07/02/2004 – So we decided to spend only one full day in Canberra.  In order to see as much of the city as is humanly possible during that one day, we elected to take a bus tour of the city.  It was a half-day tour because we didn’t get out of bed until 10, but it ended up being very informative and included all the major sites.  I thought the best part was by far the tour of parliament house.  When we got there, these women were singing at some ceremony and all of a sudden one of them started cackling like a crazy person and it was really funny and Tommy tried to record it but it didn’t work.  The Australian government is modeled after the British system, but a couple of key features are taken from the US, like the names of the two houses.  The prime minister is John Howard and he is basically the head of state and runs the lower house.  The government is still associated with the queen of England, though, and the golden mace sits in the middle of the lower house and symbolizes the authority of the queen.  It can also be used to play baseball with.  The tour was very up close and personal, and we got almost full access to parliament.  The parliament house is also home to the world’s second largest tapestry, hanging in the banquet hall.

Canberra is a planned city built around a man-made lake, called Lake Burley Griffin which has this huge water jet that shoots water really high into the air (Tommy thinks 200 meters).  It seemed a very empty city to me, as if the people who planned it had expected way more people to move there.  I think either Sydney or Melbourne should have just given in and let the other city be capital just to avoid the disgrace of making middle-of-nowhere Canberra the capital of the nation.  On the bus tour we also saw the impressive Australian War Memorial where an evil bird attacked us, the Australian American Monument, all the embassies (the US embassy was the biggest and the coolest), a lookout at Mt. Ainslie which was also a ladybug breeding ground, and the old parliament house.  They actually just finished building the new parliament house about 15 years ago.  Just shows how new Australia really is.  The whole country is very unpopulated compared to home.  Driving at rush hour is not that big a deal, and each town seems to remain untouched by congestion and sprawl.

Anyway, back to Canberra.  After the bus tour, we bought some fried chicken at a mall and headed over for our first experience at an Australian casino (my first experience inside any casino).  It was pretty small and very hard to find.  I expected some Vegas-style advertisements outside or something, but really there was just this teeny little sign in a dark alley.  We lasted about 30 minutes inside and lost about 10 dollars playing roulette, but it was fun and we left in such high spirits that for some reason we decided it would be fun to see the movie Underworld, an X-men meets Matrix vampire movie that I hated but Tommy thought was okay.  Oh yeah, and earlier in the day we were at this used bookshop and this lady tried to sell me a used book for 25 dollars!  It was a tiny little paperback book called Ritalin Nation, which I’m sure you’ve heard of, and the US new price was only like $23.  I argued with her a little but she wasn’t giving in so I gave up but now I really want to read that book.

By the way, Australians call candy “lollies” and cookies “biscuits.”

08/02/2004 When we were taking the bus tour of Canberra, Tommy and I took note of all the things we wanted to see more up close and personal.  So, we woke up early the next day and went to the top of Telstra tower, a lookout over Canberra.  The view was spectacular, but I realized how isolated Canberra really is.  Tommy asked some questions about the legality of basejumping and we bitched a little that the restaurant wasn’t open, and then we left.  Our next stop was the zoo.  We drove up to the zoo and found that it cost a little too much money.  So I promptly opened my bible to read Let’s Go’s impressions of the zoo, only to find that the author thought that it wasn’t worth it unless you had little kids with you.  We scanned the book for free things to do, and we found ourselves at Screensound Australia, an Australian media museum at the University of Canberra.  Both of us thought this museum was totally great.  It had a little booth for every decade of media, with videos running of music videos and tv shows.  We watched the first Australian gay tv kiss, and some really funny commercials, as well as the all-popular Skippy the Kangaroo tv show.  Now, if you’d like to know exactly what Skippy is like, picture Lassie and turn him into a kangaroo.  Now, instead of barking, Skippy makes clicking noises, kind of like the noise horseback riders make when they want their horse to go from a trot into a canter.  A sample dialogue from the show:

            Skippy:  Click click click click click click click

            Man: What’s that Skippy? Timmy’s been bitten by a snake?

            Skippy: Click click click click

            Man: You know where he is? Alright! I’ll follow you.

            Skippy: Click click click click click

            Man: Aww, Skippy. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll find Timmy in time.

Now, we wanted to buy a DVD with some Aussie commercials on it, but Australian DVDs are from a different region and they won’t play in some of our DVD players.  Tommy’s computer can play them, but we got a message that said that we can only change the region on his computer 4 times, and after that it cannot be changed ever again, even if you put it in another computer or put spells on it or anything.  So, we’ve refrained from watching any Australian DVDs so far.

            Anyway, we decided to head to Melbourne after this and we lasted about 2.4908 seconds before we were drenched in sweat and complaining of the heat.  Now, Melbourne is 650 kilometers from Canberra, through dry Southern New South Wales.  Our car does not have air conditioning.  Now, with our state of the art new radiator, the car was keeping cool quite nicely.  We however, were burning hot and were forced to stop every half hour to get some ice cold beverages.  We stopped at a gas station and as I pumped gas into the car, Tommy ran into the shop to get ice.  He comes back a few minutes later with two bags of frozen peas and gummy bears.  We used the peas as ice packs and ate a few gummy bears before the heat fused them all together into a gummy pile of mush (very gross).  We drove for what seemed like eternity and finally the sun went down and we approached Melbourne.

            About 40 kms out, I went into one of my “Australia sucks” campaigns.  This time is was because of lack of suburbs.  Any true city, I thought, would show at least some sign of civilization 40 kms away.  It was then that I realized the drastic difference between Australia’s 20 million people and the US’s 300 million.  It just so happened that 5 kms later all of a sudden there was a line of houses that marked the suburbs of Melbourne and we once again felt a little bit at home.  However, about 1 km later, we passed about 6 broken down cars in 2 miles and heard some weird crashing noises.  Then, each car around us suddenly turned off its lights and pulled off the road.  It was really creepy and I still have no idea what was going on, but we just kept on going and made it to our hostel in one piece, or I guess in two pieces because there are two of us.  We stayed in a hostel smack in the center of the city called Greenhouse Backpackers which was a pretty well-run establishment, but large and filled-to-capacity that night.  Our room had 8 beds, all of which were occupied by men except for me.  It was a little weird; I usually like to have at least one other girl there, but everyone was friendly and Tommy was there.  The hostel fit my every need for two reasons: 1.  vending machines with ramen and 2. a garden on the roof.  Both very very cool.

