the past month in a nutshell.

Onto the exciting stuff! This past weekend I went to the Gold Coast for four days with Gabi and it was amazing! It's a really beautiful place and I wish we could have stayed a little longer.

We arrived at our resort on Friday morning and it was a BEAUTIFUL, huge resort. We had our main bedroom, a nice bathroom, a room with a pull out couch, a full kitchen, a large living room/dining room, and 3 balconies. When we first got there, Gabi and I went on a walk on the beach. The waves were huge and there were "danger: no swimming" flags/signs posted everywhere. Gabi and I weren't even walking that close to the shore, but one wave came out of nowhere and was up to our mid-thigh. I wish the weather would have been a little nicer (it was pretty rainy) so we could have hung out on the beach a little more. Friday night we were pretty exhausted since we hardly slept all week trying to get all of our assignments and papers done before we left for our trip, so we decided to watch a movie and lay low. The resort didn't have a DVD player, so we went to Blockbuster and rented one. While we were trying to plug the DVD player into the TV, I pulled the TV out a little too far and the entire cable connector snapped out of the TV and broke. So yeah, we broke our TV the first night we were there. We tried to superglue it back together, but that failed. We finally ended up going down to the front desk a few days later acting like we didn't know what happened and played dumb. They believed our story and we didn't get charged for breaking the TV.

Saturday we went to Dreamworld, which is an amusement park/water park. It was a lot of fun, but it wasn't as large as our theme parks back at home. We went on a few roller coasters, saw a tiger show, got to pet a tiger, saw a Spongebob Squarepants show (I was laughing hysterically the entire time and took a bunch of pictures), and went on the water rides. Then we got back to our hotel room around 6 and decided to lay down for a nap. We fell asleep with our clothes on, laying on top of the covers, with all the lights on and still managed to sleep for 4 and a half hours. We woke up at 10:30 and were still really exhausted, so we decided to just eat a bowl of cereal and go back to bed since we had to wake up at 6:00 the next morning. So Saturday night we just slept for 12 hours. I had no idea I was that tired, but I was caught up on all my sleep since then and haven't felt exhausted at all! It was nice to be refreshed.

Sunday we went on a tour through the mountains where we got to see all the waterfalls and the lookout spots from the mountains. We also got to go to Tropical Fruit World which is the largest growing spot of tropical fruits in the world. It was a lot cooler than it sounds. The tour was amazing! Pretty sure Gabi and I were the only 2 on this tour under the age of 40, but we still enjoyed ourselves. At fruit world, we got to taste a bunch of exotic fruit which was delicious! My favorite one was pineapple (I'm so lame), but I also really enjoyed Dragon Fruit and Champagne Fruit. After our stop at Tropical Fruit World, we went up through the mountains and saw a bunch of waterfalls and got to see the city from the top of the mountain. It was extremely beautiful and amazing. I met a really nice couple from New Zealand who offered me a place to stay when I go and travel the North Island after I'm done with this semester. They gave me their card with their e-mail address and phone number. They were very nice and Gabi and I hung around them most of the day. Sunday night we made dinner and then went out to the Casino. Gabi and I only spent $2 between the two of us, which we were very proud of. Granted neither of us know how to play the card games and we don't really like to gamble all that much, so we stuck with the penny slot machines. We ended up winning our $2 back every time and was able to play with that same coin all night. Then at the end of the night we lost and decided we shouldn't press our luck anymore, so we gave up on gambling.

Monday we went shopping all day at a very large mall that was both indoor and outdoor. Then our plane left in the afternoon and we arrived back in Sydney on Monday night. It was a really great weekend. Tomorrow I leave for New Zealand for the next 9 days. It's our "Midsemester Break" (aka Spring break..though it's technically not Spring here) and Gabi and I are traveling the entire south island of New Zealand. We are very excited! So my next posting will be all about my New Zealand trip!

I hope everyone has a fabulous Easter holiday!

Much Love,
Whit

P.S. I finally posted pictures on my photobucket account. So if you feel so inclined to look at them, they are posted!