The End of this Blog

Hey everyone,
I'd like to thank you for visiting my blog while I was in Australia and since. Since I have been back, though, I have been keeping very busy with getting my transcript finalized, graduate school applications, job applications, working, trying to visit people, etc. While I have hundreds of pictures from New Zealand and lots of experiences I could share, at this time I do not have the available free time to post all of this to my blog. So, in the meantime, I am officially ending this blog. This will be my last post for the forseeable future. Please continue to enjoy the photos and experiences on this page and in the archives.
Thanks for viewing my blog!
Ben

November 3, 2006

This morning I finished packing up my bags, and found out that everything that I need to take home does indeed fit into my two suitcases and my backpack. I am going to have to leave several things behind, but those are things I had planned to leave behind/throw out: my blanket, my pillows, an extra towel, some school supplies, and, well, that's pretty much it. The rest all fits in my bags and is all stuff I want to take home. :) When I got everything all packed in, I looked around my room and thought about how weird it was that I could fit a whole semester of my life into two suitcases. Back home I take two car-fulls of stuff to my dorm... but I guess I don't really pack it as neatly when I do that, and also I have a civic, so you can't really fit too much in there anyway. :-P But yeah, I've realized that when you do a lot of traveling, you start to realize what you need, and what you really don't need. In a college dorm, two suitcases is all you really need. And when you're just traveling somewhere for a week or two (like New Zealand), one suitcase is plenty.

I jogged around the lake again this evening. No rain this time, but it was mostly cloudy still. It really smells good after a rain... the increased humidity in the air and the smell of moist vegetation and soil is something I had forgotten about. It makes the landscape seem a lot less bland when you can smell it too.

November 2, 2006

Today was cloudy and rainy, which seems to be quite unusual here in Australia; even more unusual was some of the rain came in the form of thunderstorms! It seemed kind of weird to hear thunder here since I never have before. I guess it's getting close to summer though, and thunderstorms need heat to brew. The thunderstorms were pretty wimpy though. I only really heard two or three claps of thunder, none of which were terribly loud, I never saw any lightning, and the rain was only moderate. It was really windy though. :)

This afternoon I went for a run around Lake Ginninderra. When I was about 10 minutes away from returning, it started to sprinkle and by the time I got back I was almost completely wet. It actually felt pretty good getting rained on in a run (It was in the upper 60s). It's so dry here that I had forgotten that running in the rain (or waiting for the rain to pass before I run) is a common occurrence back home.

This evening I went to the mall to get a few more grocery items (such as some fresh veggies), and ran into Sam, Hannah, and Amy at Subway on the way there. I talked to Hannah and we agreed that she's going to end up taking one of my suitcases to Sydney with her this weekend when she goes home, and then I'll go to her house to get it when I fly back into Sydney the day before I fly home. Tonight I decided to start packing up my room, at least what I'm going to send to Sydney. I got that suitcase filled up and then decided to call it a night. I think tomorrow I'll pack up the rest of my room, just to see if it all fits into two suitcases (because that's all I have!), and also because I need to see how room it will take to fit in all the stuff I'm taking to New Zealand.

November 1, 2006

It's November! I go home in November!! Another weekish here in Australia then a little over a week in New Zealand and it'll be time to go home!!

Much of yesterday (Halloween, if they celebrated it here) I spent studying for today's final exam in my introduction to exercise science class. In the middle of the afternoon, Amanda came to my door and informed me that I had a package slip in the mail (All of us exchange students got shared mailboxes, and she shares my mailbox). I went up right then to the post office on campus and picked up my package -- it was from Rachel!! It was a package that she had sent me quite a while ago, actually... the post-mark was August 9, 2006! So yeah, it took over 2.5 months to get here! It had a label on it about being opened by quarantine, and quarantine documents being enclosed (Australia's really strict with what they'll let into the country). The package was kinda smashed, but it turns out all of the contents were still ok. Except, that is, for a microwave bag of popcorn that Rachel had sent me. Apparently Quarantine didn't like that, so they took the popcorn when the package arrived in Sydney on October 27th, and the enclosed documents informed me that if I wished to have the item returned to sender, it would cost me $42, but otherwise they would destroy the item in 30 days "free of charge". Hahaha! I asked Rachel what she wanted me to do, and she said she didn't want it back that badly. :-P I think it's all rather amusing, and I'm keeping the quarantine documents as a souvenir. :) The package consisted of a card, a photo, a small watercolor painting of my favorite bird, and some snacks and candy. :) Thanks Rachel! Getting the package made my day. :)

Note: Please, nobody send me any mail at this point. Letters take 1-2 weeks to get here, and packages take apparently up to 3 months. I'm turning in my mailbox key in a week, so I won't be able to receive anything after that. I hope nobody else sent me any packages recently, because it seems like there's a 0.01% chance that I'd actually get it before I went home!

So today I had my first of two final exams here at UC, as I mentioned earlier. It was a new experience for me, being quite unlike any other final I've ever taken. The final was in the gymnasium, where there were four sections filled with chairs and desks, covering the entire gym floor. Upon entering the room, they checked my student ID. I was then "ushered" to my desk, in the exercise science section. Once it was time to begin, a lady with a microphone announced all of the instructions for all of the exams; specific instructions for my class was that nobody was to leave until the examination period (one hour) was up. It turns out I ended up finishing with a good 30 minutes to spare, so I sat there, bored. By the time the time was up, almost everyone had already completed their exams and were just sitting there waiting to leave. Finally when the lady announced that everyone was to stop writing immediately, she also instructed us to all remain quietly seated. It took another 5-10 minutes for all of the exams to be collected by the ushers, and then counted to make sure they were all turned in. Finally they let us go out the side exit doors. It was a very organized event, but one in which there was a significant chunk of wasted time (for me at least), and all together it was way different than any exam I have ever taken! I'm not sure how I did, except I would bet that I at least passed. Time will tell!

I skipped running this afternoon to go to an extra tutorial that my data analysis in science tutor held for us, so that we could get some practice with things we haven't quite mastered, but will be on the final. It was a good tutorial, and I learned a few things that will definitely help me on the final. I've got a week to study now for that one. I think I'll take a day or two off from studying and get with it after that.