12/02/2004 – Today’s entry will be pretty short I think because we only did one thing yesterday: drove…in the rain.  We drove from some town just east of Melbourne all the way to a town just south of Sydney called Wollongong.  We left at about 10:30am and arrived in Wollongong about 11:00pm.  It was a really long day and we have to drive a whole bunch today too so I’ll get to Brisbane in time to start orientation.  Last night after we arrived we both jumped in the shower and it was a dirty shower and I didn’t really feel clean after it and then on the way back I stepped in a big mudpile and it really sucked and now my sandals are dirty and Tommy’s towel is dirty because he let me use it to wipe off my feet and it sucked.

            (Tommy takes over..) Oh yeah, just a couple more things.  My data isn’t to extensive to date, but as far as I know, all the Indians in Australia feverishly scratch lottery cards all morning, and the Dutch are all surfers that paint their toenails pink.

            You may or may not know, that I consider pretty much everything to be relative.  And that’s the way that it is with cities.  That being said, Melbourne was really cool and if we’re lucky we’ll only be in its foil long enough to get out of the car, sleep, and get back in the car.  (I don’t think much of wollongong.)

13/2/2004 – So after the luxurious amenities of Wollongong, our stay at Coffs Harbour felt actually more like the Plaza Hotel.  We arrived at about sunset after two very long days of driving, but we were in high spirits and the guys at reception were really nice and welcoming.  We splurged for our own room for once, and walked almost to the beach but it was really dark and we forgot a flashlight so we went back when we got to the frightening depths of brush between the road and the beach.  Visions of the world’s top ten most venomous snakes drove us back, well, at least me back but I think Tommy wasn’t too keen on heading in there anyway.  This morning we woke up SUPER early and walked down to the beach (this time with flashlights) and watched the sunrise.  Believe it or not, the beach was actually extremely traveled at this time.  Apparently surfers fall into the same category as bakers and newspaper delivery boys in that they can actually wake up early on a regular basis.  Anyway, the sunrise was fantastic and it was kind of our substitute for Valentine’s Day since I’m leaving this evening for orientation.  So after the sunrise, we went back to our hostel and promptly fell back to sleep until 10 am or so.  We then spent about two hours on the internet at our hostel trying to figure out when exactly we have to be at school, and how to get there.  So then we made our way down to the Pet Porpoise Pool, a marine zoo that puts on a show twice a day.  We got to pet dolphins and get kissed by seals.  Tommy even held a dead fish in his mouth and let a dolphin take it out.  It was quite disgusting but I must say the boy has some guts.  Anyway, tonight at 12:25am I’m catching an overnight greyhound bus from Coffs Harbour to Brisbane so I can meet my Butler University crew at the airport for the start of orientation.  Yeee haawww!

14/2/04 Happy Valentine’s Day!!  It’s not exactly what Tommy and I consider to be the most romantic of Valentine’s days, considering we spent all of 25 minutes of it together before I jumped on a bus to Brisbane.  But, we have plans to reschedule some of the festivities.  The bus ride was not exactly pleasant, considering the bus stopped every 20 minutes and turned all the lights on.  And then of course there was that half an hour in Byron Bay where we had to all get off because our bus had broken down and a new one hadn’t come yet.  But, our driver hauled some ass for the last couple hours and we got into Brisbane on time.  Tommy stayed at Coffs Harbour and is planning to take a dive certification class while I’m at orientation.  So, I meet my Butler crew in t minus one hour and I’m not exactly jumping for joy at the moment.

 17/2/04 Butler orientation consisted of 3 days of dirty clothes and bad food.  The experience wasn’t entirely painful, as I met a lot of cool Americans, but I have to admit that I found it a little unnecessary and a little too much like the sleep-away camp I went to in middle school.  We did lots of “getting to know you” games and even more “getting to know the University of Queensland.”  We did this one activity, though, where we built a raft and I was in a group with all girls and we made the best goddamn raft you will ever see.  I am so very proud of it and we definitely kicked some major raft-building ass. 
            There were 50-something American kids in the program, about 2/3 of which were girls, and all were going to be attending UQ.  We stayed in bunks of six beds each, pretty similar to the hostels we had previously been staying in.  I split my room with my beautiful roommate from Emory, Ashley, and her friend Emily from GW.  Also, there were two girls from Iowa and one from somewhere up north like New York or Connecticut.  The girls in my room were all very cool and some of my best memories from orientation were actually from chatting in the room instead of the Butler activities.  However, we did take a really beautiful walk in Springbrook National Park and got to see some waterfalls and stuff.

19/2/04 With the $3000 program fee we paid to Butler, I get orientation, assistance throughout the semester, housing, and a farm stay. And so right after orientation, when I was super anxious to stop living out of a suitcase and be able to call someplace my own, Butler decided to send me on my farm stay. It actually turned out to be pretty fun and very relaxing, and I got to see the one place in Australia that I have always dreaming about seeing: Toowoomba! For those of you that don’t know, my favourite (yes I write British now, I even started spelling estrogen “oestrogen”) meal at the Outback Steakhouse is Toowoomba pasta and I was super excited to see Toowoomba. It’s a pretty small town if you ask me…comparable to Laurel except without all the ghettoness. Anyway, I spent two nights on a farm with three other Butler girls and a big extended family. The farm was about an hour away from Toowoomba, and pretty much an hour away from anywhere at all. The closest school was about 20 minutes away, and consisted of one teacher and 15 kids in all different grades. There were four generations on the farm, all with their own house and their own personality. We stayed with the grandparents, Judy and Roy, who spend their days pretty much entertaining foreigners. They have three children, two of whom still live on the farm. One of the kids married a spunky chick from the beach and they had three adorable kids, one of whom entertained us for most of the car ride out to the farm. Another kid had just had a baby named Tiger (as in, Woods) about two days before, so the family was all talking about how excited they were. Tiger’s mother was from Sweden and had visited the farm much the same as I was except she fell in love with Judy and Roy’s son and stuck around. Their other child got married and moved to the suburbs like most Australians. Oh yeah, and Roy’s mother was also still living on the farm and came for dinner one night. Okay, that was kinda boring I guess.

