Considering the fact that over two weeks have passed and I have done a million things, I had a feeling it was around the right time for another posting. I am going to start way back when on my four day weekend trip to Frasier Island. Our first night we stayed at the creepiest and grossest hostel ever. I felt like I was in prison. I consider us to be really lucky that we survived and were not eaten by bed bugs. The next morning we went to Frasier island by ferry. Once we got to the island we got into this huge truck and we about to embark on some of the roughest driving I have ever experienced. Since the island is all sand and they had not gotten rain for a while, the roads were pure sand and impossible to drive through. It felt like we were on a rollercoaster the whole time and if we did not have our seatbelts on I feel we would have broken every bone in our body. However, it was tons of fun- especially because I wasn’t the one driving. We stayed in the coolest place, which was basically in the middle of the rainforest. Here is a rund down of the activities we did throughout the three day tour: we went to beautiful beaches and lakes, played in sanddunes, hiked through the rainforest, saw dead jellyfish on the beach and held them, and saw a shipwreck. I feel we did other stuff to but those things were some of the highlights. Unfortunately, we did not see any dingos (for those of you who don’t know a vicious Australian dog that eats babies), which is probably for the better because if I saw one I would have wanted to take it home as a pet and then it would have probably eaten all the babies in new york. That was a brief summary of fraser island. Then we had a week of finals. I had to write more essays that I think I have in all my years of college so far. Anyways, I made it though, I don’t know my grades yet but I feel they will be fine.

Now onto my Spring break trip. We broke the trip into two parts Cairns and the Whittsundays. We got into Cairnes on Sunday morning. We had the whole day to spend in the city so we explored around. Cairnes is a really cool city but it is very touristy. It at times reminded me of Miami. In the middle of the city there is a huge esplanade that has one of the biggest public pools I have ever seen. The pool was randomly shaped based on the park shape and could probably hold around 400 people. Surrounding the pool is this huge grassy area and a lagoon. It was a cool area because the kids were playing in the pool and then adults and teenagers were tanning and hanging out on the grass. They also had public bbqs and stuff there. We also went to the night markets which are markets that are only open at night and are all these small vendors that sell a huge range of products. We then went to bed early because we were skydiving the next morning. We were picked up at 7 am to go to mission beach which was the beach that we landed on. We then had to sign our lives away on a sheet that said how skydiving is a dangerous and unpredictable sport. There was a lot of other fine print but I decided not to read it because it would have freaked me out. Anyways they gave us like a 4 minute explanation of what to do and then we got on the plane. Then we got up to the 14,000 feet and were flying over the prettiest places. For example, we saw the great barrier reef from the sky. I was the second to go and we kind of moved to the edge of the plane and then slipped out. The free fall lasted for a minute. It was a weird feeling, it was cool it just felt like you were out in a really windy day and were flying. Then the parachute opened (thank god) and you float down. It is then when you can actually notice your surroundings and relax a bit more. Then we safely landed. It was so great. I have posted some pictures but everyone should get excited for the DVD I have of it. Then we spent the rest of the day on the beach. The next day we went to Cape Tribulation, which is a forest type area, that is ranked one of the prettiest places in the world. On the way there we stopped at a wildlife conservatory place. Here I got to feed kangaroos and wallabies and I held a snake and koala. Holding the koala was the greatest thing ever, I wanted to never let go of it. It is probably good I let go because koalas are actually pretty vicious animals. There are also state regulations which limit how much humans can hold time koalas. In most places in Australia , people are not even aloud to hold onto them. Later in the day we went into this lagoon place on a boat and got to see a crocodiles. We then got to where we were staying that night. This campsite was great and in the middle of the forest. It literally felt like someone cut down a few trees in the forest and built some cabins and made it a place people could stay. They had really good food and a pool. The next day we went on a hike, which was one of the hardest hikes I have done. I mean I am sure it wasn’t the hardest hike, but due to the current shape I am in and my lack of appearance at my gym, but I did struggle with it. On the hike we did get to see a goanna, which is a huge lizard like creature that looks like it can be a dinosaur. The view from the top was pretty but not all that amazing for the amount of sweat I released to get to that point. Then we went to the beach for a bit and took the bus back to Cairns. Then we went on a day boat trip for the great barrier reef. The boat was amazing and the views were amazing. When I went snorkeling I saw the coolest fishes and underwater life. The water was perfectly clear and you could see everything. Basically if someone drew a cartoon of the stuff we saw, it would have looked like the set of finding nemo. We were supposed to take a 12:40pm over night bus to airlie beach. The bus was 12 hrs long. However, the bus came an hour and a half late. We were terrified that we were going to miss our boat because we only gave ourselves an hour between when the bus got in and our boat leaves. However, the bus made up time and we made it there in time. We got to airlie beach and got on the boat. There were fourteen of us on the boat. It was a cool mix of people. There were people from England, Sweden, Czech Republic, New Zealand, and the US. We stayed on the boat for three days. It was cool to live on a boat but sort of gross. The boat was small and we were in very close quarters. When we were on the boat we just relaxed, snorkeled, and went to beaches. The sand was so soft and fine that it can shine jewelry. The snorkeling was nice here too but kind of scary because of all the deadly jelly fish around. I mean we wore stinger wet suits for safety but we were still scared. One of the greatest parts of the trip was laying on the boat at night looking at the stars. The sky is so so clear and I think I saw more stars than I have ever seen in the sky. The boat trip was great, but I was so excited to get back to land. I felt like the world was rocking for the next few days after that. Then we flew home and arrived home safely.

