First Week of Classes

After some consideration, we have both decided to follow the advice of friends and advisors and we each will only be taking 4 classes this semester in hopes of not overwhelming ourselves and actually enjoying our time abroad (imagine that). Here is a summary of my four classes:

Marine Conservation Biology- Class seems really interesting, though every time I leave it I feel like the world is doomed. Taking it with Maria.

Cell Regulation- Taking it with Maria.

Tropical Aquaculture – Learning about Barramundi. JCU is farming these fish. Thus far, they seem pretty cool.

Memory and Cognition – Seeing if this is what I want to do with my life, since I kind of need to figure that out in the next few months.

This is the first semester I can remember in which the majority (in this case: ¾) of the classes I am taking I am actually interested in. It’s a nice feeling.

JCU is weird with their schedules. All of my classes are on seemingly random days, and at different times each different day. My aquaculture class has two lectures in one day, and my cognition class only meets once a week for two hours. Each lecture also comes with a practical and/or tutorial (slang: tutes) time, which of course makes everything even more complicated since they take up between 1-2 hours apiece.

Besides classes, this week was our first week of exclusively cooking every meal for ourselves (except one time we ordered Dominoes and it was horrible). It was time to use the potatoes.

Mmm... cheesy potatoes...

A quick rant about the food here: it tastes completely different and it’s significantly more expensive. Everything is grown in Australia, and from what we can tell, that makes it automatically terrible and at least twice as expensive (a can of soda is $2.20 AUD), since their minimum wage is so high ($15/hour). We bought confectioners sugar to make icing, and it tasted like soap. To be specific, Dove soap. They apparently mix their powdered sugar with Tapioca starch instead of cornstarch. Tapioca starch is used in detergents and soaps. So now, I have a bag full of soapy sugar that only tastes decent if it is mixed with something other than water or soy-milk. Maybe the food isn’t bad, it’s just the brands we are accustomed to are different than in the U.S. and it is taking awhile to get used to.

But it’s probably just bad.

But the good news is: wallabies come visit outside of our dorm.

Our dorm: Rotary International House

Our Wallabies.

We can all see who mom's favorite offspring is...

I’m taking Marine Conservation Biology, Cell Regulation, World History Since 1900, and Human Rights and Social Issues in Australia.  On the first day of class, Kelley went back to the dorms after Marine Conservation Biology, but I had history so I stuck around campus until then.  After my class, I was navigating back to the dorms when I realized that the way I was going wasn’t the most efficient.  I charged on though, knowing that this way would get me there eventually—right?

Unfortunately, I ran into a large field with some woods surrounding it.  I went to start walking through it and then I remembered something: this part of Australia has the top 5 most venomous snakes…in the world (or so I’ve been told).  Entering the Forbidden Forest was starting to seem like a bad idea.  So, on second thought, I decided turning around would be the safest way to go—right?

Wrong again.  As I was walking by a tree, minding my own business, a squawking green flash came out of nowhere.  I was being targeted by a lorikeet!  So I picked up the pace and marched right out of there.  As I finally saw Rotary International Hall and began walking on the path, I spotted two turkeys—which are very common here.  One of them was wary and started running away from me, while the other started running right for me!  Once again, I was about to be the victim of a bird assault, but this time it wasn’t an air raid, it was an attack from below!  Since running away worked the last time, I decided to try again, and the turkey eventually stopped following me when I reached the bridge.  Another close call.

Map of the assault.

Team Amurika

Once we got on campus, an RA met us and led us into our building. We had been assigned the same building, the same floor, and even had rooms right next to each other. We have two communal showers and three toilets on the floor, as well as a living room area and a kitchen. We don’t have a meal plan, so we immediately asked around about the buses and headed off to Stockland Mall for provisions.

We had three main goals: get food, get showering supplies, and get phones. Two of these objectives were completed. We looked over prepaid cell phone plans while we ate some food court lunch (their Subway is NOT the same as in the U.S.) and decided on one that would allow us to talk and text each other for free.

We went to the store (Crazy John's) and they were sold out of the phone I wanted, so we decided to come back on Tuesday.

