Sara Lake's Blog

THE STATES!

2010-07-06T11:59:00.003-05:00

We are back in the States! All that is left is one flight!
We've got a 9 hour layover at LAX...So we're killing time in the Admirals Club.

We're going to get Chili's for lunch. Can you believe that I actually REQUESTED to eat there??

Once I'm back home and have gotten a new computer I'll be sure to update yall about the amazing adventures that have taken place over the last two weeks. :)

Thank you for all of your prayers during my time away.

New Zealand

2010-06-28T23:52:00.001-05:00

We've made it safely to New Zealand. We are fixing to head down to Christchurch from Auckland.

Dad will be driving again from Christchurch to Queenstown...PRAY. ;)

family and sydney!

2010-06-25T06:15:00.001-05:00

Just a quick update,
Dad, Denise, Lauren and Rachel all made it safely. We had a great time in Hobart.

We're now in Sydney having a great time. We'll be here til Tuesday morning then we're off to New Zealand. I'll try to keep yall updated but I'm having to pay for internet usage so they'll be short!

Love!

a couple of photos!

2010-06-20T01:07:00.002-05:00

Me, Natalie and Tarni

Marc and I at his birthday dinner.

Roxy, the cutest little tassie devil!!

Last weeks in Tasmania

2010-06-19T19:42:00.002-05:00

Hello all!!

Sorry I haven't updated lately. My computer is broooken! I'm not really sure what happened...I had Abdel and a couple of other people check it out and they have all said it's a goner. :/ Oh well...I guess it's best that this is happening now rather than 2 months ago!

On a better note, my finals are over!! Wihoo. They all went well. Now it's just a matter of time before I find out my grades.

Now I'm out in Launy spending some last minute time with Marc, Tarni and Abdel. :)

It's Sunday arvo so Dad, Denise, Lauren and Rachel will all be here tomorrrow!!! Not until pretty late at night but still soon!!

They'll be in around 9-10pm here (6-7am for yall).

Tuesday we are hiring a car and going to the Cadbury Factory, Launceston Lakes Wildlife Park and then to supper with Marc. Marc has student teaching starting this next week so he isn't able to come down to Hobart to spend time with the family; so we're just coming up here!

Wednesday we plan on traveling the coast a bit to see some of the scenic places around.

Thursday we'll go on a day cruise to Bruny Island.

Then Friday we're off to Sydney for four days and New Zealand to follow.

Hopefully I'll be able to find a computer to keep yall updated on everything. If not, I'll be home on the 7 of July! :)

First Final Down!

2010-06-06T11:26:00.002-05:00

One final down - two to go!

I had my Public Relations final on Saturday. That is the class that I won't be getting credit for from Tech. I honestly debated on not taking it because of that reason. But, I couldn't let myself just take the easy way out so I went ahead and took the final.

It went okay, we had to create a Public Relations plan, produce three PR products (media release, letter, fact sheet, etc.) and write on our view of ethics in PR. I got all the formating for my plans correct...now it will just be a matter of whether or not my professor likes what I produced.

It was strange, when I went to take my final there was a man standing at the top of the stairs who wouldn't even let me on the second floor with my purse. I had to go and leave it outside of the book store. They are SO strict about people not cheating here. I'm not even sure how you would cheat because all of the tests are essay tests.

I feel like we're much more trusted at home. That or they just don't care if people cheat. Either one could very well be the case.

My next final is Thursday. It is Journalism, Media and Communications. I'm not entirely sure what I need to study for that. So I'm a bit worried!

I got a package from my amazingly wonderful friend Catie. :) She included goldfish (of course!), reeses, orbit gum, photos and milky ways!! I'm savoring my milky ways!

Dad, Denise, Lauren and Rachel will be here in two weeks! And I'll be home one month from today!

It's strange because everyone is starting to leave.

Marc and I had to figure out when the last time we'll see each other will be. :( That was a sad talk!

Everyone keeps asking if I'm ready to come home. I don't really know how to answer that. I'm ready to BE home but I don't think I'm ready to come home. I'm not ready to leave. Leaving here means going back to the real world where I have to work and school matters and I have to grow up. When I'm here everything is so easy...Life is simple and carefree. I am very ready for the perks of home though...summer (I'm very jealous of the 100 degree days yall are having), Paisley, my car, good food, an income, knowing where to shop for whatever I'm looking for.

I think, for now, I'll go to bed and dream of a life where Texas and Oz meet. Wouldn't that be nice...

Birthdays!

2010-05-31T21:48:00.002-05:00

I'm done with classes! Wihoo!!!

I had my last class on Wednesday. I can't believe I'm almost to the end!

Wednesday arvo Natalie and I came out to Launceston.

Saturday we went out to Wings Wildlife Park. There were wallabies, kangaroos, monkeys, koalas, wombats, camels, bison, bulls, mini horses, roosters, bunnies, etc. Lots of animals! I got bit by a wallaby that I was trying to feed! Grr. I'm hoping that it'll scar and I'll be able to say "that's where I got bit by a wallaby!" haha. I doubt it will but that'd be really cool!

Yesterday (Monday) was Marc's birthday! Hooray! It was also his roommate Malcolm and my roommate Marina's birthday.

In the morning Marc and I went to the gym and then did some studying in the afternoon. Our day wasn't too out of the ordinary.

