Olympic Flare Out

I thought I would take advantage of another beautiful day in Chicago(my last) and see something I have never seen before. Watching the news when I woke up, I saw that there was a rally going on in Daley Square, as thousands of people were watching the unveiling of the host city for the 2016 Olympic Games. I have heard over the past few months that Chicago had a pretty good chance at landing the Olympics in the U.S. again, and now with President Obama AND Oprah as liaisons for the Windy City, I figured it was in the bag. Oh, how wrong I was.

At 10:24 Chicago was officially eliminated from the possibility of having the Olympics in 2016. The disappointment and stunned attitude was something I have only witnessed when Aaron Boone launched a home run into the left field seats during the 13th inning of the 2003 ALCS. Shock was feeling being most emoted by the Chicagoans, and I had to sit back and take it in for a minute.

I watched the larger-than-life television screens give reasons for why Chicagoan should keep their heads up, and that the over four-year-long effort to bring the Games to Chicago didn't go wasted. I watched people actually cry over the announcement. WHAT??!?!?! That's right, CRY!

For a minute I thought that because of this decision and the reaction of the crowd, Chicago would no longer be heralded as one of the great cities in America. That Da Bears, Da Bulls, Da Cubs and Da Sox were leaving town. That the thin crust pizza was officially better than the deep dish. Common people. You lost, wait, not even lost. You just weren't chosen.

In my befuddlement of what I was seeing, I wondered whether the same reaction would be emoted if pictures of suffering children, women, and men of Chicago were flashed across the big screens. If people realized that over 17,000 people are homeless in the state of Illinois. My guess in probably not.

So let's be real. I am as much of a sports fan as there is, but there are so many larger issues in our country than "losing" the Olympics to a CONTINENT that has never hosted an Olympiad. Let's give some love to Rio de Janeiro and South America, and stop wallowing in our own ridiculous misery. There are better things to worry about.

New Zealand...

It has been a while since my last post!  Finals and saying goodbyes to friends from Bond took up a lot of time and energy.  Leaving Bond was bittersweet.  I was happy to start moving on to different places and experiences, but leaving a place I called home for four months was a bit strange.  Carrying all of my possessions in two suitcases and a backpack is a strange feeling, especially because my suitcases are in Sydney just hanging out in a locker.  Enough with the boring stuff!

I am now in New Zealand, Manukau to be exact, staying with one of my mates from Bond.  I am here with Jorge, Pat, and Jeff (the kid made it down!).  We headed down to a town called Rotorua which is about 2 1/2 hours south of Auckland City, and a haven for extreme adventures and activities.  The town is located near geysers and thermal hot springs which makes for incredible views, but the smell of sulfur throughout the air is hard to take in.

Our first order of business in Rotorua was to "Zorb".  Zorbing is rolling down a hill inside a plastic orb.  Yes, that's correct.  These orbs are about eight feet in diameter and have to layers. One layer is for the rider to sit/get tossed around in, and an outer layer.  The layers are separated by about two feet of air, and hundreds of strings to keep the inner layer from moving around.  Once at the top of a 50 meter hill, the orb is filled with warm water, occupied by a participant, and then pushed down a zig-zagging course, tossing the rider around in the orb.  It was quite a bit of fun, but I am glad we did this activity first.

We had the need for more adventure after being thrown down a hill in a plastic air bubble, so we found our way to an adventure park on the side of a mountain.  We took a gondola ride up the mountain and then luged down the mountain.  This was not like an olympic luge on ice and on your back.  This luge was like an alpine slide or go-kart without a motor.  We took two rides down the 2 km long track hitting some pretty good speeds.  Jeff actually took a turn too fast and flipped his cart, but he is okay from the fall.  After our races, our hearts were pumping, but there was still more to come that day.  Just a few meters away from the luge, there was something called the Sky Swing.  The sky swing is basically a swing, but it is located on a cliff of the mountain.  After being strapped in in about 100 different ways, we were lifted about 25 meters off the ground, ready to swing.  The cool thing about this ride, was that one of the people in the swing actually had to pull the string to release us at 150 km/h in two seconds. Jeff pulled the string, and sent us off screaming like little kids.  The view from the top was amazing!

