Time for a blog again! Everything has been going pretty well around here. I posted some new pics in the Freo/Perth album of some more happenings. Most of them are of the pub crawl. Ian, one of the Australians, organized a pub crawl which is basically bar hopping. We had a partner for the night who we were supposed to dress like. Jeff and I dressed up like crazy-clashing people (or whatever you want to call it). We had a rule for each pub that we went to (call everybody by last name at the O, drink can't leave your hand at Little Creatures (if they would have let us in), only speak 3 words at a time at Norfolk, no swearing at Sail and Anchor, no bathroom visits at Benny's, and left-handed drinking at Rosie O'Grady's. We also had a specific drink that we had to buy at each pub. If we violated any of the rules, we had to role a die with one of six consequences: 1 Tequila, 2 no speaking for five minutes, 3 Jaeger Bomb, 4 ask someone random for a dance, 5 Skull (Chug for you Americans) the rest of your drink, and 6 ten pushups. The night was hilarious and a bunch of fun. I ended up with Quinn's wig somehow during the course of the night, because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

My birthday was also really amazing! It's great to be 21, but it won't really hit me until I get home. Everybody from the P & O, and a lot from Port Lodge and Cleo's, went to the O for my birthday. I basically didn't pay for a drink the whole day because everybody was more than willing to pay for me. I happened to get pretty drunk, which tends to happen on people's 21st. Most of all, it was great to have a me day.

Nick, Jaeger, Jer, and I went on a trip down south last weekend. We left Friday after our history class tutorial in a rental car. It took about five hours to get down to Albany, which is on the Southern Ocean coast. We arrived late in Albany so we didn't want to do anything to crazy. We checked into our hostel where they gave us coupons for the local bar. We went there and sampled some of their specialty beers for about an hour and then came back to hit the sack. The plan was to set the alarm for 730 and get up around 8 to go on a hike, but Jer decided to set his alarm for 630. Unfortunately for me (I love my sleep), everybody was ready to go around 7. The hostel was pretty cold, and I had a hard time getting out of bed. We headed to the local grocery store to get sandwich supplies and stuff for our lunch, and then travelled to the beginning of our hike. We stopped to take a lot of cool pictures of a natural bridge, the gap, and Cable Beach (check out the pics). Our hike was 17 km which is about 10.5 miles and took about six hours to go down to Bald Head Rock and back. The terrain was very rocky and hilly, but there were absolutely amazing views. Again I stole some of Nick's pictures to post on my blog.

After the hike, we drove west to Walpole which was a tiny town. We arrived at night so there was nothing going on in town. We played some drinking card games in the hostel with coke and rum. I drove around town with Nick to try and find some coke to mix with the rum but we had a hard time finding anything open. We finally checked next door at the Comfort Inn and bought some from the little bar. After finishing card games Nick, Jer, and I wanted to see if the Comfort Inn bar was still open, but they were closing up. They offered to let us each have a beer while they were closing which was very generous of them. We then wandered down the street to the local pub which was also closing. The bartender was a young lady who told us that she was going to a big party with her boyfriend after she closed, and she offered to give us a ride to this "Doctors without Borders" benefit party. We got there and joined basically the whole town (300-500 people were there). It cost $30 to get in, but it was for a good cause anyway. There was a concert going on with local bands and plenty of dancing. We decided to hitchhike our way back to the hostel with another young lady who was heading home. The party was a "cultural experience" haha.

The next morning the four of us stopped at a local restaurant to get some food. We each ordered a burger and chips (fries). The owner tried to warn us that two extra large chips were much more than we needed, but we insisted that we were hungry people. Not hungry enough for how many chips we got! Each of us could only put a small dent in our bountiful chips, and Jer ended up puking them all up after we drove away. We drove to the internationally recognized treetop walk where we walked in the treetops of the Tingle Tree forest. These trees were huge (see the pics). After that, we drove to another national park were Western Australia's tallest tree was. We could actually climb the tree which was a big rush because it was 185 ft tall. There were metal pegs drilled into the tree going all the way up to the top with not much protection if you slipped. The key was don't let go and don't look down until you reached the top platform. It was well worth it because the view was incredible. We then went to some cascades which reminded me a lot of Minnehaha Creek. Most of the pictures I got from Nick (He took ten second pictures so the water looked like an amazing white blend). He could sell these pics! The cascades completed a busy weekend, so we headed back to Freo.

Classes have been going well here, and things have really been slowing down. I am going to Malaysia during our weeklong break between the last classes and final exams. I'll be going with about ten other guys from the P&O, so it should be an amazing experience (I'll definitely be blogging about it). I can tell a lot of people around here, myself included, are starting to be ready to go home. There are some things that we would all like to do, but we are looking forward to seeing family and friends again. I am definitely excited to tell everybody about my trip and to see everyone again. It will also be nice to start earning money again, because mine is going away quickly. It is definitely worth every penny spent, however. I hope everybody is doing well back at home, and I will probably be posting more pictures throughout the next week or so!