The next day I started my new class for this half of my time in Australia. It is a wine tasting class. I am really looking forward to it because I know nothing about wine. The teachers are really sweet and used to own their own vineyard and had a wine label. I also started my internship. I am interning with a sports physical therapist here. His name is Nick and he is incredibly smart and really kind. However, I sort of hate him for making me need to meet him to get to work at 6am everymorning. The one perk that I learned today is that he brought me coffee this morning. Too bad I don’t like coffee. I drank it anyways, my mouth tasted gross all day. And he asked if I liked it the way it was and obviously I could not tell him it was disgusting and that I only like starbucks frappacinos so I just said that I needed more sugar. Hopefully that will help. Also, considering this is super early in the morning I don’t even notice what I am drinking because I still am half asleep. The cool part was that the coffee is free for him because he treated the guy who owns the coffee shop and because the guy was so thankful, he gets free coffee for the year. Sweet deal huh. There are three other interns working with me. There is a guy from Sydney, a girl from Florida , and a girl from the Netherlands. The American girl is really nice and smart, so I think it will be really helpful having her work there. Also, she and the guy from Sydney have given me all of these study tools to help me in further classes. They both gave me really great videos that will definitely help me in gross anatomy next semester. Now that I am finally up to date, today I worked for the first half of the day in his clinic and just helped with patients and observed. Then we went to his sons touch football game to be the people if anyone got injured (basically like American athletic trainers). Their touch football is different than ours. Really the only thing that is the same is that when you touch people the team loses possession. But it doesn’t even work like that. Whenever someone on the other team touches you, you put the ball down and someone else on your team picks it up and keeps going. This can happen six times and after six touches the other team gets possession. Also, no one can kick the ball and you can only throw behind you. The game is so different but it was really cool and fun to watch. Then I came home and went to the gym. This weekend I am working at the Hawkesbury classic, which is a canoe race that is a fundraiser for bone marrow research. There are 500 rowers in the race and we give the participants pt at first and then we are at different checkpoints and give them pt if they need. The event is really cool but the race is 24 hours straight and we have to work all of those hours. It is going to be super exhausting but I think I will learn a lot. It is cool because I get to actually do stuff on patients like they will just be working with me. I learned a bunch of mobilization procedures and a bunch of things to do to work on the injuries that they should have. So I have recently learned a lot of new stuff and I really hope I can prove myself this weekend and not injure any patients instead of making them better.

