When life gives you lemons, you clone those lemons... and make superlemons.

Ah, the infamous words of Cinnamon J. Scudworth, principal of Clone High. This was the lesson I learned over the weekend at Warrnambool. Well, sortof. More like a combination of that, and the fact that sometimes the best adventures you have are the ones you'd never expect. The weekend was nothing like what I thought, hoped, or expected it to be. But despite our many failures throughout most of the trip, I can honestly say I still had a good time.

We started out on a pretty good (if not early) note, gathering at the bus stop just before eight to catch a cab to the train station. Our cab driver felt the need to drive at a normal pace for the entire time, until we got into the parking lot of the station, where he transformed into Dale flipping Dale Junior. Fair enough. No problems getting on the train, and it was only about a two hour trek to Warrnambool. Basically as soon as we arrived, it started to rain. Hard. And not the nice little Geelong rain showers, no, this sucker lasted all day. This required some improvisation on our part, considering we'd intended on spending most of the day outside looking for whales and picnicking and all that good stuff. Janis had promised me an opportunity to get ice cream on Thursday night, so we went in search of a dry place to eat our lunch, or an ice cream shop. We found both.

In a cumulative stroke of genius, we decided to strike a bargain with the lone employee of the ice cream shop. I was nominated spokesperson. I told him we'd buy ice cream from him, if he'd let us eat our picnic lunch first. An accord was reached, and we dined in style next to a mural of a koala surfing. Afterwards, we kept to our word, and each got what was some of the most delicious ice cream I've ever had. I had a cowboy sundae, which was hokey pokey and macadamia nut ice cream, with whipped cream, hot fudge and one of those coffee sticks with the chocolate in the middle in it, topped off with a marshmallow. It was everything I'd hoped it would be, as far as ice cream experiences go.

From there, we wandered around town for a bit, trying to find something to do. We decided on go-carts, something we'd seen in the brochures we were looking at over lunch. A siren should've gone off when we saw it was located conveniently in the Warrnambool Industrial Estate. However, this bit of knowledge did not dismay us, and we hailed a cab to take us to Shed 13. After nearly wrecking a moped, the cabbie dropped us off in Shadyville, Australia, aka Warrnambool Industrial Estate. We were skeptical, but decided to check it out anyway. We were better off walking in the rain; go-carting would cost $10 for five minutes, plus a two dollar fee for getting a license. The consensus was that our money would be better spent on beer, so we made a quick exit from the Shed and began walking back toward the main road. Immediately after walking out the door, we were encountered by a very large dog with an even larger collar. Fortunately, he was friendly. Probably can't say the same for the neighbors of Shed 13, the United Rebels, who flew not one, not two, but three Confederate flags outside their wonderful establishment. We decided we were better off hitchhiking back to town than asking them for help, so... we did. However, this was also met with failure. Apparently no one was interested in picking up four foreign chicks, walking in the rain in the middle of an industrial park. This resulted in us seeking shelter under the Destiny Church (aka the Christian Cult of Warrnambool... the windows were blacked out) and resorting to calling a cab. Eventually, we made it back to the main street and made the executive decision to go to the pub, a place we knew wouldn't let us down.

A few minutes and a pint of cider later, I know I was feeling more comfortable with our surroundings, if not a bit ill. I'd managed to catch round two of the death plague, and was coughing up a lung every two seconds. Fortunately for us, though, the bartender was intrigued by the group of girls with accents, and kindly lit a fire for us in the fireplace. We then proceeded to sit in the snook (bit of Irish Pub trivia... it seems like Kildare's is always with me somehow) and have arts and crafts time by coloring the newspaper. I left and wandered a bit to try and find a pharmacy to acquire some cough medicine, but apparently everything in Warrnambool closes at four on Saturday. How utterly inconvenient. We ended up hanging out at the pub for about three or four hours, then walking up the street to grab some dinner. The group agreed on Chinese, and four orders of fried rice, one pot of weirdo tea and a very confused Aussie waiter later, dinner commenced. Not to bad. Post-dinner we headed back to the pub where we hung out in front of the fire for four more hours. Might I mention that none of us were drunk during this; as wonderful as Irish pubs are in Australia, they're damn expensive. This only added to the hilarity that we spent about eight hours in the pub yesterday. Good times. My own personal highlight was asking the bartender if they served any Irish coffees, and his saying no, but if I went across the street and bought a cup of coffee, he'd pour a shot of Bailey's into it for me. Needless to say, it was delicious.

We were joined at the pub by Katelyn and some of her Aussie buddies at about nine, and we hung out for a bit longer before heading down the street to another club. They had a pretty amazing one-man-band playing sweet, sweet blues music (digeridoo included). I was entranced. We only stayed there for a bit, though. Exhaustion had set in, so we cabbed back to Deakin and attempted to fall asleep on Katelyn's floor. This was far more uncomfortable than we'd hoped (no one had pillows, and Diane was the only one smart enough to bring a blanket), but soon enough we switched rooms, and Diane, Rachel and Janis gathered on what I can only describe as a boat made out of two couches, while I was quarantined on the third couch. A sound sleep resulted soon after.

Day two at Warrnambool brought forth a new set of make-your-own-adventures and, thankfully, clearer skies. My RA Erin (Related to Steve Irwin, no lies. It's distant, but it's there.) offered to give us a driving tour of some of the places we couldn't walk to, so we met up with her just after nine thirty. She took us to the whale watching platform, where we looked at the decidedly split skies (the left was ridiculously ominous, the right clear as, well, day) for a few minutes, but didn't see any whales. It was cold, so we opted to continue our adventures elsewhere. Erin took us to some pretty awesome lookout points, then we headed to Tower Hill, renowned home to mad Aussie wildlife. On our way, we passed the Adventure Playground, and I somewhat demanded we make a u-turn so I could play for a bit. Don't look at me like that, they had a zip line. I love zip lines.

So, after a quick stint on the playground, we hopped back in Erin's car and made our way to Tower Hill. When we got there, we were relatively certain there was some sort of Australian native animal conspiracy against us. In a place known for having emus in the middle of the road and koalas and wallabies hanging out around every bend, we saw absolutely nothing during the first ten minutes of being there. It wasn't until I spotted a koala munching on some eucalyptus that we broke the curse. For a group of international kids Down Under, it was an important landmark. We were pretty pumped. Erin had to pick up her mom, so back in the car we went after an extended observation of said marsupial. On our drive out, we saw another koala, a kangaroo, and a pack/herd/group of emus. So all in all, the wildlife conspiracy was denounced. Erin dropped us back off at Deakin, and we hung out in Katelyn's common room for an hour or so watching random tv shows about rugby and off-road car racing. Then, it was onto the bus and back into town for a bite to eat, a walk around, and an attempt to find Rachel's wallet, which had gone missing in and around zip line time. Luckily, we accomplished all three, and even managed another stop at the ice cream shop. I'm just saying... that ice cream was really, really good. We ended up just hanging out on the beach for quite some time watching the clouds pass and the waves crash before it was time to say goodbye and get back on the train. Our train ride back was pretty uneventful, all things considered. It felt good to get back to res, though, and have a tasty soup, tea and English muffin dinner and a shower.

And now, here I am, still coughing up a storm and sounding more than a little bit mannish. I don't think I've ever lost my voice this badly before. Still quite tired from the weekend's adventures, and my bed is looking pretty intriguing right now. So put on those clothes you never grew into, and smile like you mean it for once. And if you come back, bring a new name for everything :-)

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