(May 28th
while Waiting for Plane to Gladstone) Travel Days:
Okay so
I’m not going to lie, the time we spent traveling was not my favorite. I am not
a fan of flying at all, and frankly the whole process is exhausting. Our first
round of flights started at 11:00 on Sunday morning, with us arriving at the
airport at 9:00. I’ll admit waiting was pretty fun there since I had stuff to
do while we waited. Mason, Dad and I more or less chatted until the plane was
ready to board. We got on, with Mason and I sitting together while he cracked
open a book on Ethics that Mr. Lechner gave to him the day before at his
graduation party. We didn’t talk much except to crack jokes about the subject
or the other book that a friend had given to him about some guy finding Jesus.
The plane, like always, was disorienting and made me dizzy. Thankfully, we had
a large chunk of time waiting at Seattle for our next flight. We had lunch
there, with some okay paninis for Mas and I, and some Asian food for Dad. We
hung out again, with me studying for my identification test while we waited for
the next flight. This one went to LAX so we could board a plane heading to
Sydney.
LAX was
an adventure and a half. We got these fantastic (yet very expensive) burgers
for dinner and then I proceeded to write for the entire rest of the time we
were stuck waiting. Two hours or so later, we were on yet another plane, this
one even bigger than the last. We kept on getting bigger and bigger planes
every time, and I found it pretty funny. This flight was our longest one, being
around 15 hours long and over the date line. We left when it was dark, so there
wasn’t a pretty ocean to look at out the window. We had all made a goal to try
and defeat jet lag by staying up as long as we could to readjust our internal
clocks to Australia time, so I thought it would be tricky without a view.
Thankfully, this plane provided entertainment in the way of movies. I started
to watch Disney’s Oceans but then I remembered that I had watched it so many
times it was boring and was actually putting me to sleep. So instead I settled
on a favorite of How to Train Your Dragon. They actually served food on the
plane, which was okay. Dinner was decent, even if it wasn’t my favorite meal,
but the snack they provided was really gross. A real saving grace was the
breakfast though, which was mostly fruit so I was happy.
Moving
away from the topic of food now. The flight was really really really
realllllllyyyyy long. We all couldn’t sleep, waking up every so often by either
the changing lights or the noise from the jets. It was torture when it was time
to sleep but we couldn’t get any. So all in all, I think our plan to defeat jet
lag kind of backfired. At least Mas and Dad got to watch a few movies out of
it, and Mas and I played against each other on a trivia game. I would say that
the last flight was my favorite out of all of our previous ones, but that is
ignoring the fact that I was sick to my stomach for most of the flight. I
officially think I can declare that I get a little airsick when I fly. That’s
not really great for me, but I’ll have to deal. On a good note, I thought I
spotted some porpoises out in the bay hunting for food when we landed, given
how the water was moving with the sea animals.
Once we
landed in Sydney, and passed through customs, it was time to call Mom and try
and get in contact with the professors. Mom was fun as always, having a day
off. While she sometimes texted at the worst of times, I loved that we got to
talk with her. Whatsapp really worked well for us in this case. After shooting
off a quick text to my teachers I started to head off to the security
checkpoint. That’s where things got rough again. I was already really emotional
from lack of sleep and having to leave Mas and Dad that it was hard to go, but
I did and headed through the checkpoint. The thing was, we thought that since
the internet was still working at the international part of the airport that
the other section, where I was heading, would have internet too. No such luck.
The thing with Whatsapp is that it requires internet to work. So I was left
alone, all by myself, looking for my teachers with no way of telling my dad
what was going on if I needed help. Nor was my gate showing quite yet. So yeah,
this is the sucky part of the day. I went to the bathroom real quick and more
or less broke down in the stall trying not to panic and failing. I sent out a
prayer to be able to find my teachers. Thank goodness that Heavenly Father
listens to prayers because as I walked out of the stall, calmed down, I ran
into Trisha, one of my professors. I didn’t really recognize her at first, and
thought that I was maybe projecting on some random woman who looked sort of
like Trisha, but when I left the bathroom to see Edd standing there on his
phone I was relieved to say the least. I explained the situation, almost
breaking down again, and they helped me text my parents real quick to let them
know what was going on.
Right
now I’m actually sitting and waiting for the next plane we’re all going on.
Another girl, Hailey, from the study abroad is with us too! I’ll write more later
when the day is done, but I figured I should write this all down.