The next day things became a bit more extreme.  We headed about 15 minutes down the road to the Kaituna River for a bit of whitewater rafting.  I was a bit apprehensive to raft again because I had done it already the summer before, but once I found out we would be rafting down the highest commercially rafted waterfall in the world, I was in.  We rafted down the class 5 river for about 50 minutes culminating with the waterfall.  We took "hold on" positions and we needed every ounce of strength to stay in the boat.  After landing from the fall, our boat was basically underwater, and then somehow the boat was basically sideways.  I'm not sure how we righted ourselves, but after what seemed like an eternity, our boat was right side up with everybody still on board.  After a few more rapids we were off the river and heading back to the hotel.

After a few hours of rest, we headed to the Waiatapu Geysers for a quick peek at some natural wonders.  The smell of sulfur was intense, but could not distract us enough from the natural beauty of the area.  Pictures are coming.

Yesterday was the culmination of craziness with the sky jump!  We headed in to Auckland to the Sky Tower which happens to be the highest building in the southern hemisphere.  We headed up to the top floor 192 meters from the ground, and jumped off of it!  Well kind of.  We were strapped to a cable and took the plunge for about 11 seconds in an assisted free fall.  We topped out at about 80 km/h and caught a great view.  After jumping off the ledge, we were stopped after about 10 meters and were able to take in the view, suspended 180 meters about the city.  It was sunset and the view was amazing!  After landing, we were all amazed at what we had just accomplished.

That is it for now.  Sorry this isn't very detailed or anything, but time is short here and we want to take advantage of every minute here.  Next post will probably be from Melbourne!  See ya soon!

Rain? Are you serious? Really?

So I eventually got to see Slumdog Millionaire and I found it amazing!  The acting was fantastic, and the story was inspiring.  I went with Jorge and Pat and had a fun time dissecting the film afterward.  To give you a visual on Jorge for those of you who don't have facebook, he looks like Jamal from the movie to some extent.  He claims he doesn't, but deep down he knows he does. Honestly though, I enjoyed 99% of the picture.  Everything was great until the ending credits when for some awful reason, the director/editors stuck that stupid, pointless, senseless music video/dance sequence in.  What was that about?  Sorry if that is a spoiler alert, but if you go to see it, leave or close your eyes before the credits roll.  And my rant is done.

Saturday night was a big night for the gang.  We had about 30-35 of our friends together for Christian's birthday party.  It was a great feeling having all of my friends in one place finally. The night started with some pizza and drinks for the boys, and then quickly turned into a full-out party.  It was a big middle finger to school and work for a night, and we all decided to party like it was 1999.  Being with everybody let me forget about the thousands of words I had to write for a brief moment, and allowed me to remember part of being here is to have fun as well.

Sunday was an amazing day of recovery and homework.  Maybe amazing is the wrong word, but you know what I mean.  Monday was a lost day and I don't even remember what I did that day so there.  Tuesday and yesterday were awful days for me.  I was buried with work, and made a nice ass dent in the chairs of the editing studio.  Both nights I was bunkered in the studio (it has no windows or clocks) until about 2-3 am.  I actually took a nap yesterday from 5-9 in preparation for a long night.

Today it rained literally ALL DAY!!!!  I tried to remember a time since I have been here that I didn't see the sun for some portion of the day and I couldn't.  I guess this is some higher power telling me to stay inside and get my work done.  With final exams coming next week, it is probably best I don't have the lure of surfing, skim boarding, or going to the pool tugging on my procrastination orientated mind, but seriously rain all day?

Well this is probably going to be my last post until the end of finals on Thursday.  Time to dig in and finish this semester up right.  Hope you are all doing well, and that spring might finally be reaching your neck of the woods.

Goodnight from the waterlogged, drenched, soaking wet Paradise.  But hey, it's still Paradise :)

Papers...Papers...Papers...

Crunch time is finally hitting me academically in paradise!  With only two weeks left of school, including final exams, I have been overwhelmed by the workload this past week.  In total, I have written and turned in about 12,000 words of papers this week alone.  My diet has definitely suffered going from three solid meals a day, to breakfast, maybe lunch, heaps of starbursts, energy drinks, vitamin waters, and cereal.  My teeth hate me right now, but it's the only way to stay focused and alive during crunch time.  

