wait a minute...didn't i come to australia to get up to shenanigans, not to study??  how is school starting already?!  haha today was the first day of classes, and i finally got my schedule figured out.  for some reason you don't sign up for labs until the first week of lectures, and of course the website crashed when we were trying to sign up for a lab, so i got stuck in a lab from 6-9pm on thirsty thursdays :( but NO CLASS FRIDAYS cheeehu!!  mom and dad don't worry, i promise i'm signed up for real classes, and i have a full load of credits

more aussie adventures today!!  we went to the billabong sanctuary (no it doesnt have anything to do with surf brands) to check out the wildlife they have there.  they had kangaroos hoppin around all over the park, as well as the three most poisonous land snakes in the world (apparently the top 15 are all found in australia...kinda rethinking this study abroad idea), cassowaries, emus, salt water crocs, freshwater crocs, and DINGOS!!  i've officially decided im gonna get one as a pet, those dingos are effin adorbs.  i'll save you guys reading a whole ton of my rambling and just skip ahead to the pictures, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and i took the load of pics.  cheers mate!!

feeding the salties!!  big guy,  but he didnt wanna come out and play.  apparently this guy is over 4m long!!  thats a lot of big angry croc to be messing around with haha

kangaroo!!  so tame they just let people pet them

wombat!!  this thing was effin adorbs

koala...smelly haha

baby salty! it had its mouth taped shut tho, shmallkine buzzkill action

liveaction cheeeehu

python!

kanga pt2

DINGOOOOOOO

MOAR DINGOOOOO

female salty

MOAR DINGOSSSSS

salties everywhere!!!

this guy was big, over 10ft easy

emu!

freshwater crocs!  apparently harmless compared to the salties.  these guys will run away from you.  salties will eat you.

so.effin.adorbs.  wookie's new best friend???

mama roo+baby joey

roo!!  effin adorbs

echidna!  but they didnt wanna come out to play

cassowary!  these things are apparently super dangerous in the wild, they're known to kill fools

inland taipan, #1 most venomous land snake in the world.  found in oz.

eastern brown snake.  #2 most venomous land snake.  also found in oz, also found in TOWNSVILLE

coastal taipan.  #3 most venomous snake.  also native to oz.

male kanga...shmallkine cupcheck action when it hops?

bebeh crocs! not quite as cute as the full grown versions...

 we (me and a bunch of friends from my hall) went on a maggie adventure today!!  maggie is what the locals call magnetic island, its a small island thats about a 20min ferry ride away from townsville.  we woke up early(ish) and hopped on the bus...which was apparently the wrong bus to take, since it took 45 mins instead of just 20 mins to get into town.  but once we got to maggie, we met up with the boat that was supposed to take us around the island ALL DAY for 65 bucks, but ended up only being 50 bucks cuz the uncle was super boiz cheeehu!!!  anyways, we got to cruise maggie island zones all day, snorkel, adventure, cruise on the beach, check out the scenery and cruise boat zones with him.  it was pretty sick, i tried to take as many pics as possible.  the water was super cold, i only had my 1.5mm wetsuit top with me but i wish i brought my full budy 3/2 wettie the water was that cold.  not quite as cold as cali water, but when you're just snorkeling and cruisin on the surface it got pretty cold.  i tried shooting with my gopro but i dont have the dive housing so the pics didnt turn out too good.  the water was also kinda dirty.  the weather wasn't the greatest either; it was overcast and rainy for part of the time, and super sunny and nice the other parts.  i used mostly my gopro for the pics, i was too scared of dropping my phone in the water haha.  i ended up just hanging the gopro from one of the poles up front on the boat for the majority of the time and putting it on the "take a picture every 10 seconds" mode and letting it do its own thing while i cruised and checked out the scenery.  we got to do a bit of fishing for a bit, but not too much.  we saw some sick fish/eagles and got to feed the batfish pizza and the eagles some of the bait we had.  we also got to check out some of the shark traps (we weren't really supposed to be doing this but we're cool kids and soul rebelz) the babylon government set to protect the tourists and wipe out the entire shark population near maggie.  one of the lines had a 8ft tiger shark on it that was almost dead, i got pretty pissed when i saw that they were killing it just cuz it was by popular swimming zones.  they said it was used for "research" but that sounds like the japanese killing whales for "research" as well.  so babylon.  basically they just set a whole line of bouys down and attached a long chain  to it, and crimped a huge hook on the end and leave the whole line set 365/24/7.  they check it every 2-3 days to kill any sharks they catch and rebait the hooks.  anyways, i'll cut my rant off there before i say something really politically incorrect or something and let you guys check out the pics/vids instead.  i also got some pics from some of the adventures we've been going on around campus.  enjoi

