hey y’all, im alive! maaaan so much has happened in the last 5 days i dont even know where to start. so i flew into the beautiful gold coast monday morning, showed up at the uni with all my gear (which got a few laughs, theyre like “youre uhh supposed to find a place first…”), met with the guidance lady, she suggested some of the student housing complex type places, and i just picked the one with the nice flyer and decided to live there. such hasty decision making doesnt usually work out too well but the place im living in is FANTASTIC. “the metro” is like a cross between a resort and first year in rez, its great. its almost all international students, which means a lot of them are just here to party. i got my own room and bathroom, the common area has a big tv and dvd player, and like everything else is included. theres even a pool. i got two american roomates from denver, a dude and a chick, good people. gordo is the cowboy hat wearin party type so we get along quite well. the only downside is the large percentage of “crazy yanks” as i like to call them, cause i’d rather be meeting non-north american people, but its alright. theres a bunch of europeans and aussies as well, ive met a ton of cool people. oh, and its like a 30 minute walk to campus, no bus route, so i invested in a 20 dollar kmart skateboard, im such a tool. orientation was pretty good, the university is so nice. pretty small, we’ll see what its like when classes start on monday. orientation week ended with a trip to straddie island, which was soo much fun. sea kayaking is good times, we got smashed by a huge wave and my friend alex smoked me in the face with her paddle , but it was still great. we went sand boarding on a huge sand dune where i also managed to hurt my face with a huge spill. and i got sand in my eye playing volleyball which didnt come out till the next day, it was all swollen and gross. my face took a beating come to think of it. we also went on a hike where we saw a pod of surfing dolphins. and that nite everybody “got on the piss” and the whole hotel was partying. i feel like im forgetting a lot of stuff that has happened… i dont have internet at home yet, but i should soon, and i’ll try to write some emails then. oh and my camera is on the fritz so i dont have any pics from the last week, but everybody here has a digi cam so i’ll grab some pics from someone else. well i better leave the uni now, we’re goin on a pubcrawl down in surfers paradise tonite. its put on by some group downtown, apparently it goes from 5pm till 5am, and you go to like 6 or 7 bars, should be good times. i’ll let you know if it stacks up to our western pubcrawls. talk to you all soon…

hello faithful readers, well my short stay in frigid sydney are near over, i leave for sunnier days on the gold coast tomorrow morning. its been a grand visit though, my sis and her husband are doing good. had a “nite on the piss” friday nite, drinkin “big bots” watchin some “footie”, then off to the bar where i was “crackin on” some cougars (i havent found out the australian version of cougars yet, but i’ll get on that. and in case you got lost, thats “getting drunk”, “big bottles of beer that are a little smaller than 40s”, “rugby union”, and “hitting on”). i learned how to drive stick, but the driving on the left hand side gives me more troubles. i saw spiderman 2 (oh kirsten) and farenheit 9-11 (excellent, a little too much “bush is an idiot footage”, but i think michael moore is just getting better and better, i wonder what he’ll do next). apparently im addicted to the australian version of big brother. not only do they show nudity in australian reality tv, but they have an awards show at the end to celebrate the best nudity! i love this country. and their ice cream bars are really good too. well, i better finish packing, wish me luck, i fly in at 10 am tomorrow morning and then i have about 8 hours to find a place to live before sundown :)

ps leave me comments, its the link right there…

hey y’all, i hope this entry has enough info in it for ya alex. so i just got back from a little 5 day trip to narrabri, which is a little country town 7 hours inland. not “technically” the outback, but for all intents and purposes, lets say it is. so im in the outback right, and we went up this mountain, stopped for lunch and a few kangaroos come and check us out. right on i think, never seen a kangaroo apart from in a zoo and the one we smashed with our car on a previous trip down under. but wait, it gets better, we feed one a little too much and the thing spews! seriously, it honked a little, it was great. perhaps marshmallows arent part of a proper ‘roo diet. all in all, it was a fantastic little getaway. played bowls with carol, tim, and his parents, except an aussie says it a little weird, so it sounds like an enthusiastic ‘BALLS’, “wanna play some BALLS? were gonna go play some BALLS, you game?” uhh sure. tried some more aussie beer, vb being the winner thus far. watched a little of one of the crazy 5 day cricket matches they have here (surprisingly intense). still quite cold around here, but im off to the sunny gold coast in a few days. until then…

sunshine, lollipops, and…

the naked man on the boat made this day completely worthwhile







pre-vomit

post-vomit, dont worry, it was ok…

yo, quick update before our little 5 day adventure to the boonies. had a good week, some hiking, some downtown sydney, some sleeping, some “neighbours”, some sydney aquarium (one of my favourite places on earth). now we’re off to narrabri, where tim grew up. later.

ps i found out i got a scholarship today, looks like im buying a surfboard now…

hiii everybody, well im in australia. had an excellent little stop over in vancouver and met jill. had lunch, saw a bit of stanley park, and saw jill and sioned’s old stomping ground (bit of a letdown that it wasnt the glamorous OC-like posh neighbourhood i imagined, haha). vancouver is pretty spectacular, the little i saw of it at least (thanks jill). managed to get sunburnt in the few hours we were outside. i then slept all the way to honololou, and then all the way to sydney. best flight ever, thanks for the sleeping pills mom. so now i got a week of bumming around sydney while my sister and her husband work. then the three of us are heading up to the gold coast to find me a place and whatnot. its a harsh winter here, a chilly 20 degrees…

leave me a comment here, or write me an email puhlease…

peace.

hey there, the updated website is upon you. most of it is updated, particularly the photo galleries and video. and this thing right here, which is gonna be my little online journal so you can all see what im up to in sunny australia. right now, im about 19 hours from leaving, lookin forward to seeing jill in vancouver, and trying to cope with my mom freaking out about me not being ready. but pretty much everything is ready.

oh i saw the hip last nite, pretty nice little canada day. wheat kings, hundredth meridian, poets, bobcaygeon, new orleans, grace - money. but what was with everyone singing o canada afterwards?

new motto - shit happens when you party naked.