March 26, 2006

Hello,

It has been another week and I just have to warn you that this update will not be too exciting, or hopefully long.

Monday and Tuesday did not prove to be interesting days. I attended classes and studied. With the exception of attending, if only for forty-five minutes, my first cricket game, St. John’s College v. Wesley College, I did not do anything out of the ordinary. On Wednesday I attended my classes and started my exercise routine (I’m convinced I have gained a considerable amount of weight. But don’t worry I am not intent on losing it, just turning into muscle). After exercising I attended Formal Dinner and it was a good time as usual. After dinner I fully realized how big a going out night Wednesday is. I don’t know why, but more people go out on Wednesday night than any other night. So, in order to fit into and completely understand Australian society and culture, I went out to a couple of clubs and bars with a whole bunch of Johnsmen and Jets (Johnsmen are the men who live at St. John’s College and Jets are the women). It was a very good and long night. And for any of those who are concerned, I was able to wake up a reasonable hour on Thursday morning and I did attend both of my tutorials and was an active and productive participant in both. In light of the importance of going out on Wednesday night, Thursday is much quieter. I spent it in my room doing some work, but mostly finalizing some reservations for when my mother, father, brother and sister come to visit in 10 days!! I was able to get them hotel rooms for when they are Sydney and booked our trip up the Sydney Harbor Bridge! As well, since my father, mother and brother will be arriving on a Wednesday (Formal Dinner night), the Rector has insisted that they not only attended Formal Dinner, but also sit at the High Table with the Rector and other high ranking staff. It will be a nice experience, both for my family and me, but also yet another opportunity for my family to embarrass me (not that they ever could). Despite any worries I am very very excited for my family to be coming, not only because I get to travel to a bunch of great places for two weeks, but because I finally get to see some very friendly faces. But you will hear plenty about their visit in later updates.

I spend Friday doing a lot of reading, errands and cleaning up. After exercising and eating dinner, I went to the apartment building where a lot of people from my program live, UniLodge. Some of my American friends had a bunch of people over and we all relaxed on their deck, it was very nice. Saturday proved to be the most eventful day of the week. The day was nothing special; however at night was the St. John’s College St. Patrick’s Day Formal. I did not attend the Formal proper (the dinner; would have been a lot of money for tickets and a suit), but I did attend the party that too place after the dinner. I was told by my friends who did go the dinner that I missed nothing special. Both the dinner and the party were held at St. John’s. The party was a very good time and lived up to its description as one of the highlights of this semester at St. John’s (below you will find a selection of pictures from the party; I did not take many good pictures, so my choices were limited).

After this week I feel as if I am doing nothing but studying, attending classes, eating and hanging out. Not a bad life, but I feel like I should be doing more. Thus, I took some time this week to stop procrastinating and started doing work on my future travels. I have roughly five weekends, one week and then three weeks after school ends to travel. Some places I am looking to visit include (but are not limited; suggestions are always welcomed) Tasmania, Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne, Alice Springs, Vietnam, China, Thailand, Fiji, Singapore, Japan, India, Laos and Cambodia (Any Asian nation I visit will most likely be during my three weeks after school is over). Obviously I will not be able to visit all of the Asian nations I mentioned, though I hope to at the very least visit all of the Australia locations I listed, and some more on day trips, and at least one of the Asian countries listed. I will keep you all posted on my travel plans, and if anyone has suggestions, or preferences, please let me know.

I believe that I have written everything I can for this week. As I stated earlier, not a very thrilling week. However, I continue to be very excited for my family’s approaching visit and I continue to enjoy my classes and St. John’s College.

As always, I hope all is well with all and I thoroughly enjoy any and all e-mails, mail or any other forms of contact. I especially appreciate pictures, it is always nice to know that nobody has changed, or, if they have, what they look like now.

Will have more to write next week.

Love

Jon

The Dinning Hall (a rushed photo, sorry)

Three Johnsmen and a date, in the Dail for the St. Patrick's Day Formal after party.

Two Jets and a Johnsmen outside the after party.

This is the inside of the Dail, our pub and the main center of the after party.

Four Jets outside the after party.

I am not sure why, but people are asking for photos with me in them. I will work on this for next week.

March 19, 2006

Hello,

It has been another week in Sydney. This one was not as exciting or adventurous as the last few, so this update will be shorter than the previous ones.