Wednesday was the final event for res wars and we had it in the bag... or so we thought.  All we needed to do was finish in the top two to guarantee ourselves of the overall title, but in our final game, after leading 1-0 at half, the defense fell apart and we lost 3-1.  We eventually finished third on the night, and tied for fist overall.  I guess it is nice to finish in first, but an undisputed first would have been nice.  Oh well.

Thursday was another work day, but I got out a bit at night for my friend James' bowling project for his business class.  We played two games and I took first place in each game so I was happy with the results from the night.

Today I had class, but after that, I went to play lawn bowls with my Aussie Sports class.  Lawn bowls is similar to bocce, but the balls are weighted to one side, so the ball will curve when rolled.  We headed to Mermaid Beach Bowls Club, took our shoes off, and had a few beers.  The grass the lanes are comprised of was like walking on a neatly trimmed carpet, similar to a golf green, but even tighter cut and more densely seeded.  Lawn bowls is actually a sport mainly played by people over the age of 50, but it is a lot tougher than it seems.  I had a difficult time judging the speed of the green, and basically scored 1 point the entire time there.  There were about 15 of us playing and we all had fun, so the day was a success.

Tonight (friday night) a few of us were supposed to go see Slumdog Millionaire, but heavy rains deterred us from walking to the bus stop.  We will probably see it Sunday, however.

Tomorrow I was asked to play in a 3-0n-3 basketball tournament and we begin playing at 9 am. It is probably a good thing we didn't head to the movie because I'm going to need a good night sleep to get my body ready for such an early contest.  Tomorrow night is also Christian's birthday so I am sure it will be a late night.

That's it for tonight.  I am exhausted from the week, but gearing up for what looks to be a fun weekend.  

Goodnight from Paradise!

video

Life has been crazy, but here is the video of me bungee jumping.  I'll post what has happened this week later today, but for now, here is the video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVyUMGOLX2o

A week later...

So it has been a week since I have blogged, and a bunch has happened since.  The week began with a bang Tuesday night when Christian and I went BUNGEE JUMPING!  I kind of kept it low key so nobody (my mother) would get nervous, or try and talk me out of it.  We headed into Surfers Paradise and jumped from 43 meters (about 140 feet).  The feeling was incredible!  the moment we reached the top of the crane, I looked out, and had a quick second though blitz through my mind.  Once I collected my thoughts, I waddled (because I was strapped by my feet) to the edge, and got mentally ready to jump off.  The feeling I got before I jumped was unlike anything I have ever felt before.  It was different from skydiving  because I had to jump out myself.  A few seconds later, I got my nerves together and leaped off the ledge.  The fall was about 2.5 seconds, but seemed like forever.  The cord obviously held up and I have lived through another crazy experience, but there will be another on before I leave the southern hemisphere.  

Wednesday brought Res Wars per usual, bowling edition this time.  We headed into Surfers to Strike Bowling, had a few beers, played a string (is that what you call it?) of bowling, and then played pool and ate the kitchen clean.  I was bowling pretty well until a few lack of concentration open frames derailed my chance at getting the overall high score.  I ended with a 139, and my teammate rolled a 168.  We thought we had the best team total, but were overtaken by a few pins at the end.  The loss hurt for a second, but we maintained our overall lead.  This week coming up is the last activity for Res Wars.  The event is indoor soccer, and we should dominate that.

Thursday and Friday were boring school days, but on Friday night, a few friends and I headed in to Brisbane to watch a National Rugby League football match between Brisbane and Melbourne.  The stadium was really nice, and located right in the CBD (central business district).  It was an early season game and wasn't sold out, but the announced attendance was in the neighborhood of 40,000.  The game was really fun to watch, but because I don't completely know the rules, I was a bit lost.  My friend Anne described it best.  She said, " It is like going to class without doing homework for a month, and then trying to figure out what the professor is saying, without making it obvious you have no clue."  Brisbane eventually won the game 16-14.

Yesterday I had my final club soccer game, which we won 5-1.  It was nice to dominate a team for beginning to end, but sad to know our team's potential wasn't reached during the season.  We ended up missing the playoffs by one win.  Later that night, I headed to Surfers again with Jorge, Jim, Pat, and a few of Jorge's friends to watch Jorge bungee, and to have dinner.  We found a hole-in-the-wall Thai restaurant that was fantastic, and enjoyed hanging out off campus.  Today I was supposed to head to the beach to do some serious skim boarding, but the wind was too strong to make it worthwhile.  Now it is about 7 p.m., and I guess it's time to do some homework.