All Marc really wanted for his birthday was guacamole and Dr. Pepper. Haha. But I also got him a photo of us for his room. I got the boys a Bob the Builder cake, chocolate of course.

Oh, Natalie, Tarni and I had also gotten the boys a pinata. Neither one of them had ever had a pinata so we surprised them with one! We were a little worried if Malcolm would like it or not but he loved it! We did that Saturday night though because Natalie went back to Hobart on Sunday.

Malcolm went out to dinner with a family friend on Monday and came back with his mom and sister who had flown in to surprise him! How exciting! So last night we hung out with them and ate birthday cake. :)

Tonight we're fixin to go to dinner with some mates for the guy's birthday!

I'll be sure to post photos when I get back to Hobart. I forgot my cord that connects my camera to my computer so yall will have to wait a bit!

This weekend Marc, Malcolm, Abdel and Frase are all coming down to Hobart to do some tourist stuff and continue the birthday celebrations! It should be a fun time. :)

I've got my first final on Saturday so be sure to pray for that!

Cheers!

Nearing the End of Classes!

2010-05-23T08:02:00.003-05:00

Hey yall!

I have been SO bored lately! All of my friends still have assignments due so they're working hard on those while I'm being a bum. I guess that's the downside to having classes only three days a week.

Speaking of which, this is our last week of Uni!! I only have three more classes left and then finals. I have three finals to take. They'll be the 5, 10 and 18 of June.

It's getting really cold here. And it's only going to get colder. We're kicking ourselves for complaining about the cold a month ago. Our house is so poorly insulated that sometimes it's colder in our house than it is outside...strange yeah? We've found that turning on the heater in our living room and all of us hanging out in here is the best way to stay warm and efficiently use our electricity.

Because it's so cold it also makes it kind of hard to want to go out and do stuff. Natalie and I have been trying to plan stuff to stay busy.

On Tuesday avro (afternoon) we went into town to do some shopping! I needed to buy a jumper (aka hoodie sweatshirt). After town we went to a free dinner that TUU Housing was putting on for all the students who rent from them. :) It was just some nasty pizza but hey, free food is free food.

Wednesday was pretty boring...nothing exciting happened.

Thursday Joey, Natalie and I all went to some of Joey's friends house. We watched Talladega nights. It's always good to watch a movie other than the few that I brought with me!

On Friday we just hung out during the day. We went into town that arvo just to have something to do and because Joey needed to do some gift shopping. That night Joey, Natalie and I all watched a movie at Nat's house. Then we went and caught up with all of our friends at one of their houses.

Saturday and Sunday were the most boring days ever. Okay, I'm exaggerating. I did get to talk to both Dad and Momma on skype though so that sure was nice! But after these two days I'm looking forward to going to class tomorrow so I have something to do.

This Wednesday Natalie and I are going up to Launceston. I don't think we have anything planned to do yet but I'm sure it'll be exciting!

Sports, Sports, Sports!

2010-05-18T02:19:00.004-05:00

Hello hello!

The weekend/beginning of the week after Mom and Curtis came I was busy busy with school. But now I'm done with all of my assignments! It's such a relief.

On Wednesday after my classes I went up to Launceston.

The trip was full of sports and exercise!

Wednesday night I went to watch Marc's basketball game...they won! Yay.

After the game Marc's friend Fraser came over and we had hot chocolate. The marshmallows here are so gross. You can taste the food coloring in them it seems like (they have pink and yellow ones).

Thursday Marc and I did some grocery shopping.

We hired out the movie Zombieland. It was pretty good! I wasn't too keen on seeing it but I actually liked it.

That evening we went up to Uni Gym and worked out for about 2 hours. Marc knew the girl who was working up there so I didn't have to pay to get into the gym. It is normally SO expensive here. If you don't have a membership (which is about $300+) then it costs $9.50 each time you want to go. How insane is that??

On Friday Tarni, Marc and I went and played volleyball up at the Uni Gym. Every Friday they have a group of people play volleyball. Tarni and I were kind of nervous because we had no idea what to expect. It turns out that we were the only girls there. Everyone else was a bunch of old guys or guys who didn't speak any English. It was fun though! Tarni didn't have too much fun though, shes still learning volleyball so she wasn't too comfortable playing with other people yet.

Saturday Malcolm, Marc and I played some footy. I was SO much better this time! I think it helped that I had my tennis shoes this time...it made kicking the ball much easier. It still really hurts to punch the ball though. After our "kick-about" we went home and watched a movie with all the house mates.

That night, Tarni and I took Marc to his basketball game. Then she and I went to a football party that one of Tarni's friends had invited her to. It was way out in "whoop whoop" (aka the boonies). Tarn's friend, Emma, was really sweet! We're going to hang out with her again next time I go up there. :)

On Sunday I got to skype with Lauren and all the family. Everyone was together to celebrate her GRADUATION!! Hip hip hooray! :)

Marc went up to the gym to do some basketball training. After Tarni and I ate breakfast we walked up to Uni and she went to the library and I went to meet Marc at the gym.

I didn't want to pay the $9.50 so I paid still ridiculous amount of$3.80 to just go to the basketball court. I was going to play volleyball but I forgot to bring my ball up there and it costs money to borrow one from the gym. Since I didn't want to spend more money I decided to play basketball with Marc. He was doing his training though so mainly I just helped him with his drills and rebounded for him.