mcgyver'ed duct tape flashlight moped zones

DEAD WALLABY BY MY HALL

live wallaby!!! also near my hall, the campus is loaded with these guys

aussie beer!!  i'm starting to document all the beers i try in oz, here's the first entry

aussie beer journal entry #2

papa jamo, model status on ferry zones

maggie!!

some artsyfartsy panorama zones

some kinda snapper lookin fish, our boat guide called it the "mother-in-law fish" cuz its apparently what you give to your mother-in-law when you catch it hahaha

gopro zones

cruisin boat zones

tigah shark!!! so babylon

soooo its been a while since my last post but i'm finally in townsville, where i'll be for the next 4 months of my study abroad adventure.  the wifi has been super spotty but i think i'll finally have some solid internet (but probably not all time time on my phone for you viber peeps).  for some reason they only have ethernet in the dorms and wifi in public areas on campus like common rooms, library etc. so i'll only be able to answer viber texts when i'm not in my suite/room.  my suites pretty...sweet?  haha. i share it with 6 other people, guys and girls mixed but right now i think theres only 2 other people.  they havent been too social but i think they have summer school finals soon so i dont blame them for studying up right now.  the aussie peeps arent supposed to show up for another week or so, so i'll be cruisin with the other international peeps until then.  the campus is kinda cool, some parts are kinda ghetto but its still pretty nice.  its cool cuz theres all sorts of animals running around, theres wallabies all over campus, as well as kookaburras.  apparently theres a ton of toads here, which i am less than stoked about, but i havent run into any yet (no bachi please...).  our last day of arcadia orientation in melbourne was pretty chill, we got the day free so we went to the aquarium.  they had some cool stuff in the tanks, but the layout of it was kinda confusing, and i had kinda expected more from it, since melbourne is one of the biggest cities in australia, as well as being right on the water.  either way, they had some super sick tanks, including one with a tunnel through it, holding a 7-8ft shark (i think it was a sand tiger, but i'm not 100%) as well as a bunch of other sharks in the 6 ft range, two giant stingrays, a napolean wrasse, some huge groupers and a ton of paopao and omilu and snappers.  we're now in the middle of james cook university orientation, but its not too strict/organized so we can kinda do whatever we want.  we're mostly tryin to settle into the dorms and get used to cooking for ourselves all the time.  we've been having a bunch of potluck dinners, so we're figuring out the kitchens slowly.  anyways, here's all the pics from the last couple days or so, i'll keep taking pics of our townsville shenanigans

KANGA STEAKS AT THE MARKET!!!

some melbourne street art

melboure aquarium

giant underwater tunnel zones

penguinssss

meankine kagami papios, hands down the nicest looking fish in the aquarium

glass catfish! if you look close you can see that they're totally transparent except their bones and guts

barramundi!!  native australian freshwater fish, apparently real good eating

sawtooth shark!!  the pointy black nose is actually like a saw, it had a ton of teeth sticking out sideways from it

huge spider crab

napolean wrasse!!  this thing was close to 70 or 80 lbs, 3-4 ft long

some kinda snapper zones, looked kinda like a mu or a tai.  either way, looks good eating

same unknown snapper

big shark in the tank, with the paopao cruisin underneath pickin up the scraps from the feeding

paopao! that look like a weird yellowspot papio

this is apparently how thick the acylic was on the shark tank.  shaka length!!

night out in melbourne, me and my statue buddy

view from the second highest building in melbourne!  there was a super classy bar here, the people next to me gave me some meankine stink eye when i took this pic cuz the flash reflected off the window into their eyes i think hahaha

possom zones!! cruisin in the tree by the park.  apparently taking pics of these guys is illegal cuz the flash blinds them...oops

kookaburra cruisin on campus zones!!  right above the pizzas at orientation

wild...turkey? zones, cruisin all over campus

wild kangas!!  from the first day of arcadia orientation

hard to tell, but there was a nuggy little right just down the street from our hotel in sorrento