The next day, Monday, was a small orientation welcoming us to the school, and telling us about another orientation the following day. Once that was over, we came back to our apartment, ate dinner, and crashed.

On Tuesday we were broken up into groups to take a tour of campus. We also got to participate in a trivia game, which our team, Team Amurika (because we all were from the U.S.), soundly won with a perfect score. One kid seemed a little suspicious, but clearly he doesn’t understand how awesome Amurika is, and was jealous of our $10 gift cards to the nice restaurant on campus.

The bad thing about being Team Amurika is that no one could pronounce our name properly.  They tried things like Am-err-eek-ahh, but we would set them straight by saying "AMURIKA!" in our finest male, hillbilly accents.  Truthfully, I don't think a single Australian in the room understood the joke, but that's okay because it wasn't for them anyway!

.... YEA!

So after Team Amurika dominated (obviously) we went back to Stockland mall to get our phones. While walking toward the store, we passed two men in Australian Army fatigues. I did a double take. I don't know why I have a thing for men in uniform, probably has something to do with seeing Pearl Harbor when I was young and impressionable. 

Josh Hartnett's fault.

I mean really.

Conveniently there is an army base close to campus, though I have been warned by friends and family to stay away.

Not that far...

I was embarrassed by Kelley checking out EVERY SINGLE MALE IN UNIFORM AT THE MALL.  But what could I do?  I just sighed and rolled my eyes.  Some women just can't resist a man in uniform.

When we were at the mall on Tuesday to get the phones, there was good news and bad news.  The good news was that they had the fancy phone that Kelley wanted.  The bad news was that they didn't have the cheap phone that I wanted.  Kelley decided to go ahead and purchase hers though.   Apparently in Australia you need ID to buy a mobile phone.  So Kelley gave them her driver's license.  They needed more though...but her 'Cane Card was rejected.  Apparently in Australia, you need 60 points worth of ID to get a phone and a U.S. driver's license is only worth 40 (U.S. student ID's are worth zero).  Don't ask me how the points work: all I know is that buying a mobile phone is apparently not equivocal to playing a game on "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" because the points do matter.  So after all of this, we were going to have to come back to the store the next day...again.

In order to ensure that this trip wouldn't be a total waste of our time, we headed over to Cole's (a supermarket) to check out their supplies.  We started in the fruits and vegetables section and I was immediately delighted to find four kilograms of potatoes selling for a mere $5!  Kelley said, "Are you sure we can eat all of these before they go bad?" to which I responded "Definitely!"  We also stocked up on some basic good such as: flour, sugar, spaghetti, spaghetti sauce, several kilograms of rice, two huge containers of vegetable oil, and some baking necessities.  Though we had to carry our loot from Cole's to the bus station, it wasn't that far so we were unconcerned.  

However, it just so happened that on this very day...THE BUS DRIVER MISSED OUR STOP!  After he went flying past it, Kelley said, "HEY!  Can you stop!?!?"  He responded to this by slowing down--thank goodness!  We stood up to get off, when, out of no where, he sped up again!  Since we were nearly at the next stop, we just decided to get off there.  The walk didn't seem that far when we did it every other day, so I was optimistic.  The reality was this: it turned out to be the longest walk...in the world.  I regretted buying the four kilograms of potatoes so much that I was cursing at them in my head.  And I also wondered why I felt the need to fit the American stereotype by purchasing this much food.  Eventually (literally a solid 10-15 minutes later) we reached our rooms and threw our bags to the floor.

On Wednesday we went to get our course situation worked out by meeting with "Advisors" who weren't actually advisors but they got the job done. We are both planning on taking 5 courses in order to graduate next spring, but they were pretty adamant that by taking 5 classes instead of 4 we would basically be condemning ourselves to lives of pain and suffering. We ignored them.

We went back to the mall, this time with passports in tow, to finally get our phones. The phone Maria wanted was in, along with mine, so we happily purchased them and decided to just buy the plan online when we got back to the apartment.

Fatal mistake.

