Many new adventures!

Time is flying by!  It was just March 1st and now it's over halfway through the month...I will be done with finals in less than one month from today!

It has been a few weeks again since I have last sent out an update, so I will rewind back to the Quiksilver & Roxy Pro!  The event was held Feb 26 thru March 9 at Snapper Rocks.  Since Dennis and Joost were here visiting, we were able to ride with them, making it just a 20-30 minute drive.  Others who took the bus over to the event said it took over an hour to get there.

We went on opening day and stayed there until the event ended around supper time.  It was such a beautiful day out, and we really enjoyed being at a new beach.  It's amazing how different the beachfront looks as you move up and down the coast!


It was so cool to be at such a big surfing event!  There were lots of food and drink stands set up giving free samples, and that was probably the best part.  Haha, just kidding. :P  It was awesome to watch professional surfers live, and the atmosphere was really fun.  Since we were just there on the first day of the event (we were hoping to go back, but it didn't work out with weather and class schedules), we didn't get to see Kelly Slater, an American known as one of the best surfers of all time. Oh well!


<< A girl from the first round of the Roxy Pro in the afternoon.

The theme of the event was "Best _______."  They were handing out tons of stickers and permanent markers for everyone to fill out their own.  As you can imagine, there were many creative responses stuck everywhere.


Oh, and I almost forgot!  Sarah, Joost, and I went for a swim, and Sarah and I were pulled into a rip tide!  We were swimming and then all of a sudden we couldn't touch.  Jokingly, we yelled "Joost! Help us!" because we thought were we going to be able to swim out of it. We thought we were swimming back to where we came from, but about 30 seconds later, we realized we weren't making any progress in the direction we were trying to swim.  In fact, we had gone the other way.  Sooo...we had to be rescued by jetskis! Haha, I got on mine right away, but Sarah's swimsuit top came down...so it took her awhile to get up on the other one.  This whole semester we made fun of people who had to be rescued from the tides...but not anymore we don't. :)

Two weekends ago, Sarah's mom, Patty, came to visit for ten days.  She is really nice, and it was fun to have her here!  Patty, Sarah, and I did a day trip to Tamborine Mtn.  Instead of paying $210.00 for us all to go on an organized tour, we decided to rent a car for $85 plus a small amount for gas.  We got a good deal on it since we had someone over 25 sign for the car.  Sarah drove, though, and it was really scary to drive on the other side of the road!  We had a rough time just getting out of the parking garage haha, but once we got on the highway, it got a little easier; she did a good job. :)

http://www.tamborinemtncc.org.au/visiting/walking_tracks/walking_tracks.cfm

We did the Cedar Creek Falls track, Curtis Falls, and the Witches Falls Circuit.  The Cedar Creek Falls was my favorite because we could swim in the rock pools! :)

However, the trails through the rainforest were so cool!  I loved the trees and the twisted vines!
















Me, Felicia, a girl from Minnesota, and Thorsten, a guy from Germany, went to Cairns the weekend of the 10th thru the 14th.  This was definitely my favorite weekend in Australia. :)


Thursday, we had a 9:10 flight out of Brisbane, which is about an hour and half away.  We arrived to our hostel around midnight and went right to sleep so we were rested for the next day!  We stayed at the Bellview -- it was just $19.00 per night, and Thorsten, Felicia, and I got our own room and bathroom.  The guys at the desk were really nice and helpful; we booked all of our events through them and received either a $10.00 or 10% discount on everything!


Friday:

We got up early to meet a guy at 7:30 for rental of a HD professional underwater camera for the day.  Then it was just a short walk to the docks to meet our guides at the boat at 8:00.  We made a last minute change from snorkeling to scuba dive and it was sooo worth it!!!  It was just $30.00 more to do an introductory dive with an instructor.

We had about a two hour boat ride to get out to the reef, and I actually got sick on the boat.  We were on a smaller boat and the waves were enormous!  The boat kept rocking back and forth, which didn't bother me for the first hour, but then all of a sudden it hit me. It is the first time I had ever gotten motion sickness before, but I threw up once on the way there, once while there after lunch, and then once more on the way back. Anything I tried to eat or drink came right back up.  I thought I heard once that you can't scuba dive if you are sea sick or throwing up, so I went to the bathroom so the instructors didn't know - I knew I would be okay once the boat stopped moving.