So, the four of us got a taste of true Australia I think. Now, I must admit that I consider myself quite the city slicker, but I was a freaking cowgirl compared to two of the other girls that were with me. It was a beef cattle farm, which also had horses, alpacas, and a dog named Scruffy.  We fed the horses apples (some of us with quite a bit of trouble) and fed the alpacas grass. We also went next door to check out the dairy farm next door. I have never seen a modern dairy farm, and I was quite impressed with the suction mechanisms and efficiency of the process. The family owns somewhere around 5,000 acres and along with cattle, they use the land for sorghum crops. I still have no idea what sorghum actually is.  After the Butler orientation, the food on the farm was great! It was the first home-cooked meals I’ve had in a long time, and it definitely teased me just enough to yearn for some of my Aunt Opal’s cobbler. One night we had chicken stuffed with crab, and the next night we had ham and potatoes.  Australians have morning and afternoon tea in addition to their three meals. “Tea” does not, however, mean tea. It means snack. Why they say tea instead of snack, no one will ever know. Anyway, we had watermelon and Brie with rice crackers (because one of the never-seen-a-cow-before girls on my trip also happened to be allergic to gluten, a substance that is in everything except rice crackers) for afternoon tea and we were all starving because we had eaten (or in my case, looked at) hairy disgusting butter-saturated ham sandwiches for lunch. The family was super nice and I got to know the other girls pretty well. It just so happens that two of the girls are the best friends of the two girls that are to be my roommates in my apartment in Brisbane.

22/2/04 We're finally settled in Brisbane, and happily have sheets on our beds and showers where we don't have to wear flip flops to protect our feet from all the god-forsaken diseases that backpackers carry. Tommy and I live about a 15 minute walk from each other, which is pretty fortunate compared to some of the other Butler kids.  Campus is on a peninsula that juts into the Brisbane River, and both of us live relatively close to our class, although I have a slightly longer walk.  Tommy's staying at King's College, an all-boys fraternity-like establishment.  He has his own room, but shares a bathroom with a hallway full of boys and he takes his meals in a dining room.  It sucks for him because breakfast ends at 9am!  Drastically different from Emory's breakfast until 2pm on weekends.  I am living in an apartment with two other American girls (Erin and Jenny) who go to Lafayette College in Pennsylvania.  It's a two bedroom apartment, but since they are friends from home I am living in the single room (thank god!).  We have a nice balcony, kitchen, bathroom, washer/dryer and little dining area.  The apartment complex has about 30 or so units and a pool in the center.

25/2/04 Orientation has so far consisted of sitting in a really big room for 3 hours and listening to "important" people talk about how we're lucky to be at such a diverse university (may I add, there are basically no black people in Australia).  Every other event at orientation is not mandatory, and I have therefore skipped every one of them.  Instead, I've spent my time in the cool "cybrary" catching up on my email and trying to decide which medical school to go to.  I have so far narrowed down my list of possible schools to 52.  I'm getting there, right?  I got to take Brown off the list the other day because they only accept students from their own freaking undergrad school, how funny is that?  We haven't spent too much time in downtown Brisbane, but we did go swing dancing at the Mustang Bar on Friday night.  It was an interesting experience.  At home, swing dancing and drinking at the same time is pretty uncommon, but no one had any reservations about it there.  There's a ferry called the Citycat that runs from UQ campus to downtown Brisbane, and it costs about $2 to take it, so it's very economical and at the moment it's our preferred method of transportation.

28/2/04 Poor unsuspecting me forgot that there are only 28 days in February and didn't realize that March 1 (the first day of classes) is tomorrow.  This is quite possibly the first thing I've been scheduled to do in Australia, but not looked forward to.

8/3/04 Class here has so far been pretty comparable to class at home.  I'm taking one hardcore science class, Human Reproduction and Fertility and one class called Introduction to Research, where I do a research project with a supervisor.  Tommy's taking the research class with me, as well as a class called Contemporary Australia.  "Contempo," as we call it, is a class full of other American students and talks about issues confronting Australia today.  It seems pretty cool so far, and only meets on Wednesdays, and we get to watch cool Australian movies every week.  The readings are super boring though, and I just finished a really long one on Australian egalitarianism.  My last class is also geared toward international students.  It's called Australian Terrestrial Environment and we have lectures titled "The Kangaroo" and "The Koala."  I'm going to come home knowing more about Australia than about America.  Classes here tend to be a little bit more independent, with lots of research papers and no weekly assignments.  Finals here are worth about half of your grade, so lots of emphasis on the second half of the semester.  The professors and lectures are pretty similar to at home, but the classes are a little bigger.  Also, there isn't usually one teacher that teaches all the time.  Instead, there will be like 10 lecturers throughout the semester, each concentrating on their own specialty.

10/3/04 – In Australia, they don’t have fraternities and sororities. Instead, they have colleges. If you’re studying at a university, don’t tell someone from Australia you go to college because they won’t understand what you’re talking about. Instead you have to say that you go to “Uni.” A college is something totally different. They don’t have dorms at uni like we do at home. Instead, you either live in a college, or you rough it in an apartment with the rest of the riff raff (wink). There are nine colleges, each housing about 200 people each. With over 30,000 kids attending UQ, that leaves less than 10% of the students living in residential colleges. By far the vast majority of the students live in off campus apartments.  So, with the lack of dorms, you may be wondering what the social scene is like. This is where the colleges probably make their biggest mark. They’re definitely at the focus of the social scene. If there’s a big shindig going down, one of the colleges will be backing it for sure. 