Anyways I was going to put pictures on here but writing this has taken too long. Maybe next time. Love you and miss you all!!! Xoxo sam and sorry this was soooo soo long.

melbourne

Graffiti in Melbourne
Great Ocean Road
Graffiti
12 Apostles (even though there are only 7 left)
Great Ocean Road
Great Ocean Road

Hey mates! Yet again I am sorry about my delay in this entry. Good news is due to the large amount of time that I have no written, i have quite a bit to say. Yesterday I just got back from Melbourne. Melbourne is one of the coolest cities I have ever been too. The city is basically composed of eclectic ally ways that are filled with small shops and cafes. There is graffiti everywhere but it is amazing looking. The city still runs on the tram sister so walking around the city it feels like you are under a metal wire fence. However, it is still pretty cool. On my first day there we went to services and in the middle of the day we went to the Dali exhibit. Dali's art work is amazing and I think this exhibit was one of the largest exhibits of his work ever. One of the coolest parts of the exhibit was a short film that Walt Disney and Dali made called Destino. It basically was a merging of a Disney movie and Dali's artwork. it was the coolest thing ever.

Then we went back to services and were invited to break fast at a family's house to break fast. It was really nice to be with a family even though I miss mine so so much. Also, I forgot to mention that Melbourne has the craziest weather. Many say that in Melbourne it feels like it can be 4 seasons in one day. And we completely felt that way. The weather was much colder and felt like fall. It would be raining one second and then the next it would be sunny and beautiful out.

The next day we did a tour of the Great Ocean Road which started at 8am. It was amazing. Basicaly, the Great Ocean Road is basically a road that is next to the ocean and amazingly beautiful. It is where the 12 apostles are located whichever beautiful. On the tour we also saw all of these koalas which were the cutest things ever (despite for the fact that they are quite vicious). We then went to a rain forest which had the second tallest trees in the world (second to the sequoia tree). They appeared to go forever into the sky. Then after that we saw a few more sites along the water and the tour ended. In one day it was probably some of the prettiest sites I have ever seen. There are pictures on the blog.

The next day I went on a tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground. After the three hour tour, I managed to understand something of the sport of cricket (which is by far one of the most complicated sports ever). But i am going to try to explain it to you guys so that you can understand my confusion: There are two batters up at a time. One of the batters tries to hit the ball and the other one runs back and forth. The amount of times that the guy runs back and forth is equivalent to the number of runs in baseball. Then behind the batter there are things called spigets which are three poles, if the pitcher hits the spiget then they are out. Each team gets ten outs. There are only two innings in the whole game. Sometimes games can go on for five days and still end in a tie. There are i think ten or 11 people on the field for the outfield team at a time but i have no idea what they do. There are also other ways for players to get out but i also do not know how that happens either. Since cricket is on the tv basically every day and we only have four channels (so it is inevitable that I will be watching it), i will hopefully have more details to come about how the sport actually works.

For the rest of the day, we wondered around all the ally ways and cafes. It is just a fun city to wander around in. Then we flew home. The flight was only an hour and fifteen minutes but because it was a quantas airline, we were served dinner and drinks. Everything was free on the plane and just so much nicer- something you rarely seen with in the states anymore. Anyways, today I had classes but tomorrow I leave for a four day trip to Frasier Island. Frasier Island is an island up the coast where we are doing a tour of different beaches, rainforest, sand dunes, and ship wrecks. I can't wait. However, i wish we had a break before traveling again. I am going with three of my friends (megan, ashleigh, and nathalie). I am really excited but also concerned about how hot it is supposed to be this weekend. We are talking about sunny and in the high 90s (not to brag or anything). Anyways I miss you all so much and will write soon. I have to run to class so i have no time to proof this so please dont get mad or angry if it makes no sense. I just wanted to try to fill everyone in as much as possible.

photos

to everyone i promised here is a photo website with all my picture to this point. hope you enjoy. i will try to label them all soon. love you all.

