Ignore the Real Date- Its the End of May

As the title suggests...this post is going to take us all waayy back on a little time warp to the end of may. A time when I was still swamped with work...Ross was still in high school...the weather was still warm....a long long time agoo. Like I mentioned in my last post at this time I was a little worried about finishing five papers all before my big trips planned for june. However, regardless of the workload I could not simply sit around the Griffith University Village for another weekend and instead ventured off back to Byron Bay. Rachel was going for the full weekend to get finish her scuba diving certification and I was going to go for part of the weekend with her to go on the day trip to the nearby hippie town of Nimbin we had been wanting to see. Since Rachel needed to go get a dive medical for her certification she left thursday morning [May 20- seeee a long time ago!] and I was going to meet her down in byron thursday night! Unfortunately the bus Rachel was going to take was canceled and when I called her as I was leaving class to make sure she was on her way I ended up catching her at just the right time as her phone was running out of credit. She had just enough credit left to explain to me what was going on and ask me to reschedule her a medical in Surfer's Paradise for that time while she went to recharge her phone and buy a new bus ticket. It all worked out shockingly quickly and easily and she was on her way to her medical and back on the road to Byron just as I was headed to the bus station. I just that is the ease of life in Australia! The bus ride to Byron is just like a bus ride to Madison and traveling alone on this bus made me very confused the whole ride as to which destination I was going to end up. As the driver announced we were getting closer I was half expecting to see the Madison skyline over the lake. That is far from what the small beach town of Byron looks like however! But the ride was a short one and I met up with Rachel at our hostel very quickly and we were off to our favorite Asian BYO restaurant in town as if we were weekly regulars. Back in our room we talked for a little while with our roommates- two Australian girls- who we were clearly able to relate to as they came in and sat down with a jar of nutella and bread. It was a low key night but a nice change of scenery.
The next morning we then had to be up early for our tour with Jim's Adventures to Nimbin. We were picked up in a tye dye bus- a perfect transportation to a hippie town. Of course, upon boarding the bus I see none other than Danny Forhman- my friend from home that I cannot travel anywhere in Australia without bumping into!! I guess it was about time we were actually booked on the same tour.
Of course, as we are in Australia, the bus's first stop was at a bar for us to stock up on any refreshments we may went for the day. "Fill the eskie", was the driver's instructions, "eskie" being "australian" for cooler. The rest of the day went by pretty anticlimatic. We were given time to explore the town, which consists of essentially one street of shops and cafes of all things hippie. The highlight was the towns "museum" which essentially consisted of paper clippings thrown together in an "artistic" manner to represent the towns "history".
Moving on from the town we then stopped out a few different rainforest spots for a bbq and a walk through some pretty sights. These all would have been much nicer had it not have been pouring down rain all day but the area was still very pretty none-the-less....as I'm getting the sense just about everywhere in this country is.
The trip then came to an end...which just about brought my trip to Byron to an end as well, the rest of my time there consisting of some hostel time and some more time walking around the town. The next morning as Rachel took off for her class I boarded the bus back to Surfer's and enjoyed my independent travel time, catching up on my reading.
Coming back to school it was time to get down to work and the next two weeks were spent...in the library. It is amazing how I think I have spent more time in the library here in these final weeks than I have in my past three years of Madison. I guess that is what happens when you go to school without an internet router or access to scholarly research sites without being on campus. However, with all the time I am spending on campus here I am growing to dislike it more and more. As most students here do not live on campus [where I live is in fact that only "on campus" living] all school facilities such as libraries and "learning centres" [buildings with tables and chairs used to study...essentially a library with the books] are very very small. However, as assignments need to be handed in on campus at the library and research needs to be done using campus internet, these facilities become very crowded very quickly. It has made me appreciate the libraries at madison very much so and the fact that a school 10x the size of Griffith can accomodate the study needs of its students so much better.
Regardless of the facilities however and my lack of intelligence [the brain is a muscle you know...and mine was veryyyy out of shape!] I did manage to get all my work handed in on time [in fact most of it ended up being in early as majority of my assingment due dates were extended to deadlines after my travel dates]. It was a stressful two weeks after not remembering how to work and I think I have officially written more papers this semester than in all my time at Madison. Now lets just hope I wrote them well enough to pass!