Malcolm just bought a thing where he can watch television on his computer so everyone in the house is pretty excited about that. We all watched a couple of shows together that night. Before bed Tarni, Marc and I watched Full Metal Jacket.

Monday was pretty uneventful. We just watched some sports. Marc is SO excited that he'll be able to watch the NBA finals.

That arvo Marc and I skyped with his mom.

Then Tarni and Marc took me up to the bus station to head home. :(

Back in Hobart I went to catch the bus back into Sandy Bay but there wasn't one for another 25 minutes. I decided to go on ahead and walk to Sandy Bay. I stopped at Subway and ate a sandwich real quick. Then headed on towards my house. I decided to check at one of the bus stops to see when the next one would be there. Right as I stopped the bus that I would have waited 25 minutes for was pulling up. AWESOME!!!! And it was even the bus that stops on my street. You gotta love it when that happens!!

Today, Tuesday, wasn't too bad.

I went to my class...one of the last of the semester! We only have this week and then one more before finals start up. My finals schedule is good...I have then on the 5, 10 and 18 of June.

After class Natalie and I went into Hobart because I needed to buy a sweatshirt and sweatpants that fit me. I had the hardest time finding pants! But I did find a sweatshirt. :)

Tonight we had a free dinner at the TUU because we live in their housing. It wasn't the greatest food but it was free.

Now we're all back at home watching our television shows.

I hope everyone is doing well at home! It is getting so close to the end.

Stacey, my roommate, leaves on the 11th! Can you believe that? That's less than a month away. I have just over a month left here. So, I'll be seeing yall soon! :)

Thanks for following my adventures.

Love from Oz.

Momma & Curtis' Visit

2010-05-09T21:30:00.004-05:00

May 1, Saturday

This morning I woke up at 11 when Natalie called me about going to the market. By the time Natalie, Joey and I all got up and showered and were on our way to the Market it was a little after noon.

At the Market there was a creepy lady who was painted white and was in a long white angel gown. She was posing and when people gave her money she would bless them. It kind of weirded me out.
It’s funny because it always has the same booths every weekend but we still go back and always look at the same places. However we vary rarely buy anything. This week the only thing I bought was a flower to have on the bedside table for Momma. I got her my favourite kind of flower here...it’s called a Protea Pink Ice. I’m not sure if we have them in the States but they’re really cool looking.

On our way back home we stopped at Coles for Natalie to do some grocery shopping. Then we headed back to my house to drop off her stuff before going down to meet Momma and Curtis!

Natalie and I went down at about 4:30 to wait for Momma and Curtis to get in. They got to Wrest Point a little after 5. I was SOOO happy to see them! J We rolled their bags down the hill from Wrest Point and then up the hill to the Cottage of Nelson Road (aka my house).

As soon as we got back here I showed them around my house...the tour took a grand total of less than 5 minutes. Then I started cooking them dinner because after a long day of travelling they needed some food! I cooked them spaghetti. Natalie abandoned her vegetarian ways for the meal! I was so proud. We all relaxed and ate dinner and watched television.
Joey was at a party at Metz. Stacey and Marina were on a day trip to the Tasman Peninsula. So it was just Momma, Curtis, Natalie and I.

Mom and Curtis were able to stay up fairly late...I kept telling them to try to stay up as late as possible! Once they went to bed I wasn’t far behind them. I was SO tired from staying up late the night before.

May 2, Sunday

Hooray for having Momma and Curtis here!!

Today we woke up and went down to Sandy Bay to get breakfast. We ate at Banjos. It was pretty good...I hadn’t been there yet!

After that we went into Hobart and walked around for awhile. We went to the museum...they have a new modern art exhibit.
Then we went down to the harbor and looked at all the boats. There was a full rainbow...it was so beautiful!! We ate lunch at Mures, a fish and chips place on the pier.
We went to the visitor’s centre and got some information about what we can do to stay busy here! J We’re going to have lots of fun things to do.

That evening we just came back home and chilled out. I can’t remember what we did for dinner this night.

May 3, Monday

Today I had to turn in a paper so we went up to campus for me to do that.
Then we went into Hobart and got lunch at the mall.

That afternoon we went to the Cascade Brewery! The brewery is so gorgeous. It’s a huge sandstone building with beautiful gardens around. Cascade is the oldest brewery in Australia...pretty cool huh? At the end of the tour they gave us three tokens for free drinks. Momma tasted her first beer EVER. That was so crazy! Of course she didn’t like it but she tried.

Once we made it back to my house Momma and Curtis took their stuff to go check into their hotel room. We met up not long after to go and get dinner at La Bella’s.

May 4, Tuesday

This morning Momma came over and we went to my Gender Studies class. She wanted to see what my favourite class was! I think she enjoyed it. She got to meet my friend Angelique.
After that class I had a test so Momma went to the coffee shop on campus while I went to that class. I think my test went okay.

We then went to the hotel to meet Curtis. We went into Hobart to get some lunch at Dome. They had potato soup there and I was SO happy!
After lunch we just walked around town a bit.

I went back home to do a little homework and nap.

Momma and Curtis came over that night for pancake Tuesday! J Natalie cooked the pancakes as usual and I made some scrambled eggs.

After dinner we just watched a little television before Momma and Curtis headed back to their hotel.

