Another amazing week has come and gone. I am continually amazed by just how quickly the time has been passing. I’m afraid to blink at this point, terrified that I’ll miss the rest of this journey! Because of this I am definitely trying to embrace every moment that passes, no matter how big or small it is. This week was full of wonderful moments.
I spent most of the week getting through classes, going to the gym, going to rehearsals, and such. Classes are going well, I actually really enjoy my psych and creativity classes – unfortunately I cannot say the same for Spanish L Even though classes are fine, the work load is another story entirely. Australians like reading and they like difficult assessments. I need to be studying and researching my butt off, but am having trouble finding that motivation! It has been sunny and 27 (a little over 80) most of the week. Seriously, how am I supposed to sit in the library all day pouring over research articles and vocabulary? It is simply not working for me. I have started a new system, though, I do some work and get a reward…like a beach trip! Let’s hope this system helps me get through the huge psych paper I’m currently researching/writing.
Classes at the gym are quite entertaining down under, I really think that the accent makes everything a little bit better. I joined the gym at Mac and really enjoy going. They have amazing facilities: an Olympic size outdoor pool and a smaller indoor one, an exercise room with hundreds of machines (I have never seen so many treadmills in one place!), squash/badminton courts, netball courts, boot camp facilities, a spin room, group fitness room, and a lifestyle studio. I’ve been experimenting with all the classes since they work well for me, you can’t just quit in a class! So far I’ve taken everything from BodyJam with my friend Carly in which we did ridiculous dance moves with an older woman for an hour to BodyPump in which I worked out with a barbell for an hour and nearly killed my poor arms and just like it does at home spin has been kicking my butt! Just this week I tried the hip-hop class. I had the funniest teacher of all time. She’s also teaches the Pilates class I sometimes take. She is Aussie through and through. She will tell you what she thinks and tell you when you’re wrong. She has no boundaries, and boy, is it fun! My favorite quote from her after the hip-hop class, besides her constantly reminding us to “exude sex,” was her description of a “CRAFT moment.” She forgot part of the dance and said it was like she had a senior moment only she doesn’t really like that term so she created CRAFT – Can’t Remember a F*#@ing Thing Moment. Dad, I think that you can really use this because if you say you had a CRAFT moment everyone will think you just had some brilliant creative epiphany. Fun, I think so!
I am also in rehearsals for two shows right now. I am in a one-act straight play for a show called 1.5 Spot in a show called “Words, Words, Words” which will open March 28. It’s a really quick production with less than 3 weeks of rehearsals. In my play, I’m portraying a monkey in captivity. There are only 2 other people in the cast and they are both monkeys as well. As you can imagine, rehearsals are very high energy and very fun, after all we are just all running around acting like monkeys. Rehearsals for this show have been so wonderful. I haven’t been in a play since senior year in high school. I needed to take a break from theatre, but I feel like this was exactly the right time to get back into it. I didn’t even realize how much I missed acting. Since starting back, I feel like I can approach it with a freshness that I didn’t have before. I got burnt out senior year. Things didn’t go as planned and acting wasn’t fun anymore. I am really glad I took a break, but also incredibly happy to be back doing something that I have loved for so long. Every rehearsal is a learning experience, a laughing experience, a lovely experience! I also had my first rehearsal this week for the other show that I’m in, Cabaret. I will be playing one of the Kit Kat Girls in this show. Two of my friends, Carly and Kim are also in the show, as is my director for 1.5 and another one of the monkeys. I will also be getting to meet even more new people through this production with a cast of nearly 30! I’ll be doing lots of dancing in what the director called a “dark and edgy” version of this musical. It will run for just over a week in mid-May which will be a busy but fun time!
After all this in the week, the weekend hit. Friday night Abby and I went to see “He’s Just Not That Into You” at a nearby movie theatre. In case you haven’t figured out by how old this movie is in the States, in Oz, we tend to get movies 4-6 months later. So our selection is a bit different. Confessions of a Shopaholic just opened here last weekend! It was a fun night filled with a great chick-flick, lollies (gummy candies), and Australian chocolate bars!