I tried to pay for the $20-plan using my debit card. Nope. Credit card. Nuh uh. Checked with Maria, and she had the same problem. She called the company, and they said they wouldn’t take overseas cards. Really? REALLY? We just paid for our phones with overseas cards!

This is probably the appropriate time to say a few words.  We were encouraged by the people working at the store to buy the plan online.  I guess you just can't get advice from customer service people who refuse to stand up when speaking to you though.  So now we had phones, but they weren't able to be used...classic.

We would have to go back to the store. Again. We were livid with this company. They had neglected to inform us of needing a passport, the issue with foreign cards… and now we would have to go back to the store every month to buy recharges for our plans. But the best part about them has yet to be revealed...

We had our phones.  We had our passports.  We had our receipts.  And we had brought multiple forms of payment with us...just in case.  Getting the plan was pretty easy, but what it took to get there was downright ridiculous.  After getting that situation taken care of we went to Big W to purchase more goods (which was either because we believed that the bus driver would let us off at the correct stop, or because we were just being downright stupid.)  Anyway, Kelley paid for her goods and was patiently waiting for me.  The worker announced my total and I reached for my credit card.  It wasn't there.  CRAZY JOHN'S!!!!!!  I almost belted out a string of expletives.  I decided that I had to keep my head in the game though, so I calmly paid with my debit card instead and set off to start World War III.

When I got to the store the male worker (who was the most helpful...though this is in no way a compliment to his customer service) came up to me.  So I said, in a non-confrontational way, "Do you have my credit card here?"  He responded with "No, sorry love."  

DID HE REALLY JUST CALL ME "LOVE" IN THIS TIME OF WARFARE AND CRISIS!?!?!?!

"Well," I replied, "can we take a look?"  He agreed and mindlessly moved some documents about while I tore the store to shreds.  "It's not here," he said.  I was 100% sure that it was, but I had to play it cool so I said "Well, call me if you happen to find it, please."

I wasn't mad anymore--I was LIVID.  I was absolutely positive that they never gave me my card back and I had a sneaking suspicion that they might be up to something.  I expressed this to Kelley as we waited for the bus to arrive.  Suddenly, my phone started vibrating and I knew who would be on the other line.  It was the man from the store and he said that they had magically found my card!!  I rushed in there and mustered up all of the nice-ness that I had left in me to say "thanks!"  The other lady worker said "Yeah...sorry about that."

In the end though, there were several good pieces of news that came from this day: #1: We had functional phones.  #2: The bus driver stopped at the correct stop (!!!!).  And #3: My credit card was back in action.

Flights to Townsville

We spent our last day in Port Lincoln being bored. After checking out around 10:30, we walked around the city a few times, trying to wait until restaurants opened up for lunch. We ate lunch, and walked over to the public library, hoping to pass time until our flight at 6:20.  Conveniently, the library was closed on Saturdays, so we then resorted to going back to the movie theater to see “Cars 2.”

Australian Public Libraries: Closed on Saturdays. 

Because no one spends their weekends reading.

We got to the theater around 1:00. The movie didn’t start for about 45 minutes, so we hung out in the arcade room. A cute little demon child with curly blonde hair was very noisily playing the racing game, slamming his foot down on the pedals and yelling at his mom.


When the previews started, Maria and I began cracking jokes about the movies that were coming out. At the Harry Potter showing, they showed a preview for Green Lantern (I loudly commented: "Spoiler alert, it sucked."). We started guessing what previews they were going to show next.


Kelley: "Toy Story 3." 
Maria: "The original 'Toy Story'."
Kelley: "The first 'Cars'."
Maria: "The Lion King."
Kelley: "Snow White."


I kid you not, a preview for "The Lion King" played, coming out for the "first time in theaters." We laughed very loudly.

After the movie, we left for the airport, getting there 2 hours in advance and with no one in the building besides us. We wrote some posts to catch up, but there was no internet in the tiny shed they called an airport, so we decided to wait until we got to Adelaide.

No one was even there to assist us!

But we were there...with all of our bags...

Our flight was delayed for about 20 minutes, but we had a two-hour layover at our next stop so it didn’t mess with our other flights.

