I Got My Hair Done at The Hilton

So Friday April, 16th finally arrived and five of us girls who in the first week here purchased a voucher to get our hair done at The Hilton finally did! We took the ferry into Sydney and then Ashley and I got dinner at Subway on the way to get our hair done.

We arrived and they took us in and started the process. The place was really nice, the chairs you sit in to have your hair washed were massaging chairs and had a thing on the back of the chair so that water would not go down your back. And we got all unlimited wine and champagne all night.Unfortunately I forgot to bring my voucher so I had to pay full price for the moment but I'm going in to the city on Monday to get my money back.

I didn't want to color my hair so I got a gloss treatment that makes your hair very glossy, soft and very healthy. Then I got a scalp massage and a hot oil treatment. Next they brought me back to my chair to have my hair cut. I just basically got a trim, and let the hair dresser do what ever he wanted as long as he kept my hair long. He did a great job and now all of my split ends are gone and my perm has come out again.

After everyones hair was done we went to a bar in The Hilton because we had a voucher for a free drink. Then we headed off to check out some of the more talked about clubs and bars in Sydney, went were in the Ivy briefly and The Establishment but only stayed at both for about 5 minutes. Finally, we made it to Jackson's on George where there were 4 bars and they have 5 dollar buds. First time having a Budweiser in 4 months and I have to say America makes great beer. Then we went upstairs to a club type bar, but there was only about 4 people in it so we talked to the bartender who was from Canada he was awesome and gave us a drink on the house. Later, We left, then waited and caught the last ferry to Manly, took a taxi home and went to bed. All in all it was a good night.

Back to the Grindstone

So after a great, relaxing vacation I came back to two group projects and a thousand words due for my Journal Article. I wasn't feeling to bad about these two projects as I already submitted my parts well before I left for Melbourne. Sadly this was not so for everyone. This resulted in two late night sessions of Ashley and I working on the paper and the project and preparing a power point as we had to submit or plan to take Mirvac, an Australian hotel chain to another country. We had to convince the GM of the Citigate hotel to choose our location. Unfortunately we did not win, but we did earn a Distinction on our presentation which is the equivalent of an A.

My other group project was for MGMT 116 where we had to do a condition report of a facility and do a presentation on the facility. We chose the Manly ferry. Well my group was made of two 18 year old boys and a girl from Vietnam, only one of the boys was very helpful and the other two sucked. I ended up being the only one working on the paper, making sure that it was ready to turn in and I also made the majority of the power point presentation. I just checked my grade and I earned a Distinction! So I'm doing very well in that class, even though my grades won't transfer back to my school, only the credits will.

When it came time to writing the paper that was due on Friday, I had a had time as I was exhausted mentally from writing so much of both of the papers due earlier. So I only wrote 500 words out of the thousand, but at least I made some progress.

That weekend I did absolutely nothing. I stayed in all weekend, read a book watched some t.v. online and enjoyed not having to do a ton of work. On Sunday I did have to start working on a paper that was due Wednesday but it was only about a thousand words.

So that concludes week 9 of school, only leaving 5 weeks of school left!

A Day in Melbourne

So we got in to Melbourne about 7:30, and we all showered and laid down for a while because we were exhausted from our trip. This night we stayed in and got some rest so that we could get up and enjoy the city the next day.

We woke up around 9:00 am and got ready for the day and headed to the Victoria Markets which are basically like the Sydney markets but cleaner and not a smelly. They had some really good deals and I picked up a few souvenirs here.

We dropped off our goods at our hostel and locked them up, then headed to the other side of the city to go to the Skydeck. Which has the highest observation tower in the Southern Hemisphere. We went there and we waited because with our tour we got a coupon for a free "Edge" Experience. This is where we got put in a glass cube about 9 feet square, and it slowly extends over the street below. We were told not to jump or else the glass would break. It was a bit terrifying because when your first motoring out there the glass is fogged and when your completely out of the building there are cracking noises and the glass turns clear.

We were at the Skydeck for a couple of hours and then we went to Federation Square to get some pictures in the daylight then caught the free tourist bus to go see Captain James Cooks house. It is a quaint little cottage that in the 1900's it was shipped to Australia so that an exhibit could be made of it. We spent about an hour there looking at the garden and hearing about the tragedy that was his life. Cpt. Cook was murdered by the indigenous Hawaiian people because they thought that he was a god.

Then we caught the tourist bus again and walked over to the Old Melbourne Gaol, but they were only open for another hour and it takes about 2 1/2 hours to go through the gaol so we decided to walk back to our hostel. once we got there we sat down for a bit and were supposed to get ready to spend a night on the town but we were really tired so we laid around a bit and finally we got ready to go out to dinner and to a bar.