May 5, Wednesday

Today I had a full day of classes so Momma and Curtis went on a day cruise to Peppermint Bay (this always makes me want to sing the Shirley Temple song “on the good ship lollipop...”).

I went to class all day long. I met with one of my professors about an assignment that I was confused about.

That night for dinner we went to Taco’s to celebrate Cinco de Mayo! Yum!

May 6, Thursday

This morning I had to wake up super early and meet Momma and Curtis at their hotel at 8. The bus picked us up there and we were off on our adventure!

We went to Cadbury first. It was pretty cool...we learned how they make chocolate. The chocolate here is so good because they use Tasmanian milk. Interesting, yeah? They just showed us a video and then took us to taste some chocolate. It was a little disappointing...I wish there had been more. But we had kind of been told that was what to expect.

After that we went on a harbor cruise. Momma had to run to the store to get some gifts for people because we realized we wouldn’t have any other time to do that. So Curtis and I went on that lunch cruise. It was pretty! Really cold and windy up on top of the boat but we were able to stay on the inside.

Next we went to Bonorong Wildlife Park. There was a baby wombat named Mable. She was 6 months old; her momma had been hit by a car and they found Mable still in her pouch. She was just precious. I decided that I really love wombats. I bought myself a little stuffed animal one! There was also a really funny Kookaburra who had a feather stuck on its beak. It kept hitting its beak on a piece of wood trying to get it off. I think it was jealous that everyone was paying more attention to the wombat than him. Momma and Curtis got to feed wombats and kangaroos! They also got to take a photo with a koala bear. They weren’t able to hold it but they got to pet it and all. J

Our last stop of the day was Richmond, one of the old towns here. There they have the oldest bridge in Australia. It was a pretty little town!

We got back into town around 5 and stopped at the store so Curtis could buy some crumpets...he had just discovered that he likes them. We then wanted to get some authentic Tasmanian dinner...so we went to Macca’s. At the McDonald’s here they have an awesome family box deal that they should totally get in the States!

Momma and Curtis went back to their hotel. I went back home to get my big coat and do a little homework.
At 8 I went down to the bus stop to meet Marc.

We then went over to the hotel and Marc met the family! We sat and talked for awhile and then decided to go downstairs to the casino.

Momma and Curtis had won $16 the night before so we split that between us to play with. Marc said he didn’t gamble though so we split up his share. Once we got down and were playing the penny machines Marc decided he wanted to play. We called him out on not gambling and he told us he was just being “ironic” earlier. Mom was like “ironic? Don’t you mean you were lying?? Haha.” So, that quickly became the running joke!

Marc ended up winning $20 off of $1 though...so that was good! I unfortunately didn’t do as well! It was still fun though!

May 7, Friday

This morning I had to wake up at 5:45 to shower, make lunches and breakfast for everyone today. Marc and I had to be over at the hotel at 7:15.
The bus picked us up there at 7:30.

The first place we went today was Richmond, the old town that we had been to the day before.We hadn’t realized yesterday but there is a really pretty old church there...the oldest catholic church in Australia.

The next stop was for a Tasmanian Devil road sign...the only area in the world where they have those. A lot of Tasmanian Devils have a cancer on their face that is spread when they eat. Many of the conservation groups try to collect as many of the devils as they can and heal them of the disease before releasing them back into the wild. The place where the sign was is an area where a conservation group had release a number of devils who for sure didn’t have the disease.

Next we went to check out the dog lines that were set up to make sure prisoners didn’t escape from Port Arthur. They set up lines of mastiffs what would attack the escapees if they tried to pass by.

We then made a couple of stops that had awesome scenery. We stopped at Devil’s Kitchen which was gorgeous. I don’t remember the names of the other places but they were all in the Tasman Peninsula.

Our last stop of the day was Port Arthur. We went on a cruise around the harbor to see the boys reform island and the Isle of the Dead, the place where they buried everyone who died at Port Arthur; 1100 people are buried there.
We checked out the houses of the guards and commandants, the church, the living areas, the asylum and the separate prison. A lot of the building has been burned down during bush fires so it was a little hard to imagine everything. I wish they would’ve built it back up.
They had a place where you could search to find out if any of your relatives had been sent to Port Arthur...it seems very likely that I could be related to someone there! We found John Lake, James Lake, Thomas Lake, and I think it was Henry Stephenson. Crazy!
They had a cool thing where we were each given a card and we could were all different convicts who had lived there. I was a soldier who had been sent there for stealing two saddles. Curtis just so happened to get a black guy...we thought that was pretty ironic!

On the bus ride back to the hotel we watched a video about Tasmanian Devils. I ended up taking a little nap! I was exhausted.

Mom and Curtis checked out of their hotel and we headed back to my house. I cooked chicken strips and mashed potatoes for dinner. I packed one of my bags to be sent home. We all went to bed fairly early.

May 8, Saturday

This morning Momma and Curtis had a taxi pick them up at 3:45 AM. Marc and I both got up to see them off.

Marc had to leave at 10:30. So I walked him down to the bus stop.

Once he left I went back to sleep. I’m not used to having so much excitement here...it wore me out.

Tonight I went to see How to Train Your Dragon with Natalie and her roommate Kris. It was a really cute movie!! I liked it a lot. I’m really excited about the Toy Story 3 movie coming out!

After the movie we got dinner at Dome. I’m so happy that I’ve found a place to get good potato soup! J Of course it’s got nothing on McAlister’s soup but it’ll have to do for now.