I went to all my classes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. This week was the first week of tutorials; they are the same thing as discussion session [in the US] and are intended to be ‘student run’ classes. All my classes are going well and they all look they will work out well for me. I am trying to keep ahead in all my classes now, so that I do not fall far behind later on in the semester when I am traveling more. One school related thing that I have had problems with so far is the library. I took me two days and three tries to final find the Special Reserves section of the library. As well, the way they number books and some other systems they have are confusing. I have pretty much worked most of it out, but it seems like every time I go to the library a difference problem arises. And the way that the classes are structured here, I need to spend a lot of time in the library; either finding books or articles, or reading books. This is because instead of having one textbook, or many a few different books and some articles that are easily accessible online or handed out in class, like at GWU, the Professors here might put together a reading packet, if you are lucky, and then the rest of the readings are to be found in numerous books that are located in the Special Reserve section. It stands to be very time consuming and expensive (copying).

I was able to do some other activities this week aside from going to class and the library. On Monday night the program I came here with had arranged for us all to go see a play at the Sydney Opera House. I had not been in the Opera House at all, and still have not been in the main section. The play was performed in one of the smaller theatres that are accessed from the bottom side of the Opera House. The play we saw was called Doubt. I believe it is a play from America, and it was about child molestation in the Catholic Church in Boston in the late 1960s. Everyone in my program loved the play; I however found it very dull, thin and dry. The storyline was quite evident from the beginning, the acting was overwhelming and any humor they put in was unoriginal (not to sound like a pompous critic). Even so, it was still a great experience to see play in the Opera House and as well I was able to see some Americans that I had not seen in a few weeks.

On Wednesday night, after our Formal Dinner, we had one of our visiting Fellows speak to who ever was interested about his experiences growing up in The Deep South (of the US) during 50s, 60s and 70s. The man’s name is Bruce and he has been in Australia for the last 35 years, working as a Professor until he retired about 10 years ago. He is only staying with us at St. John’s until the end of March and is a very friendly and interesting guy. Despite growing up in the deep country of Alabama he grew up helping with integration and often times teaching in African-American Colleges and Institutes. He had a lot of interesting stories to tell and in addition to learning a little more about the period, it nice to hear about the U.S. again and U.S. history again.

Friday night was my Grandfather’s Yahrzeit (the anniversary of his passing) and so I discovered the local Synagogue, which happens to be a fairly Conservative one, however it is only a five minute walk from St. John’s. The Synagogue itself is the second oldest Synagogue in Sydney, but the Congregation is very small and relatively relaxed for a Conservative one. The Rabbi is from Los Angeles and only moved here eight months ago. He is young, friendly and very energetic. He was very understanding of my lack of knowledge in the area of prayer and tradition, and he made me feel very welcome. It was a very nice experience and I met some very nice people. A friend who lives in St. John’s also was there and because of the positive experience I might end up attending Synagogue a little more often than I usually do.

And of course, Friday was also Saint Patrick’s Day. I was very surprised that most Australian’s did not get more into it than they did. I guess since their social lives are centered around heavy drinking all the time that this day would not stick out, but whatever the reason nobody but Americans were drinking from the morning on (not me, the other Americans). The seniors here did mow a shamrock and the words “PADDY 06” into the front lawn. At night the Australians got a little more into St. Patrick’s Day and we all had a great time at St. John’s and then when we went out.

On Saturday I visited a large flea market that is in Chinatown. I did not buy anything on this trip, but more scoped out the vendors and got an idea of what they had. I also got the idea to get a plant for my room, to give a little life to the walls. Later in the day I discovered that I could buy highlights of the NCAA Tournament games and the full semi-final and final games from I-tunes online (though I only had to pay $20 for all the videos, I ended up paying way, way more because of the way the internet is here. If you remember, they charge me by the download and videos are big downloads. I am currently working on a way to get around this so I can watch my Huskies win!)