We ate at a really cute Italian restaurant in Federation Square.I ate a fantastic caesar salad, and some of Ashley's pizza which was phenomenal after eating fast food for so long. After dinner we headed down the main street. And while we were walking we saw a carriage being drawn by horses with Bunny ears on. He pulled over right next to us so we stopped to get pictures, I must mention that this guy was hot! He was an Australian cowboy ans Laura and I were happy to talk to him, and then we asked him a good place to go to for drinks and he told us Cookie. We thought that was a strange place to go but we walked down the street a bit more and we found it.

So we pulled out or id's and the bouncer looked at Ashley passport and says loudly "Oh, Americaono! Go on in!" With out even looking at our ids. For once it pays to be American. Let me just tell you this bar was awesome the wait staff were friendly and fun to talk to and they picked out beers for us. Plus the beers were cheap only five bucks! So we each had a few then went up stairs to the 7th level of the bar and had a beer, talked to some nice Australians and then left for the night to go back to our hostel because we had a 7:00 am flight.

Last Day of the Tour

So today was the last day and we got to sleep in until 7:30 a.m. We got up and went to the rain forest near the Grampians. These rain forests are cold weather rain forests and they have very different animals and plants than what we're used to thinking of as a rain forest.

Our our guide Jen told us about these black snails that comes out when it rains, and it was lightly raining that day. So we got to see them. These things are vicious though and she warned us not to pick them up because they are carnivorous and if you put them on your skin the will bite you with very tiny teeth and then spit a venom in you to paralyze you. If you were a snail it would climb on the other snail, then drill into the shell spit venom in, and then suck out the body of the paralyzed snail. Gross I know. They creeped me out. When Laura picked one up by it's shell it started to come out of it's shell to try and bite her. They were nasty little creatures, and only found in Australia.

Then we headed back on the bus to look at more spectacular views at Kennet River! Here we got to see Koala's in the wild! And quite a few of them. We were Koala hunting with our cameras, but all of them were high up in the trees until we walked a bit further up the road be hind a camp site area and spotted one not eight feet off the ground! We got the best pictures! The Koala was very lazy and didn't want to wake up for our pictures, so our tour guide scratched his back and he liked that and woke up.

After hunting Koalas we dove on the Great Ocean Road all the way to the start where we got out and spent some more time looking at the sites. Unfortunately, we could not go to Bell's Beach because there was a surfing competition and music festival going on that weekend. So we drove up the road to where Rip Curl and Billabong were founded to do some shopping.

Laura, Ashley, and I went to Sub Way and ate for dinner because we didn't want to have to go out in the city after we got back. We all got back on the bus for the last time and headed back to Melbourne where we were dropped off at our hostel for the night.

Second Day of the Tour

So today we had to be up, fed and ready to go by 7 a.m. For a hike up the Grampians Mountains. We started out and it was nice and cool out, we had to climb over rocks to keep to the path. It's about 2 km up to the top of this look out point. We took many periods to stop along the way as the hike was very strenuous. It took us about a hour and a half to get to the top. But it was worth it! The look out was beautiful especially that early in the morning.

Up at the pinnacle we took a ton of great photos an enjoyed the view. We were hungry after the hike so Laura, Ashly and I delved into the bag of Dorito's I bought. When all of a sudden a bird lands about five feet from us. This bird was about a foot tall and black and white, with a two inch beak. So we tossed him a couple of chips,and he scooped them up. So we started to throw them closer to us until we finally got the bird to take a chip out of Laura's hand. After he had consumed a copious amount of Dorito's he had Dorito beak and was trying to rub off the cheese on the rocks. It was sort of sad to watch but eventually he found some water and washed his beak.

After a bit we started our decent down the mountain to go back to the bus so we could go see the Twelve Apostles. After about an hour and a half's drive we went to lunch in a small city where we Laura, Ashley and I ate at KFC. It was positively the best tasting KFC I have ever had Then headed back to the bus to go 20 minutes down the road, while on the way there our tour guide told us that they offer helicopter tours of the Twelve Apostles for 70 dollars. So Laura, Ashley and I did it! It was amazing I had the best time and got some great shots of the rock formations. It was most definitely the high light of my trip. Then we all loaded back on the bus and went to some more look outs which included an amazing story about two survivors of a shipwreck. Their names were Tom and Eva and their story was tragic and never ended happily.