Curtis and Momma as prisoners at Port Arthur!

Marc and me by the Tasmanian Devil sign.

Marc and me at Devil's Kitchen (I think).

Curtis, Momma, me and Marc

Momma and Curtis in Richmond by the oldest bridge in Australia

Curtis feeding a wallaby at Bonorong.

Momma feeding a wallaby at Bonorong.

Mable, the baby wombat!

Curtis and me outside the Cadbury Chocolate Factory.

Momma and me at Cascade Brewery.

Safe Arrival

2010-05-01T04:45:00.002-05:00

Momma and Curtis made it here safely!!!

I cooked them supper when they got in and now we're spending time relaxing and watching tv. :)

Cheers!!

excited!!

2010-04-30T04:45:00.003-05:00

Hey yall,

Sorry I haven't updated all week! NOTHING exciting has happened. Next week I have a paper due Monday, a test Tuesday and two more papers due Friday. That just so happens to be the week that Momma and Curtis will be here. So that has been my week; I'm trying to get a head start on all of those!

Momma and Curtis are on their way! Curtis is on his flight to Sydney and Momma is on her way to Fiji! Haha, if you haven't heard about that mess, basically there was a HUGE mess-up with the travel agent. So Momma gets to spend a couple of hours in the Fiji airport.

They'll be in at 4PM Saturday. I'm SO excited!!! I'll be sure to let yall know when they make it in safely. :)

Cheers!

photos from the wknd

2010-04-25T23:33:00.002-05:00

Here are some photos for yall from Monster Trucks and the Footy game! :)

Malcolm and I at Monster Trucks! Malcolm now loves his flannel.

My favorite truck, Samson.

Marc and I at Monster Trucks. Bogan or normal? ...this is normal. Minus that scarf haha.

At the house before we left for Monster Trucks!

Marc and me at the footy game. The Hawks colors are brown and yellow, how ugly is that?

Monster Trucks & Footy!

2010-04-25T08:15:00.002-05:00

April 21, Wednesday

Today I woke up at 7:45 so I could shower and get things sorted for my trip before my tutorial.

I walked all the way up the awful hill and to class. There were a couple of us sitting in there when a lady came in and told us that our professor wasn’t going to be able to make it and to go to a different tute.

I trekked back home and decided that I’d go ahead and head to Launceston because I didn’t want to make Tarni wait until after 4, when the next tute would be, to leave. So we quickly got all of our stuff together and headed the Launy!
The car ride was pretty quick. I didn’t sleep this time! I think that made Tarni happy. Haha.

When we got to Launy Marc was at the door to welcome us! Really he was just going outside to fix the electricity that was turned off for some reason. They had had a massive storm last night and the electricity went out from it.

Once Malcolm got home we all went to Wooly’s together to do some grocery shopping. We then watched James Bond: the Golden Eye. The boys are on a huge James Bond kick right now.

Just before the movie was over, Marc and I had to bail to go to his basketball game. Fraser picked us up in his awesome orange VW van. You know how some cars match perfectly with their driver? This is one of those situations. Haha.

Marc played really well. They were up against a team that had beaten them last time so they were out for revenge! They ended up winning by 12 points. It was tons of fun! I really enjoy going to his games...I miss basketball.
Speaking of, GO MAVERICKS! I hope we get it back against the Spurs!

April 22, Thursday

Thursday was a lazy day! After waking up I watched Let’s Go to Jail with Marc. Then we ate lunch and were going to study but decided to watch another movie. We were lazy literally all day.

That night Marc’s friend, Mark Townsend, came over for dinner. He is a lot of fun. He reminded me of Scott Heft; yes, he’s a red head too! Marc made an awesome pasta dish...it was so good. I’ve got myself quite the cook. J
However, every time we go to the grocery store to buy stuff for meals Marc and I have to go over the fact that I don’t like vegetables. Each time he’ll think of a new one and say “artichokes, you have to like artichokes! ...NO!?! Okay zucchini, you like these do you?...NO!?!” haha it’s like he’s shocked every time he finds out there is yet another vegetable that I don’t like.

After we ate dinner I baked a chocolate cake. Yum. We played Apples to Apples. It was quite fun. J

April 23, Friday

Rain, rain go away! It has started raining lots here! I don’t like it one bit.

This morning Malcolm, Tarni and I went into town while Marc was working out with Fraser. We went to a couple of jewellery shops trying to get Malcolm’s watch fixed. I bought a volleyball while we were in town because I’ve really been wanting to play!
We ate lunch at this place called Burger Got Soul. It was so yum. I got a cheese burger with avocado on it and the chips were nice and seasoned...yum! It was pretty reasonably priced as well.

After town we went home and changed out of our wet clothes! Then headed up to the gym to play some volleyball and meet up with Marc.

Malcolm and Tarni had never played volleyball before so I had to teach them. We didn’t have a net or anything; we just hit it around a bit. They did really well...there were of course some times when Malcolm would swing his arms while bumping the ball and it would hit the ceiling but all in all it was good! Marc and I were peppering back and forth and he spiked the ball so I got low to dig it; unfortunately a low spike for him and I are a little different. Low to someone who is 6’5” is apparently about the level of my face. Thank goodness he hadn’t hit it too hard! It didn’t really hurt but I like to give him a hard time about it now. Haha. Another time Marc went to backwards set it and missed the ball completely and it hit him in the face. Even?
After volleyball we played a little bit of footy. Then we played a bit of baseball. After baseball they taught me how to play cricket! I actually really liked it...since there were only four of us there was always something to be doing.