That is really all the news for the week. I thought I would just briefly describe where I live (and there should be some pictures below to go along with the description). Firstly, if I have not mentioned it already, I live in a ‘Harry Potter’ like Castle. The first section of the building was built in 1857, with the last section being finished in the 1970s (it was not continuous building). In the picture below (marked St. John’s from the Oval) you can see the back side of the building. On the left is the Menzie’s Wing (the last section, which was completed in the 1970s and is a slightly different shade than the rest of the building). The middle of the building is an original section and houses what is now called ‘fresher corridor’ and Brenner Hall. Finally on the right is the Chapel and behind that on the same side is the dinning hall. The whole building is shaped like a giant letter “I,” and the wing that I live on is not in this photo, but is basically an extension of the Menzie’s Wing beyond the “fresher corridor” wing. Some other photos below are of Brenner Hall or the reading room adjacent to it. Also there is the hallway and staircase area that is located between the Chapel and the Dinning Hall. There is also a photo of the Chapel, as well as some photos of the stairway and hallway outside my room. As for my room, I am in a little inlet. My door is set about four feet from the hallway itself and on either side of the inlet are closets used by the housekeeping staff. There is a stairwell right outside my inlet, and since the wings of the building are not even with the main corridor, I am sort of on a ‘half’ level to the main section of the building. Therefore there is a short staircase up to the third floor of the main corridor, where a bathroom and laundry room are found. Also, down a slightly longer staircase is the second floor of the main corridor, which has a bathroom and a drying room. I am fairly well situated in the building in terms of bathrooms, laundry rooms, the Dinning Hall and other rooms. As for my room itself, I have single. It is fairly well sized and has a sink. You will see the other furniture and the set up in the pictures below (I apologize for the mess; I did not tidy up before I took the pictures). Otherwise there is not much else to the room but the view. Many rooms in the building have great views over our Oval (field) and continuing with the Sydney skyline, while others have a nice view of our interior lawn. However, I am one of the few who are lucky enough to have a fantastic view of the parking lot directly outside my window, as well as the fairly well traveled road only 200 feet from my window. Oh and I forgot to mention the major Hospital that is only 600 or so feet from the building, which is home to one of Sydney’s fine Medical Helicopters. Needless to say the noise is considerable, especially since I have to keep my windows open toe keep the room somewhere below 70 degrees at night. Despite all this noise, I do sleep perfectly fine. It must be from the two and half years of sleeping next to a Hospital in the middle of Washington, DC.

Well that is all I have for this week. I realize this was almost as long as my other updates, but I figured most people would skip over the description of where I live and only look at the pictures. So therefore it is much shorter than the other updates.

As always I hope that everything is going well with all of you and that you are all healthy. Also the open invitation to e-mail or write is still there, as always. I hope you all had a great week and I will hopefully have some more exciting adventures to post next Sunday.

Love,

Jon

This is the back of St. John's College. I am standing on our Oval, taking the picture. The 'Lemon Grove' is the grass area between the two wings that stick out (right where that one, none lemon tree is). The Menzie's wing is on the left (notice the different shade) and the Chapel is the wing sticking out on the right.

The Corridor that I am part of. My room is the direct left of the camera, out of the shot. All the rooms on this corridor are singles and everyone is at least a second year student. At the end is a 'small' bathroom and a small kitchen area.

This is the stairwell directly outside my room. My room is directly to the right of the camera, out of the picture. The stairs going up lead to the main third floor and the main bathroom is on the left at the top and the laundry room is on the right at the top. The down stairs lead to the main second floor and another large bathroom is directly at the bottom of the stairs.

This is Brenner Hall. It is the center of the Main Wing on the second floor. This view is looking towards the Chapel and Dinning Hall wings. To the left is the interior lawn (two pictures down) and to the right is St. John's Oval, the Campus and Downtown (picture below).

This is a view from a window in Brenner Hall. The field in the foreground is the "Lemon Grove" and then there is a slope down (can't see it in the picture) and the St. John's Oval starts (basically two huge rugby fields). Past the tree line is the beginning of the University of Sydney campus. And the skyline above the trees is downtown Sydney.

This is a view from Brenner Hall of the interior lawn. Obviously this was taken on St. Patrick's Day, after the seniors had mowed the shamrock into the lawn.

This is the oval side of the reading room, which is between Brenner Hall and the stairwell in front of the Chapel and Dinning Hall.

This the interior lawn side of the reading room.

This is the stairwell that leads outside the reading room. It leads to the main entrance and the main office. Through the opening in the middle of the photograph are the Dinning Hall (to the left) and the Chapel (to the right).

Same thing as the picture above, just from the other side of the staircase.

This is a view from the atrium between the Dinning Hall and the Chapel (the doorway in the center of the picture above). Through the door way straight ahead you are looking through the reading room, Brenner Hall and down the remainder of the second floor of the Main Corridor.

This is the entrance to the Chapel (a dark version).

This is the entrance to the Chapel (lighter version).

This is the Chapel itself. It is quite small, however it is very nice and welcoming.

