TRAVELOGUE.jesswrites.com

I got the wireless to work on my laptop here at JCU!! Last night was the “meet and greet” for new students, but all of my roommates and I slept through it accidentally. So today was the first time we came to the school. I got my school id, signed up for the theater club (haha) and then got online to let you all know I’m alive and well. The walk here from our apartment was probably about half hour. We can also take the bus, but I like the idea of fresh air and exercise in the morning.

So five of the six girls are at the apartment now. Maybe I said this yesterday, but I’m sharing a room with a girl named Amanda who is from American University. Logan and Diana are also from American University, and then Lindsay is a fellow Laker from GVSU. Everyone is nice so far. I hope it stays that way.

We haven’t found a supermarket or an internet café near our apartment yet. But we haven’t really looked down any of the side streets. Hopefully there is something… because otherwise we will have to get our groceries by going to the bakery, the butcher shop, the fruit market, etc which sounds kind of like a hassle. But I guess that it is just another part of living in Rome!

I don’t have much going on today. Orientation for GVSU students is tomorrow. I’m anxious to get my class schedule.

Oh, my mom emailed me and told me that I forgot my camera battery and charger at home… so no pictures until they are mailed to me. It will probably be a couple of weeks, as I hear the Italian mail system is not very good. I hope they get here… I would be devastated if they got lost in the mail and I couldn’t take pictures with the brand new camera I got just for Italy. I’m kinda angry at myself for leaving them at home.

Oh well. Love you all!

Rome was beautiful today. It was 60 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. I woke up at around 9:30, made myself some breakfast, and then read until some of my other roommates woke up.

I finally got around to venturing across the river today for the first time since I got here. I walked all the way over the Piazza Navona to meet up with Nikki and Jaci. I was pretty proud of myself for finding it on my own. I then showed them around to Campo di Fiori, the Pantheon, the Sacred Ruins with all the cats, and we got some AMAZING gelato. The best Ive had thus far. It was fun hanging out with them here because they were the only two people I knew in Rome before I got here.

Tonight we are planning on meeting up again after dinner to go see a movie at the theater across the street from my apartment. I have to make sure it is in English first, but I think it is. Then we are going to go out and have a drink and enjoy Rome at night.

Orientation is tomorrow and I will get my class schedule. Then on Saturday and Sunday we are going on free tours offered by JCU of the fountains of Rome and of ancient Rome. Ive seen most of that stuff already, but I am going to go as many times for free as I can while I am here… that way Ill be prepared to tour others around later.

Anyways, Im pretty happy here so far. I definately miss everyone a lot already, but I bet the next 4 months are going to by so fast that I wont know what hit me. But email me whenever you all have a few free moments. I really love to get notes from home to hear how you are doing.

XOXO, Jess

Well I’m here safe and sound in Rome. My flights here were pretty bad. The first flight, which was express service from Detroit to Phili, was on an extremely small plane. I had to sit next to a very very big man who overflowed into my seat. Not very comfortable. Luckily it was only an hour. From Phili I flew to Rome. I had a window seat, as I requested, and I was sat next to a young Italian man. I was actually pretty excited when I first got on the plane because every seat was equipped with personal in-seat monitor so you can watch whatever movies or shows you want. HOWEVER, neither the man’s nor mine worked. The flight attendant said that we could move to different seats, but there were no empty window seats—and I HAVE to sit by a window. So whatever. Watching movies wasn’t very important and I had my laptop with me anyway. I just decided I’d try and sleep for most of the flight. Then we noticed another problem. The buttons on our arm rests did not work either, which meant that the overhead lights would not turn off. So after dinner when all the cabin lights were turned off so people could sleep, we had this intensely bright light shining down on us from above. Oh well, I was thinking. That’s what eyelids are for… so I tried to fall asleep anyway. In fact, I think I did dose off for a few minutes right up until we started getting to that point in the sky where your ears feel a lot of pressure. And guess what… just guess. I was sitting two rows behind the “baby section” of the plane. (I call it the baby section because the reserve the front row for parents with very young babies because bassinettes can be set up right in front of the first row.) Three babies. Three babies with their ears popping. Three babies all crying as loudly as possible. Bye-bye sleep.

