Tasmania!

I left for Tasmania on a Friday night, with three teammates, one girl also from california and a couple from Germany. We had a layover in Melbourne from 11:30 pm till 7 am the next morning, so we had to sleep in the airport. We found some benches to sleep on, only to realize that there was a continuous beeping sound nearby. So we moved downstairs to some other benches. Everyone had a sleeping bag, except me. One of the doors to outside was open, and the whole night I was freezing. I barely got any sleep. We "woke up" around 5 am and got on our short flight to Hobart, Tasmania (the capital). The men on our team had decided to grow out their facial hair and shave it into weird beards and mustaches to fit our costume, lumberjacks, for a party that weekend. So when one of out teammates came to pick us up from the airport, a lady tried to get in because she thought he was a taxi driver. It was pretty funny. All the guys who grew out their beards looked ridiculous. So we basically went straight to the fields. I met some of the teammates I hadn't met yet, and for the first time ever we all played together. Our team was called Happy Pigs and we got pretty sweet jerseys. We had two girls from california (myself included), one guy from canada, one guy from ireland, a dutch guy, the couple from Germany, and the rest were Australians. We played okay that day, all of our 3 games were close, but we lost them all. That night there was a showcase game between two of the top teams, so we got to eat Indian food (provided by the tournament) and watch them. That night we all hung out in our cabins, chatting and drinking beer. There were some pretty cool people on our team, and I especially liked the Irish guy, but, naturally, he had a girlfriend. Damn. But anyway, it was a pretty relaxing evening. The next day we had three more games, we lost the first two and finally won the last one. Then that night there was an Ultimate party at a club. The theme was Tasmanian idols, so our team dressed up as lumberjacks. One guy even bought a small christmas tree! It was a pretty fun night, we basically just danced the whole night. The next day we had two games, we lost the first and won the last. We were pretty excited about winning our last game because we had lost to the team on Saturday and also because we had no girl subs for that game. The whole tournament there was only one girl sub, and the last game we had none! I have never played so much. 3 day tournament, on almost the whole time. That evening they had a bbq for everyone while we watched the finals. The next day a group of us left for Cradle Mountain, a national park in central Tasmania. It was a long drive, but we got to see a lot of the landscape, mostly rolling green hills, farms, sheep, and cows. The group consisted of me, the other cali girl, the dutch guy, the two germans, and an australian couple. The dutch guy and the german guy were hilarious. They kept me laughing the whole week. For the next three days we hiked. We hiked to several lakes and hiked (almost) to the summit of Cradle Mountain. The landscape looked prehistoric to me and we saw all sorts of wild animals like wallabys, wombats, and quokkas. The three of us girls who had played in the tournament were exhausted. Every part of my legs hurt. Every night we drank warm drinks, watched a movie, and played games. We also cooked/ate really good meals. It was nice to cook meals and all eat together like a family. Our last day was spent driving/flying home. Everyone I met that week was so great, I didn't want to leave! One of the girls is planning a dinner for all of us to get together, so hopefully that will work out because I would love to see everyone again. I may also go play with them some nights, even though I technically am not a part of the league.

Australian Mixed Ultimate Championships 2009- Hobart, Tasmania

My team in pink

The guy on the right is doing a lay out

Cradle Mountain

The girls at cradle mountain (Katie- from Cali, Micha- from Germany, Me, Anne- from Aus)

Hike through the snow

To the Cradle Mountain Summit

A Wombat- we saw a bunch of them. they were so cute and they let us come right up to them!

A Wallaby- related to a kangaroo

A Quokka- they are rodents, but they jump and have pouches like kangaroos! I thought they were adorable.

Most of Tasmania looked like this

UWA

Here are some pictures of my campus!

The University of Western Australia

Guild Village- where the book store, stores, the tav, etc. are located.

Peacocks live in our Arts building!

Winthrop Hall

The underpass between Currie Hall (where i live) and UWA that I walk through everyday to get to class

Currie Hall!

My building. My room is the bottom right corner.

Right outside my room!

Margaret River

Margaret River is sort of like a Napa Valley on the beach. It's a beautiful town down south and it's right on the ocean. My friend and I took a bus down (it was the easiest and cheapest way). It was about a 5 hour bus ride (with a 1/2 hour stop for dinner and a movie), but normally it only takes about 3 hours to get there. When we got off the bus our bus driver asked us if we knew where we were going and we admitted that we didn't. He tried to find our hostel on the map, but it wasn't there! We were a little nervous, but we figured we just needed a taxi. Of course we couldn't find the number for a taxi either, so the bus driver told us to walk into town and ask for help. We walked up to a restaurant/bar and asked the bouncers where we could find a taxi. Of course they were right in front of us haha The taxi driver knew where our hostel was and so at last, we arrived. Another girl was supposed to come with us, but she was on crutches so at the last minute she canceled. Luckily, we still had reservations for 3 so we got a room to ourselves :) The hostel was pretty nice (a couple of years ago it was voted the best hostel in australia). The next day we got picked up for our first ever wine tour! Before the tour started they took us to have a nice barbecued lunch on the Margaret River. It was absolutely beautiful and we even got to listen to a guy play the didgeridoo for us! The tour took us to three wineries (one big, one medium, and one small), a cheese factory, a venison farm, a chocolate factory, and a brewery. I liked it all! And it was nice to see some more beautiful Australian landscape. My friend and I hated to waste any alcohol (being the cheap college students that we are), but we quickly realized that we did in fact need to spit out some of the wine if we didn't want to make fools of ourselves as the young, drunk, american girls. We met some nice people (all couples... haha) and our guide was really nice. After the tour we got back to our hostel and watched a couple of episodes of england's version of the office with an american backpacker. Then we went to dinner at a nearby restaurant. We didn't realize that you needed reservations, so as we were deciding what to do a guy came up to us and said, "are you girls waiting for your boyfriends?" we said no. he said, "do you girls have boyfriends?" we said no. He said, "yes!" and then proceeded to tell us that his friends and him were waiting for a taxi and wanted to know if we were coming with them for a wedding party. hahaha we said no and told him we needed dinner. he directed us to the bar where we could also order food and said "just pretend like you're not with me!" I was thinking... but we're not with you... haha After dinner we went back to our hostel and played some cards for a while. This funny man from New Zealand talked with us for a while and we also met this guy from France. I think hostels are kind of fun places to meet people from other countries, especially youth hostels. The next day we went on a walk to and along the beach. It was absolutely gorgeous. We had a nice little picnic lunch on the beach (some crackers, canned salmon, and brie cheese from the cheese factory) but it got cut short after we got attacked by some hungry seagulls. After lunch we got a ride from the hostel manager into town and we walked around for a little while. I wanted to get a magazine for the bus ride back, but they were about $8! They had some books for sale for only $6 so I got one of those instead. Then we caught our bus back to Perth!

The beach had all sorts of cool rock formations like this

The wonderful beach

At the brewery. We shared a paddle of various beers.

Wine tasting!

Cute duck family on the Margaret River

Playing the didgeridoo for us at lunch

Margaret River