This evening I cooked dinner really late. It wasn't until 9:30 that I actually began eating, because I prepared a fairly elaborate dish, on top of not getting back to my room until 7:40. I'm trying to use up all of the food I have before I leave, so I get my moneys worth from my groceries. :) Anyway, I had this can of cooked lentils, and I didn't know what to do with them... so I decided to experiment. I also had a bunch of rice still, so I decided I would cook up the rice, and maybe somehow do something where the lentils could go with it. While the rice was cooking, I got out a frying pan and some veggies from my fridge and started making a sort of stir-fry, by frying up some onion, bell pepper, green beans, and carrots. Once they were cooked a little bit, I decided to add the can of lentils to the frying pan and see what happened. Sam was cooking dinner at the same time, and he had some worcestershire sauce, so I decided to add a little to my lentils and veggies. A minute or two of simmering and my meal was done. I ended up having the lentils+veggies on top of rice, much like a stir fry, and it turned out to be really good! I even let Sam try some, and he said he liked it too. It's funny what comes out when you take a bunch of food and just start throwing it into a frying pan.

October 30, 2006

Well, yesterday (October 29th here,) and today (October 29th back home), Daylight savings time started in Canberra and ended in the U.S. I still haven’t gotten used to the time difference and since I have spring forward by one hour and the U.S. has fallen backward, I am now 16 hours ahead of the Eastern Time zone back home. I am now enjoying the long days that come with a 6:00am sunrise and a 7:30pm sunset, for a grand total of 13.5 hour days, with 14.5 hours of visible sunlight. Only three more weeks until everything flips back into the short, cold, dark days of winter as I hop back over to the Northern Hemisphere. I’m not too excited about the cold or the short days, but I am definitely looking forward to being home! Time to start counting down the days… :)

October 28, 2006

Not too exciting today. It was cooler (a high temperature of only 60 degrees), and I worked on assignments for my group projects (i.e. writing up the reports). My lymph nodes started hurting a bit this afternoon, suggesting to me that my immune system is compromised and I better make sure I eat healthy the next few days to keep from getting sick. I went for a run around the lake today, and my lymph nodes didn’t like that; I felt like I was going to be getting sick for about an hour afterwards, but then I started feeling better again. I think I’ll take it easy with the running the next few days until I’m feeling back up to par.

October 27, 2006

I went to the mall today to buy some food items that I had run out of. My walk to the mall was beautiful, with clear, sunny skies making a beautiful warm day. When I stepped inside the mall and found that the halls were decked with Christmas decorations, it was an odd sensory experience. I still associate Christmas with cold, snow, etc; it is really weird to see decorations up when it’s so summer-like outside, and almost even weirder that they’re up so soon (it’s not even Halloween yet!). It seems to me like Christmas items are turning up earlier and earlier every year anymore. In fact, just over a week ago when I was in K-mart in the mall, they were already putting out their Christmas items. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me today in the mall; however, I took some pictures last week that I will include in this post. :)

In the grocery store I saw my first and only evidence so far that it’s almost Halloween – “Halloween pumpkins.” At the grocery store today there was one shelf where there were two orange pumpkins remaining and the going price was $12-something each. It looks like there was, when the shelf was fully stocked, room for 15 pumpkins at most. I learned this semester that, for some reason, Australians generally do not celebrate Halloween, and several Australians that I’ve talked to seem to think it is because Australians don’t want to be too much like Americans, and Halloween is a very American holiday, apparently. I’ve also learned that any type of winter squash is called pumpkin (I bought some “butternut pumpkin” today), and Australians don’t make and most have never tasted pumpkin pie. Apple pie may be American, but most Australians have had apple pie. If you want a pie that’s American, if you ask me it most definitely should be pumpkin pie. :)

October 25, 2006

The longest day of classes ever. Actually, I’ve had days that were longer back at MU. There really was only about 5 hours of classes, but since I did group work in between and went to FOCUS, I was only in my room for about one hour between 8:30am and 7:30pm.
This morning I got started with my Conservation Biology and Genetics class, where all five groups in the class presented their group work. It was interesting, because all five groups did the same project. We kinda saw where some of us didn’t do quite the same things as other groups, but overall the presentations presented essentially the same stuff. I think my group’s presentation went pretty well. We got a late start to class due to a fire alarm/drill at the beginning of class, so I had to cut out early to go meet with Ruby for my other group project.

Ruby and I spent some time today figuring out what needed to be said about all of our slides, and also figuring out who would say what, etc. This evening we finally gave the presentation; it went well and we stayed perfectly within our time limit (ten minutes). Finally, I can relax a little for the rest of the week… and leisurely work on the two writeups/reports for these projects as well as study for my upcoming finals. :-P

Tonight was “cowboys and Indians” theme night at unibar, and since I was done with work, I decided to head up and be social. There weren’t as many people there as I expected, but there was a fair number of cowboy and Indian attire. It was kind of funny to see cowboys and Indians there… I guess cowboys can be from anywhere, but Indians are clearly American – once again, the U.S. cultural influence was clear. :)

After getting bored at the bar, Melissa, Amanda and I (all Americans) came back to the dorms. On our walk back past the other dorm buildings, we came across a bunch of kangaroos and wallabies grazing in the grass along the sidewalk. The wallabies were only discernable as wallabies in the low light conditions by the fact that they were the size of the smaller kangaroos, but some had babies in their pouches. We stopped and observed approximately two dozen kangaroos and wallabies, and got a real treat watching some of the kangaroos: The two biggest (male) kangaroos were standing on their back legs and were gesturing at each other, obviously challenging each others’ dominance. The one male stood up really tall (seemed to be a bit taller than me even!) and brushed/flapped his arms along/in front of his chest. The other kangaroo, not wanting to fight, was flapping his arms too, but was leaning over to the side, with his head dropped pretty low to the ground – it seems like he was “surrendering” his dominance. We were all talking about how we wished they would start doing the fighting/kickboxing thing you always see kangaroos do on nature shows, but finally they hopped away from each other and we knew they weren’t going to fight. However, we were not disappointed – two younger (smaller) males a bit farther away got up next to each other, scratched at each others’ faces with their front paws, and one even jumped up and gave a firm kick into the other’s stomach! This fight lasted only about 10 or 15 seconds, though, and seemed to be more of a “learning to fight” brawl than an actual fight. Both were perfectly happy to munch on grass next to each other after this “practice fight”. We all wished we had brought our cameras to capture these moments on film, but none of us had. It was still really cool seeing all those wallabies and kangaroos within a 40-70 foot distance away from us!!