1/4/04 Fraser Island – The largest sand island in the world, the destination of over 300,000 tourists a year, and home of the largest perched lake in the world (and from what we can figure out, a perched lake is just a lake with sand on the bottom instead of dirt. That stuff is all good, but basically this place is simply a great time for a four-wheel drive vehicle and four friends. Our fearsome foursome consisted of Tommy, Ashley (my roommate from Emory), Steven (a kid from Duke that we met in our Contemporary class), and me. Now, since our little Jo can’t quite stand to be driven all over sand dunes and tree stumps and things, the four of us all chipped in to rent a beautiful Landcruiser. Tommy is the only 21 year old, so he did all the driving, and I’m glad he did because it was pretty sexy seeing him drive over big rocks and things. The only access to the island is by ferry or airplane, but we decided the ferry route was a little more economical. So we picked up our little monster car early Saturday morning and hopped onto the ferry at Rainbow Beach. This brought us to the southernmost point on the island. We drove up most of the way to the top of the island Saturday, camped there and then drove back on Sunday, stopping along the way each time to see the sights of the island. The inland roads were super rough, limiting us to less than 20km/h a lot of the time, so we preferred to drive along the eastern beach (called 75 mile beach, the only thing in this country they measure in miles). We could average about 60 or 70 km/h on the beach, and it was very thrilling to be hurtling down the beach. Millions of jellyfish-like creature called bluebottles wash up and die with the waves every day, and when you drive a car over them they make a loud popping sound. So, as we drove, it sounded as if we constantly running over bubble wrap. I should have taken a picture of one of them but I forgot. I took a total of 74 pictures this weekend! That’s got to be a record or something, and it doesn’t even include the pictures Ashley and Steven took that I will put up on our site at a later date. Anyway, the eastern beach is way too dangerous to swim in, due to crazy riptides and lots of sharks. There were very large waves all the time (I couldn’t really tell a difference between what they called high tide and what they called low tide) and the waves were very choppy; I’ve never seen anything like it. But, the condition of the ocean didn’t matter because you could go swimming in the many inland lakes on the island. Our favorite was Lake MacKenzie, and gorgeous perched lake made of every shade of blue you can imagine. It was very clear water, and the first 20 meters or so were very shallow so it was like a swimming pool without the chlorine and with sand on the bottom. It then got deep really fast, and no one really swam out past that point. Too many visions of the Loch Ness Monster, I guess. 

It rained every once and a while this weekend, but amazingly, it seemed to rain whenever we got in the car, and stop whenever we got out. There was also a lake called Lake Wabby that sat at the bottom of a huge sand mountain, called a sandblow. We actually decided not to walk across the Sahara-like mountain, but had a nice lunch on the lookout above it. There is virtually nowhere to buy food or supplies on the island, although there is one little community about the size of my apartment complex that has fuel and some other little things. It takes a really long time to get anywhere inland on the island, as the roads are really bad and the signs are even worse. It was crazy. We would pass a sign that would say, “Lake MacKenzie 10 km left, and Central Station 19 kms right.” So, we would turn left to go to Lake MacKenzie and a few kilometers later we’d pass a sign that would say, “Lake MacKenzie 11 km right, Central Station 4 kms left.” And this wasn’t like a one time thing. None of the signs made any sense at all and I swear it was a big joke that the locals play to screw up the tourists. But, there was nothing else to really go by so we did our best. Saturday night we ended up camping on the northern side of the island right on the eastern beach. We had rented a tent for 10 dollars and the boys set it up on the dune grass a little bit away from the beach. It was amazing because there was no one around for miles (or kilometers either). I felt like we had the whole world to ourselves, because after dark no one even drives on the beach anymore. We made a delicious spaghetti dinner and polished off a gourmet box of wine. We had a fire going, and Ashley brought s’mores (minus the graham crackers because Australians don’t have them, but we substituted cookies, also known as biscuits here) and we played with sparklers and ran around and fulfilled our stereotype of obnoxious Americans. But, it was a night to remember. Later, when Ashley and Steven were outside the tent “hanging out,” they saw a dingo. We had been warned that dingoes can be dangerous if you have little kids or food, but we had cleaned up pretty well. The two of them came back in the tent, but the next morning we found lots of dingo prints in the sand where we had eaten dinner. We made some pancakes and then headed for Eli Creek, a fast moving freshwater creek that heads from the center of the island to the eastern beach. There were lots of little critters in the water, like crayfish and eels and stuff, so Ashley decided to just watch, but Steven, Tommy and I braved the chilly water and floated down the creek with the current. The easiest way to float was to put your arms out and put your head back, but that scared me because then I couldn’t see where I was going. But, I kicked Tommy’s ass in the speed department and it was a fun little trip. There’s also a shipwreck on the island, as well as a bunch of really pretty sand formations called the Pinnacles. Oh geez, and I almost forgot. Tommy and Steven were playing hacky sack at some point during the weekend, and one of them dropped it a little farther away from normal. And all of a sudden, this goanna (also known as an iguana-like creature) bolted towards it and tried to eat it. He became totally fearless and was totally going after that thing. I tried to scare him away but I got so close to it that I got scared before he did and someone else had to get back the hacky sack. I think I’m spelling “hacky” right but the stupid Microsoft Word spell-check thing keeps putting a little red squiggly line under it. Anyway, the weekend was great and a wonderful experience.

21/4/04  Eeeeek! So we're a little bit behind again on our journal entries.  School has gotten really busy and I've recently started spending all of my free time sleeping.  Australians tend to go to bed early and get up early, and I've so far adjusted really well to the going to bed early part.  I just need a little more work on the getting up early part.  All my classes have really big papers due in the next couple of weeks, not to mention that I need to write my personal statement for my medical school applications.  I got my first grades back today and was not too pleased.  I ended up with a 75% on my first assignment, and I was pretty pissed.  But then I looked up the grading scale and found out that a 75 is the cut-off for an A, so really I would get an A if the semester would end right now.  So that cheered me up a little.  The weather has started to get a little cooler, which is really nice for sleeping at night.  Unless of course you have to get up for any reason, because then you'll be exposed to the terrors of Brisbane cockroaches who come out at night and sit and wait for sleepy victims.  They are absolutely disgusting but I've been told they're a "part of life" here. 

We just learned about Anzac Day in class today.  It's happening this Sunday, but they celebrate it on Monday so we don't have to go to class.  ANZAC stands for Australia/New Zealand Army Corps or something like that and it commemorates the day the Australian army landed at Gallipoli in World War One.  I've heard of Gallipoli a lot before, but I always thought it was in France.  Really it's in Turkey.  Anyway, the Australian army suffered a terrible loss that day but it fought a legendary battle, filled with mateship and courage.  It sort of marks the real beginning of Australia as a nation.  Thus, it is celebrate with a dawn service and a parade in every city.  I'm supposed to go to the dawn service but I'm not quite sure if that's gonna work out.  Anzac day seems to be a much bigger deal than Australian independence day, if you ask me.  I was trying to think of something to compare it to in the US and it's kinda like the Alamo, except I have no clue when that happened and we definitely don't commemorate it formally.

So Tommy has this neighbor who has a liking for extremely loud music.  It's not too annoying though, because he only listens to about 1/7 of each song really loud.  Then, he gets tired of it and turns it down.  Then, like 20 minutes later, he'll start blasting a new song for 30 seconds and then turn that down.  It's pretty funny actually.  I only mention this because my concentration is temporarily thwarted by one of his music explosions.