Once we got home from playing heaps of sports we all took turns showering and making supper. Then we decided to hire (aka rent) out a movie from blockbuster. We got Wolverine because the boys hadn’t seen it yet.

After the movie we went over to one of the boys’ mate’s houses, Andrew. We watched a little footy with him and just hung out.
I learned an interesting fact: Australian Football League has no regulation field size. Each field is just as big as the team/builder wants to make it.

April 24, Saturday

This morning Marc and I both had to study. I spent more time on Skype than I did studying though. I got to talk to Momma, Curtis, Rachel, Lauren, Dad, Nanna, Durwood and even Uncle Tommy! It was quite the happening day in the Skype world.
After my time skyping I did actually buckle down and get some reading done. I’m trying to get ahead on my work because momma and Curtis will be here in ONE WEEK!!! AH!

Tonight Malcolm, Marc and I went to MONSTER TRUCKS!!! We had planned on dressing as bogans but as we started getting ready Marc and I both realized we were actually just going as ourselves. I wore jeans, boots and a flannel shirt. He wore a jumper (aka hoodie), zoo york hat and skater shoes. The only one who was actually “dressed up” was Malcolm and by the end of the night he had grown quite fond of his flannel.
Monster Trucks was awesome! My favourite truck was named Samson and the driver was from Alabama. There was another driver from Salt Lake City. We were really looking forward to seeing the motocross freestyle jumps but the ground was too slippery for them to be able to go at it. That was a little upsetting. But the night was still fun. It was FREEZING! Goodness I can’t wait until I have my big coat!

Once the show was over we walked down to Macca’s to give Tarni some time to get over and pick us up. We ate some supper and got some hot chocolate to warm up with! It was tasty. .

April 25, Sunday

Marc and I had to do some homework after brekkie. Ugh, so boring!

Around 5 we went up to the footy game! It was pretty fun. The only bad thing is that we had general seating...which means standing. And the stadium is really small...it looked like a high school baseball stadium. The field wasn’t build down into the ground like it always is in the States. Anyways, it was really hard to see what was going on. Half the time I couldn’t even see the screen! And it was cold!! Even though I seem to be complaining about it...it was fun! It was really interesting getting a glimpse of Australian professional sports. ...it’s very different than in the States. In the States there are food places built into the stadium...here they’re just little tents. In the States the crowds are yelling the WHOLE time...here they only cheer when something good/bad happens. In the States they have an announcer at the game...here they DON’T, that was quite upsetting for short little me. It was a good experience.

Back at home Marc and I made pizza for dinner. We then did a little bit of homework.

Stacey's 21 Birthday!

2010-04-20T07:15:00.002-05:00

April 19, Monday

This morning I got to Skype with Momma and Curtis! We talked about what all we’ll do while they’re here visiting! J

In my Journalism class today we had a mock media conference where the mayor of Glenorchy, a neighbouring town, came in and talked to us about the school reform. We have to write a 500 word article on it and then a 1000 analysis of our article. Ugh.

After class I went down to Chicken Feed and Coles to get stuff for Stacey’s birthday. I bought her a bunch of chocolate...the guy at the register probably thought I was a total fatty. Haha. I explained to him that it wasn’t all for me.

They told us that it was best to write our news article tonight so I started working on that when I got home. It was actually kind of hard. So far I have 300 words and I haven’t put in any quotes yet so hopefully that’ll help! J

I skyped with Marc tonight. Then Stacey, Joey and I sat around the kitchen table on our computers doing homework and playing words with friends (aka Scrabble) on our ipods. Haha, yes, we are nerds!!!

April 20, Tuesday

Happy 21st birthday Stacey!!!!

This morning I did NOT want to get out of bed!!! I finally forced myself to though.

I went up to the library to print off what I had written so far for Journalism so I could have my Tute teacher read it over.
While I was at the library I got a call from Dad telling me that it may work out that he could bring Lauren and Rachel when he and Denise come to Australia. He asked me what I thought about that and I said YES!!!!! He told me that he was going to wait and ask them on Friday and said I’d have to keep quiet until then. Knowing myself and how excited I was I told him to conference call them NOW and ask them if they could come!

I had Gender today which was good because Lucy lectured! YAY! J We talked about masculinity and how society defines it.
I had made my facebook status: “Sara Lake has her fingers crossed! J“ because I was really hoping they could come!!! I checked it during class and Rachel had commented saying “I don’t like this, I LOVE this!! J” So I assumed Dad had called and talked to her so I asked and sure enough he had!!! She had already arranged her classes from the summer to make it possible for her to come visit me!!!! Then I checked with Lauren to make sure she was a go as well and she said she had to double check with Kyle but she didn’t know why she wouldn’t be able to go! AHHHHH!!! I’m SO EXCITED!!!! I just couldn’t focus in class anymore!!!

Dad called me between my break and was shocked to find out that I already knew the good news!!! Haha, come on, the internet world goes quickly!!
Then I had Journalism and we spent the day learning how to correctly use apostrophes. Yes, we learned about possessive words and contractions and all that good stuff. Go uni!!