October 24, 2006

Today was spent working on various group work, by myself and with both of my groups again. This morning my Conservation Biology and Genetics group cut and pasted and edited all of our individual PowerPoint slides into one big slideshow that we plan to use tomorrow for our group presentation. In the afternoon I worked for a couple hours putting some finishing touches on my Data Analysis in Science PowerPoint, and submitted it to the professor for our presentation tomorrow. My group partner had to work today, but fortunately we don’t present that one until tomorrow evening, so we will still have time to practice our presentation before we actually give it.

After I finished my group work today, I walked over to the campus hair place and got my hair cut. It was $20 Australian (which converts to $15 U.S.), but it was worth it since my hair was getting so long (I guess that’s what happens when you let it grow for almost six months!). Also, the guy that cut my hair did a very good job, cutting it exactly as I asked, and making it all even. :) After my haircut I went for a run around the lake. I think I ran faster with all the weight that was taken off with my haircut. ;)

October 23, 2006

This week is going to prove to be insanely busy. Today I spent 6 hours nonstop working on two different group projects that are due this week. My one group lost a member (he vaporized without a trace), so that group only has me and one girl, which is nice – I don’t particularly care for group projects, but when there’s only two people it’s easy to make sure that both people put in a fair effort! My other group has five of us. Today Ruby and I worked on some statistical analyses and the PowerPoint presentation for our Data Analysis in Science project, and Rohan, David, Joel, Sarah, and I worked on getting organized and figuring out what needs done for our Conservation Biology and Genetics project.

By the end of the afternoon I was worn out from working all day on projects, and I came back to my room before I remembered that there was a “farewell dinner” for us exchange students this evening. I headed back up to campus to the café where dinner was being held, and got there just in time for our appetizers (bread and various spreads/dips) came around. The dinner ended up being three-courses and all-you-can-eat buffet-style. On top of that, it was some of the best food I’ve eaten since I’ve been here in Australia! It was a great way to end a long day, and it was nice catching up with a few of the exchange students and to mix with the Aussies that are planning on heading out on exchange next semester.

October 12-22, 2006

Sorry I haven’t been updating regularly. A lot has been going on recently and a combination of me alternately being busy and lazy has kept me from updating my blog.

Lately it’s been getting a lot warmer, with most days at least into the 70s, but a fair number of days with temperatures into the 80s. It’s been sunny and warm most of the time and I’ve definitely enjoyed it. While I’ve been running several times a week still, I’ve seen recently a family of Australian black ducks, as well as a family of black swans. One day when I was running, in a field where I had previously seen as many as 16 kangaroos, I noticed scattered mobs and individual kangaroos numbering at least 100! I’ve never seen so many kangaroos before… I guess that field must have lots of food for them!

Spring is definitely well underway here in Australia. It’s interesting to notice that although the grass started getting greener and growing faster in many places as winter turned into spring, recently much of the grass that had greened up and grown for a brief period, has once again turned brown. I guess Australia is just naturally dry and therefore this brownness is somewhat normal, although I’m sure the fact that much of Australia is still currently experiencing a drought has had an influence. It’s such a difference compared to the lush, extremely fast growing grasses that I’m used to seeing in the spring and throughout most of the summer back home.

Many of you may not know that my dad has been battling some health problems since last semester, and until this semester he seemed to be doing pretty well, considering. Some time after I arrived in Australia I learned in my phone calls home that he was no longer doing so well. I’ve been praying a lot that he would get better, but that ultimately God’s will be done. Sadly, on October 12th, my dad passed away. I must admit that this was one of the reasons why I did not feel like updating my blog in any spare time. It’s been somewhat difficult coming to the realization that he will not be there when I return home in November, and it was hard to not go home to be with family right after he died. Phone conversations over the past few weeks and months have sort of prepared me for the fact that his remaining days were numbered, but it was still hard for me to get the news. I had never really thought seriously about him dying in the near future before I left… but when Dad took me to the airport, we talked a lot, and one thing he mentioned was that if anything were to happen to him, and if he were to die, he did not want me to come home – he wanted me to continue doing everything that I had planned to do in Australia, and he assured me that my brother and sister would be there for my mom. I really didn’t know how to take it when he said this to me, and I didn’t really respond too much except to say “ok”. I realized on my flight out here that he must have known he was close to dying, although it didn’t seem like it to me or anyone else at the time. I’m glad that he told me to stay here though, because it made the difficult decision of “what to do now” much easier, although I really wanted to be with my family.

Since my dad passed away I have had a lot of time to grasp the reality and realize that it’s all in God’s plan for me and my family. Previous to this trip, I had never been away from home for more than a month, and I have never been so far away. I almost studied abroad last year, but I missed the deadlines for all the paperwork and decided to wait until this year. I’ve concluded that for some reason, God must have wanted it to happen this way. Although I have accepted that my dad is in heaven and won’t be at home when I go back, in many ways I don’t think it will completely hit me until I am back in the U.S., back home. Although I know he’s gone, I’m still on the other side of the world, and although things have changed at home, things in Australia are still very much the same. Only when I go home will I realize the differences that result from him not being there. If anyone out there reading this believes in God, please pray for my family in the time being. Also pray for me when I go home. To the rest of my family back home, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there through all of this, but I have been praying lots for everyone, and I’ve been doing ok over here.

Oh, for those of you who don't know, he died of lung cancer.

Soon after my dad passed away, I talked a bit to one of the other American exchange students and decided to still go on my planned learn-to-surf trip with about 20 other exchange students. The 2-day surf trip ended up being a lot of fun, and I often thought about how my dad would want me to be on that trip, since he told me to do everything I had planned to do, no matter what. Over the weekend I had four 2-hour surfing lessons/sessions, and by the end of the trip I was able to stand up on a surfboard and ride the waves in, and I was just starting to be able to turn my surfboard in the waves. I’m glad I went, and it was enjoyable hanging out with students from around the world, including a Finnish girl, three Germans, 3 Mexicans, an Italian, 2 Canadians, and a dozen or so odd Americans from the UC study abroad/student exchange program.