At sunset we went back to the Twelve Apostles though there are only 8 of them left, for some fantastic pictures. Then we headed to our hostel in Port Charles where we stayed at a beautiful new building and I would of had a great nights sleep. But to girls one from Canada and one from England (who will be referred to as Canada and England from here on out) came in at 2 am and talked for an hour about people on our trip and thanks to these girls I learned the entire tragic history of one of the guys on our tour. Then we had a mystery guest knocking on the door for about an hour, some one the girls had invited back but really didn't want to see.They also unplugged my camera from its charger. These two were such great roommates.

Interesting side note. Canadians to not like to be thought that they are Americans. They feel that it is degrading and will immediately tell you they are from Canada. Though one guy on our trip was from Toronto and was delightful. When traveling its better to ask if someone is from Canada rather than the States. Isn't that awesome! Not.

Anyways the next morning we got to sleep in until 7:30 am! finally!

First Day of the Tour

At 7:30 am Laura, Ashley and I took off with 8 other people to pick up another family and then we drove for about a hour and a half to our first stop which was in the Grampians Mountains. We stopped and took a walk out side to see Kangaroos in the wild. While we were there we also got to see Emu's roaming around in the wild also. This spot offered beautiful views and we went in to the Brambuk wildlife center and aboriginal center where we learned about how the Aboriginals were treated by settlers and the government. Even up to 1960 aboriginal children were being taken from their parents to go to live with someone else so that they would become more 'white.' This was very sad but true. After this we all headed back on to the bus to head to a scenic look out of The Grampians. We spent some time there taking pictures and then we headed back into a small town for lunch. After lunch we went to McKenzie Falls which has been my favorite place so far.

McKenzie Falls was absolutely amazing, when you get there you walk down a lot of narrow steps that gradually lead to the bottom of the Falls. This is one of the most scenic and beautiful places I have ever been to. I really didn't want to leave! But eventually we did and that is when we went to another site to look at the Grampians which was very scenic and beautiful also.

After this we drove back to the town we ate dinner at and the 8 of us doing th 3 day tour were dropped off to meet up with our tour guide for the next 3 days. Unfortunately, Ashley decided to drop us off early so that he could get back to Melbourne faster. So our group was left in one of the cabins. Well about an hour later a tour guide shows up and says we are staying at another hostel and that his people are staying in the cabin so we have to get out and wait for our leader outside. We do this reluctantly, as they had us move around the camp multiple times because we were in their way. after about an hour more of this we started calling the tour company to see if in fact someone was really coming for us. After speaking with an idiot on the phone for 30 minutes we gave up and decided to see if someone really was coming. At about 7:30 pm our Tour guide Jen showed up. So by this point we were out side for 2 and a half hours. I'm not bitter or anything. But Jen took us to our hostel we spent the night there and had spaghetti for dinner. I was out by 9:30. Because we had to be up fed and out of our hostel by 7 am to go on our hike.

Spring Break!

So Spring Break finally arrived on Tuesday March 30th. And I'm proud to say I almost got all of my homework done in advance so I'm not completely freaking out right now. Anyways we took a cab to the Wharf because it was raining here all day Tuesday, caught the Ferry to Circular Quay and the train to the airport to catch our flight to Melbourne. We got to the rain station to buy our tickets and only the kiosks were open. We didn't know which ticket to purchase, luckily a really nice guy behind us helped us out. Turns out he lived in the States for 6 years. Once we got to the airport we checked in. We flew with Tiger Airways and they were very strict about the weight limits of you bags mine weighed roughly 14 kilos so about 30 pounds, I was pretty close to going over. But it went through then we headed to an airport cafe for a cider while we waited for a hour and a half for or flight to be to board.

During the hour and a half they changed our gate so we had to go over to the other side of the airport to board. You could defiantly tell that it was a budget airline as I had to walk out on the tarmac to go up the stairs to board the plane. The flight was interesting though, as I had three pre-teen boys behind me who were pretty rambunctious. But the two flight attendants were hilarious and most obviously gay made the trip so much more enjoyable as they made jokes the entire time. The flight was only about and hour and a half long and we got off then caught a taxi to our hostel, which was about 30 minutes away.The taxi was pretty expensive about 45 dollars.

We checked in to the hostel, I was in a separate room than the two girls I traveled with. We got in at about 11:30 pm. I went to my room and people were already asleep so I had to be really quiet getting up to the bunk which was the squeakiest bed I have ever heard. If I so much as blinked an eye it would squeak. at about 2 am some dumb girl turned the lights on to get dressed for bed. the light was 2 feet above my bed. Awesome. The next morning the same girl ans a guy got up at 5 am and turned the lights on for about an hour and carried on a conversation. How sweet of them. Luckily they left and I had to be up and out by 7:20 to be picked up for our 3 day tour any way.

The picture is of my hallway, on the left are the toilets, and then the showers. This is taken from the room I shared with 7 other people :)