(May 29th around 10:00-10:15) Travel Days Pt 2
Hey
again. I just wanted to write the rest of my log for the day that I travelled
on. Apparently I forgot my computer plug but Edd and Trish are willing to let
me use one of theirs as long as it can be rotated for use. That’s good. The
last two planes were okay, one of them was a propeller one, which surprisingly
wasn’t super bad. Mom was right. I drew during the last flight and I didn’t get
as sick. When we got to the last airport we met up with like eight of the other
people on the study abroad with us. They were pretty chill. The only thing was
we had to all pile up in what they called the “trooper” which basically meant
we were clown car-ing into this Humvee of sorts. We fit all eight of us and our
luggage. It was pretty dang great. Hailey got a video of the experience, but I
have yet to ask her for a copy of it. I am hoping that I can get my hands on
it. Our driver was pretty dare devil-eqsue and drove around corner with a lot
of speed, but I thought it was so much fun. Hypothesis: I liked it because of
all the pressure it put on me.
I didn’t
know what to expect with the Hostel. What I didn’t expect was basically this
massive tree/beach house structure with fairy lights, a pool, an old fashioned
pizza oven, an open fire pit, and game tables everywhere. There was this cool
lounge with mismatched furniture, an old fashioned bar, and our rooms at two
metal bunk beds. One of my roomies is another member of the church, (there’s
also a guy here named Clark who is one too) which was nice because everyone else
spent the night sipping on beer and it was pretty awkward for me. But the Hostel was seriously cool. I really
liked the feel over everything when people weren’t drinking. It reminded me of
the cool clubhouse from Pirate Island or whatever that movie is called. They
had this (what I think at least, I didn’t actually ask) terrier/pit bull mix
named Charlie (oh my gosh he was so cute!) as well as a mini fish tank
(goldfish and guppies), one python (I found out that Trisha is scared of snakes
by the way, so that was funny), and a turtle! Not a sea turtle, just a common
turtle. I tried to figure out what type, but I couldn’t figure it out before we
left…
After
eating some really awesome pizza from the oven they had there, I got ready for
bed and just crashed. I slept so well, which was obvious considering I had been
nodding off a lot all night. I slept a bit too much though since today I had a headache.
Thankfully, Nora (the fellow Church Member girl I was talking about earlier) had
some Tylenol that I was able to take. Breakfast happened, they had this cool
apple cinnamon granola that I made into cereal that was good, and we signed
this snorkeling paperwork. We then had to take three different trips in the
Trooper to get to the dock for our Ferry. The ferry itself is sweet. It’s kind
of like the one that I took in Alaska to go whale watching in but better. We’re
still in the harbor right now but I think we’re heading towards open waters
since the ferry is rocking a bit more.
But so far, the day’s been pretty
good. I’m really excited to get on the island and see what I’m getting myself
into. The people in the group are pretty awesome, now that I’m getting to know
them. Clark even helped me study a bit for the fish test. I found out yesterday
that we have to have the Common Names memorized and be able to match it with
both the pictures and the scientific names. I’m more than a little worried about
that but the test itself is only 5% of the grade. The guys are all dorks in our
group, and the girls are chill. Two people in the group were having a quiz off with
each other.
I’m gonna sign off now so I can
watch for stuff in the ocean. They said there was a high chance of seeing
whales or dolphins today, so here’s to hoping.
(May 29th on Island roughly 7:00 pm) Day 1 on
Island
I’m back again. We sadly didn’t see
any whales on the way down here, however there was a sea turtle riding along
the ferry for a little while and we did see a lot of the reef since it was low
tide. I also got to learn a lot of interesting tidbits of coral information
from Edd while I was watching the waves rush past us on the ferry. Overall, I think
the ferry was good for making friends because I got to know Nora and Clark
better and we talked for a good portion of an hour about different wildlife we
were excited to see. Both of them have worked at an aquarium before, so they
really know their stuff.
When we got to the island, we were
all raring to go. The place was amazing looking from the jetty, even if the
place smells a lot like bird poop and sea water. After a quick tour, we were
given our room assignments. There’s a high school here right now at the exact
same time as us, so we’ve seen them all day. They’ll be gone by Friday and we’ll
have the whole island to ourselves by that point, but they’re pretty chill. We
have a great chef here named Pat, who has the Pat Challenge named after him. For
the challenge we are supposed to find and collect as much plastic as possible while
on the island and whoever has the most or gets the biggest piece wins a water
bottle. It sounds really lame, but I think it will be fun. Anyways, we had this
weird sandwich for lunch with a cucumber salad. I wasn’t super fond of either
food, but it wasn’t too awful.