I had an interesting assignment in my literary studies tutorial this week. The assignment was to bring in an image or a picture and a description of something that is Australian and represents Australianness. I almost skipped class because I thought it was a really trivial assignment, and it was a waste of time. However, because I thought it was so trivial and a waste of time, I ended up deciding to go just so I could tell people about how trivial it was. I took a calendar that I got here in Australia, where the cover photo is of a group of kangaroos. I explained to the lecturer and the class how it represents Australia and Australianness because when you mention Australia in almost any context in the U.S., the image people almost immediately think of is kangaroos. The lecturer agreed that it was a good, very Australian image, and after discussing it for a few seconds or so, moved on to the next person. It was kind of interesting hearing about what other students brought in, but in the end I concluded that it was an extremely trivial class and I didn’t learn anything that was necessary for my education. It was my last formal tutorial for this class, so I figured I’d make the most of it. :)

October 11

This weekend I went down to Floriade on Sunday. Floriade is pretty much just a one-month (mid-September to mid-October) flower festival held in Commonwealth Park in the city centre region of Canberra, next to Lake Burley Griffin. I entered the gates (they have that part of the park fenced in), and it pretty much had a fair atmosphere, with flower beds galore everywhere, with tons of tulips, pansies, irises, etc., and them some booths and shows and a few vendors and stuff. The flowers were pretty neat and you can tell a lot of work went into designing the flowerbeds. Most of the flowerbeds were themed according to different countries' colors, flags, etc. I guess that makes a lot of sense, considering Canberra is Australia's capital city. I spent maybe an hour in the park, walking around and taking a few pictures. I was disappointed to notice that many of the tulips had already faded and the dead flowers had been picked, and all the daffodils were done already too. However, there was a nice variety of irises, tulips, and pansies that were still thriving, and the flower beds were definitely beautiful.

Monday I found out my grade from my second Intro to Exercise exam. It turns out this time the class did much better (averaging 61%!), and my grade was better also. I ended up getting a 43/50 (86%), which is really good for anything here in Australia. I was defnitely happy.

I haven't solidified any more plans for New Zealand yet, but I have been looking around at my options online and in my New Zealand travel guide. I think at this rate I'm going to end up renting a car in New Zealand and exploring just the South Island for 8 days. Paying for a rental car and gas would be cheaper than any of the tour packages, and it would be the most fun. It would give me the opportunity to go running in national parks, and hiking and looking at birds and stuff too. check back for more later when I figure out exactly what I'm doing.

October 1-6, 2006

This week was another busy one. I had two “major” assignments this week, which were a 10 minute presentation about a scientific paper detailing loggerhead shrike genetic population structure on the California Channel Islands, and a 1000 word critique of an Australian text for my literature class. I didn’t particularly enjoy writing the critique (I personally think most work in literature classes goes above and beyond what any author ever expected to be done their writing, and it helps ruin reading for me – I hardly read books as it is, but when I have to analyze one to death, it helps ruin any enjoyment I got out of reading it!). I managed to sit down and pump out a critique today though, and I handed it in about 20 minutes before it was due. I have no more papers to write for my literature class anymore – and since I never plan on taking another literature class in my life, that means I’m DONE with any educational aspects of literature! Yay!

My presentation in the conservation biology class went well. I managed to keep it right around the 10-minutes it was supposed to be, and I’m pretty sure I answered all of the questions well at the end. :) I’ve only talked to a handful of the students in the class previously, so I wonder how many of them found out for the first time that day that there was an American in the class. My accent is pretty obvious and my powerpoint was certainly filled with American spellings for some words, such as “program” and “analyze”, just to name a couple.

Classes sure are different here than they are in the U.S.A.; conservation biology is one example of a class that is far different from any other biology classes I’ve had back home. For starters, back home many classes have “strongly encouraged” attendance, as well as exams and other assignments throughout the semester. This class, however, has no exams, you never know who’s going to show up for class, and there are only a few assignments that will end up determining my entire grade. I was amazed last week when I saw one girl in the class that I don’t recall ever seeing before. She was back again this week because she also had to give her presentation, but then even more amazing was the presence of another girl this week that I hadn’t ever seen before! I’ve never had a class back home where people don’t go to class for the first 11 weeks of the semester and then show up to complete their assignments. Well, perhaps these girls were there on the first day of classes and I don’t remember them, but they definitely haven’t been there since. I guess they must be getting together with other members of the class to work on our group projects though, as I realized this week that our group projects are going to count for 70% of our grade. Yikes. I better get to work!

Another thing that’s different about this biology class aside from its structure is that I have three lecturers… yes, three. And they’re never teaching the class together. It’s a very different setup than I’m used to, but each has been lecturing us on the aspects of conservation biology and conservation genetics in which he or she is more of an expert. Early on this semester our lecturer was Will, and with Will we focused more on the ecological issues of conservation. After that we had Steve for several weeks, and he lectured us on some genetic aspects of conservation. The past couple of weeks we’ve had Nancy as our lecturer, and she’s been lecturing us on how analyses can reveal information about the genetic structure of populations and contribute to choice of conservation strategies for species and subpopulations within species. I talked to Will at the beginning of the course about a few things, and I’ve never really talked to Steve at all, and this week after my presentation Nancy realized I wasn’t Australian, so she asked me where I was from in the states and how I’ve liked it here so far, and how much of Australia I’ve gotten to see, etc.

I had an exam last week in my intro to exercise science class, but our grades haven’t been posted yet. This week the lecturer allowed students that missed the exam to have an opportunity to take the exam (with a proper, documented medical excuse, of course). I’m expecting to find out this weekend or early next week how I did. I felt much better than the first exam, so I’m sure I passed. Maybe I got an 80% this time. :)

The weather this week has been beautiful. Because I’ve been busy working on my assignments I haven’t gotten out running every day, but I did get out and run once every two days this week. Hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll be able to run more regularly. I’m definitely enjoying the sunny, low-70s weather every day and it feels great to get out and run in the evenings!

This week I began planning for my end-of-semester travels also. Another difference between college here in Australia and back home is the final examination period: back home it is 4 days (M-Th), but here it is almost three weeks (Nov. 1-17). Since I plan to return home soon after my final examination period ends, any travels I do before going home will take place during the examination period. It turns out I only have two exams during the examination period, so I have 10 free days after my last final before I go home – here I come New Zealand! This week I bought myself a travel guide for New Zealand and also purchased my airline tickets – so hopefully the rest of my plans will fall into place shortly.