25/4/04 Although today is Anzac Day, and I have a paper due in two days that I should really be working on, I decided to update our journal. The weather in Brisbane has turned absolutely gorgeous. The last week or so there has been absolutely no rain, not a cloud in the big blue sky, and about 75 degrees during the day. It's days like these that make me really miss my tennis racket. My roommates have gone to the beach all weekend, but Tommy and I decided to stay in and try and do some work. So I got up, walked to the market to get some milk, had a nice conversation with my mom on the phone, and now I'm ready to settle down and start working, right after I write a little about our last few adventures.

Last week Tommy and I went to New Zealand for mid-semester break. We spent ten days there and saw most of the south Island. For me at least, though, the trip started downright miserably. I was all reering to go in the Brisbane airport, but we decided to stop for food before we boarded. Tommy and I split fish and chips and tandoori chicken and then boarded the plane. As soon as we tookoff I got a bad headache and started to feel pretty poor. So an hour or two into the flight we asked the flight attendants if they had any painkillers, and I promptly took whatever it was that they handed me. I think it was paracetamol but I'm not entirely sure, and they likened it to aspirin. Well, this didn't help at all and within another hour I felt a lot worse. It was the most miserable flight of my life, and when we landed I found the bathroom and threw up the last three days worth of meals, or at least that's what it felt like. I felt a lot better after that, and would have been able to make it to our hotel and room and go to sleep, except we didn't have one. We flew into Christchurch, the biggest city on the South Island, and when we had called around to all the hostels they were all booked. So, I set up shop in the airport lounge with my handy-dandy blindfold and my cool sleeping bag but soon Tommy had not only found us a room, but also found us a roommate we knew from our Contemporary Australia class. So the three of us split a cab and I went straight to sleep and felt great in the morning. 

We were supposed to be picked up at 7am from downtown Christchurch to board our tour bus, so we arranged for a cab to come pick us up at 6am, to allow plenty of extra time. The next morning, the cab came exactly at 6am and we hustled out of the hotel room and arrived at our pickup spot at 6:10, with 50 minutes to spare. So we walked down the street a little way and found an open Burger King. Now, this Burger King is pretty much our first impression of New Zealand and it was quite an experience. The first thing we noticed was a 300 pound Maori (his ethnicity is unconfirmed) guy chanting and yelling directly outside the door. He looked absolutely crazy, and was doing this weird battle dance or something (we found this out later). He was also surrounded by about four policemen. So we walked by this little scene into Burger King, only to find it absoultely packed. There was nowhere to sit, and it was full of kids about our age still dressed up from the night before. Most of them looked totally stoned, and the girls were dressed in teeny little skirts and knee high boots. It was quite a scene. As soon as we made our way passed the bouncers (yes, Burger King had 3 bouncers), we ordered some food and finally found a seat. We were later informed that the guy standing outside had pulled a knife on the bouncers and his girlfriend had taken a swing at them, or something like that. Then this other guy shows up, absolutely drunk or high or something, and pisses himself right in front of the restaurant. Now, I was absolutely terrified at this point because there are all these crazy people running around and people are yelling all over the place, and we're' sitting there with our full backpacks like true out-of-towners. No one gave us any trouble at all, but everyone was picking fights with everyone else and on our way out we saw some kids punching the guy who had peeed (how do you spell that? peed?) on himself. We were thoroughly frazzled by the time our tour bus came, and happy to finally be in the presence of more tourists. 

Every school in Australia has mid-semester break the same week (the week after Easter) and so everyone on our tour was an American who was studying abroad in Australia and went to New Zealand for break, with the exception of one delightful British girl with bad luck. We took the Kiwi Experience bus from Christchurch west to the Tasman Sea, then south to Queenstown, then north again back to Christchurch. Ashley (my Emory roommate) and a couple of the girls from Butler I had met at orientation and their friend Abigail were all on our bus, so we knew a few people but we soon grew familiar with everyone else. We realized straightaway that the reason anybody goes to New Zealand is for the scenery. The country is absolutely amazing, with gorgeous mountains and picturesque rivers everywhere. I felt like I was on the set for Lord of the Rings the whole freaking time. 

Our first stop was in a town called Greymouth, where they thankfully had a McDonald's and a department store that sells warm clothes. The temperature was around 40 degrees every day we were there, and coming from 80 degree Brisbane that was quite a shocker. The first thing on our itinerary was to buy hats and jackets. We found some hats right away but there was only one decent fleece in the whole store, and it was size 14 in the little boys section. It would have to do, however, and Tommy and I bought matching ones. I felt like we were straight out of the Brady Bunch with our little navy blue fleeces, but they kept us warm and I even grew to like them. The first night of our tour we spent in a little hostel in Mahinapua run by this crazy old man named Les and his wife. Every day for the last 15 years or so, a Kiwi Experience bus full of kids would stop at his place and have a costume party that night. Les would talk a picture of the people and put it up on the wall in his bar, and by the time our bus arrived, his bar was absolutely covered with pictures. Also, all the crazy items from costumes that people left in the place he would hang on the ceiling. And our bus too had a party in this crazy bar with a crazy owner. The theme of our party was "p" and everyone dressed up as something that started with the letter p. Tommy was a pregnant pirate policeman. Really he just had a pillow under his shirt and a blindfold folded in half to look like a patch and a water gun which leaked all over his pants. It was a pretty funny sight. I couldn't really think of a funny costume, so I wore all blue and drew fish on my face and I was the Pacific Ocean. Needless to say, neither of us won the prize for best costume, but we had a good time anyway. Ashley was a beautiful Pocahontas but there was another Pocahontas at the party too so it lost some uniqueness.

The next day was Easter Sunday, and we spent the day driving down to the tourist/scenic town of Franz Josef. Our first stop was breakfast, at this vegetarian hell called the Bushman's Centre. New Zealand originally had no mammals and was a land of birds before people came to the land. With the people came deer and possums. So, the government basically gave hunters a green light to hunt possums, and this place was the result of such a policy. Meat pies, which usually have minced beef, were filled with possum meat. The rest of our bus was pretty disgusted by the idea of eating possum, but Tommy is a true soldier and ordered one without hesitation. He liked it and I tried it too and it wasn't that bad. Tasted like chicken. Anyway, at the back of this cafe was a museum with some live animals like possums and pigs and a really big eel. The possums were pretty typical and so was the pig, but it was a pretty cute museum anyway. We watched a movie about deer hunting that was pretty entertaining. Deer had overrun New Zealand after the Europeans came, and were presenting a problem for much of the native vegetation. So, in the 60's or so, a market for venison was found in Germany and New Zealanders went on an expedition to catch wild deer and set up farms and sell the meat. So, the way they did this was to get helicopters and fly up into the hills and then jump on the deer from the air and tackle them to the ground. We watched a bunch of clips of people doing this and it is an amazing sport. The guy that runs the Bushman's Centre used to do this before he set up his little enterprise. Today New Zealand is riddled with deer farms, as well as sheep farms.

