Hey everybody!

This is it.  Barring something crazy happening, this will be my last blog post from Australia.  I realized before I started writing this that I forgot to blog about what we did over study week, so I'll start with that.  First of all, I actually got Brenna to go out golfing again (in fact, it was kind of her idea).  She had already improved from the first time we went, and it sounds like she may even like it enough to want to go once we get back to the states!  Talk about unexpected.  Also over study week, a group of us spent a day in Perth, during which we made a couple of stops.  The first was at the Western Australia Museum, and it was really cool.  They had all kinds of stuff about the history of W.A., including an exhibit about Aboriginal Australians.  It was cool to go through the museum and actually know a lot of the information that was being presented because of how much we've learned about Australia during our time here.  After the museum, we made a trip to the Perth Mint, where they produce coins for a large portion of Australia.  This was an awesome experience.  We were given a short talk about the history of gold in Australia, and we had the chance to see and hold replicas of the biggest gold nuggets ever found!  The mint also had the world's largest coin, which weighed over 1,000 pounds!  We had the opportunity to watch a gold bar be poured, which was REALLY cool, and we each found out how much we would be worth if we were made of gold (based on our weight).  Turns out I would be worth almost three million dollars!  One last thing we had the chance to do at the mint was hold a gold bar that is worth an estimated 200,000 dollars.  Study week ended up being kind of rainy, so we didn't get to do everything that people had wanted to do, but later in the week we had one day with good weather, so Brenna and I went to the Perth Zoo.  I won't go through all the animals they had there, but as you can imagine, it was the coolest zoo I've ever been to by far.  Brenna has the pictures we took up on her facebook, and I may try to get around to putting them up as well at some point, but I wouldn't hold your breath.  After a fun study week, it was time to get down to business, and boy did I.  I studied more than I ever have for my four finals, because I didn't know what to expect for finals here in Australia.  They're all done now, and I feel like I did really well on all of them, so that makes all the effort worth it.  We are currently trying to waste time until our shuttle to the airport gets here at 6:40, because our residence hall closed at noon, and we didn't want to spend all day until our 11:55 PM flight in the airport.  After we make the four hour journey from Perth to Sydney, we have a seven hour layover at the Sydney airport, and then it's time for the fun to start.  I say this completely sarcastically, as I think our flight from Sydney to LAX is about eighteen hours, and I am definitely going to be anxious the entire time.  On the plus side, we found out that we get to fly on one of those monster airplanes I told everyone about at the start of our trip!  It will look something like this:








I'm really excited for this, but otherwise I'm hoping the flight goes as fast as possible.  It will be an adventure getting from LAX to MSP, because Brenna and I are flying standby, and have no idea which flight we are going to be able to get on.  This will be a new experience for me, but I guess all we can do is cross our fingers and hope we get on one of the first flights.  I'm already going to be missing the start of the Pekarna family vacation, which does not excite me in the least.  Anyway, that's about all from me.  To those of you who have followed this blog throughout my time abroad, thanks for the support!  Blogging has turned out to be kind of fun, and maybe if I do anything noteworthy again in the near future, I'll start up another one so I can keep everybody posted.  Until then, I'm coming home, and so I leave you with a quote:

"The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." ~Maya Angelou

Good bye for now everybody, I'll see you soon!

Hey there loyal followers!

If you still bother to read this, you must be one of those people that really cares about me, because I've been gone for just about four months now!  Also, I haven't written about anything SUPER exciting for quite awhile, so that means you folks must be really interested in my daily activities (or I just do a good job of making them seem interesting).  At any rate, I've got a few new happenings to report since the last time I blogged.  First of all, our netball team finally got our first official win!  We won a game by forfeit earlier in the season because the other team didn't show up, but this one was the real thing!  We won 23-19 over a team of Australians that was A LOT bigger than us, so I figure that means we must have out-hustled them by quite a bit :)  The season is over now (sadly), and we ended up finishing 7th out of 10 teams, which I consider pretty good for a team that had never heard of the sport before this semester.  Unfortunately for us, the inter-residence hall competitions haven't been going quite as well as the netball season.  We've had two competitions between the three international residence halls so far this semester, and our building has been on the losing end of both unfortunately.  The most recent competition was a bake-off in which we finished in third place by like 3 points.  That said, we got to try some pretty incredible desserts, so it wasn't all bad.  Our next competition is tomorrow, and it's a relay race at the campus recreation center.  Wish us luck, we could really use a win!  Moving on from that, I've got some big time news...I got Brenna to go golfing for the first time!!!  Two Fridays ago, the two of us went to the local course in Fremantle and Brenna played the first round of her life.  I never thought I would be able to get her out golfing with me, but it was actually her idea, and she said afterward that she liked it!  Also, she was really good for her first time out, much better than I expected.  She hasn't admitted that this is going to become a regular thing once we get back to the U.S. just yet, but she did say she wants to get out one more time before we leave Australia, so I'm thinking it's just a matter of time.  The day after we went golfing, Brenna and I decided to go into Perth for the day and get a better idea of where it is that we've been living for the past few months.  We checked out Kings Park (only a small part of it because it's absolutely enormous), and stopped at a place called London Court, which is basically a tiny shopping strip in Perth that looks like a medieval marketplace.  It was a really cool experience, even if we weren't there for long.  Here's what London Court looks like for those interested:




After a long day of walking around Perth, which is a huge city, we decided to find a place to grab some dinner.  After an hour of searching for a place that would be both affordable and different, we became to hungry and frustrated in our inability to find a place that we just went to Subway.  It was possibly the best Subway I've ever had.  After dinner, we grabbed a quick ice cream cone before hopping back on the train to Fremantle.  I feel much better for having spent some reasonable time in Perth, since I figure that's what most people are going to ask about when we get back since it's a bigger and more recognizable city than Fremantle.  Since I realize there's a possibility they may be reading this, I better give a shout-out to the Milands for the package they sent Brenna and I.  It was great to have some American candy that we can't get around here (especially twizzlers pull n' peel which is one of my favorites).  Thanks guys!  I also got a letter from my mom recently, which I really enjoyed as well.  It definitely made me even more excited to get home and see her and the rest of the family.  Recently, a group of us walked down to the jetty (which is basically the Australian term for a man made peninsula) and watched the sun set.  Even though we've seen plenty of sunsets during our time here, this was the first one I've seen from out on the jetty, so it was a pretty cool experience.  From the end of the jetty, we could not only see the sunset, but also had a great view of the Western Australian Maritime Museum and the boats that were coming into the harbor for the night.  After watching the sunset, Brenna and I decided to grab some dinner.  The problem was, we both needed to go grocery shopping and were pretty much out of food.  Can you guess where we went??  If you guessed Subway, you win the prize!  What's the prize, you ask?  You get to feel good about yourself, congratulations!  I only bring up this Subway dinner because it had its own special twist that made it unique.  Because it was so packed at Subway and at the dorm kitchen, we decided to eat in one of the classrooms on the main floor of our building.  We made a tablecloth out of napkins, sat on opposite sides of a desk, and made a date of it.  We're cool, we know.  This past weekend, a number of Bennies and Johnnies (Brenna included) got up and participated in the annual "Run for a Reason" in Perth.  The each donated $31 to run a 4k, and got to pick a cause that they were running for.  A few of us got up early as well to go support them, and it was an incredible event to be at.  25,000 people ran in the race, and the atmosphere was fantastic.  If I enjoyed running even slightly, I would have been disappointed that I didn't participate as well.  That said, I wasn't disappointed because I STRONGLY dislike running.  Give me a bike any day.  One last thing that we've done recently is go to our study abroad director's apartment here in Australia for her stepson's 17th birthday.  We got to know her and her family pretty well when we went on our excursion up to Shark Bay, so we were all more than willing to go congratulate Sam (her stepson) on his big day.  Our director's husband ended up grilling up some burgers to go along with the drinks they provided and the cake and chips we brought, and it made for one excellent evening.  As far as the future goes, we have 3 days left in our last week of classes here in Australia, then study week, followed by 2 weeks of finals before we head home.  I may have already mentioned this, but a group of us are planning on sticking around the Fremantle/Perth area over study week and seeing what we can find to do locally.  At this point, the Perth zoo and the Perth mint have been raised as possibilities (and I suppose some studying wouldn't hurt either).  I would expect to hear about the things we do over study week, but otherwise I'm not anticipating blogging too many more times while we're here, unless I get really bored during one of our layovers on the way home.  That's all I have for now, I'm sorry if I rambled but I'm getting a little tired (it's just about bed time over here).  I'll see you all next time!

Joe

That's right, I have a blog!!