Scuba was actually probably the scariest thing I did all weekend - I was not nervous at all and expected it to be easy..and wellllll, I was wrong!  Felicia and I were given a 15 minute briefing about how to breathe, get water out of our mask while underwater, and some signs we were going to use to communicate with each other.

He took me down to the bottom first and had me stay down there by myself, holding onto a bar while he went back up to get Felicia.  The combination of the pressure in my ears, not feeling like I could breathe properly, water coming into my goggles, and being left alone on my first time ever made me freak out a little.  I ended up swimming up to the top, and he was not happy with me haha. He thought I seemed panicked and had me go snorkeling in the morning before doing a dive with him in the afternoon.  But then the afternoon dive went so well!




We saw a huge sea turtle!! It was awesome, and I got to swim around with it and scratch its back!  I didn't have the camera with me at the time, but oh well!

I loved the clown fish!

He let me touch and feel a few different things and pointed out a lot of cool fish.  It was such a great experience! I'm so glad I went back out the second time - I relaxed very quickly and was able to get my breathing under control right away.  But because of the bad initial experience, I was shaking going in the second time, and I felt like my body didn't want me to do it, but I'm so glad I did! I can't wait to get certified some day and go on diving trips!


We got back around 6:00 that night.  We showered and then went out for dinner at an Italian restaurant.  He stopped over at a sports bar next door for a couple beers afterwards and watched a rugby game that was on TV.  We turned in around 11:00 to get some sleep for our next day trip!


Saturday:

We had booked an "Extreme Tully" rafting trip (includes rock jumping, rapid swimming, and more extreme rapids), but it was cancelled due to the high water level. Cairns has been getting a ton of rain over the past month.  I was disappointed about that, but we still had a blast!

The three of us were put in a raft with Charlotte, a girl from England, and a couple from Japan on their honeymoon.

Our guide was really experienced; he had been rafting the Tully river for the past 16 years. But unfortunately, all the other guides tipped their rafts over (some on accident, some on purpose) except us. :( We came really close a couple times, but I was sad ours didn't tip. BUT, I fell in once in some of the best rapids, and it was awesome!!! I was pulled under a few times, and then had to swim like I was laying in my bed with my feet up so I didn't hit any rocks. It was really fun!  Definitely the highlight of my day!

It was an all-day trip again.  We were picked up at 6:30 and returned around 6:00.


I know that I've been white water rafting in Colorado when I was younger but I didn't remember the experience very well!  I'm glad that we went!

We ate dinner when we got back and then went out to Gilligan's.  It's a famous backpacker party hostel and club, and although it was fun to go out there for a while, I'm really glad that we didn't stay overnight there. 






Sunday:

Unfortunately, Thorsten was leaving us today, but we had a nice brunch buffet with him at 10:00 before heading to the skydiving place at 10:50.

We arrived, signed our lives away, and got in their van to head to the jump site! :D It was a 1 1/2 hour drive.
We were so lucky with weather!! Sunday and Monday were beautiful days out. Friday and Sat were mostly cloudy with some rain, but that didn't matter since both days were spent in the water.

I really wasn't nervous to skydive, just really excited, as you'll be able to tell in my video haha. I didnt feel nervous until the door opened and the people ahead of us started jumping out, then it hit me ha.
It was an extra $100.00 for video and photos, but it was worth it! The experience went by so fast that I didn't even remember some parts! And it is fun to have the video to show you guys everything that happened!


Felicia got the cool, young, cute guy and I got the old guy to tandem with, but that's how it works sometimes haha. He was really nice, though :)

We all sat on one of the two benches linear to eachother in the plane. Each instructor was wearing a meter watch to tell us how high we were. We climbed to 14,000 feet, the highest skydive you can do with 60 seconds of freefall! The first 10 seconds were the best. He told me to hold my body to his in a banana shape, meaning that my head was tilted back and my legs tucked up.

It was the most amazing feeling, except for when we fell through a cloud! It was cold and wet, and I couldn't see anything! Haha, you can tell by my facial expressions in the video and this picture. :) However, I am glad to know what it feels like to fall through a cloud!