We got dinner in Adelaide (and more donuts), and boarded a plane filled with what appeared to be teenage volleyball players returning from a tournament (both males and females).

We arrived in Melbourne around 11, got our bags, and then realized that we would be unable to check in and go through security until about 5 AM. Awesome. And the best part was that there was no free internet in the building. Nothing like trying to pass the 6 hours of waiting in an airport without internet.

I tried to sleep, but we had camped out by a door and it was freezing cold outside. We wandered around for a while, and eventually I went to the international terminal where there were some benches and it wasn’t -50 degrees [Celsius].

Finally the ticket counter opened up at 5 AM, and we tried to check in, but because our flight was at 7:30, we had to wait another thirty minutes so that we could check into our flight. We were not pleased.

When we were able to check in, the woman asked if we would be okay sitting in an exit row. Little did we know, this meant sacrificing our ability to store our bags below our seats.

We both immediately lost consciousness once the plane took off, and the flight was very quick as a result.

When we landed, we got our bags and waited for our transportation to JCU. We watched as a very impatient woman repeatedly rang for "oversized baggage", and when she finally retrieved what she wanted we saw that it was, in fact, a set of very large hula hoops. 

Our 9 days of traveling were at an end. We had made it to James Cook University. Without Maria sustaining a head injury. Or me fainting and breaking a toilet with my head.

Oh Hai Great White Sharks!

We woke up early (5:15) to go on our much anticipated shark dive.  We packed our bags and, lucky for us, a hotel shuttle whisked us away to the marina so that we didn’t have to walk.  We boarded the boat (a very nice boat!) and read some shark facts until we started heading out to sea.  The girl on board offered up breakfast and about 3 hours later, we were at our dive site. 

In the jaws of a Great White.

On the way, the woman sitting next to me suddenly smacked me in the arm. When I turned to see why I had been assaulted, she pointed out the window and said "Dolphins!". All was forgiven, and I immediately turned around and glued my face to the glass. A few moments later, I was rewarded with the sight of four common dolphins porpoising through the waves. I wasn't quick enough with my camera, so unfortunately this Google image will have to suffice:

One of my favorite cetacean species.

Delphinus delphis. 

I'm a nerd.

I had been drinking a ton of water so I really needed to go the bathroom: this was a serious mistake.  As soon as I left the bathroom I felt sick—terribly, terribly sick.  I ripped the bathroom door open and proceeded to perform the miracle of resurrecting my breakfast at the porcelain altar.  Afterwards, I felt much better…probably because I realized that I was capable of performing miracles. 

Meanwhile, I was upstairs eating chocolate cake.

The captain gave us a run down of the cage and safety and before we knew it, a shark showed up!  It was great to see the power that the sharks exhibited when they went for the bait. 

Sea Lions! (aka shark bait)

The cage.

The first shark!

Delicious. 

View from the boat.

The first team of four geared up and went into the cage. Kelley and I decided to go next along with a couple from Hong Kong. They went in one of the rooms and changed…which I thought was odd, but whatever. 

Lookin' sexy in our 7 mil wetsuits and hoods.

When our time came, we were lowered into the cage one at a time, and then the real fun began.  There were no sharks for a minute of two, but then one came over to the cage. We estimated that there were about 3-4 different Great White Sharks that we saw while in the water. Some were wary and kept their distance, while others came right up to the cage and seemed to look you in the eye. One even bit the cage when the skipper pulled the bait up in front of it. Despite the proximity of the sharks, I never felt in danger—I only felt a sense of respect for the sharks.  They were incredibly beautiful and very graceful in the water. 

Because we were extremely overweighted in order to stay down, I had problems maintaining my balance. Because I was wearing a vest with most of the weights on the back, several times I found myself on the bottom of the cage, looking up at the surface, awkwardly flailing about in an attempt to right myself. Thankfully I was able to correct my position in time to see the sharks.

These fish got trapped in the cage and couldn't figure out how to escape. I think I kicked one. Or two.

Not our blood.

Oh hai!!