After class I came home and conference called Lauren and Rachel on skype so we could talk about how excited we are!!
I was supposed to make cupcakes for Stacey’s birthday but the kitchen was disgustingly dirty from Stacey baking apple pie last night and from it not being cleaned for over a week. We had issues with the chores chart because of mid-semester break. The last time it was cleaned was last Monday. So, as you can imagine it’s disgusting. I really didn’t feel like cleaning the kitchen, when it isn’t even my week for that, in order to bake cupcakes. So I decided I’d pass on that.

Not long after Tarni got here! Yay! Then we all got ready and to celebrate!!!

We were supposed to all meet at Tacos at 5. For the longest time it was only Joey, Natalie, Marina, Tarni, Stacey and me. We got tired of waiting for everyone else to show so we finally just ordered food. Right as we were eating April, Amy, Carli and Marielle showed up. It was a lot of fun! I had a passion fruit and strawberry margarita that was so good! J

Once we were home Stacey opened her birthday gifts from her friends back home.

I then got to skype with Momma and then Marc. It was a wonderful end to a wonderful day! J

Finally Up to Date!

2010-04-18T20:48:00.002-05:00

April 13, Tuesday

Not much happened on Tuesday. I went to my journalism tute and then straight up to the library to write my public relations paper.

That evening we had pancake Tuesday! Stacey attempted to master pancake making. However, somehow her pancakes turned out like of like a turtle because they were hard on one side. It was strange and we didn’t know why that was happening!

Anyways, that’s about all that went on today! As I’m sure yall have noticed, the blogs from each day are getting shorter. That’s partly because I get behind and have to write a lot of them at once. Also, I’m getting into my normal everyday life here. Contrary to what you may believe, living in Australia doesn’t mean that every day I’ll be out sighting echidnas or petting wallabies. I honestly feel like I’m just living in a different state. I never really went through culture shock. It’s hard to believe my time here is about half over. But hey, that means that I’ve still got half the journey ahead of me!

April 14, Wednesday

Today was such a drag day. My house is officially freezing. This morning the cold made it impossible to get out of bed.

I went to my Gender, Power and Change class. We now have a new lecturer/professor for that class. It’s strange, here they will switch professors half way through the course...one of the lecturers will do the first half on their topic of knowledge and the second will step in and do the second half of the course. So, we have a new lecturer. She’s okay; Lucy was definitely more entertaining to listen to though.

After class I came home and made lunch and was pretty much a bum ALL DAY LONG. Ugh it was awful. I watched Ghosts of Girlfriends Past hoping that I’d be able to take a nap but I wasn’t able to.

I did get to talk to Momma tonight for a little bit. We’re trying to plan out what we’re going to do when her and Curtis comes down in two weeks!!! J I can’t believe it’s almost here!!! We’re thinking we may go to Melbourne Thursday to Saturday so that way they’re getting to experience the mainland.

April 15, Thursday

Aussie Words:
Devode = pronounced dev-ode = short for devastated
*Note that I am not sure about the spelling for a lot of these Aussie words. I just have to guess!*

What an absolutely boring day. I woke up today at 1. Yeah, I had to do a double take because I couldn’t believe it was so late! I had stayed up till at least 3 last night watching Seven and then 21 so I guess I was pretty tired.

When I got up I talked to Stacey for awhile. We both decided not to fix our internet just yet so that we’ll actually be productive today rather than just sit around on it.
I started some laundry because it was sunny outside so I’m hoping that they’ll dry quickly.
I was able to ALMOST fully catch up on my blog. Ahh, getting closer!

I worked out this afternoon. It felt really nice outside today so I wanted to be outside. I went in the backyard and did sprints, lunges and squats. Then back inside I did an abs work out. J

Then I called the internet company and tried to get our internet problem solved once and for all. And of course, that didn’t happen. After I got off the phone with him we had issues with it again. The only way we can connect right now is if we use the Ethernet cord. Bummer. Oh well, it’s better than nothing!

Now that I was able to connect, I went to buy Marc, Malcolm and me tickets for the monster truck rally next Saturday. However, I don’t have an Australian bank account so it wouldn’t let me do it. And it wouldn’t let me use my Pay Pal because the site wouldn’t ship to the US even though nothing even needed to be sent. UGH. I was so “devode.”

We didn’t really do much of anything tonight. We all hung around the house, took it easy and watched some television.

April 16, Friday

I could NOT sleep last night. For some reason I was awake until 7AM.
That being the case, I didn’t wake up today late. I felt so bad because I’d told Stacey that I would go into town with her today.
When I woke up she wasn’t here so I assumed that she had gone without me.

After waking up I hung out with Joey for a bit. Then I took a shower and was planning on going to Chicken Feed to get some warm socks and other groceries. However, I couldn’t remember what time they closed. I thought it was at 5:30 so I didn’t want to walk down there and find out they weren’t even open.

So Joey and I just hung around the house for awhile.

That evening Natalie texted and asked if I wanted to go to Coles with her. I figured I should get out of the house a bit so I said I’d go with her.

Joey, Natalie and I then went to La Bella’s because it was Danny’s last day at work and we told him we’d drop in. He’s fixing to move to the Gold Coast with his girlfriend. It’s going to be so sad going to La Bella’s without Danny there! .

