Saturday, May 31, 2014

Getting my Ducks in a Row

        It's my last week in Australia! I have been very busy getting everything ready to go home but yet also enjoying every day that I have left here. On Wednesday, Ben, Marina, Pauline, Max and I travelled to Yeppoon for our last day enjoying the beach. For lunch we had some delicious fish and chips at a shop located on the beach! While we were eating, we were discussing about going for one last swim in the ocean since it was a beautiful day out. Suddenly, Pauline yells something out in French and starts pointing at the water. Then she starts saying "shark, shark, I saw a shark!- right there, it's RIGHT THERE!" And sure enough a little ways out from the shore was this dark grey, black dorsal fin. Yeppoon beach has rarely had any shark sightings and it really isn't shark season around here but, I kid you not, there was a shark in the water! Needless to say, none of us got into the water haha.
  
      Instead of swimming, the rest of our day was spent exploring the little shops located in Yeppoon and picking up some final souvenirs. We left around 4 PM to go back to Rockhampton to get ready for the State of Origin game that night!

      State of Origin is a three-game rugby series in which Australian rugby players in the Australian Rugby League play for the state in which they came from instead of the teams that they were drafted to. The two different states that play in this highly- competitive league is the Maroons (Queensland) and the Blues (New South Wales) with the first State of Origin game being played in 1980. Each year, the crowds get bigger and the hype surrounding the series escalades! I would say that the equivalent to the State of Origin series excitement is equivalent to the Superbowl hype. Since 2006, Queensland has won every series! The Maroon pride was awesome to experience! A large group of us went to The Oxford (a pub located in downtown Rockhampton) to watch the first game that took place on Wednesday night via TV. I believe that the first game took place in Brisbane. Because Rocky is located in the heart of Queensland, you can probably guess who the large majority of Oxford patrons that night were rooting for haha. Although, there were a few brave souls standing by their NSW Blues. The game was so intense! If you haven't seen a rugby match in person or on TV, I strongly recommend seeing what it's like. It took me about half of the game before I could really understand what was going on and it was great! It is both alike but also very VERY different from what we Americans know as football. Surprisingly, QLD ended up losing the first game. Nevertheless, we all had a great time at the pub experiencing this Australian event. The second game will be hosted by Sydney on June 18th and the third game will return to Brisbane on July 9th.

     Thursday was a day of re-cooperating from the previous night and studying hard! It was our last trip to Stocklands as well. Lately, I have been doing quite a bit of studying just because finals start tomorrow! Yikes! I went to the sports center the other day (where we take our exams) and it was this large auditorium- about two basketball courts long- completely filled with rows and rows of individual desks. Scary! I, being the fandom nerd that I am, immediately thought it resembled the Great Hall in Harry Potter when they take their exams haha.

     Well the next time you'll be hearing from me, I'll be completely done with exams and getting ready to board the bus for my first leg of the trip to go home! I will accept any and all prayers for my exams coming up within the next week. :) Thanks for checking up on me!

Toodles,

Tina

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