Our next stop was along a river, where we had our choice of activities: gold panning, paintball, or drinking tea. Tommy chose gold panning, because it was really cold to play paintball and because all the cool people were gold panning. I think also he didn't want to play with people who suck at it because he's such a champion paintballer. It was 10 dollars to go gold panning and I was running out of money fast, so I chose the tea option. But, it enabled me to take some pictures of the gold panners. He came back with a little vial filled with a big piece of garnet and some pretty substantial flakes of gold. I think he did pretty well compared with others. The garnet is black though, and I thought garnet was supposed to be red, but I think I'll just let that one slide for now. This place also served venison burgers and whitebait sandwiches. Whitebait is this tiny little fish that looks like sardines that they mix with egg and fry into a sandwich. It looked absolutely disgusting, but if you could get past the appearance, it tasted pretty good. I usually prefer not to be able to see the eyes of my food though.

We arrived at Franz Josef pretty late in the afternoon, got settled in our hostel and then ventured out for Easter dinner. It was a little pathetic considering some of the nice Easter dinners I can remember in my past, but the food was decent and the company was nice. Tommy and I ate with two of our roommates for the night, Patrick and Pat. Patrick goes to Purdue at home but is going to a different school in Brisbane and Pat goes to Clarkson University at home but goes to school in the Gold Coast in Australia. I was very smart and figured out that Pat goes to school in Potsdam, NY, which is where my mom also went to college. Tommy had nachos for dinner and I had a burger the size of my thumbnail, but it was okay. We were told not to drink the water in Franz Josef, as there were lots of parasites and stuff living in it or we would crap like Eli Creek all night long, so we drank a big Coke.

The next morning we went on a hike on Franz Josef Glacier. There were three options: 1/2 day, full day, and helicopter hike. We chose 1/2 day because it was the cheapest, but the kids who went on the helihike said it was worth it and amazing. But, we had fun nonetheless and got to walk on some pretty cool ice. The glacier formed in a valley between two mountains. So far as I can tell, a glacier is really just a pile of snow that froze and stays there for a long time. People talk about glaciers like they move as a unit like an iceberg, but really I think that they just melt at the bottom and therefore "move up" the mountain. It was a pretty warm day when we went and lots of stuff was melting. We wore crampons, or "IceTalonz," on our feet so we could walk on the ice and they proved pretty effective. I have pretty bad balance and walked around for a few hours and never fell down once. The walk was also nice because we got away from our bus full of Americans for a while and met a nice family from the north island of New Zealand. There are these strange pools in the glacier of super cold and very blue water. You'd think the water would just run away or freeze or something, but it doesn't. And it's super pure and drinkable, unlike the rest of Franz Josef water. The whole glacier was surrounded by beautiful scenery with waterfalls all over the place, and it wasn't even raining. At one point we walked down these really steep steps. They told us to go down them by crossing our legs behind each other and it ended up being quite a challenge, but even the old lady in our group made it. There was also this little tunnel that the group joked about crawling through. It started out as a joke but Tommy being the hero that he is volunteered to go through it. He said it was weird because the ice was so incompressible. It was like a tunnel through rock, but it was cold and wet. On the way back to our hostel after the walk we saw a little trail off the road called the "Terrace Trail" and took it just for fun. The sun was setting so it gave a very eerie feeling to the forest. The forest was quite damp and full of life. There was moss all over the ground and on every tree, and I felt like I was in a fairy tale. We took it easy that night in preparation for our morning of...

SKYDIVING!! We got picked up at 6am by a nice lady in a van and drove down the valley to a little plot of land with a little plane on it. We signed away our lives and soon we were up in the air taking a scenic flight around the area. Unless you have a license, you have to skydive tandem (attached to someone else). The plane was just big enough to fit the pilot, me and my tandem instructor and Tommy and his tandem instructor. We flew around for about 20 minutes looking at the sunrise behind beautiful Mt. Cook and Fox Glacier. Then, all of a sudden we were plummeting through the air at 120 mph. I was really scared at first, and then realized how beautiful the scenery was, and then I got a little cold, and then really suddenly our parachute opened. I didn't expect it to open at all, but afterwards it was very peaceful and very beautiful. They let Tommy take his camera with him on the jump, and after his parachute opened he took it out and snapped some pictures. I really liked just floating there, and my tandem guy let me steer the parachute. But, when we dipped too fast I started to get a little motion sick so we stopped that game pretty quick. We landed on our butts, and it was way more tame than I thought it was going to be. I really felt like I was being placed down nicely onto the ground. Tommy didn't really like his tandem partner, but mine was really nice. Ashley went up in the plane after us, and we got to see her land, but she'd gone before in Atlanta so it wasn't quite so exhilirating for her I think.

We then met up with our bus at Lake Matheson, rumored to be the most photographed lake in the world. Right now the picture I took of it is serving as my desktop wallpaper. It was a very beautiful lake, with Mt. Cook in the background. (side note: we haven't seen bagels since we left the US. Then, all of a sudden we found them in New Zealand. However, they ended up being bread that was just shaped like bagels instead of the true New York Bagel that I know and love). The next stop on our journey was puzzling world, which consisted of a big and surprisingly hard maze and a building filled with optical illusions and tricks and stuff. They could probably rename the place "Tommy's Heaven" and it would be just as accurate. The big maze was really fun. It was a two story maze, with four corners that you had to reach and then find your way back out. It took us about an hour to get through the whole thing, and lots of people on our bus gave up way before they finished. But it felt so good to finally get to that last corner and I'm proud of us. By that time we only had 30 minutes or so to get through the rest of the building, so we hurried through some pretty cool holograms and some optical illusion rooms. There was one really cool room that made me look huge and Tommy look tiny. And then this other room that was tilted on an angle so that you could sit in a chair and look like you were rolling uphill. We have a movie of me doing it but we haven't figured out how to put movies online yet. It might be really simple to put them up but we haven't really had time to try yet. I'll do that as soon as I write that paper that I'm supposed to be writing.