After that we had a little bit of
time to kill before we went to our Safety meeting for any last minute instructions
(like how to get the wifi to work here and how we were going to blog), so all
of us more or less ended up at the touch tank. The touch tank is this cool mini
pool where they have coral and sea stars and sea cucumbers all hanging out.
There’s even a giant clam and a few crabs in there with a few other fish. I had
some help, but eventually I was able to muster up the courage to touch some of
the things in there. It was so cool!!!!
When we finally met, we were given
the structure for tomorrow, and boy, do I think I’m going to be wiped out by
dinner. We were told about this website where all of us will blog about our
experiences and put pictures up. I’m gonna put it down below. I probably won’t
have pictures on it just yet, since I’ll need to figure out how to add stuff
like that onto it, but eventually some cool videos and pictures will get on
there. After that, Edd and Trish asked us if we wanted to go for a practice snorkeling
excursion before we had to meet up for a sunset at the Jetty, and we all, of
course, said yes. So, hurriedly putting on all of our gear and generally messing
around, we eventually got to the beach where we were going to be snorkeling. I
was paired with Edd as a buddy (we follow the buddy system here) since I was very
nervous about getting in the water. It was kind of hard to get in initially,
since you have to walk backwards because of the flippers, but I eventually got to
where I could “gently belly flop” onto my stomach and just float above the
coral there.
Now let me just tell you all that
snorkeling is so cool. I mean I was absolutely terrified of getting in the
water, since there is a possibility (however low) of there being sharks or sting
rays in the bay. But as we got farther and farther from shore, the cooler it
got. There was a small moment were I panicked because my snorkel’s filter is a
bit shoddy, but Edd showed me how to fix the problem in the water so I should
be fine in the future. But what we saw was amazing!!!!! There were giant flocks
of parrot fish, big schools of different damsel fish, and so so so much
coral!!! There were giant clams (though the first one I found of those was dead
which was kind of sad) and carpet anenomes. I was even able to find a cinnamon
clownfish. Edd was pretty impressed when I pointed it out and even told Trisha
that I had found “Nemo, his wife and their little anemone home all on her first
dive”. I found another cinnamon clownfish later, but Edd was gone. I actually
found a lot of cool things while Edd was busy rounding up the others, including
the other giant clam and what I think was a sharp-nose puffer. It was amazing.
I didn’t take my camera (since I don’t think it’s necessarily water proof) and
I didn’t take a go pro either. I’ll make sure to grab one next time if I can remember.
It was so cool, but eventually I
got pooped, so Edd and I went back to shore (and on the way we ran into this
massive parrot fish which seemed to be around two feet long or so). When we met
up with the others I found out that Kat and her partner (Zach I think his name
was? Still learning names) actually saw a turtle while they were out!! Another
boy saw two eels and Trisha said she caught sight of a shark in the deeper part
of the reef we were at. We were all trading stories when we saw a black-tipped shark
go right around where we were just moments before. It was so cool! We had to
rush back in time to shower off and head to the jetty to watch the sunset. The
sunset here goes down really quickly, but it’s pretty when it does happen.
While we were there two spotted
eagle rays did jumps in the air. I didn’t get to see it though since I was
always looking the wrong direction!!!! It was really sad and I’m hoping I actually
get to see it some time. Also just as the sun was setting we spotted around
five turtles all hanging out near the jetty!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I got
some really cool pictures of them. There was also this one really fat shark and
a manta ray that swam close enough that we were able to watch them below the surface.
After that, we headed back for dinner, once again made by Pat. I’m fairly certain
there is a wizard in the kitchen, because he made us each personal lasagnas
that looked like pies. And they were good too! Don’t get me started on the
desert he made!!!! He also made these cute little coconut muffins with crème and
oranges. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven it was so good.
Well, I’ve more or less caught you
all up with the days events. I’m supposed to be blogging right now for class,
but I figured this could be a nice rough draft so yeah… talk to you all
tomorrow with my next set of adventures!
Here's the website: https://watsatheron.weebly.com/
Here's the website: https://watsatheron.weebly.com/
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