http://samminaustralia.shutterfly.com/

so sorry

Hi everyone!! I am so so sorry that it has taken me approximately 2 weeks to post this new blog. I will really try my hardest to increase with the frequency of these posts with time. So since it has been so long there is so much to fill you all in on. Where to start... well i am finally getting used to much of Australia. For example, I do not look the wrong way every time i cross the street now, and i know that you pass people when walking and on escalators on the opposite side than normal for us. I also learned that the toilet does actually flush in the opposite direction. They call sunglasses sunnies and bathing suits swimmies which is just hilarious. Also Timtams (which are basically their national cookie sort of like a better version of an orea) are amazing and as my sister laur has told me plenty of times Tim Tam slams are amazing. for those of you who dont know how a tim tam slam works, i think it is essential to explain. You bite off both sides of the tim tam and then you use it as a straw to sip the hot chocolate and then the whole cookie melts in your mouth. there is nothing like it. soo soo good! i plan for you all to try it, pending the fact that the australian government allows me to bring home a life time supply of them. Also, due to the fact that US is on a completely different metric system (which is the most frustrating thing ever) I know that 1 mile=1.66kilometers and that to convert celsius to farenheight you just need to double the celsius number and add 30. Maybe those facts will come in handy at somepoint for you all. Now I will fill you in on some of the activities I have done in the past 2 weeks. One of the coolest things I did was the bridge climb, which is when you climb over the whole sydney bridge. At the bridges peak, you are 450 ft off the ground. The bridge walk gives you the most amazing view of sydney and everything surrounding. I have never done anything like it. it was so so great, you feel like you are standing on the top of the world. Last weekend I learned immense amounts about rugby. I went to two rugby games. The first game was the rugby game of the son of the guy I will be working for next semester for my internship. He explained all the rules to me so it was very helpful. It is such a weird sport, seeing 15 yr olds (in this case) fully tackle each other as part of an organized sport with no form of padding or equipment is completly a foreign idea. Then later in the day we went to a professional rugby game. It was the last game of the sydney roosters season. It was so cool and just overly intense, but still really just an odd sport. Then today we went to Torango zoo, which is a 15 minute ferry ride from where we live. I have never been to such a cool zoo. we got so up close with all the animals (especially the lions and kangaroos). The zoo was huge and just gave off the feeling that we were in the jungle or like a set from jurassic park. In terms of teh food here, they hav a large variety of food but we have been most impressed with the thai food. I am completly not exagerating when i say 3/4 of my meals are from thai places. and considering to this point, i only really know of one thing i like on the thai menu i am starting to struggle. i am going to need to expand my horizons with the different thai options. so if any of you guys have suggestions about things to try at thai places, i would love to hear them. In terms of my classes, I am learning a lot. But it just is so frustrating to be in classes all the time when all you want to do is explore the city and go to the beach. My mass media class is really opening me up to the world of communication and all the rules and regulations of it. Most kids in the class are communication majors so they already know so much about all of this stuff when it is all so new to me. But i am catching on well enough. We went on a really cool field trip for class the other day which was to their ABC studies (which for them stands for Australian Broadcasting Corporation). We got to go to the news studio and watch a radio talk show being recorded. It was all really cool and something different. In my other class which is all about Australian society and culture, we are learning about explorers and all that interesting for the first ten minutes, but then after 3 hours of it becomes boring. However, i think as we get further into the course everything will get more interesting. We watched this movie in class the other day that was called Gallipoli which is about a battle that was fought against the Turkish during ww1. and it is the battle that was considered to really make australia into its own country and independent status. Mel gibson is in it, but he is probably 16 yrs old in the movie and just looks completley different. The battle was basically a suicide mission but it did unify australia. the movie was great, and i really suggest if they have it in the states that if you have a chance your rent it. Tomorrow i am going to beach to see a kite festival, we do not know exactly what that entails but i cant wait. for those of you wondering how i am going to beach when the temperature is starting to get cold near you, i thought i would let you know that today it was 75 degrees and tomorrow i think it is going to be in the 90s. Sorry to rub that in all of your faces lol. but dont get my wrong i will definately miss the snow and the lovely beginnig of boston's cold winters. I forgot to previously mention, that I love the kids in my program, i g got so lucky with my roommate and all the kids who have ended up being in my group of friends. We have finally started to meet australians which has also made things a bit more excited. Also, i am in the process of putting all my pictures in a shutterfly account that i will give all of you access to. It is really frusterating because i have all of these pictures i want to put up but becuase the internet is so awful here, it would kill my internet to upload pictures. however, on monday i plan to go to an internet cafe to load them all up and ill send you all a link to the website. sorry if this is awful grammar i am so tired cause for me it is late at night now but i wanted to get all of this information out to you. so tons of pictures coming your way soon.