This is a photo from the front/side of St Johns. So the Dinning Hall is straight ahead (it is where the massive wooden door is half open, to the right of the brick post). [Also, don't mind the two weird looking guys in the photograph. That is Jack and Michael, they are real Freshers and therefore had their heads recently shaved at the mercy of the seniors; notice the 'friarest' hair style on Jack, the left one.]

This is my room, as seen from the door way. Notice my one window and three chairs.

This is my room from just inside the doorway. My bed obviously. (the window is just out of the frame on the right)

This is my desk and my window as seen from the sink corner of my room.

This is my window, my desk and my sink/mirror (on the right). As seen from my bed.

This is my one closet and my bed. As seen from my desk. (the window would be directly to the camera's right and the door is directly to the camera's left)

This is the view from my window (not a great picture of it), but you might be able to see the parking attendent's booth (to the left of the cement center; just a white box) and the Hospital, fully equiped with rooftop helipad is the lights in the background.

March 12, 2006

Hello!

As I predicted it has been another week since a major update. Hopefully you all saw that my camera started working again and that I posted several pictures from my adventure weekend. If you did not see them you and would like to, they are just below this update.

I believe I left off last week with the first day of classes starting the next day. Monday was the first day of classes for the semester. I am currently enrolled in four classes (the normal amount for University in Australia) and none of my classes meet on either Monday or Friday. So, being the proactive student that I am, I attended three classes Monday that I had been interested in. This way, if I ended up not liking one of the classes I was enrolled in, I could pick up one of these three classes and not have missed the first day. Unfortunately, of the three classes I attended only one was decently interesting. So it did not look like a great start to the semester, but I just hoped that the four I had picked were going to be great.

Monday night was also St. John’s College’s first Formal Dinner of the year. St. John’s has two Formal dinners a week; Monday and Wednesday. A Formal Dinner is compulsory for all residents. Proper dress is required at Formal Dinner and that consists of a smart casual outfit at the very least (Khakis and shirt and tie). As well, we must wear our academic robes to the Formal Dinner. I know this sounds very fancy and proper and it is in some sense and not so much in others. It does slightly resemble something out of Harry Potter, seeing 180 kids walking down an old Victorian building all in black robes. The Dinner itself is supposed to be the best meals of the week, and they usually are. However, you do not really serve yourself, like you do the rest of the week, so the portions are smaller. (And to all my motherly figures that are reading this, I am gaining a lot of weight and I am eating more vegetables here than in my whole life. I even tried cauliflower and squash). During dinner, the tables are covered in clothes and we use fancy silverware and everything. As well, there is a “high table” with the Rector and others at it and speeches and announcements are made throughout dinner. Also there are several weird rules about eating and drinking and procedure in the dinning hall, I will not go into them now, but that do make eating a little trickier, but also more entertaining.

After Formal Dinner a bunch of my American friends and I went to the campus bar where they were replaying the Oscars on a big screen. Now, just for all you trivia buffs, Australia is one of the few countries in the world that get to see the Oscars live, however it is so early in the morning that most Australians just watch the replayed version. It was fun to watch the Oscars, which I do not usually watch in the U.S.

On Tuesday I had my first real classes. I started at 10:00am with Australian Social History 1919-2006. The Professor for the class is an interesting man, he is someone who is awkward, but in the sense that he is very into his topic matter. In Australia there is a huge discussion over what is an Australian and what makes someone Australian. As well, if there is no such thing as an Australian then how is someone or something un-Australian. This discussion has been around for decades, yet at moments in history it is brought more into the front of conversations and the riots over the summer have brought this topic back into the mainstream. Thus, this social history class in particular really deals with this issue, as do several other of my classes. But this Australian Social History class does seem interesting and it seems like it will be a good way for me to not only learn more about Australian history, but also about the culture and society that I am living in for the next five months.

My next class was Southeast Asia: Dilemmas and Developments. The Professor for this class seems significantly less interesting than my first Professor. She is not very engaging when you lectures and seems somewhat unsure of herself and almost seems unsure about what she is saying when she lectures. The class is a government class; however she seems to be combining a lot of economics into it, at least a lot of the lectures look to be centered on a country’s economy. Despite all of this, the class still does interest me especially because I know very little about Southeast Asia and the nations that make it up. So this class will be a great opportunity for me to learn more about this area of the world that is often overlooked.

