Australia Day

i can't believe i forgot to talk about Australia Day in my last post!  Australia Day was on Monday.  it's a public holiday so everyone gets off of work and school, except for Bond Uni, of course (sound like a certain Ripon College?).  supposedly the reason we didn't get off of school is because it's an international school and only about 50% of the students here are australian.  i don't know why that makes a difference, but alas, we had class.  well, everyone who has classes on monday. i certainly do not.  random fact: bond uni is only about 20 years old!  that's a really really new school compared to RC at least.  that would explain why everything here is so new and nice still.  no renovation necessary.  it was also voted the #1 school in australia for two years in a row.  wow.  anyway...

australia day is like 4th of july for those of us from the states.  it celebrates the date when the british colonized here in 1901.  (don't i sound smart?)  it's kind of a controversial holiday because it also appears to glorify the fact that the british basically kicked the aborigines out of their homeland (sound familiar?).  whatever the reason, there was much celebration at bond university on monday.  don's tavern, the bar on campus, had a big BBQ and free beer/wine/champagne.  there were even fireworks!  it was pretty sweeet.

today my roommate, casey, and i are heading to byron bay for the weekend.  it's our first adventure out on our own away from campus so it's veryy exciting.  we have to take the bus into surfer's, then catch a different bus at the transit station, and then it's about an hour to byron bay.  once we get there we're staying a hostel, the aquarius, for $36/night.  good deal?  i don't know yet.  we looked up a lot of places and this is the cheapest one we could find.  an australian told us that a better idea would be to rent a big van and drive down there and just park on the beach for the weekend.  that sounds pretty sketch to me, and therefore we're going to have to try it...  anyway, i'm sure i will come back on sunday with some good stories so stay posted.