Juuuuuuuuust kidding, I didn't forget about you guys, it's just that I've literally done nothing but schoolwork for the past month (or so it seems), and so I haven't had anything too exciting to report.  They really don't warn you about all the work you're going to have to do while you're here, but I guess it's always good to learn things while you're in school. :P  Like I said, there have only been a few noteworthy things that have happened since the last time I posted, so I'll give you all the rundown of those.  A couple weekends ago, a group of us went to the local aquarium for the day.  We'll just say it was unlike any aquarium that I've ever been to.  I won't go into detail about the types of creatures they had there, because anyone who's interested can always go on facebook and see pictures, which will be MUCH more interesting I'm sure.  One thing they did have at this aquarium that was really cool was a moving sidewalk thing that went around in a circle, with only a glass tube separating us from every kind of aquatic critter you could think of.  We literally had sharks swimming within inches of our faces, and giant rays flying right over our heads!  The aquarium also had a really cool gift shop, where I bought an authentic Aboriginal boomerang as a souvenir.  A short walk down the boardwalk, there were shops and restaurants that we visited during lunch time, and a number of us got burritos, in honor of it being cinco de mayo.  The day after the aquarium, a group of guys from Notre Dame, the University of Portland and Saint John's went to the local course here in Fremantle for an afternoon of golf.  There was rain in the forecast, and we weren't sure if we were going to be able to get a round in, but we ended up having some extremely nice weather, and everyone seemed to have a really good time.  This past weekend turned out to be a pretty enjoyable one as well.  For starters, it was the first weekend in a long time (for a lot of us anyway) that we didn't have giant assignments due the next week, so we FINALLY had the opportunity to relax.  On Saturday, six of us went out with our Australian History professor (who happens to be a well-renowned archaeologist) to one of his excavation sites.  Apparently, it was an area that had been occupied by at least 500 British settlers when the west coast of Australia was first colonized in 1829.  For this reason, he expected us to have a lot of success finding artifacts, and we were definitely not disappointed.  We were constantly pulling things out of the site throughout the day, including clothing buttons, game pieces, shoe leather, gun flints, musket balls, and a number of partially intact glass bottles.  It was my expectation coming into the experience that an exciting day at an archaeological site would involve coming across one or two loosely distinguishable artifacts.  For this reason, I was blown away by how much we were finding, and it really made for a fantastic experience for all of us.  For lunch, we walked to a restaurant just down the street and got burgers.  I ordered one with "the works", which ended up including egg, beetroot, tomato, lettuce, bacon, and ketchup.  It was absolutely delicious.  After we were done for the day, Shane (our professor) asked us if we were in any hurry to get back to Fremantle, to which we all responded that we were not.  He then proceeded to take us to a local pub and buy us all drinks as a thank you for helping him out for the day.  This was a really strange concept for me at first, as I haven't come across any professors that I would do this with back home, but before long we were all talking and laughing like we had known each other for years.  Saturday was a really great day.  As great as Saturday was, however, Sunday definitely gave it a run for its money.  On Sunday, a big group of us caught the train to the local Australian rules football stadium and watched the Fremantle Dockers take on the Port Adelaide Power.  It turns out that "footy", as it is known here in Australia, is an extremely entertaining sport to watch.  There were over 30,000 people at the game, and it made me miss going to Twins games back home (even though the Twins suck this year).  We sat in the third row at field level, so we had a great view of what was happening on the field.  At one point, there was even a streaker that got tackled by the security officers.  Apparently, some things are the same in Australia as they are at home.  Ultimately, our boys from Fremantle proved too much for Port Adelaide to handle, and the Dockers won the game 87-47.  All things considered, this past weekend may have been one of the best I've had since I started this trip, which is really saying something.  Now it looks as though I'll have a couple of relaxing weeks before I have a couple papers due, and then I'll need to start studying for finals.  A group of us are planning on sticking around Perth for study week and seeing the things in the area that we haven't seen since we've been here, so I'll be sure to let you all know how that goes.  Other than that, I can't promise too many more blog posts, mostly because I'll be home before you know it!  I believe we have somewhere between five and six weeks left now, and my goal the rest of the way is to make the most of the time we have here, because I honestly don't know if I'll ever be back (which is a little bit sad).  That being said, I'm SO excited to get home and see my family and friends, and I even get to go straight from Australia to the annual Pekarna family vacation in Wisconsin!  The fun just never ends!  Until next time, a quote that I plan to live by for the rest of my time here, and something to think about in all of our lives:

"Much may be done in those little shreds and patches of time which every day produces, and which most men throw away."~ Charles Caleb Colton

Hello Again!