 Great White Shark Gonads for your viewing pleasure.

 Om nom nom!

Om nom nom part II

I thought that the sharks would be constantly biting the cage, or only going after the bait, but most of the time they would just swim by and look at us. The video above was the only time that the shark bit the cage, but it did so because the bait was pulled toward the cage. I was surprised at how calm they were. They would appear out of nowhere, and disappear soon afterwards. It was hard to get photos of them because you never knew where they would show up. There was one point where we had 3 different sharks around the cage at once. 

When our time was up about 45 minutes later, Kelley went downstairs to shower change and, of course, the couple from Hong Kong showered and changed together.  After this, there was plenty of food to be eaten (though I never wanted to see or smell food again). 

I ate so much on that boat.

We went outside to view the sharks from above for the last two groups.

When we got back we were cold and I was finally able to think about food again in a positive way, so we showered and walked across the street to KFC. I ordered just about everything on the menu and the girl working asked me something.  I asked her to repeat what she said, here is my translation: “Do you need a sssjhfihrglrg?”  I have no idea what that is, I admitted.  She pulled out a little packet with a napkin, spoon, and fork.  Ahh, a serviette.  I accepted it.  That went terribly well and made me feel even more confident about understanding the locals.

When we got back to the hotel, we ate and turned on the local news.

Would you like some mashed potatoes with your gravy?

This ended up being more entertaining than informing, which I’m not sure that it should have been.  When they went to air one of the stories, the video kept starting and stopping.  So they went to another story: the sound wasn’t working.  Before they went to a commercial break to fix the apparent errors, the newscaster said “It looks like we’re having some MAJOR technical difficulties.”  The Australian accent made this really funny for some reason.  When the news came back on, a story aired about someone involved in politics.  A different politician was interviewed and said that the other politician liked to give “political judo chops.”  I honestly laughed for a solid five minutes about this comment—who says that!?

After I was finally done laughing, we watched the remainder of the newscast, tried to watch Australia’s Next Top Chef (it was HORRIBLE), and went to bed.

Oh yea.

Swimming with Southern Bluefin Tuna

Our boat wasn’t scheduled to leave until 1:00 and Google said it should only take an hour to walk to the shop, but we decided to leave the hotel at 10:15 so we could grab lunch beforehand at the harbor. Right before we left, Maria spotted something in the water.

Southern Right Whales. Oh yea.

Oh hey endangered cetacean.

And some Dolphins (likely bottlenose).

             Dolphins right here    ^^

Hard to see, but two dorsal fins below and to the right of the large Southern Right Whale head.

We rushed downstairs and walked by the water, snapping pictures as we followed the trail.

Eventually, both the whales and the trail disappeared, so we wandered off through the town, hoping to find the trail again. We made some doggie friends (they even growled at us!), but we lost them soon after as they preferred sniffing trees to finding trails.

Maria: If that dog bites me I'm going to kick it in the face.

We eventually found the coastal path, but then found out it was under construction, so we had to walk around some more before our hiking could begin.

View from the path.

The path.

The name of the trail. That blue triangle marked the trail, and came in very handy later on.

When the trail ended by the road, I began to get nervous. We had no map, no phone, and no idea where we should be heading. We picked a street and continued moving. We were occasionally rewarded with some blue triangles spray painted on the ground, meaning we were still heading in the right direction.

It took us about 2 hours, but we finally made it to the harbor. We got some food at a Petrol (gas) station, where their chicken sandwiches were graciously filled with both white and dark meat chicken. They forgot our fries, so when they finally brought them out we wolfed them down, burning our mouths with their greasy, spiced goodness.

We don't really understand the meaning behind the name of the middle ice cream bar.

We made it to the dock and boarded the boat, where we were then given a lecture about the history behind the blue fin tuna farms by a man named Shaun. Essentially, fisherman went out and caught juvenile tuna and placed them in sea pens, where they were fed pilchards to increase their fat content and overall mass. By farming them, they hoped to catch less tuna in the long run, as the tuna they caught would be much larger after living in the pens for awhile. When I asked a question about the ability to breed the tuna, I gave away our cover and everyone knew we were Americans. Oops. (They haven't been too successful breeding the tuna, btw).

