Bloggin' It Up

A large aspect of a semester abroad, at least I am told, is personal development, learning life lessons, etc. I have thus far learned one life lesson and it is this: If a pack of rowdy ten year olds do it, you have to too.

Such was my realization last Saturday as I stood at the edge of a cliff about forty or forty-five feet above water. Having already easily conquered the twenty-five foot plunge, it seemed natural to move up a bit. However, staring over said edge created feelings of uneasiness and terror that I was not quite familiar with and my mates, Josh and F. Yves, and I seemed poised to perhaps not attempt the conquer.

Enter the wee-folk. As we were exchanging uneasy glances, strong sounds of whooping and yipping and yapping came upon us and as we turned around we saw a massive herd of pre-teens jumping the fence to the cliff and without hesitation they ran to the edge and threw themselves off in a series of backflips and body contortions just like that. Again I shared glances with my fellow weary travelers but in this instance they were glances of an unwillingness to be so mightily shown up by humans half our age and size and so we jumped and it was spectacular.

On the way back I drank a liter and a half of iced coffee and that created sleeping problems that night, unfortunate as I was due awake at 7:30 AM to experience a day at Rottnest Island.

Rotto, as it's known, was a very neat place indeed with lots of things such as sand, trees, water, and oxygen. In truth, I don't much know how to describe the island...it is a small island about half an hour off the coast of Freo. Its circumfrence is about fifteen miles and in our day we covered it all by bike. This was mighty exhausting. There were a few stops, all for snorkling purposes. Snorkling was neat and I saw a few really neat looking fish, some of whom likely could have passed for characters in Finding Nemo despite the fact that the great film takes place on a coast opposite the one I have claimed as my own. There was also a part on the journey wherein we stopped to buy water. Also, we found one beach that was extremely secluded and off the bike path and we went down there to hang out and as it turned out there was a four foot snake that also wanted to hang out with us. Leon Kneebone, an Australian friend who we like to keep around, full of wisdom and knowledge, told us the snake may be very poisonous or it might be the not-poison kind. This was also the beach wherein my cell phone went for a swim and I am now enjoying a life liberated from what has become a limb.

I don't know...when it comes to Rotto my memories are more strongly connected to what I saw as opposed to what I did, and some of the sights were just incredible. Standing at the edge of a reef-cliff overlooking turquoise water that runs to the horizon until making a seamless transition into the blue sky and watching it all in front of me is what I'll remember most about that neat little place. Also, dolphin sightings were neat. Oh, and I also strongly recall having an incredible pizza craving all day that was satisfied upon returning before I passed out for twelve hours. I think I'll say neat again here. Neat.

My first spring break is approaching. I thought it'd be a bit boring given the fact that most of my American friends are heading off to the Great Barrier Reef or New Zealand and I really just can't afford any crazy treks like that, but turns out it'll be pretty great. I have my Ultimate tournament on the Sunday, have found an Irish pub to spend St. Patty's Day at, and will be spending the mid-week traveling south with the Kneebone and friend Marissa (should probably do a blog entry just to introduce the cast at some point) to Leon's hometown of Bunburry, which will involve seeing some neat beaches and lots of dolphins and also a train that has a store on it that sells coffee and pies. It should be a fun week.

I bought myself real food this week! No more isntant noodles etc. Steak and such is much preferable.

Yesterday there was a Crabfest half an hour south in Mandurah and I attended. Not too much going on really but it was cool to see a new place and there was some value to eating a crab at the Crabfest and Dylan bought two very small swords so that was intriguing. What else at the Crabfest...good ice cream I suppose. Hm, I guess there really wasn't much there. A band played the Power Rangers song.

Then I went out to Perth city at night to Northbridge which is the nightlife capital of the area but also considered extremely sketchy (I guess they go hand-in-hand). Great night, awesome time, will go back. I went to the bed while the sun was waking up, which was neat.

Evidently we have a new dog at home.

Now a riddle: What has 8 legs and spins a web?

Stay tuned for the answer!