I'm proud to say we made it back safely from our sixteen person, 4,000 kilometer road trip around Western Australia.  As great an experience as our excursion that I wrote about in my last post was, I think the past week up north may have been even better.  We picked up our four rental cars from the Hertz depot in Perth early last Saturday morning, and were met with a relatively inconvenient surprise.  While we had booked and paid for four Toyota Corolla Sedans, we were given four Toyota Corolla Hatchbacks, which, as you can imagine, had considerably less space to store everything that we all wanted to bring along.  That being said, we made it work, and were soon on our way out of town for another Australian adventure.  Our first official stop was set to be in Coral Bay, almost 1,200 km north of Fremantle on the West coast.  On the way up, however, we found a couple other neat things to stop and see.  On Saturday, we stopped at the Pinnacles, which is basically a HUGE area made up entirely of things that look like this:




They're made of limestone and they're awesome.  That's pretty much all you need to know.  After stopping at a free overnight camping area just off the highway for the night, we continued heading north on Sunday.  We managed to get distracted again, however, and worked another unexpected stop into our journey.  This time it was at Kalbarri National Park, the site of a rock formation known as "Nature's Window".  This was a pretty quick stop, but extremely cool nonetheless.  While we were leaving the park, the lead car in our group (mine) narrowly missed hitting a kangaroo as it crossed the road, and the car two cars behind us did actually hit one.  They must have just clipped him, though, because he got up and hopped away and there wasn't any damage to the car itself.  Sunday night was when we finally reached Coral Bay, but unfortunately all of the caravan parks were full.  This left us with an interesting predicament.  We needed a place to set up camp for the night, and Coral Bay was the only town for quite awhile.  We ended up being directed to the hostel in town, and were told that they sometimes allowed people to camp on the grass behind their building in emergency situations.  Sure enough, they let us do it (and for pretty cheap, too!).  Monday morning we were awake and down to the beach as soon as possible, as everyone wanted to make the most of their time in Coral Bay.  We had been told that Coral Bay was the best place for snorkeling over Ningaloo Reef, and we certainly weren't disappointed.  The coral was bigger and more elaborate than anything I had expected to see, and you didn't even have to be out over the reef before you were surrounded by huge silver fish that were more than happy to have you swim with them.  At one point I apparently stepped on a stingray (or so I'm told, I didn't actually see it).  Fortunately, I was wearing my flippers and he wasn't feeling aggressive so he just swam away.  After a long day at the beach, we decided we would head north to Exmouth, another popular spot along the reef.  We stayed at a caravan park there, and had a barbeque for one of our friends on the trip who was celebrating her birthday.  On Tuesday, a few people in our group went off to swim with some whale sharks (the biggest fish in the world).  As cool as it sounded, a lot of us decided we didn't feel like spending the $400 it would take to do it, and decided we could find something cool to do on our own while they were away.  Turns out we were right.  The rest of us went to a place called Cape Range National Park, which is just outside of Exmouth.  We did a couple major things in the time we were there.  The first was a hike at a site named Yardie Creek that ended at the top of a gorge, and produced some really cool pictures for us.  Once we were all hot and tired, we headed over to a place called Turquoise Bay and did some swimming and snorkeling.  It was a pretty awesome day.  We found another free campsite along the highway on Tuesday night, and on Wednesday we headed for Karijini National Park in the Pilbara.  It was a pretty long drive, so we didn't have a ton of time once we got to the park.  We ended up stopping at the first thing there was to see at Karijini, and that was Hamersley Gorge.  We were swimming most of the time we were here, so I wasn't able to get too many pictures, so you'll just have to believe me when I say it was absolutely incredible.  When we were done, we got a campsite in the park and settled in for the night.  Thursday was definitely my favorite day on the trip by a lot.  In the morning we hiked down to Joffrey Gorge, which wasn't a swimming gorge, but had some really great waterfalls and places to climb.  After Joffrey, we stopped at Knox Lookout and Oxer Lookout, both of which had some pretty spectacular views.  In the afternoon we stopped at the Karijini Visitor's Center, and then headed over to Dale's Gorge.  This was easily my favorite part of the day.  We hiked for a really long time down into the gorge until it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere, and then all of a sudden we came across a swimming hole tucked away behind everything, so we hopped in for awhile.  Once we were dry again, we hiked the other direction and the same thing happened.  Just as it seemed like we were completely lost, we ran into a beautiful swimming area with a waterfall, so we all hopped in again to cool off.  By 3:30 we were all so tired that we decided to set up camp for the night, and we sat around and chatted until it was time to call it a night.  Friday was one LONG day of driving back to Fremantle.  We left Karijini by 6:30, and 1,400 km and seventeen hours later, we were finally back at the P&O Hotel.  I realize this post isn't as long as the last, but don't be fooled!  Blog post length doesn't necessarily reflect quality of experience, and I would be hard pressed to say that this past week doesn't rank right up there with the best experiences I've had since being on this side of the world.  As usual, I've got some pictures from the trip up on facebook for all the visual learners in the group.  Cheers!