Only three more weeks of school for me, and then it's time to travel!  Yikes!

Goodnight from Paradise!

lazy sunday

Today is just one of those days I don't want to get out of bed.  Things are great and the weather is beautiful(nothing new) but my bed/room are just fine today.  We ended up winning Res Wars the other night.  My ankle held up until the very last minute of the championship game when i twisted it and hobbled off the court.  We won by 1 point, and I would have been extremely disappointed if we lost in the minute I left the game.  Once again I was robbed of the player of the night.  The referees actually chose me as the best performer, but somehow they were overruled, and one of my teammates won the award.  Once again, no big deal, but it would be nice to win it one of these days.

Thursday night brought Mardi Gras to Bond Uni.  Mardi Gras here is not what it is like in New Orleans I don't think.  Here, because it is illegal to have homosexual marriages, it is a gay pride festivity.  Everybody dressed up "gay" (which was actually pretty funny, but degrading at the same time) and had a crazy night.

Friday was Friday the 13th here in Australia and we thought we would be cool and watch scary movies.  The only problem with that was my friend who rented the movie rented the special features disk instead of the actual picture.  It took us a few minutes to figure this out, but once we had, the library was closed and we were out of luck.  Oh well.  We tried right.

Yesterday was a fun packed day.  I had a soccer game (we lost because our goalie is awful), went skim boarding for a few hours, and then went to see Gran Torino.  Clint Eastwood never ceases to amaze me with his acting and direction of motion pictures.  It was a really tough movie to watch, but worth the two hours needed to consume it.

That's it for now.  Not sure what the rest of the day holds, but for now, relaxing and doing some work are the only things on the table.  

Shark!!

So I woke up on Friday morning ready to dive.  Well not really because I was extremely tired, but you know what I mean...  After finding no food left when I got up to the mess hall, I got really excited when I saw we were at the outer reef, and people were getting ready to dive.  Just a side note, the area of the reef we were at has only been visited by about 150 documented people ever! Boats hardly ever come out as far as we were, so it was extra exciting to have my first dive of the trip at such and exclusive, far out destination.  I finally got in the water around 8:30 and it was amazing.  The water was surprisingly warm for being 80 kilometers from land but from the surface, not very clear.  Once we sunk beneath the surface however, vision was about 20 meters through our goggles.  We dove to about 8 meters and saw some amazing sights.  Because it was only an introductory dive, we only stayed underwater for about 20 minutes, but were able to get a feel for the tanks, sights, and breathing underwater.  It was such an amazing feeling.  I have dived before, but this was totally different.

After I found myself back on the boat, the crew asked around to see who wanted to do a second, more in-depth dive.  I obviously jumped at the chance to go again, and felt $60 Australian (parents' money) was a steal to dive deeper and longer, and I was right.  The second dive ended up being 50 minutes underwater at around 12 meters deep.  There was a distinct difference in sea-life at that depth, but once again, not describable in words.  I did however have an encounter with a black tip reef shark.  Now before you get all worried and think I am crazy, which I have never disputed, the shark was only about a meter and a half, and scattered once it got to about 5 meters away from us.  HAHA.  I didn't quite get scared, but it was definitely unsettling to know I had no escape if the little guy was hungry.  It was an amazing site to see the shark appear out of the shadows and into vision so quickly.  it is something I will never forget.

That night everybody on the boat was ready to party because it was our last night on-board, but mother nature had a different idea.  That cyclone I mentioned in the last blog started to make havoc on the surf, and was kicking 2-3 meter swells.  The night was rocky to say the least. I didn't, but people got sick.  I'll leave it at that.