It all kind of sucked, I’m not going to lie, but I got to Rome in one piece and I found the JCU reps right away. A girl walked up, welcomed me, and gave me a sheet of paper to fill out. I grabbed a liquid blue pen out of my purse to write with, and immediately upon pulling the cap of, I had blue ink all over my hands, all over the paper I was suppose to fill out, and worst of all, on the sleeve of my white coat. Welcome to Rome! Seriously, though… I was exhausted, dirty, and I began to feel that I had bad karma or something. But after I washed off all the ink from my hands and attempted to get it off of my coat, I was given my housing placement and keys, and shuttled over to my new apartment.

My apartment is cute, but cute in a relatively spacious way. I really had no idea what to expect before I got here, but I guess the place exceeded the little expectations that I had. However… surprise!! I have five other roommates. There are six girls living together in this little Roman apartment. Six! So with that, I have good reason to believe that this is going to be a very drama filled semester. Luckily, I got here early enough to pick the room where there are only two of us. Since one of the girls requested and paid for a private room, the third room is home to the other three. The place is completely furnished with nearly everything we could possibly need—including a piano. Nothing in our apartment is what you would consider modern, but when you’re living in a city as old as Rome, I never expected it to be modern. There are a few downfalls though. For one, it’s freezing in here. We cannot regulate the heat at all and it doesn’t feel much warmer inside than it does outside. (And right now its probably about 54 degrees out. And to make it worse, they turn the heat off completely every night at 11:00. So I guess I will have to heavily rely on blankets when I sleep for the next couple months.

We have two bathrooms. One bathroom has a stand up shower, and the other has a bathtub which has a handheld faucet/shower head thing. Upon arrival, I decided to take a shower and so I gave the stand-up shower a shot. The showerhead must be as old as the building because only about 4 tiny holes have any water coming out, and it sprays everywhere. And the water goes all over the floor, too. By the time I finished washing all of the shampoo out of my hair, there was a two-inch pond in our bathroom. I guess this is all just going to take a lot of getting used to.

But all in all, everything is good. The street we live on is cute, we’re very close to Vatican City, and our apartment is definitely livable. So if anyone was worried, don’t be… I’m gonna be just fine here.

Oi everyone! I finished my last exam today so I’m pretty much completely done with school now. I still might go on Wednesday and Friday just to see people and say goodbye, but its not mandatory. It feels good to be done. I can’t believe I’ll be home in less than 2 weeks now… it’s a little strange to think about. I’ve already said goodbye to some of my good friends that are leaving for the holidays and won’t get back until I’m gone. The strange thing is, I’m looking so forward to coming home that I don’t really get sad when I say goodbye. I had a great weekend though. It was Grace’s birthday Friday so we spent most of the night celebrating. I’m at Becca’s house right now though so I don’t wanna spend the entire time on the computer. But I’ll write again soon. Can’t wait to see you all! Much love, Jess

Hello from Brisbane! I’m at my friend Cindy’s house right now and thought I would tell you about my trip which has been GREAT! I got here on Thursday morning and we spent most of the day shopping–downtown in the morning, and at a big shopping center in the evening. On Friday I went to school with Cindy’s younger sister (she’s 16) for a couple of hours. She goes to an all girls Catholic school so I thought it would be interesting to visit. It was, kinda… I’ve never been to an all girls school before. But around noon my friend Edan, whom I met in Cairns back in February, came and picked me up and we spent most of the day seeing the city. First he took me to South Bank which is the man-made beach and esplanade area. It was very pretty and had a fantastic view of the city. We also went to some markets. We went on quite a long scenic walk though the city, and then went and got lunch and saw a movie. It was really good seeing him again even though I’ll probably never see him again. But anyways… I met up with Cindy and Jess (one of Cindy’s friends) in town in the evening and we went to some massive night markets. Then on Saturday Cindy and I went to a suburb called Stones Corner because they had all these warehouse shops with really cheap clothes and stuff. In the evening everyone (Cindy, Paul, Tom, Jess, Brad, and I) all went to a lookout point to see the city at night. You probably didn’t know this, but Brisbane is the worlds largest city in area. The population is only about 2 million, but it takes up more area than any other city in the world including New York and Tokyo. So at the lookout point all you see it miles and miles and miles of lights. It was an incrediable view. Today we went to Surfers Paradise Beach in the Gold Coast which is GORGEOUS!!! And we had the perfect day for it as well cuz there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We also went to Tamborine Mountain which had some amazing views and a big water hole and stuff. Fun stuff. Now I’m at Cindy’s house for the night and tomorrow we are going to a big theme park called Dreamworld. It will be fun, I’m sure, but I then I have to fly home tomorrow which I’m not really looking forward to cuz I have school the next day. Well I’m gonna go for now cuz I need some sleep. So have a great day everyone and I’ll see ya all in 3 weeks!!!!!