We spent the night in the most adorable town called Wanaka. It was at the foothills of the mountains, and reminded me a lot of Boulder, Colorado, except without all the college kids. We had dinner at the shadiest restaurant owned by Indian people but that didn't serve Indian food. The fish and chips was cheap and decent, but when I asked what was in the lasagna, no one could tell me and the crab stick I got was a little suspect. We had a super nice room and shared it with Pat from Clarkson, and we all curled up with bottles of wine and watched war movies all night. First we watched Behind Enemy Lines and then Black Hawk Down, but that one sucked and I fell asleep after like 10 minutes of it. I wish we could have spent a little more time there as there were lots of cute shops, but we had to get going pretty early the next morning. Before we left, though, we had the best chocolate danish. It was gooey and wonderful and it had almonds on it and it was just wonderful.

On the way to our destination of Queenstown, we stopped at the original Bungy jumping site in the whole world: the Kawarau River Bridge. Tommy and Ashley jumped together, but I decided against it. I'd say about half of our bus did it. There's another higher spot in Queenstown that a few people were saving themselves for. Everyone who jumped over the Kawarau River had a great time and I decided that it seems like a really safe sport. I have a video of Tommy and Ashley's jump, so I'll have to put that up too. 

After the bungy stop, we arrived at Queenstown, sometimes referred to as the adventure capital of the world. Queenstown is what drew Tommy to New Zealand, and it did have a big long list of activities and tourist shops. We stayed in a hostel called Bungy Backpackers (how appropriate) with the British girl from our bus, Catherine. The first afternoon, Tommy, Catherine, Abigail from our bus, and I went up the gondola on the hill behind the town and took some pictures. The view was amazing. There was also a luge ride at the top of the hill which we rode (except Abigail, who kindly took pictures for us). Tommy and Catherine had fun racing each other on it; it was very cute. Then the three others spent the afternoon shopping but I went back to the hostel and slept all evening and all night until morning.

Horseback riding was on the agenda for the next day, and it was great fun. Tommy's been promising that he'll take me horseback riding for like 2 years, and finally we went. I rode a cool horse named Dan and Tommy rode a horse with some weird name like Wyteire or something. The ride was pretty tame and we spent most of the time just walked through some really pretty scenery. It was pretty cold outside, so Tommy and I borrowed some cool trenchcoats from the stables. We looked so cool, let me tell you. During the ride, we had to go through some paddocks on deer farms (they were actually half deer/half elk). Now, it was deer mating season at this time and the male and female deer were separated. But, when we rode through the male paddock I don't know what set them off, but the males went into mating mode. They started calling out, almost like elephants. I had no idea what was going on at first, it was really bizarre. They were incredibly loud and didn't sound at all like I thought they would. Plus, they had just had their antlers cut off so they looked so sad standing there crying out with no antlers. Tommy takes over: I can't even begin to explain to you how funny this was. There are all these bucks in a paddock with no does. In mating season the bucks get really territorial and chose a spot in the paddock and defend it with all their might. It's so funny to see them all dutifully standing in their little spots just waiting for all the hot chicks to walk by. This is funny because there are absolutely no does in the paddock, and this is plainly obvious to anyone with 20/20 vision and reasonable intelligence. I have basically concluded that bucks in heat are either stupid or blind. You know what's also funny is thinking about the bucks standing around just after mating season bragging about all the does that scored with their awesome spot in the paddock. This bragging of course is composed entirely of standard guy lies and does nothing but perpetuate the retarded elevation-based class struggle wich dominates the paddock every mating season.

We had a bunch of time off between horseback riding and jet-boating so we used it to score some awesome gifts for family and friends. Let me tell you, we got some cool stuff. I've decided that shopping is actually pretty fun sometimes. I used to hate it, but that was because I was buying stuff for myself. Buying stuff for other people is way more fun because you get to imagine that what you are buying them is absolutely perfect. Also, you get to splurge because it's okay to spend too much if you are buying presents for someone else. We decided to buy stuff for family first and to take care of friends later. We bought my dad this really cool *censored* that he is going to like so much because he's so interested in specialty materials and cold weather camping. We got my mom two things because we found this *censored* that we absolutely had to get her, but it wasn't really as substantial as the stuff we got for everyone else, but that's okay because we also got her a *censored* which Mahinapua is famous for. We got her an unpolished one becasue I thoguht they looked much more rugged and authentic than the polished ones. We were originally going to give Tracy's mom a *censored* also, but found a *censored* instead which was made out of wood that is about 1000 years old and endemic to New Zealand. This gift is especially good becasue we know that she needs a *censored* specifically and will be able to use it all the time because she has guests so often. Laura was hard to buy stuff for because everything that we found that we thought she would like was way too expensive. Eventually we found something perfect and made out of all the animals that New Zealand is famous for: possum and lamb. In case you were wondering, it's a *censored*. We got tracy's dad the *censored* which totally reminds us of New Zealand. It's really freaky acutually how New Zealand is exactly like *censored*. It's like you could walk right out of one and into the other.

Tracy takes over again: So I see Tommy just gave away ALL our secrets. That's okay though, because no one knows what we're going to get them from Australia. Our last activity in Queenstown was jetboating down the Kawarau and Shotover Rivers. Our boat fit about 20 people in it, and it was basically an hour of someone trying to scare us with a boat. We did lots of 360s and came dangerously close to trees and booeys (sp?) and concrete pillars. I sat right behind the driver, so I think I had the best seat on the boat because he could cut things close on our side because he had a better perspective. I actually didn't want to sit on the outside, but I was shorter so I sat behind the driver because he liked to lean his seat back like a true Queenstown thug. There's this one part in the first Lord of the Rings where they are paddling down a river in a boat (I think to Gondor) and go through this part with two big statues on either side. Well, we jetboated right through there. The jetboating was a fun, and wholesome activity. It would be something my mom would love if I took her to New Zealand.

