I am finally here in Cairns, Australia! I ended up sitting next to a crazy right-wing Jesus-loving Christian on the 14 hour flight from San Fransisco to Sydney, which was...interesting. He was very chatty and wanted to talk about "God's awesomeness" and his "anticipation of the afterlifehe." Conversing with this fellow was frustrating, though I survived nonetheless.

Cairns is very hot and humid. After the group met at the airport and made it to the hostel, we promptly put on our bathing suits and jumped into the pool! That evening we toured the town with our leader/teacher, Jack. He showed us the man-made lagoon where people swim in the city since there is no real beach in Cairns...plus it's "stinger season" so swimming off the coast in northern Queensland is not recommended. It was hard for us all to stay up since we were all jet-lagged, but we managed to make it down to the hostel's bar for a drink before we called it a night at 9pm. At the bar we met a lot of the other people staying here, who are mostly our age and from all over the world.

We woke up at 6:45am the next morning for our nature hike at Mt. Whitfield Environmental Park. Just as the cab driver dropped us off at the entrance, it began to downpour. The rain finished however, just as we entered the forest and in a few short minutes my quickdry pants were no longer drenched. During the hike Jack enlightened us about the flora of a rain forest and pointed out the native and nonnative species. As we got back to the base after our morning hike, we were greeted by another SIT staff member who had an amazing tropical fruit breakfast waiting for us. Mangos, kiwis, mangosteens, papaya, baby bananas, melons, and scones....so delicious!
Last night was our first night out on the town and it was a more than fantastic time! We got pizza and watched Serena win the finals at a pizzeria around the corner, then went to a few bars later in the evening. Today, we are going to Reef Teach to learn about our mairne module.