Beach Baby, Round 2

Eh, I didn't sleep too well last night. I heard it can take up to two weeks to fully adjust to a time change, especially one as drastic as the one I've made. We had a short meeting regarding the North West trip I plan to take in either early March or April. The North West trip is a 2,500 mile, 10 day tour of Western Australia, which is supposed to give us study abroad students a great glimpse of what WA has to offer. It's supposed to be the highlight of our stays here! I'm excited.

So yeah, with nothing else today, we decided to go to the beach again. I mean, why not, right? It was very sunny, hot, and gorgeous out. Instead of going back to Cottesloe, we went to South Beach, just south of Freo (we could see Freo very easily from the beach). We took the bus into Fremantle, and grabbed a free (orange!) bus that ended up taking us the beach (next time we'll have to be sure to get off the first bus early to cut off some of the looping routes on the orange bus that take us to the beach).

Um, so, we liked this beach even more. It was much smaller and not quite the tourist attraction Cottesloe is. Granted, it is midweek, but South Beach has a more of secluded feel. It's much smaller and the waves were not as good, but the water was really warm today. Jesse and I were guessing it was about 75-80°F. Both Jesse and I (and I'm sure all the others) would like to come here much more often. I'd particularly like to come when the moon is full!

The water looked more blue/clear than it did at Cottesloe. Oh my goodness it was so enjoyable. It was almost like bath water!

We took turns throwing each other around in the water which was a lot of fun to watch. I was a little bugger and tried sharking people (pulling them under) which actually isn't quite funny in Australia. Amy, one of us Clarkies, says she saw a dead jellyfish today, but other than a few very tiny fish and crabs on the rocks, we haven't seen any awesome marine life. I wouldn't actually mind keeping it that way. Sharks would make for a bad end to anyone's day.

Some of the kids left the beautiful beach wicked early. I wanted to stay much later, but we only stayed another twenty minutes or so more. We were clever little wankers though, and learning from our longer second bus ride (which looped all around Freo before getting us to the beach), we took the first bus on a short distance, got off it, walked two blocks or so, and got the same bus the kids who left early were on. Boy were they surprised.

Jesse, Sarin and I went into KMart to get Jesse some sunglasses for our CIEE trip tomorrow, and then over to Coles to get a few things. I was really excited to see the yummy cheese crackers I had my first day in Australia for $2 a box rather than $3. Yeah! It was hella tight. I bought 3 boxes. Word. I need to watch my food spending though. I have a nasty feeling about my finances. I need to get a job for sure! I'll start getting that stuff together once I get back from Rottnest Island.

Rottnest Island is just off the coast of Freo (I believe), and our American group is spending all of Wednesday and most of Thursday there (therefore I won't be updating tomorrow, but will have an awesomely long post on Thursday night). We're going to be biking, swimming, snorkeling, and having a grand time.

After we get back, we have some more orientation stuff on Friday (groan), the weekend off (with a welcome BBQ on Sunday night), and then classes start Monday! I'm actually kinda scared for the campus to be packed and have to be a responsible student. It's going to be overwhelming to say the least!

I haven't done any DYLANs (Distinguished Youthful Listings of Australian Nuances) recently, so here are a few:

DYLAN #5 - Australian mail boxes are absolutely ridiculous. Not only are they RED and sticking up off the ground, but they say Australia Post. As opposed to... Europe Post? Really? Yeah yeah, I know we have USPS, but still I think it's silly.

DYLAN #6 - Everything, is damn expensive. It really sucks visiting a country where the minimum wage is something ridiculously high like 18 AUD an hour. Waitresses make that much easily, and I've heard working in a warehouse you can make 30 AUD an hour. As such, everything is much more expensive. The American Dollar is not nearly strong enough to account for this. Food isn't too too bad, but a 30 case of cheap beer is... 45 AUD. Cheap box wine if you're lucky is 10 AUD for 2 litres.

I posted another video log, this one on our day at South Beach! Be jealous! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvhoOnSlCX8

Today: 7.5