SYDNEY!!!!

ello mates!
Sorry for the ridiculously long drought between posts. The past week has been full of writing my final paper and studying for my final exam. Before finals we went to the Daintree National Park. It was one of the prettiest places I’ve seen so far. On the way to the Daintree, we stopped by a golf course to take pictures of a mob of kangaroo. We also saw black cockatoos along the side of the highway. At the Daintree we stayed at the Crocodylus Hostel, which was pretty much just elevated tents. On our first day there, we went on a croc cruise and saw a snake and a few crocodiles in the water. Over the next 2 days we went to 3 different beaches, 3 each more beautiful than the last. We had more lectures and toured more parts of the rainforest as well. We saw one of our professor’s eco-friendly houses (in the rainforest) and a palm forest she helped reforest the buffer zones on. Sadly, we never found the elusive cassowary (google it. It’s a huge weeeeeird bird.) After we got back I spent most of my time studying and writing my paper. Then we spent the weekend in Cairns. There we went out on the town Saturday night then snorkeled the reef on Sunday (which happened to be the 4th of July). Snorkeling was absolutely AMAZING! I saw a sea turtle, sting ray, a giant clam, a ton of huge clownfish, plus other random fish. I even got to hold a purple starfish! The waves were wicked though. It was overcast and the waves were crazy choppy. All in all, 10 of the 18 people I was snorkeling with ended up getting sick on the boat ride back. Sad day. After we got back to CRS (the Center for Rainforests Studies, my home away from home) we had a 4th of July celebration, complete with brats, potatoes salad, cake, and sparklers. The next night was the official last day of the first session. We spent the night singing around the campfire and saying our goodbyes. It was really sad to see some of my friends go. Now that the 1st session is over, its break time for the next 6 days. Seven of my friends and I are taking our holiday in Sydney. We got in yesterday and spent the day looking around our part of the city and recovering from our 4 am airport departure. Last night we went to a comedy club and saw 2 comedians who were surprisingly funny. Today we played tourist and took the train to the Circular Quay and saw the legendary Opera House. We even got tickets for a performance Friday night! I’m super pumped! We also went through the botanical gardens and walked more around the Darling harbour.
That’s about all so far, hopefully I’ll update again before I leave Sydney. The internet has pretty much died back at CRS, so it’s hard to do updates there. (It will unpredictably give reception, and even then not everything will load. It made things pretty impossible to do my research paper.)