Buying the plane tickets was kind of interesting. The listed fare price said “inclusive of taxes” – all together the roundtrip fare was $240. I clicked “book now” and when it came up with the subtotal, they were charging me $461 – over 200 dollars in taxes! That made me kind of upset, because it was the same site I used to get my ticket to Perth – and there were no extra taxes on my flight to Perth. I messed around on the site (and a few others) to see if I could find a better deal -- and I figured out a loophole. For some reason it was JetStar’s fares that were quoted really low, but were really at least double the advertised price after taxes were included. I changed my one flight to a “more expensive” VirginBlue flight and found out that the VirginBlue ticket had no hidden taxes. So, by selecting a more expensive ticket, I actually lowered my total bill by $80. Does that make any sense? Nope. But I’m happy I figured it out and was able to save $80! :)

Tonight I made some sort of rice/cheese/tomato concoction and ate it with steamed broccoli. It didn’t turn out quite as I was expecting, but it still tasted pretty good. Only 6 more weeks of cooking for myself! Then it’s back to the Fast Food Nation. ;) Don’t worry, I won’t eat all fast food when I get home. But I will eat at Wendy’s a couple times. They don’t have Wendy’s here in Australia and it’s my favorite fast food restaurant. I want a frosty! Just a little more than six weeks left! Time sure does fly!

September 24-30

This week was just your average fun-filled college week of homework, eating, sleeping, and studying. I got out to run this week about once every two days. I am going to try to run more often next week. I might try to do another road race before I go home, or if not, I'd like to do a couple of road races once I get home. We'll have to see how things go. I had my second exam in my introduction to exercise class this week. I studied a lot more for this exam than the last one, and I feel like I did better. Most of my friends agreed that the test seemed a lot better and more fair overall. We'll have to wait until sometime next week (hopefully Monday) before we find out our grades. This weekend has been a combination of trying to recover from this week's busy schedule and trying to get school work done before it's due next week. The upcoming week has me pretty busy with a presentation, reading a book, writing a critique, and working on two group projects (doing research and statistical analyses, respectively).

I only have four more weeks of classes here at UC, then a three-week final examination period. Fortunately my final exams end half way through the examination period, leaving me with about 10 free days where I am going to plan a trip to New Zealand. It's hard to believe that I'll be home in just 7 more weeks! The semester's flying, spring is springing, and soon I'll be flying back to winter! As much as I've enjoyed the semester so far, (and am still enjoying my time here in Australia) I am definitely looking forward to going home. The closer it gets to my return, the more excited I get about soon being back in my hometown, surrounded by American accents, American birds, American dollars, cars that drive on the right side of the road, my own car, being with family and friends that I've known for years, and being with Rachel. It's been over three months since I've seen my fiancee now, and I kind of miss her. :)

Tomorrow's October! Woo!

September 23

Today wasn’t very eventful. I slept in and spent the day studying off and on and mixing it up with some internet surfing and grocery shopping. There was a nice breeze this afternoon when I went shopping, and the temperatures were right around 70 or so. I bought my usual variety of foodstuffs today, but I also made it a point to buy ingredients to make quesadillas. Something reminded me of quesadillas last week and how it’s been forever since I’ve had any. Apparently nobody in Australia’s ever had a quesadilla, because when I asked them if they had ever had them, every person I asked was like “what’s that?” haha. Tonight for supper I made up some cheese quesadillas and ended up allowing four of the Aussies on my floor (who happened to be in the kitchen area) try them. Everyone loved them and we all agreed that when we have our floor dinner I’m going to make quesadillas! :)

September 22

I woke up in the middle of the night (around 3:00am) when one of the guys down the hall kicked my door and said “Hey Ben, are you ok?” Haha. Last night was a big bar night here for most of the people at UC, but I didn’t go out at all and just went to bed kinda early because I was really tired. It was funny to hear people coming back and being loud and really drunk though. :)

I got up this morning around 9:30am, it was the first time I’ve slept in for a while. At 10:45 Kate met me to do my last 20-minute post-exercise test for taking Devil’s Claw. It turns out this morning my performance in both the vertical jump and the quad strength tests had increased to levels greater than they had been at the beginning of the testing. My quads are pretty much completely sore free now, and there is only a slight remnant of pain in my lower calves, which I can feel when I flex, but I don’t notice at all when walking around normally. After I had completed being tested and my final blood sample had been taken, Kate got me from her office the free stuff that was guaranteed to anyone who completed the study, then drove me back to my dorm.

Back at the dorm I decided to look up the value of all of the stuff that I got for free for participating in this study, using the AIS online catalog. It turns the AIS backpack I got I got is worth $45 retail, the navy blue gym towel is worth $10, the white AIS polo shirt goes for $35, the AIS sport socks $11, and the drink bottle $10… so in all I got a total of $110 (Australian dollars) worth of brand new AIS gear for participating in the study. It was definitely worth it to participate. Plus I also found out that my right leg is stronger than my left leg (probably from running around the track over the last 5 years), and once Kate gets done analyzing the results, I’ll find out if Devil’s Claw actually works for reducing inflammation as its manufacturers claim. :)

Most of my day this afternoon was spent organizing my school work and beginning the process of working on assignments and studying for exams. However, I did manage to break away from my books several times, and one of those times I went for a run. I ran for about 30 minutes alongside the lake (I did an out-and-back run), and during my run I realized that my right calf is definitely more sore than I previously noticed. It wasn’t too sore to keep me from running though. Probably just one or two more days before all the muscle tissue heals from the 40 minute downhill run I did on Monday. It was beautiful weather once again this afternoon, in the low-70s and sunny when I went for my run.

September 21

The past few days I've been sore from my downhill run, and aside from going back for tests every day, I've been keeping busy with the school routine. This morning I got up early once again to go to the AIS for my 72-hour checkup following my downhill run. The leg strength test revealed that my legs are back to full strength, and with one of the vertical jumps I was able to jump higher even than yesterday. My legs are hardly sore at all today, which is what is expected. Only one more day of being tested until I get my free AIS stuff!