Saturday we tried to snorkel before heading back to shore, but the coming cyclone had kicked up a lot of debris and visibility was tough.  Instead, more Uno and poker was our entertainment, and a lasagna lunch filled us up until land.  Once back, the rain had already started.  One of the people on the trip gave us a ride back to town in his motor-home and we found our way to Beaches Backpackers Hostel.  I was surprised how nice it was, and was grateful for it's central location in the town, but more importantly, the sturdy foundation it rested on.  I was able to take my first real shower in four days, but that was a challenge because every time I closed my eyes or bent down to pick a bottle of soap up, I almost fell because my body was used to the rocking of the ocean.  I managed to keep my balance but was ready for a nap.  That night, we had arranged to meet up at the bar just outside our room with some of the people on the trip.  Once we arrived, we saw our boat had it's own reserved table, and for every 4th person who showed up, a free jug of beer.  We ate dinner with almost everybody from the ship, and then partied the night away, partly reminiscing our time on the boat (just hours ago), and partly because we were on solid ground.  The cyclone whipped wind gusts probably in the 80-90 kilometer range with sideways rain, but we were comfortably dry watching from our table.

The night was a bit hairy as the hostel staff came around to room taping the windows up, and giving us a brief of what to do if we were to evacuate, but fortunately nothing big happened. We woke up to a rainy morning, but no cyclone.

Now I am back at school for week 8 of the semester.  With the way my final exams are working out, I will be done with school in week 12!  Yikes!  Things are moving too fast!  I have some things planned for the nest few weeks, but I'll let you know what they are after they come up :)

That's it for now.  Res Wars tonight is basketball and my team needs to win because we have been on a 3 week slide.  I'll try and represent America on the hardwood, but my ankle might not allow it.  

Good afternoon from Paradise!

Back from the Reef...

Finally back from the Great Barrier Reef!  The trip was exhausting, but extremely rewarding.  I left Wednesday morning on a bus/train to Brisbane.  Once there, I jumped on to a plane heading to Prosperpine which is about 35 minutes from Airlie beach (the launching point for the boat).  Once in Airlie, we found our travel agent and confirmed our trip details, and headed to the ship.  The 65 foot catamaran that awaited us was called the Pacific Star.  The ship was built in 1983, but didn't show much wear and tear.  In total, there were 20 passengers and four crew members coming from Oregon, Massachusetts, New Jersey, South Carolina, Rhode Island, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Australia, Austria, South Korea, and England.  There was a mix of ages, but everybody was extremely open and kind.

Our first night, we headed toward the Whitsunday islands.  We were greeted with cheese, crackers, and veggies and a smooth ride into the seemingly endless ocean.  I laid on the deck of the ship for hours just staring at the stars and feeling so small in the scheme of life.  After finally becoming cold for the first time here in Oz, I made my way below deck to sleep.  The almost body sized bed was more comfortable than the hard deck, but for anybody larger than me, it would have been a nightmare.

On Thursday morning, I woke up at 7 am and had some fruit for breakfast, but was welcomed to the day by a just risen sun, crystal clear water, and a sandy cove resting peacefully in the distance.  We were told by our crew that we would have a few hours on the island at Betty's Beach(see second pic).  We gathered our towels and were then tendered to the island on the 12 person dingy attached to the back of the boat.  As we were being brought over, the sight of coral over the edge reminded me I was in a place I have never been before.  Betty's beach is unique in the world because it's sand is made up of 98% silica which is extremely high.  With this amount of silica, the sand was not only almost white, but was extremely cool and fine grained.  Every step I took brought a squeaky-type of noise similar to walking with wet flip-flops on.  Once off the beach and into the water, I was engulfed in saltwater as warm as a bath that had sit for 15 minutes, but somehow refreshing.  After our few hours were finished on the island we headed out for our first real reef experience. 

After about 3 hours of sailing, we reached Bait Reef.  The certified divers went off first so we had some time to snorkel around the boat.  About 30 meters away was one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen, only to be surpassed by what I saw the next day.  The colors and countless amount of sea life was fascinating.  I saw colors I didn't know existed and can't quantify into words.  I was snorkeling for what seemed to be minutes, but ended up being around an hour.  Once back in the boat, we had lunch, and then I grabbed some sun on the deck, waiting for my turn to dive.  My turn finally came, but it was too dark to see anything worth while, so my group got pushed back a day, which at the time stunk, but ended up being a blessing in disguise. 

Cyclone

Just thought I should tell you that a cyclone was projected to hit the beach/coast I am currently on, but has now past my current location. It was supposed to hit this morning at 4 am as a category 5 (largest a cyclone can get) and destroy almost everything. I am okay for now, but am waiting on a flight back to school. I will post later about the trip, but just wanted you to know I am fine.