TOWNSVILLE

Woooo what a week in Cairns, now off to Townsville to the James Cook campus! we had the four hour drive to Townsville a couple of days ago and arrived around 3:00 and were amazed at how beautiful the campus was and um HUGE! we got off the bus and of course our luggage was on the second bus, so we got our keys and walked to our rooms which are so nice! everyone here has their own personal room even freshers (aka freshman) and they don't ever share rooms, that was different. Nothing like freshman year in the states.
They have some crazy competition between dorms here like in Harry potter! I live in George Roberts Hall and our huge rivals are Uni hall, where Steph lives. They also don't call their dorms 'dorms' they are called 'colleges' and the college is a 'university', which they shorten and call 'Uni'.... weird and confusing yes. They also call anyone whose not a freshman ("Fresher") a "fossil", I guess meaning old and been here awhile ha ha. Monday starts the beginning of "O" week, where there are crazy competitions and toga parties and all sorts of things. We even have to learn a war cry!? so different from the states...hazing is legal here I'm pretty sure I have to walk around campus in a bandana or something, for the whole week that has my name written on it and if I don't and a fossil catches me they write my name on my forehead in permanent marker, YIKES. (which did end up happening one night...)
A couple of days ago we took the bus into town to the mall called Stalkland, which was huge and I think I saw every inch of it as we were wandering around trying to remember where exactly we came in from. It wasn't much different from the malls in the states except it was all one floor and there were grocery stores and stores like walmart attached to it, not called walmart, but called the Big W. We got some needed school stuff and snacks as well as, and I had to buy a blanket cause leaving the AC on all night I almost woke us as an ice cube, and if it is not on you are just a puddle on the sheets, no happy medium in the tropics.
Yesterday, a group of us took the city bus into town to the beach, called the Strand, and spent the entire day sun bathing and swimming in the ocean, well in the blocked off swim area in nets called 'stinger nets' so the extremely deadly and painful marine stingers the size of a large button don't kill you....safe....or eaten by a shark, no need to worry mom totally safe! well i was in the water and made it out alive :) in one day I feel confident enough to say i am tan!
Today is a day i just get relax and get all the million school things that need to be done, done. The food here is umm, I never thought I would say i missed school food but, its much more plain and not what's the word, tasty ha ha.
more pictures to come!