Kate dropped me back off at my class again this morning. I only had one class today, my exercise science class, at 8:30. I’ve been learning tons of really interesting and helpful information about the science behind exercise in that class this semester, and today we were taught about the some of the principles of training, including overload, recovery, overtraining, undertraining, the requirements of optimal training, the job of a coach in training, the signs of overtraining, etc. It was really interesting to learn about all that stuff today, and I noticed with some of the slides that my last year on the XC team I showed every sign of overtraining, but for some reason, my coach never noticed the signs and didn’t do anything about it except blame me for my performance breakdown. It’s unfortunate that he wasn’t as knowledgeable about such things as I feel he should have been – it would have helped me enormously that last year on the team if he had followed some of the “principles of coaching and training” I learned about today. Oh well, that’s all history now, and at least I’ve learned a lot from my past experiences on the team, and now after taking this class I know a lot more. It might be cool to someday actually be a coach or something, but in the time being I think I’m just going to try to coach myself and get back into running again in the next couple of days (I took some time off over my spring break and during the sore muscle stage of my experimental role this week. :))

This afternoon I spent a lot of time doing nothing, and just enjoying being done with class. I thought about going for a run, but instead decided to go for a walk. I took along my camera and my binoculars, and hoped to encounter some birds or beautiful scenery to take photographs of. I especially wanted to encounter some Eastern Rosellas, one of my favorite parrots, and one that I have not yet photographed. Needless to say (but obviously, I’m going to say it anyway) I was thrilled when after only a few minutes of walking I spotted a pair of eastern rosellas foraging on the ground! I got out my binoculars and camera, and for about 5 minutes worked on getting closer to them, focusing my binoculars, and holding my camera up to my binoculars in hopes of getting some decent pictures. I got a half a dozen or so pictures of varying quality, but I was particularly pleased with one photo that turned out to be the most in focus of them all. After several minutes the rosellas decided to fly off to a more distant location, and I continued my walk.

The rest of my walk found me taking photos of several other birds, including dusky moorhens, a lone crested pigeon, and a male superb fairy-wren! I was hoping I would eventually get pictures of the fairy-wren and good pictures of crested pigeons -- today was my lucky day. I hope you enjoy viewing the pictures as much as I enjoy sharing them. :-D

September 18

Not too much happened this weekend. I spent some time working on catching up with school work, but otherwise just enjoyed my last few days off from classes. This morning it was finally the 6th week since I began taking the natural "Devil's Claw" supplement, so it was finally time for me to go into the Australian Institute for Sport (AIS) for my testing. I was ready to go at 7:45, when Kate picked me up from my dorm. At the AIS we did some preliminary testing, such as a vertical reach, vertical jump, squat jump, quad strength, "pain" tests, and a blood sample. After all this was done I did my downhill run, which consisted of running on a huge industrial-sized treadmill at a 10% downgrade for 5X 8 minutes at 80% of my maximum heart rate. In between my runs I got 2 minutes walking recovery on a level treadmill. I wore a heart rate monitor throughout the duration of the run and the speed of the treadmill was adjusted according to what my heartrate was, until it was approximately 80% of my maximum. I was surprised at how easy the run felt. It turns out I ran at 5:41 pace on the treadmill, but I was talking to Kate and her boyfriend Reese (he was also taking part in the study) the whole time I was running.

After I completed the run I was tested again for my performance (jumping, quad strentgh), pain, and a blood sample was taken. The study requires a 4-hour checkup, and then 24, 48, 72, and 96 hour checkups. I had about two hours after my post-run checkup before my four-hour checkup, so Kate got me into a tour (normally $10) of the AIS. The tour leaders were a gymnast that has won gold medals at the Australian Commonwealth games, and a rower. The AIS facilities are pretty amazing, with a lot of state-of-the-art training equipment and scientific analysis equipment. We got to see some young gymnasts (7-14 years old) in the one gym practicing. Apparently they are on scholarship at the AIS which means they get paid to train there, and they train about 6 hours per day as well as doing about two hours of school. Some of the stunts they did were pretty amazing, especially after you realized how small the kids were! We learned about all of the facilities on the tour, including those where a fair number of Australian olympians have trained. In one room called a "sportsplex" there were a lot of interactive sports simulators and games, and heaps of information about a lot of olympians. I mostly just looked around at the display cases with athletic gear, medals, and placques talking about various olympians. One placque that I found to be especially interesting was about Herb Elliot, "the greatest miler of all time". Apparently Herb managed to break the 4:00 mile shortly after beginning his running career (when he was 19 years old!), set the 1-mile world record when he was 20, and won the gold medal in the 1500 meters at the olympics in 1960, when he was just 22 years old. He won the olympics in a time of 3:35.6, which was a new world record, but more amazingly, he did it by finishing 20 meters ahead of second place. Apparently there has never been such a large gap between first and second in the 1500 meters since, and his time of 3:35.6 hasn't even bested consistently in all of the olympics finals since then. Herb Elliot retired when he was still just 22 years old, after a career of never being outrun in the 1500 meters or the mile for over 40 competitions in a row, and after breaking the 4:00 mile 17 times. I definitely have to agree that Herb Elliot was the best miler of all time.

After the tour of the AIS I was retested once again, then Kate took me home. I went to class this afternoon and did homework in the evening. Ah, back into the good ol' school routine.

September 15

Well, my spring break trip is over, but I have several more days until classes begin again. I spent today being rather lazy and just relaxing. I was somewhat productive at times, however, as I organized my school work so I knew what was of highest priority. This afternoon I went grocery shopping and stocked up for the next week or two. Spring has definitely started spring here in Canberra -- the weeping willows and a few other previously leafless trees are beginning to leaf out, the pansies in some flowerbeds near the mall were blooming quite prolifically, and I even saw some daffodils in bloom. On my walk back from the mall I saw a pair of black swans with a half dozen little cygnets. I was expecting it to feel cold back here after beign up in the tropics the past week, but today's weather was bright and sunny with a high of 70 degrees! Weather can't get much more prefect than that!

September 14 - spring break trip

This morning I ate my fill of the free breakfast (cereal and milk) that came with my accommodation, then went outside and walked across the street to Bondi Beach park. I expected it to feel chilly this morning after spending eight days in the tropical north near Cairns, but I was actually a little bit hot with my long-sleeved shirt on. I took some photos of Bondi Beach and sat on a bench in the park next to the beach, then layed on the beach for an hour or so. It was a little chilly next to the water with the wind, so I didn’t get much of a tan (I kept my long pants and long-sleeved shirt on).

Although the receptionist at the hostel told me I should get on a bus to Bondi Junction and then take a train to central station, I saved some money this afternoon by finding a bus that went all the way into the city of Sydney, and then walking for about 15 minutes with my bags to get to central station. Even though this took a little longer, it only cost me $1.70 and I still got to the station an hour before my express coach to Canberra left.

