Sparty - Half Way Around The World

This was on the back of a car on my walk to school the other morning. Go Green?

The Blue Mountains

     A few of us guys went on a little hiking trip up in the Blue Mountains. The entire day I only spent $20 and it was the most memorable thing that I have done here; I must go again.
     This particular weekend was very foggy, apparently a little too foggy. If you look closely you can see a car-bumper down that hill. Someone was driving along and just kept on going, the car stopped about 4ft from the actual cliff edge.

 There is some breath taking scenery there, but since it was so foggy we couldn't see much and decided to go on a rainforest hike that was 'mist friendly'. This is the road leading to the hike...we got a little lost, but finding your way is always a nice surprise and we made it fun.

The first mile or so of the hike went right down the face of a cliff. The fog and mist gave it a very erie feel; you could look out and once in a while make out massive figures or see down the cliffs, but never really see anything more than 40 feet out. I was convinced that we were either in Jurassic Park, or on the edge of the earth.

We stopped for lunch under this rock and made a fire. I'm no good at the whole 'serious picture' thing... 

"Hey Guys, do you think I need these Study Abroad registration forms and what not?"


"......naaahhh".

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Of course we propped up that giant rock with a stick! 

Ahhh yes, the leeches. About halfway through the hike, a friend noticed that there were giant blood-suckers attached to all of our legs. They were disgusting and annoying, but burning off leeches on the train and walking through downtown Sydney barefoot and bloody made for some great entertainment on the trip home.

Tim Tam Slam

There is a chocolate cookie/wafer snack here known as a Tim Tam that is very good. I heard that if you bite the opposite corners off, then use it as a straw with a hot beverage, in this case hot vanilla malt and coffee, that the inside melts as you drink. Then you eat the cookie and a chocolate dream commences. I was with an Australian friend of mine and we decided that we must try it.

Al Manner

At MSU, Al Manner and I always try to figure out who strangers resemble from home, sometimes they even look like combinations of people. The discovery of this man was quite the coincidence and I demanded a picture with him (I thought that they could be distant relatives).

Adventure #1

One saturday morning I woke up and decided to walk to a guitar shop, a few miles up the coast. So I packed a lunch and started hiking.

There was some amazing scenery along the way. The sign above reads: "Beware of Edge". Oh really?

Eventually I reached the guitar shop after a nice swim, but they didn't sell what I was looking for. Since I was already 1/3 of the way into Sydney, I figured I'd just walk the rest of the way. I had no clue where I was going, but I'm from Northern Michigan, so that means that I have a sense of direction. I just started walking and eventually spotted this 'space needle' and used it as my 'north star'. 

Just when I was started wondering if this was a bad plan, since I only packed two PB&Js, the harbor bridge popped out of the trees.

 After a little nap between the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House, I headed into the Central Business District to have a look around.

The PB&J's weren't cutting it, so I treated myself to some good ole' Dominos. Perhaps since Australian's drop some R's, 'Bern' is pronounced 'Ben'? Then how do you pronounce 'Ben'?

Busking!

      I've been playing a TON of guitar here! It's great being able to walk down and play a few tunes on the water. A few nights ago I was playing a few songs on the cliffs, and I began to wonder how the moment could possibly get any better. Not five minutes later a man came climbing down the coast and pulled an acoustic bass guitar off of his back and asked if he could jam with me. Unbelievable. 
      I try to go down to the beach and busk on most weekend nights, in this photo I made $51 for about 1.5 hrs of playing! 

UNSW Campus

The UNSW's campus is very modern. I snapped some of these photos the day I arrived, it is even nicer at night when everything is colorfully illuminated. 

The school has close to the same number of students as MSU (50,000?), but the campus is probably 1/4 the size of MSU's, if not smaller, so it gets PACKED.

The library is probably the most impressive part of campus. I'll definitely be taking advantage of these nap rooms that are there..

The best for last. These practice rooms are amazing! This is the smallest room available and it's the size of my room in my apartment. annnd....the pianos are even in tune!

Hello Everyone! I'm just getting this blog started because I've been so busy, so sorry for the delay. I'm going to post what I've been up to recently, then try and stay up to date. This is my apartment, I have my own room and I'm pretty sure it's the closest apartment to the beach. I didn't get the ocean view, but we do have a patio...I cant really complain though haha.

This is the main road in the suburb where I live. Everything is much more expensive, and there are many more small, private shops, rather than large department stores. 

All of these photos were taken within a 40 second walk from my apartment. This is where I spend most of my time when I'm not studying; I'm usually playing guitar on this wall or swimming in these 'baths'.