The last class that I had for the day was Australian Politics. The title pretty much says it what the class is about, so there is not much explaining to do in that area. The lecture is very large, over 200 students, and since it is a first year level course it is composed of mostly freshman and International Students. The Professor is a thirty something women who seems very active and knowledgeable on Australian politics and has taught the course for several years. She is very engaging and interesting and it looks to be a good course, especially since I know almost nothing about politics in Australia. The Professor reassured all the International students at the end of class that they should not feel like they are behind because they know little to nothing about Australian politics. It turns out that in primary and secondary school in Australia, almost no teaching of politics occurs. Thus, most Australian students know as little as I do about Australian politics, despite the fact that they are now 18 and have compulsory voting.

Those were my three classes for the day, my fourth class is only held once a week on Wednesdays. However, in order to keep this update in sequential order I will first tell you about my Tuesday night. On Tuesday night I was lucky enough to be treated to a real dinner and very nice evening thanks to a friend of a former associate of my father. This woman, Kate, is an attorney in Sydney, who attended some school in the US. She lives in an area of Sydney called Elizabeth Bay and has an amazing apartment that also has a view of the harbor. To get to her apartment I had to use the subway (they call it ‘the trains’) for the first time and I was pleasantly surprised. I also got to see an area of the city called King’s Cross for the first time. It is not quite a ‘family place’ at all, but nonetheless it is part of the fabric of Sydney and is interesting to see. Kate and her niece treated me to dinner at a local café. It was nice to talk to older Australians who have a little more knowledge and insight then some of the college aged people I live with. It was a good night and a welcomed change.

On Wednesday, I attended the second class of Australian Social History and Southeast Asia: Dilemmas and Development and then attended my first class of my second history class; Australia and the World. This class is a third year level class and will be the most difficult class I have. Third year level is the highest undergraduate level there is at University here and my class has approximately 15 people (by far my smallest) and we all sit in a small room with our Professor. This seminar atmosphere is nice and a change from classes I have taken in the past and am taking now. The Professor seems terrific, he is an older man, has troubles hearing, but has a terrific sense of humor and wit. I really feel that I will enjoy this class, not only for the Professor and topic matter, but also for the students; it seems like a diverse, intelligent group. The topic matter, not clearly evident from the title, is mostly a history of Australia by looking at its interaction with the rest of world. Hopefully that is a decent enough description.

Wednesday night was our second Formal Dinner and it went well, not much difference from the first one. Afterwards our pub, the Dail, opened for its one night a week and it was good fun. After spending sometime in the Dail I went back to me my room in order to book my trip to Canberra for the next day. Because it is the first week of classes and I don’t have tutorials (discussion groups) I had Thursday free as well. So I left Sydney by train on Thursday for Canberra (the nation’s capitol, for those who do not already know). I arrived in the early evening and walked about three miles through the city to the youth hostel I was staying in. The hostel seemed nice and I had three male roommates. That night I walked through a part of the city that has most of the night life, though there wasn’t much, and I walked through the local University. There was not much going on so I went to bed early so that I could be rested for the next day.

On Friday I woke up at 7:00am and rented a bike from the hostel I was staying at and started my day by biking to the local market and picking up some bread to eat for the day (very low budget, I know). (I have decided to leave out most of the details and little facts/trivia that I learned while visiting the places below, because it would take to long for me to write it all and it might get boring. If you would like to know more about any particular thing I did just ask me and I will send you more details.) I started my day by visiting The National Museum of Australia. The museum structure and design was probably the most interesting part of this museum, it was mostly a social history of Australia. Next I biked to the Australian War Memorial and Museum. This is a beautiful Memorial and Museum in one, which is laid out to look directly at the Old Parliament and Parliament buildings across the lake. I took a tour of the museum and spent about two hours in the museum. However, the museum is so vast and interesting that I could have easily spent a full day in it and still not have seen everything. Next I biked quickly across the lake to visit Parliament. Unfortunately, Parliament was not in session, because the Commonwealth Games are about to start in Melbourne, so I did not get to see it in session, but I did take a great tour of the building. The building is a huge and interesting structure. It has many interesting features and provides a marvelous view of the whole city from its roof. After wandering through the Parliament building I biked down to the High Court (the equivalent of the our Supreme Court) and got there just in time to see about twenty minutes of one of the proceedings occurring in the one of the three Courts that make up the High Court. It was very interesting to see this, they use videoconferencing (so the lawyers were not in the courtroom with the Judges, but rather appeared on a TV screen). After getting a ton of information on the High Court from the very nice guides that were there (I think I might have been the only visitor all day), I biked up to the see the U.S. Embassy. It was a beautiful compound, however it is closed to the public and I only got to talk to the Australian gate guard that was stationed outside, a little disappointing for all the biking I had to do to get to it. Finally, I biked quickly to the see the Botanical Gardens; however it closed right as I got there and thus my day of sightseeing was over. I took the bike to the market to get some bread and nutella for dinner, but before taking it back to the hostel to rest, I biked a few blocks to take a picture of a restaurant called Sage (for those of you who don’t know, that is the name of the restaurant I spent all summer in last summer). Then I went back to the hostel and had some great conversations with some Australians and a Canadian and then went to sleep. I woke up at 5:00am so that I could walk back to the train station in time for my 6:37am train back to Sydney. The train ride is about four and half hours each way and the train system is fairly nice and efficient here.