On Monday morning I was sitting on the top of a mountain staring down at miles and miles of the Australian outback. I realized then how lucky I was because not many people ever have that experience.

Since it was the Queen’s Birthday public holiday on Monday, we spent Saturday and Sunday night camping. This time it was just Gordon, Tricia, Lana, and myself instead of the entire Scoville/Hattin/Zipperer clan. We had a good time though. On Saturday night we went to a tiny tiny town called Hot Springs. The only thing that the town had was a pancake restaurant, a pub, and the little camping and caravan park which we stayed at. It’s a popular vacation destination though because the river that runs through the town is hot. I don’t really understand why, but the spring naturally produces almost boiling hot water. People go there to soak in the hot water because it’s filled with minerals and very good for your skin. The park had several natural and mand-made hot tubs to sit in as well as a decent size pool to cool off in. It was pretty cool.
On Sunday night we went to a town called Einasleigh which was even smaller than Hot Springs. But we camped out in the bush on a small river. We were right on the river bank and had a nice sandy beach all to ourselves. It was a very beautiful area. And then, like I said earlier, we went on a hike up a mountain on Monday morning.
We also made a stop at the Herbert River which was the river that ‘Survivor II - Australian Outback’ was filmed on. If you watched the show you might remember that one of the tribes names was ‘Jabaru’ after a native bird. Well, I saw one of those birds while we were there and they are very cool looking. But yea, our camping trip was really nice and we all had a pretty good time.

Friday was Mark’s 18th birthday so Lana and I went to his party and I also took my friend Alice. (from Switzerland) That was pretty fun and I met some really cool people but left earlier than planned because I was too tired. On Saturday morning Lana went to Palm Cove Beach to film a chewing gum commercial which she got a part in. She wore my togs, my sarong, my jewelry, and my belt in it so if anyone ever sees the commercial (which isn’t likely since it is a Scandanavian ad) then you’ll see all of MY clothes. So if I can’t be famous, at least my clothes are. haha… okay, that was lame. But I oughta go for now. I’m leaving for Brisbane on Thursday and I’m not sure if I’ll update before then. Probably not so it might be a few days before you hear from me again. I hope everyone is enjoying their summer! Can’t wait to join ya in a few weeks. Have a great day. Love Jess

Hey everyone-
Less than 5 weeks to go and I’m so excited! The musical that I went to on Friday was fantastic! That’s an understatement, actually… it was by far the best production I have ever seen put on by high school students. On Saturday we had the Relay for Life and although I wasn’t on the team, I ended up staying their all night with some friends and even went 28 laps! We had a good time but I was really tired the next day and then yesterday at school I had to take a nap in the sick bay because I was getting a headache from a lack of sleep. Well I’m really getting down to the nitty gritty as far as school goes. I only have 8 days left after today. (That’s because I only have 2 days per week for the last 3 weeks of school because of exams and my brisbane trip and a long weekend…) I’ll be so glad to have a summer break. I’m jealous of all of you who start summer break tomorrow!!! I’m leaving for Brisbane next week and I’m really really excited for that cuz I’m sure it will be a blast. We are going camping in the bush this weekend but I’m not sure where yet. I better go cuz I’m in class but I hope to hear from you all soon! (And since there was some confusion, jvandrick@australia.edu is the ONLY email I check regularily so please don’t email me at any of my other email addresses!) Have a fantastic week everyone, and NO water balloons on the last day of school! Haha, j/k. Buh-bye.