At 3:00 I boarded the coach bus to Canberra and was pleased to find the bus only about half full – so I got to have a seat all to myself. The traffic out of Sydney today was pretty crazy and the 3:15 trip ended up taking 3:45, which was only slightly annoying. At one point when I was looking out the window I saw a yellow warning sign that had a picture of a wombat and said “next 5km”. Sorry Rachel, but I couldn’t get a picture of it. :-P

When the bus finally arrived in Canberra, I grabbed my bag and walked two blocks to the Canberra bus exchange. My timing was perfect, since a bus going to Belconnen had just arrived and was still boarding passengers. I got on the bus and 15 minutes later I got off at the bus stop nearest my dorm. A fair number of people on my floor were having dinner when I got back, so I said hi, talked a little about my trip, then eventually unpacked my bags. It feels good to be “home” again after two weeks of traveling and have my own room to sleep in at night. Alas, my spring break traveling has come to an end. Only a few more days until classes start again!

September 13 - spring break trip

My room at Asylum wasn’t as nice this time. Instead of being alone in a room like I was last time, I was in a three-bed room, and at least one of my roommates smelled kinda bad (a smelly feet kind of smell). I met one roommate (a guy from Scotland) before I went to bed. I didn’t sleep very well because, as I found out, this room was right above the kitchen/outdoor dining room area where everyone hangs out, gets drunk, and makes noise at night. Also, after the noise had quieted down later in the night, I woke up because my second roommate had returned and was snoring loudly.

Before my flight left this afternoon I went back to the Cairns Central mall to kill some time and got my disposable underwater camera developed. Some of the pictures from scuba diving and snorkeling actually turned out pretty good. I’ll have to find a scanner sometime so I can get them up onto the computer.

My flight to Sydney this afternoon was a little less than two hours. I found out that there’s a Sydney bus stop at the domestic terminal of the Sydney airport, so I got on a bus for $4.50, switched buses at a bus station, and got off at Bondi Beach. I checked into Bondi Backpackers hostel and made myself some supper (gotta love canned soup!). Bondi Backpackers turned out to be another nice, clean hostel. The only guy that I met in my room before I went to bed was a middle-aged man who was sleeping on his bed when I arrived, and who would alternate between seeming to sleep and trying to make conversation by saying in a half-asleep voice “so where are you from” and stuff like that.

September 12 - spring break trip

This morning I checked out by the checkout deadline and put my bags in a locker for the day. I explored some more of the shops in town looking for any possible souvenirs, then walked down to Four-mile Beach. The beach here had a fair number of people laying out and swimming, and although it was hot in town, there was a strong, cool breeze coming in off the ocean. I layed in the sun and enjoyed the breeze for a while before walking around and exploring more of the town.

The bus picked me up from Port Douglas at 4:30pm today and drove myself and a bunch of others back to Cairns. Near Cairns I saw a lot of smoke on one side of the road, and as we got closer I saw that it was a sugar cane field that was being burned. I checked back into the Asylum hostel in Cairns (where I had stayed previously) around 6:00pm, got my meal voucher, and went down to the Woolshed for dinner. After supper I walked to Cairns Central Mall, in a part of Cairns I hadn’t been to before. Most of the stores were closed (stores close early in Australia), but the grocery stores were still open. I walked around in one grocery store and ended up buying a pint of extremely delicious fresh strawberries that were on special. I also bought some chocolate – it’s been a while since I’ve had any. J I’m not sure how many kinds of kitkats there are back in the U.S. right now, but I’ve noticed there are several new/different varieties of kitkats here, including mint slice, caramel, honeycomb, and a cookie one. Anybody know if these are available in the U.S. yet? I haven’t tried them here since it’s almost $2 for one small candybar – I’m not gonna waste my money. :-P

September 11 - spring break trip

When I got up this morning I decided to go for another walk on the Dubuji boardwalk down the road. At the beginning of my walk I spotted a loose “group” of birds, including several new species, like an emerald dove, a male shining flycatcher, some metallic starlings, and a rufous fantail. I saw another noisy pitta on the boardwalk too, which was really cool. It’s too bad I couldn’t get a picture to show you all how beautiful pittas are.

After I got done with my walk I packed up my stuff and enjoyed the tropical weather as I waited for the tour bus to pick me up around 1:30. On the bus ride to Port Douglas our sharp-eyed driver stopped and backed up a bit when he spotted walking a beautiful wild cassowary walking through the forest! It was hard to tell through the thick vegetation (even though it was close to the road), but some of us thought we may have seen a second cassowary. It was definitely a treat to see this large, endangered bird in the wild. I tried to get a picture through the window but the forest was too thick that the shutter speed wasn’t fast enough to get a photo that’s focused enough to tell that there’s a cassowary in the vegetation.
We stopped near Port Douglas at Mossman Gorge state park for a 45 minute break. There were a few Australian brush turkeys along the path, looking for handouts from tourists. In the creek there were a lot of large, rounded boulders scattered around, and a swimming hole where some people swam. I hiked farther up the trail, across a swinging suspension bridge, into some more rainforest. There were large boulders scattered in the forest and a lot of moss on the rocks, ground, and trees, no doubt the reason the park is called Mossman.

In Port Douglas I was dropped off at my hostel where I checked in, dropped my bags in the room, and went out to explore the town. Port Douglas is an nice little town with lots of shops and plenty of things to do. After spending several days up in the remote, rural rainforest of Cape Tribulation, it felt good just to walk around town and feel like I was in civilization once again.
After I oriented myself with the town, including the location of the grocery store, I went back to my room and made my bed. This hostel (Parrotfish Lodge) quickly became the favorite out of all of the hostels I’ve stayed at here in Australia. The rooms were very clean, the common areas were decorated with bright paintings from a modern Aboriginal artist, the kitchen was the cleanest and most organized I’ve ever seen in a hostel, and there was a nice lounge area just out my door with a huge coffee table (made out of a slice of a big log), two big couches, and a TV. It’s been forever since I watched TV, so I sat around and watched it, catching an episode each of Futurama, Australian Idol, and Law and Order. I met a guy and girl that were from Canberra in the lounge, but already graduated from university. They shared some fresh chopped pineapple with me.

Tonight my room had one German girl that I talked to for a bit, two other girls, and three guys. It’s interesting being put in a room at a hostel and never knowing who your roommates are going to be.