It surprised me when he pulled the parachute, I was so immersed in the falling experience that I wasn't thinking about that. After it was out, he let me take control and steer us down to the ground. The views were unbelievable!

We got back around 4:30.  Felicia and I just worked on some homework and relaxed in the lobby that night.








Monday:

Just when I thought the weekend couldn't get any better, it did. The last day might have been my favorite! We spent all day at AJ Hackett Bungy.   http://cairns.ajhackett.com/  It was awesome!!!!!! I was more nervous for this since it was something that I was doing on my own, in comparison to being attached to someone else.

I ended up jumping twice.  I was wishing that I had the money to do "biggest day out" and jump an unlimited number of times!  There were 16 different ways/styles that you could jump off.

I did the "swan dive" for my first jump. Click the video above!

Then, in Jake's honor, I jumped off in a superwoman costume the second time haha. I also decided to do a roof jump, which was an extra $20.00 but again, so worth it! It took me five countdowns the second time before I finally jumped but I did it! :D He told me to run fast and jump out as far as I could.

It was really fun to spend the day there and watch others jump, swim, and enjoy the sun. They had lots of places to sit and hang out.

Bungy jumping was definitely one of my favorite things I have done my whole life.  I had a new sort of energy the whole week after skydiving and bungy jumping...it really makes you feel alive.  But of course, I feel adrenaline addicted now, and I've already started to look into what I can do next. :) The world's highest bungy jump is in Macau, China.  This is the description about it from the website:

"People are travelling from all over the world to experience the most extreme Bungy product available - the Macau Tower Bungy Jump which is currently the World's Highest at 233 meters / 764 feet!  There is no other Bungy jump in the world that can compare to this one, and the technology that went into putting it all together was well worth the effort!  Specially designed cords, amazing views of Macau and South China, and the fact that you will be coming within about thirty meters off the ground before rebounding back up are just a few highlights of experiencing this product first hand!  The fun doesn't end there - AJ Hackett Macau Tower also offers a slower, decelerator style jump also from 233 meters called Skyjump.  Two different jump styles AS WELL as our signature Skywalk X product which allows clients from all walks of life to test their fear of heights on the outer rim of the tower, still at the 233 meter level, with no handrails!  Top it off with the world's only Mast Climb product and climb to the very top of the tower, 338 meters up and you've got the most extreme and extensive adventure playground in the world."

 I also want to take the instruction course so I can skydive by myself.  Once you're certified, you can jump at a lot of skydive places for really cheap to build up your jump numbers.


Eventually, I'd love to get into base jumping.  You can legally start base jumping after 100 solo skydives, but most places/people recommend 200 jumps before moving onto base jumping.  If you don't know what base jumping is, watch this video! >>  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zl-eBCUb7hI&feature=related


Ahhh..so even though the "biggest adventure weekend of my life" is over, so much more adventure still lies before me. :)

My mid-terms went well!  The next couple of weeks, I will be busy working on a couple of group projects and an individual assignment and presentation for my Business Ethics class.  For our Strategic Management project, for once I'm not doing most of the group work by myself!  It has been so nice having another person in the group who is willing to put in the necessary time and effort.  I really like my tutorial group for that class as well; Edward, our tutor, is a really nice guy and cares about us doing well!








Another thing I've noticed here: the guys dress so differently for athletics/working out!  They wear higher socks, shorter shorts, and then usually with a tank top.  It is very different!
Also, at the grocery store, there is an older lady at the checkout that says "love" about a million times during a conversation!  "How ya doin, love?"  "Thanks, love!" "That's alright, love!"  "Sure, love!" ect... haha, it was cute at first, but now it's just annoying.  I have heard a few other Australians that call people "love," but it isn't common, especially among the university students.  That is another thing - they call "university," "uni."  For example, they would say, "Are you going to uni today"?

<< I bought a strapless swimsuit so I can get rid of my tanlines for Nicole's wedding since I have a strapless dress haha. :)


I should find out soon about internship positions!  I'm anxious to find out where I'll be living and what day I will start working.


That's all for now. :)