The next morning I woke up bright and early to go on a 17k bushwalk. Carly came along and we met our guide, Matt, as well as the other bushwalkers at the shopping center to catch the train to the city and then a bus to our trailhead. Unfortunately, the trains happened to be closed for track work on Saturday (we really should have taken this as some sort of omen of things to come…). After 2 bus rides to get to a train station, a train to central, and a 45 minute wait for a bus to La Peruse, we finally arrived some 4 hours after the journey began from my flat. I couldn’t complain too much because the view was already pretty spectacular! The walk started off quite nicely. There were lovely flowers, scary spiders, and great conversations with people from all over the world (I met people from Columbia, Iran, Germany, Austria, London, New Zealand, others from the States, and of course some Aussies).
After walking along our first gorgeous set of coastline cliffs, we found ourselves at the edge of a golf course. Our fearless leader Matt assured us that this was all part of the plan. He said we just walk straight through to the other side. We all went along for him since he was our “leader” and in charge of the bushwalking club at Uni. When we started walking we all made jokes about trespassing and getting hit by flying golf balls…not 2 minutes later, we were approached by none other than the president and general manager of the course (which was a multi-million dollar facility right on the coast – nicest golf course I’ve ever seen and that includes the Princeville Resort in Hawaii). We were told we were trespassing, hah, and that we needed to leave immediately. They also threw in that we should look out for flying golf balls, hah hah. After a 2 hour detour to get out and around the golf course we made it back to what looked like a trail, but not before we walked along a highway, through yards, and waiting for Matt to stop for an ice cream. We were all starving as it was now after 2 and we hadn’t had lunch so we plopped down on a beach and ate with a pretty amazing view. Matt wasn’t too psyched about our lunch location because he didn’t like the sand, but as horrible as it sounds, we didn’t really mind his discomfort at that point in time.
After lunch we were off for the most spectacular part of the walk. We walked on the rocky cliffs all the way toward Maroubra Beach. We could see the sand just behind another cliff announcing our arrival at the final destination when we hit another roadblock. This time the flying object weren’t golf balls, but were actually bullets. Matt had led us into a shooting range. This is definitely NOT me joking. None of us knew what to do. We were all somewhere in between screaming out of terror and laughing hysterically. He once again assured us that this was all part of the plan and that as long as we stayed to the side of the field we would be completely fine. We did not all follow quite so willingly this time though. I nearly sat down, arms crossed, and pouted. We made it through together despite the fact that we were watching people shoot at targets behind and just barely to the left of us. I was really happy to be wearing a bright tie-dyed shirt at that point, although we kept joking that the shooters might think we were some kind of new and fun moving target. We made it through unscathed but realized there was no way to get to the beach from where we were standing which was still in the shooting range. Eventually Matt decided to lead us down a bush covered embankment. This was not a hill but more like a cliff with 8-foot drop offs onto weed covered uneven rocks. Needless to say we all had a bit of difficulty getting down. Once we had made several leaps of faith we had to wade through the deep grasses in which we were all imagining meeting those world famous poisonous Aussie spiders and snakes. After climbing over a few last rocks and finding a “Caution Do Not Enter” sign that led into where we were coming from we were on sand with hundreds of other people, alive! I think that we all doubted that this beach actually existed, wondering instead if Matt was just going to keep us journeying along the coastline through obstacle courses all the way up the East Coast. But we made it and had a great story to tell. We all basically sprinted to catch a bus home, just wanting to get out of there. It was a good thing we ran because not 2 minutes after the sky opened up and the city had the heaviest thunderstorm I’ve seen in quite some time. It was flash flood worthy.
After a long journey home on buses and foot, I came home to a relaxing evening in which there was plenty of time to ponder the hilarity of the day. One of my favorite things was what we later learned about Matt. #1 He had never done this walk! He claims to have done it in reverse, but obviously his sense of direction is lacking…#2 The previous bushwalk he took students on, he was taken to hospital for a pulled muscle and dehydration (I saw him drink once on our 6 hour hike). All the students were left alone and the school had to send taxis to pick them up. After this little fiasco the school pulled all funding and association with Matt’s organization. WOW, I know. Oh the fun you’ll have. The title of this blog does include “adventure” so I can’t complain because that is exactly what I got on Saturday. No matter what it will always be a great story and a day filled with memories!
Well that’s a little bit about my week. I’m off to start a new one filled with even more amazing moments. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to soak them all up – can’t waste a single minute on this trip – you all do the same on whatever journey you’re on! Hope all is happy with you wherever you’re reading this from.
Love Always,
Anna
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