The next morning was the last day of our tour and the Kiwi Experience bus picked us up bright and early for our journey back to Christchurch. We had been with the same group up through this point, but everyone had different flights back to Australia and so we all left Queenstown on different days. We had also always had the same cool driver named Pumbaa up until this point, but we had someone else this time. Tommy and I were almost last to get on the bus, and we ended up not being able to sit together for the first four hours or so. It was pretty miserable and I was sitting right in front of a group of obnoxiously loud American girls. Finally, the guy next to me realized my misery and offered to switch seats with Tommy. Then the trip turned nice and I fell asleep for the rest of it. Tommy's neck started to hurt pretty bad that morning and he was even more miserable than I was and we had run out of ibuprofen. His neck is still hurting a little bit and we went to the doctor on Friday and got some x-rays but luckily none of the bones are messed up. He got a referral to go see a physiotherapist next week. He thinks he aggravated an old Judo injury by doing all those activities in New Zealand. He's on some painkillers and a muscle relaxant now, so he's feeling much better. Anyway, on the trip we stopped a bunch for bathroom breaks and the like, but we pretty much drove all day and got into Christchurch in the late afternoon.

That evening we had a really nice (and pretty expensive) dinner on the "river" that runs through Christchurch. The group we went out with was very friendly and we had a good time. Tommy and I spent about 25 dollars each, but both ate pretty well, Tommy got a beer and we got some gourmet dessert. And, if you compare our luck to Abigails, we made out pretty well. She ordered a Jaugerbomb (sp? It's a Jaugermeister shot dropped into a glass of red bull) and then Pat mistakenly got the same drink and she offered to drink it because he didn't want it. Well, turns out that each drink was 13 dollars and her bill was more than either me or Tommy's and she didn't even order anything to eat. The chocolate cake we had for dessert was phenomenol. Afterwards we all went over to a sports bar called the Holy Grail and watched a rugby match. Actually, only a few people like Tommy watched the rugby match because none of us understand rugby, Pat watched Sportscenter on the tiny TV, and the girls kind of just chatted. Everyone left pretty early and there were bets as to whether Pat and Abigail were going to hook up - they didn't.

The next day was Sunday so not too much was open, but Tommy and I discovered a cute little "bagel"shop that had the best blueberry and white chocolate muffins. So far Oceania has worse food than home, with the exception of blueberry muffins. Or maybe I just started liking blueberry muffins. Anyway, the shop was called the Yellow Rocket and we also got breakfast the next morning there. Next to the Yellow Rocket was the Christchurch Visitor Center and we went into the little zoo in the back to see the infamous kiwi bird that New Zealand is so famous for. The people made us be very quiet and we weren't allowed to talk while near the bird. The birds are nocturnal, so the zoo people had reversed their clocks so that "day" is during the night and "night" is during the day so tourists can see them. So the room was almost completely dark, but luckily there was a kiwi bird right up near the glass and we got a great view. They are way bigger than I thought they were (Tommy says: They're wicked enormous! I thought they were cute little cage type birds. No no. They're the size of dogs.), and they have bright yellow beaks that they use to dig in the dirt for worms and such. They are said to have to tiny little vestigial wings buried somewhere under their feathers, but I didn't see any such wings. They are amazing creatures though, and I can understand why New Zealand is famous for them. They are very shy around humans, and apparently it is very rare to see one in the wild. That's quite a bit different from Australia's trademark animal, the kangaroo. Also in this little zoo there were some fish and marine animals, including a very active octopus, which we got a good picture of. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures of the kiwis. So back on the streets of Christchurch, we passed a game of giant chess (and I mean Giant) on our way to the markets in the arts centre, a former university. The market was really fun and we finished off our list of presents and I even got a few things for myself. I got a new purse that someone made out of a pair of pants, and Tommy bought me a fish hook necklace made out of cow bone. I also got to sample some real New Zealand fudge that was sooooooo delicious but we didn't buy any because it was really expensive. That night we stayed in because I had a test in two days so I studied and Tommy watched a movie or something in the hostel. I didn't really like this hostel that much, it was called Charlie B's. The kitchen was too small and the room was old and cold, although they seemed to have pretty good security which is a plus considering our first Burger King morning with all the freaks.

The next morning we took a bus up to the only scrapbook shop in town to try to get some New Zealand stickers before we left, but failed miserably. We're planning on making a big comprehensive scrapbook when we get home, and we've been trying to collect artifacts and things to use in it. On our way back to downtown we stopped at a nice pet shop and looked at all the cute puppies. We were actually looking for ferrets, but apparently they are illegal in New Zealand because they like to eat kiwi birds. That's kinda funny. Our flight left at 3pm and so we headed to the airport soon after the pet store. The flight home was thankfully uneventful, although we did have a toilet paper rolling contest where our side of the plane kicked the ass of the other side of the plane. Our side was supposed to exit the plane first, but it didn't happen and we just exited front to back like normal. I studied most of the time on the plane for my test the next morning and Tommy read some philosophy for the paper he has due in two days. See, while I've been writing this nice journal entry he has actually been working on his paper. What a good boy. Turns out I did just fine on the test I had the next day. I got an 82, which is not outright that good, but the average was a 68, and the top score was an 88, followed by one 85 and then three of us got 82's. So in reality, I kinda got third place on my test. 

So New Zealand has by far been the nicest spring break trip I've gone on in college, because the first two years I was broke so I just went home. So, if you average it over three years than it probably wasn't too expensive. Tommy went to Scotland last year though, so I don't know what his excuse is.

A little about North Stradbroke Island:  Straight west of Brisbane, North and Stradbroke Islands are completely sand islands, similar to Fraser Island which we visited before.  Stradbroke is home to lots of wildlife, including these beautiful rainbow lorikeet birds that make lots and lots of noise.  My instructor said it's because it is mating season for them, which I guess makes sense because humans sometimes make a lot of noise when they mate too. The island also has koalas, kangaroos, and is surrounded by sharks, dolphins and many tropical fish species.  A company called CRL also mines the sand on the island for titanium products, and pretty much destorys lots and lots of flora and fauna.  They are, however, "committed to revegetation" and claim that the forests grow back very well and they don't disturb it too much. We did a study to see whether this is true, and we pretty much decided that they are right, but it'll take 100 years or so for them to grow back.

So, tomorrow starts SWATVAC.  SWATVAC is equivalent to reading period at home: the two or three days between the end of class and the beginning of exams.  In Australia, this period is a full week, so Tommy, Ashley and I are taking off up the coast of Queensland to go sailing on Saturday in the Whitsundays.  Tomorrow is going to be one long day of driving, but sailing should be worth it.  Anyway, back to swatvac.  We've been told that swatting used to be another word for cramming.  And vac means vacation.  So, really it's a cramming vacation before finals.  I think reading period is a little more appropriate, but swatvac is funnier.