Goodday mate! (Imagine that being said in an Australian accent and you will have a pretty good idea of why I am enjoying Australia so much). I am sorry it took me so long to get this blog started up. Considering that the program I am in has attempted to take over our lives to prevent a forever lasting jetlag, I did not have time to get my internet set up. But finally, now that I have this blog I will try to update everyone as frequently as possible on my semester here in oz. Just to remind/warn everyone, I will try my hardest to keep my stories and life interesting and my spelling not embarrassingly awful.
So here it goes: Luckily, I survived through my million hour flight without too much pain and suffering. I slept a lot and watched more movies than the typical person can sit through. We arrived and I met my roommate. Her name is Nathalie and is in Sargent. She is chill and I can see us rooming together working out which is good. Similar to the beginning of Freshman year everyone is pairing into groupings or cliques of people. Not really based upon personality, but i would say looks or if they are in a sorority. The funniest thing is it seems like the blonde girls on the program only hang out with each other, i don't think they even talk to other people ( good news for you Laur it is not like that at home- so it is acceptable for us to be friends). Last night, we got our first real taste of Sydney and we went to the opera house and explored the area. Let me just say there is nothing like it. Above the huge white opera house there are bats flying everywhere (which is just terrifying but breathtaking). We then headed back on Australias bus system which I would probably say is the most confusing transportation I have to this point in my life encountered. They have a million buses all going to different places that stop at the same stops, and they dont announce what stop you are at most of the time. So if it is dark out and you cannnot see the street signs, you basically have to purely figure out where to get off by the surrounding stores and area. However, we did manage to make it home safe. There was more orientation today (Friday), and then we went on a boat cruise of Darling Harbor. Darling Harbor is amazing, to the extent that if I had to pick a place to move to and live for the rest of my like I would pick there in a second. I will put up pictures as soon as possible to try to express how amazing it is. But basically it is like a whole town on the water and is filled with boats and really cool looking restaurants and bars on the water. In that area is also the aquarium and wildlife museum. The boat cruise really gave us to chance to see Australia from a bit of a removed point of view. It is easier to see how amazing the skylines are from a boat then standing just underneath them. We then hung out at this bar/lounge place for a while and with the jet lag still getting the best out of many of us,we headed back.
Some general observations and things I have learned about Australia so far:
1. They seem to have way more fun than Americans and are always happy.
2. When girls are going out here they where the shortest dresses and tallest shoes ( dresses shorter than Paris Hilton Short)
3. The guys are far more pulled together than guys at home. They also where pointy toe shoes.
4. Most bars won't let people in if they are wearing open toed shoes.
5. The accents are beyond amazing.
6. The escalators are different and are just like an inclined moving ramp. Basically like the escalator things in airports that are flat, but just inclined.
7. Cars are always speeding here and will not hesitate to hit you if you are in the way. I have to this point already gotten a lot of angry glares from people of walking at the wrong time.
8. Even though until people hear us talk they would not know we are Americans, the second we do it is very apparent. The other day for instance these guys in a truck yelled, "O shit, there Americans". To this point I am unsure of what they meant by that, but we found it funny.
9. I have yet to see one Australian talking on their mobile (as they call it here) when walking on the street, which is extremely surprising considering the 90% of new yorkers (including my self) that are constantly on the phone while walking.

Also and probably most important I want to give you all my contact information.
To call my cell phone the # is : +61435486945. You guys should check with your cell phone companies to check prices just so you know how fast you should be talking when you call or I call you. I have heard that most likely the way to make the cost the cheapest is to get a calling card.

If you guys want to send me anything ( which would be more than highly appreciated and reciprocated) there are 2 address choices.
If you are sending mail to me that does not need to be signed for such as a letter or package that does not require any signature upon arrival use:
Boston University Sydney Centre
PO Box 946
Broadway, NSW 2007
Australia

If you are sending something that needs to be signed for such as (fed-ex or dsl):
Boston university Sydney centre
22-36 mountain street
ultimo, NSW 2007
Australia

As confusing as this all is try really hard to get it right, because most of the time if the mail is sent to teh wrong address I will not get it.
Anyways, I miss you all so much and will try to give frequent updates of my hopefully extremely exciting life throughout my time here.

Ps. here are some pictures:



Me on the boat cruise with Ashleigh, Matt, and my roommate Nathalie


The Sydney Harbor Bridge and the Opera house

Close up of opera house

Darling Harbor


Darling Harbor
--I tried my best with the pictures but let me just say they do not capture the scenery there in the least.