I did nothing exciting on Saturday once I returned to St. John’s, so that is an update of my whole week. My time in Canberra was a lot more fun that my brief, dry description makes it sound. I found it quite interesting the contrast between not only the basic set up of the Australian system, but also the buildings and how it all contrasts with Washington, DC and the US system. I learned a lot and it was a great experience and I am very glad I made the trip. Also, all the biking taught me not only how out of shape I was, but also the importance of water. I mentioned that I biked everywhere. Well it happened to be roughly 93 degrees Fahrenheit and very sunny (and yes, I wore plenty of very heavy, high grade Australian sunscreen and was forced to drink tons of water). All and all it was a great day and a good trip.

Now I am back at St. John’s and getting ready to start my class work and preparing to start picking classes for next fall at GWU, the start of my senior year.

I hope this was a satisfactory update and below are some pictures from my trip (they are not all of the highest quality, my apologies). As always, I greatly appreciate any and all e-mails and apologize for any delay in writing back.

I hope all is well with you and that this finds you well. I look forward to hearing from you and I will be writing again in another week.

Again if you would like to know more, you can always just ask and if you would prefer getting updates by e-mail, instead of checking the blog, just let me know. It is no problem for me.

Have a great week!

Love

Jon

p.s. Next week I will have taken good pictures of St. John's and my room. I will post them and explain them so that if you want to get an idea of where I live, you can.

Sorry that the pictures are not really in order, but I think you get the idea.

A view of the Bush from the train

My first Hostel room

The main courtroom of the High Court

The High Court building

The Parliament building

The flag pole on top of the Parliament (from the roof)

The 'House' side of Parliament

A view of the outside of the Parliament building (most of it is underground)

The 'Senate' side of the Parliament

ANZAC (Australia New Zealand Army Corp) Parade. The Memorial/Museum is at the end.

One of two walls on the Memorial that has every name of every Australian killed during War time. The flowers are for memorial.

This is a Japanesse bomber and is believed to have been used both at Pearl Harbor and the first bombing of Darwin, Australia.

This is the 'inside' of the Memorial

This is one of eleven Memorials along the ANZAC Parade. It is their memorial for Vietnam

This is the courtyard of The National Museum of Australia

This is the Carillon bell tower. It has 50 large bells and was a gift of Great Britain

One of only four remaining original Magna Cartas

A map of Canberra. Though maybe you could blow it up and get an ideo of where things are. I stayed around the circle on the opposite side of the lake from the Parliment building.

MY CAMERA WORKS!!!!



My camera dried out enough and not only does it work, but I was able to retrieve the pictures that I took before I dropped it.

Below you will find a selection of my pictures I took before the drop, not that exciting, and some that I have stolen from a friend. There are more coming from another friend, even some with me in them, but he is slow to act. So here are several pictures and there will be more to come.

I am leaving for Canberra for two days and therefore you should all be happy to know I will be making my weekly update on Sunday, this time with pictures from Canberra hopefully.

Some people requested proof that I have made friends here. This is (left to right) Paulina, Katie and Brian.

A View from the hike

Rain Forest

More Rain Forest

Waterfall in Rain Forest



A Shot down a sharp canyon



(Front to back) Rachel, Emily, Marian, Michelle, Whitney and Jesse


Another shot of the rain forest



A sign that I obviously only took a picture of and did not read (Notice the rocks can be slippery part, I feel a few minutes later)

And this is the last photo that was taken on my camera before the drop

Me right after I fell/dropped my camera

Katie, Scott, Paulina, Brian on the Rain Forest Hike

More Rain Forest

View of the Grand Canyon from Evan's Lookout

Blue Mountain Valley from the Flyway Gondola. Three Sisters are on the left hand side.


Blue Mountain Valley

Three Sisters

Blue Mountain Valley


Group photo after rock climbing.
(Individual rock climbing pictures will be coming soon)