Recap

So its been a while since I've been able to get on the internet. Anyways.....

Friday:
I jumped out of a plane from 14000 feet. It is supposedly the highest public sky dive in the world. Other places claim 15k feet (15k ft above sea level) but its really 14k ft above ground level. Anyways, it was pretty cool. Strangely I didn't really get an adrenaline rush or anything like that from it. The entire time I was calm we hit the altitude, the hatch opened and I stuck my legs out and down I went. Was pretty relaxing to be honest. Would love to do it again but don't want to gear my money towards that. Still, pretty cool, glad I did it. Check one off the bucket list.

After jumping out of the plane I just took the rest of the day easy, read for class a little, took a nap, ran on the beach and then went to Jerry's for dinner. Jerry is an older woman in the class who is here with her kids and stays in an apartment.

Saturday:
Woke up early and got in the van to go north with a final destination of the Gold Coast. We stopped at the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. Got some pretty cool pictures there which I will post later when I have internet speeds in excess of 1.4 kb/sec. We got to hang out with kangaroos and koalas. Kangaroos are very soft and friendly. Koalas sleep a lot, weigh more than you think they would and aren't quite as soft as you'd expect, but still cool. We went to a bird show and I got some great shots of the birds there so you'll all get to see them later. They had a wedge tailed eagle (about the same size as an American Bald) and it flew from the back straight up to the front and I had an aisle seat so it flew straight at me and I just kinda held ground taking pictures the whole time which resulted in me getting hit in the head by its wing but some cool pictures so I'm satisfied.
Also, I was attempting to get a closeup picture of an ostrich which they had walking freely along the paths and apparently it didn't like the camera when I pulled it out and (without using flash) I took a few pictures from a distance and they all came out blurry because it decided to come straight at me. I decided to just stand my ground and it literally came right up and stood up tall right in front of me, which as it turns out, this one was about as tall as I am, at least enough to go eye to eye with me. Its body was in contact with mine and I was just looking at it dead in the eye and it just stared at me straight back. It started sniffing me and prodding me with its beak and kind of pushing me and I just stood my ground the whole time. I was a little curios as to whether it was going to take my presence as a threat and decide to get aggressive. I never realized how big ostriches are and I have to say it wouldn't have been an easy fight, though I can't say that the thought of being able to come back from Australia and being able to say that I got in a fight with an ostrich doesn't amuse me. Anyways, after about 3 minutes of me standing there with it and everyone on the trail staring at me in total shock, someone made a noise which distracted it enough for me to step to the side at which point I had to go catch up to the rest of the group which was already pretty far ahead as I had stayed back to get some pictures. It was kind of cool to get that close, they have really weird ears. They are more or less just holes in their skull behind the eyes. Don't really seem like they'd be that effective.

In any event, I'll upload these pictures now just because I think they're really cool:
alright they didn't go where I wanted them to but be sure to click on them to see it full size and full detail (thanks Chris)
Sunday:
Today we went to the beach at Surfer's Paradise (just south of Gold Coast) and walked along it for a bit, did a nature hike, and did a little shopping. Then we all headed back to Byron which brings me to right about now.