Hey everyone-
Almost down with school over there, ay? You guys are so lucky. I have 4 weeks of school left after today but one of those weeks there are only 2 days, so I guess it’s not too bad. We have a public holiday next weekend for the Queen’s birthday so I think we may be going camping again. The Thursday after that I am finally going to Brisbane and I’m quite excited. Tonight I’m going to see Lana is in the Cairns High Musical which I’m sure will be great. Yesterday I went boating for Marine Studies class which was fun but now my face is sunburnt. There’s really not a lot more to say at the moment but I’ll update again soon when more is happening. Have a great day everyone! I’ll see you all soon!!!!

Oi! It’s been awhile! There isn’t a lot of news but I do have a couple things to report. Firstly, I got my belly button pierced last Friday! I know that’s not a big deal but at least you won’t be surprised when I get home. It didn’t hurt at all and it wasn’t even sore afterwards. Two of my friends got it as well and they were whining about how much it hurt… haha, I guess I was just lucky. Or maybe I’m immune to pain.
Secondly, I got the highest mark on my Marine Studies exam that we took last week! (Out of like 50 people.) My teacher was lecturing all the classes about how they let an American beat them at their own subject. (Since the class is about all the Australian marine and boating procedures and rules and stuff. hehe… but just cuz I know all the rules and stuff doesn’t mean I’m good at applying it. Last week at boating we were hopeless at the docking and control excersizes that we did. Infact, Kelly and I almost ran into the propeller of a very big yacht from Singapore and the people on it were standing at the bow laughing at us!! I’m sure we’ll get better with a little more practice though…
My weekend was very relaxing. Lana’s birthday was last week so on Friday night we went down to the beach (full moon) and had the most delicious prawns I’ve ever had in my life + garlic bread and chocolate cake. I stuffed myself as much as I could because as soon as I was done eating I started the 40 hour famine. It wasn’t actually that hard to go 40 hours without eating and I raised like 50 bucks or something. Alice and I sunbathed at the beach on Saturday because we’ve been having BEAUTIFUL weather. Honestly, there’s no way the weather could be any better. Saturday night I had a movie marathon at one of my friends houses and we did a little shopping on Sunday. (I got new togs for my Brisbane/Gold Coast trip!)
I’ve been keeping myself really busy during the week lately because I want the time to go fast. Grace and I go on this mountain hike called the Red Arrow two times a week. (Mondays and Wednesdays) It’s getting us into shape because there are so many stairs! We both can already notice the difference. Some of are other friends tag along sometimes as well.
You guys will be utterly amazed at my tan when I get home–I’ve been working on it hardcore. I’m tanner than most of the people that live here and I still have plenty of beach dates scheduled to get even darker. (And yes, I’m being careful as to not get skin cancer, thankyou very much. I’ve already gotten that lecture.)
I’m going out to dinner with a big group of friends this evening since it’s a Wednesday night. However, I’m still going to school tomorrow because I have a Modern History Research Paper on the Russian Revolution and it’s like the most complicated paper I’ve ever had to write. But anyways, I made a list of all the things I need to do or accomplish before I leave the other day because I’m starting to get down to the nitty gritty on time. Wow… I can’t believe I’ll be home in about 7 weeks. It sounds like awhile, but I know it will go by FAST! I’m so anxious to see you all again!
I better go now cuz I’m on my friends computer but I’ll update ya all again soon. I hope everyone is having a nice spring with great weather! Have a great day everyone! Love, Jess

HAPPY BIRTHDAY STUIE!!! I know it’s not your birthday yet over there but I don’t think I’ll have a chance to get on later today or tomorrow and I wanted to wish you a great 17th! I miss you tons and I can’t wait to see you in 7 weeks. Have a great birthday babe.

This week has gone by kinda slowly. Yesterday I went boating with my marine studies class and got a sunburn, but besides that it was fun. More details later but I gotta run. Have a great day everyone.