September 10 - spring break trip

This morning I was the first person to get up in the room. I got a shower, packed my backpack, and then left for the hike up to the lookout of Mount Sorrow. I saw a few birds on the hike, one of the highlights being a beautiful green, tan, black, and red noisy pitta. The trail up the mountain ended up being very natural, with little or no improvements made for hikers. It pretty much resembled a turkey or deer path through the woods back home, winding around and between trees, and often with vegetation that almost made the path disappear. It ended up being an amazing hike, because I felt like I was actually hiking through a jungle/rainforest the entire time. I ended up having to crawl over/under three or four logs along the way, and much of the trail was very steep. Some parts of the trail toward the top were especially steep, and I held onto small trees to help pull myself up and save the energy in my legs. Right before the top it flattened out a bit and you were literally walking on top of large boulders with steep dropoffs on either side. Finally, after stopping only a few times to look at birds, I arrived at the lookout. The sign at the beginning of the trail said that “greater than average fitness” was required to complete the hike, and I wholeheartedly concur, as it took me almost 2.5 hours to hike the 3.5k trail (just over two miles).

The view from the lookout on Mount Sorrow was spectacular. You could see the ridgetops of several mountains to the west, covered in green rainforest, and then to the east and southeast you could see the ocean. I had my binoculars with me and through the haze I was able to spot a few buildings from Cairns (about 3 hours away, down the coast), and Port Douglas was much more readily visible (1.5 or so hours away). The view from the lookout definitely made it worth the work of hiking up. There were two Canadians and two Irish people at the lookout when I arrived. I ate my packed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while I soaked in the view before setting out on the return hike down the mountain. I tried to walk fairly quickly down the mountain to determine how fast one could descend if there were no stops. I found out it was actually harder in some ways going down, because your knees and quads get really tired from controlling the steep steps that are required to get down many the steep slope. It took me almost one hour and twenty minutes to walk back down, and by that time my legs were feeling quite exhausted. This was definitely the most strenuous and difficult hike I have ever done. But one of the most beautiful as well!

This afternoon I mostly just spent time relaxing and enjoying my vacation. J At one point I walked up the beach to the next beach just beyond the cape, and laid out in the sun for an hour or so. Walking back to my hostel was a chore after this because my legs were still exhausted from the 4.5 mile hike earlier today. This afternoon there was a reggae band playing at the bar at the hostel, but unfortunately I’m not a huge fan of reggae. The entire band was a bunch of hippies, and I’ve realized that what the bus driver said about Cape Tribulation having a lot of hippies was true. Out of the locals, a fair number have dredlocks in their hair. The reggae band was especially hippie, with all of the members having dreds and long hair, and most also dressed in “hippie clothes”. The lead singer was definitely one of the most hippie of them all, with long dreds and graying hair, red pants, a yellow sweater with a purple and orange shirt visible underneath, and he was always barefoot.

September 9 - spring break trip

Last night I was again the only person in my hostel room. This morning I got up at 6:00, packed, ate breakfast, and was ready for the tour bus to pick me up at 7:45. Our bus driver/tour guide had a great sense of humor and talked fairly frequently on the trip about the history, people, and landmarks of some of the things we pased. The bus was full of many foreigners and only one American that I knew of, and few or now Australians. I ended up sitting beside a Scottish girl named Jenny. She's pretty much traveling the world by working in most of the countries she's visiting, thus financing her travels and getting to experience more of their cultures. I asked Jenny about some of the countries she's been to, and asked her which was her favorite country out of all the ones she had been to, and she said the U.S.A.! It made me kinda proud when she said that. She had been across the whole country, and she said she especially liked the western states and that it was some of the most beautiful and best places she's ever been. I need to travel around my own country sometime instead of doing all this overseas stuff. ;)

The drive to Cape Tribulation was beautiful, and the last hour or so was on narrow, winding, coastal road. The ocean was often visible just a short distance from the road, and rainforest came right up to the road in many places. The roads actually reminded me a little of roads back home, only more tropical. We stopped at a cafe about half way up to stretch our legs (and buy food if we wanted). We also stopped at the Daintree River where we took a boat tour of the river to look for crocodiles. We ended up seeing a green tree snake up in one tree and were lucky enough to also spot a saltwater crocodile swimming along the shore! It was really neat to see a crocodile in the wild. The river boat ride ended on the other side of the river, where the ferry unloaded and our bus was already waiting for us. There was a table set up here where a lady was selling fresh harvested bananas at $5/kg, so a lot of us bought bananas. I bought two bananas for a total of only $1.50. They turned out to be some of the tastiest bananas I've ever eaten! mmmm!

We arrived at 12:30 at Cape Tribulation and I changed into shorts once I had gotten assigned my bed in 7-bed room in a cabin dorm. After I changed I walked out to the beach (a 1-2 minute walk down a trail through the rainforest). The beach was beautiful -- wide, flat, with white sand and almost no people. There was a boardwalk just a short walk down the road, so I went and did that after I visited the beach. The boardwalk was probably about one mile long, winding through some of the most beautiful rainforest I have ever seen. The trees and vegetation came right up to the boardwalk, and I saw several birds, including an orange-footed scrubfowl that came pretty close to me on the boardwalk.

After exploring the boardwalk I went back to the beach and walked up to the point of cape tribulation. At one point I saw and Osprey that flew around, then dove into the ocean to try to catch a fish. He didn't seem to be successful, but it was neat to see him dive. It was a little weird to see an Osprey dive into the ocean, as I'm used to seeing them flying around the inland lakes back home. Ospreys must be very adaptable and are definitely very widely distributed around the globe!

Back at the hostel and store right next to the hostel, I ran into Taylor and Ali, a couple of Canadians who were in my scuba diving group the other day. I talked to them a bit about how amazing Cape Tribulation is and what their plans were for here, and after they leave Cape Trib. After I said bye to them I went into the store and bought some food. Food was expensive here, and a loaf of bread was $5. I planned this tour to allow me two days in Port Douglas and one day at Cape Tribulation, but after exploring this afternoon I decided to switch my stay to two days here at the cape, and only one in Port Douglas. There's a trail up a mountain just up the road, and I want to try hiking that tomorrow in addition to just enjoying the natural beauty of where "the rainforest meets the reef".

Tonight my dorm had three Italians, myself, and two British girls. I talked for a while to the two British girls and one Italian guy for quite a while before we all went to bed. It's amazing how wherever I go up here at Cape Tribulation I rarely ever walk past anyone that's speaking English! Although Australia's an officiall English-speaking country, the almost exclusive presence of tourists in Cape Tribulation makes you almost feel like you must be in a different country altogether -- one where every other person speaks a completely different language!It's an interesting change from what I'm used to.