The pen had a dock on it where you could feed the tuna, and an underwater viewing area. I enjoyed feeding the tuna.

We got a little chilly, and headed downstairs to the underwater viewing area. Shaun joined us.

Maria: How warm is the water?

Shaun: About 15 degrees [Celsius]

Kelley: Oh dear God.

Maria: Harris wouldn’t even wear a wetsuit.

Shaun: Well it really doesn’t pay to think about it…

Harris when diving in 15 degree celsius water.

Note the smile. And shirtless-ness. 

Photo credit to Joshua L.

Sexiness credit to Harris M.

While I sat and contemplated whether I was actually going to go in, I watched the small population of jellyfish move about in the water.

Kelley: Are those jellyfish venomous?

Shaun: No, but they will sting you.

Kelley: …What?

Shaun: We don’t have any venomous jellyfish in Australia… I mean Southern Australia.

The jellyfish.

To change topics, Maria brought up the tuna again:

Maria: What happens with the tuna in these pens?

Shaun: We can’t release them into the wild because they are too domesticated   (lol Ross & Steve)

We finally mustered up the courage to go into the water. An 8 year old child and his sister were hopping in and out of the water, and seemed to not be that affected by the temperature.

Maria: Is the water cold?

8 year old child: No, but I can’t feel my feet and my hands are numb.

Kelley: Oh dear God.

We pulled on the wet suits, and after a deep breath, descended the stairs into the icy water. We clung to the platform, clicking away with our cameras as the people above us tossed pilchard to the ravenous fish. At one point, a pilchard landed on the young boy’s head, and his mom tried to call him over: “C'mere, before a tuna takes your ear off!”

As I clung to the metal, my legs flailing below me, I made contact with something.

Kelley: I think I just kicked a tuna… I think I just kicked another one… I’m like a ninja.

Coming to get kicked.

Tuna!

The water was full of particles, hence the low quality pictures.

A tuna eye!

A tuna butt!

They are fast and difficult to photograph.

This video of us feeing the tuna has been added for your enjoyment. Please watch it (it’s only 17 seconds), preferably with the volume on, before continuing with this post… 

Note: this video may not work with Internet Explorer. It should work with Safari and Firefox, though...

Have you watched it?












You really should watch it.










Tuna are going to be extinct soon so you should watch it.

In case you didn’t understand what just happened, watch again.  That’s right, my camera got attacked…by a tuna.  Here’s what happened:  After we got out of the water, I realized that I didn’t get any video of the tuna, only pictures.  I devised a scheme to sit at the dock and dip my camera into the water to get some underwater footage.  Everything was going swell until the light hit my camera at just the right angle and a tuna mistook it for a pilchard.  Don’t worry though, the damage to my camera housing was superficial, and now I have a cool story to tell people :) .

The bottom of the camera housing

The top of the camera housing

Due to the fact that it took us approximately 17 days, 14 hours, and 57 minutes to walk to the marina, we decided that it would be best to take a cab back.   A lady rolled up in her taxi and took us to the hotel.  I paid her and when she gave me change she pulled it out of her bra.  I kid you not.  I hesitated for a few tenths of a second but I decided that I must retrieve the change as quickly as possible and then run away...and FAST!

Whilst Kelley was in the shower, I made tea in a little tea maker device.  The only problem was, it wailed loudly and, since I don’t drink tea, I wasn’t sure if this was normal or not.  I think it was though, because the water did end up getting hot in the end.  After a warm tea, we went out to dinner at an Italian restaurant.  We had gained confidence in our ability to navigate a foreign country, but, as we soon realized, we hadn’t learned how to properly understand the accent yet. Kelley paid for her meal with a credit card and it sounded like the waiter said “Pen or sign?”  Confusion ensued.  So she asked him to repeat.  Still confused.  Finally it became clear that he said pin (like a pin number) or sign.  Glad we got that taken care of.

Us after going in the 15 degree water.

View from our hotel room.