Week 31:Break!!!

With only nine weeks left to go in our Australian Adventure, we are taking a break. Tonight (Thursday) we are heading to the country's Red Centre! It will take us two days, with stops, to reach the real outback. We'll be seeing gorges, ranges, and Uluru (Ayer's Rock) in 90 degree weather! I am so ready for some sun. We haven't been in 90 degree weather since last August, and minus the honeymoon/stopover in Hawaii, we haven't been in 80 degree weather since then either. Anywho, we'll continue our trip by driving for two days to the north end of the country to Darwin to go canoeing, hiking, and diggerdoo buying. It's the aboriginal centre of Australia. The whole 10-day holiday will be fantastic and hilarious because none of us will really know how to drive the manual SUV we got for the bush roads. I wish we were leaving now! But, more about that next week.

This past week has been quite productive. First, Karl wasn't kidding about being a human guinea pig. He's volunteered to be part of a study of metabolism and muscle breakdown. He's at the school right now, doing one-leg cycling until the point of exhaustion. Karl will do this type of thing for about 30 minutes on 4 different occassions. The last one will last 5 hours, but he's getting at least $500 for his trouble--TAX FREE! I say, "Keep signing up!"

Second, I have been a busy little beaver, editting my thesis. I have completed my first round of revisions, but I think I still have lots to go. We'll know the Monday after next when I meet with my supervisor. Either way, I'm emailing it to him after one last quick read through, and I'm forgetting about it. Third, the other ambassadorial scholars and myself have been really busy. We've had two meetings this week in the city (which equals out to me spending 6 hours on a tram) to plan a fundraising event for St. Jude, that school in Tanzania Africa that I've written about before. We're having a 3-course dinner, raffle, and scholar-created entertainment centered on the theme of Thanksgiving. We're thanking our Rotary districts for hosting us, and we're asking them to give money to St. Jude. We think it's a fantastic idea! Hopefully the Rotarians will too and they'll fork over the cash:)

I think that's about all the news we have for this week. No blog next week cause we'll be in the outback! Look for lots of new photos and exciting stories the week after next. I promise it will be on time:) Miss you guys!

Britt

WORD OF THE WEEK

You know how you Americans are havings record gas prices at around $3.00 a gallon? Well, the Aussies don't complain about gas prices; they complain about petrol prices (which are at $1.33 a liter and there are roughly four liters in a gallon. Makes you look silly, huh?) They have "gas" here, but it is for lawn mowers or something. Petrol is what you put into your car. They do actually pronounce the 'r', too. You might be wondering, well do they call it a petrol station? No, they don't. It's called a service station, usually shortened to servo. So, on our trip, we'll be stopping to get petrol at every servo we see because they're few and far between in the lonely desert.