April 17, Saturday

Stacey, Natalie, Joey and I had planned on going down to Salamanca Market at 11.
I woke up at 11 and Stacey was awake in bed so I asked if she still wanted to go and she said yes. So I quickly got ready. Natalie texted me and told me that she wasn’t going to go. I went and asked Joey if he still wanted to go and he said that he did but he’d just need a 30 minute warning. I told Stacey that, thinking that she’d say to have to get ready straight away but she didn’t. Stacey was talking to someone on AIM so I guess she was caught up in that. Finally she said Joey should go and get ready because she’d be ready in 30 minutes time. However, by the time Joey had showered and gotten ready Stacey was still in bed in her pjs. She said that she’d changed her mind and that she had a paper that she needed to work on at home.

While I waited I got to talk to Dad. Denise was at work so I missed out on talking to her. Dad asked lots of questions about Marc. My favourite was when he asked if I loved Marc more than I love Paisley. He promised he wouldn’t tell Marc my answer to that question. ;)

By the time Joey and I headed down to the market it was about 12:30.
The only thing I bought there was some post cards.
Then we went into town. I needed to get my bogan outfit! I found a flannel shirt and then I got leggings. It’s going to be perfect! J I also got a scarf for only $2!! What a steal.

When we got back home we chilled out before going to April’s house tonight to hang out.

April 18, Sunday

Today was one of those Sundays where you don’t even change out of your pajamas. J Wonderful!

I woke up at 10 and skyped with Rachel and Jub.

I took a nap this afternoon because nothing was going on and I was pretty bored.

I woke up from my nap around 4. Joey was skyping with his girlfriend Erin so I got to meet her! I made some pasta that turned out pretty gross because the sauce was way too runny.
Joey and I watched some television. Australia’s Got Talent came on and all of us housemates watched it together. I think I’m in love with this boy who sings like John Mayer. He plays the guitar and everything. Unfortunately he’s only 16. I think that’s legal here...? haha.

Now Joey and I are fixing to watch Valentine’s Day. We’ll see if it’s a good movie!

Photos. :)

2010-04-17T20:23:00.002-05:00

This is at the Melbourne Aquarium. The sting rays were MASSIVE (obviously). That sea turtle was so cute because she was so hungry and kept trying to stick her head into the bucket to get more food.

Stacey, Natalie and I at St. Kilda Beach.

Marc and I at the BMX/Motocross rally. (He looks like a total bogan in this photo. haha)

Natalie, Stacey and I with Skipper from Madagascar at the Melbourne Aquarium.

Marc, me and Abdel enjoying the Dr. Pepper that we discovered at a fruit market in Salamanca. :)

Visiting Marc and My Second Set of Housemates!

2010-04-15T03:40:00.002-05:00

April 7, Wednesday

Oh man, it was so good to be back in my own bed and to be able to sleep in. J After waking up, I was a lazy bum all day long. I showered then packed my bags for Launceston. Basically I just took my laundry from the week out with me and I’ll wear those clothes again! Easy enough.

On the way down to the bus station I stopped and got some Macca’s for lunch considering I don’t have any food anymore after throwing out everything that had gone bad.
I had gotten a note in the mail saying that I have two packages waiting for me at the Sandy Bay post office! Yay! I stopped in there and had a package from Nanna and one from Dad. The one from Nanna was filled with Easter candy! The one from Dad had goldfish, cheetos and reeses. Yum yum yum.

Marc had bought me a bus fare for the bus that left Hobart at 3. I hauled all my bags and my two boxes down to the transit centre. They told me there was a full bus so I was going to have to put one of my bags underneath. Bummer, I hate full buses!
Fortunately when I got on I was able to sit alone. I figured sometime along the ride there would be someone who needed to come and sit by me though. But having my own seat for part of the way is better than nothing!
Lucky for me, I had my own seat the full way! HOORAY! J

When we got into Launceston Marc, Tarni and Abdel were all there to pick me up.

We didn’t really do much that day...Marc cooked pasta with chicken. It was delicious! He is such a good cook...I should keep him around if only for that reason. Haha.

Marc has started doing boxing training with Abdel. Tarni and I had told him that we’d do it with him today. I however thought he was doing it in the morning so when my bus was later in the afternoon I thought I’d have already missed it. When I found out they do it at night I was already all showered and everything and didn’t feel like getting nasty sweaty so I said I’d pass on today.

We went to blockbuster that night and rented Friday Night Lights. Watching that movie totally made me miss West Texas! I can’t wait for football season. J The others were kind of upset because they couldn’t wrap their mind around the fact that that really is how serious football is in Texas. Malcolm couldn’t believe that a high school state game would fill up Reliant Stadium in Houston.

April 8, Thursday

Marc and I got to Skype with Dad and Denise this morning. They finally were able to meet him! Dad and Marc talked about sports and all that good stuff. Marc seemed to like Dad.

I got to meet Andrew, one of Marc’s good mates out here. He dropped by between his classes.

Later on, we went to Woolworth’s and to the vegetable store to get food that we’d need for the week.

That evening the housemates and I all went up to the uni and had a “kick-about” with the footy. “Footy” is their nickname for Australian Football.
That sport is ridiculous. The ball looks like an overstuffed football, I guess kind of like a rugby ball, and it’s really hard and slick. The only ways you can pass the ball are by kicking it or punching it. In game situation, you can only run 15 yards (I think) before you have to either pass or dribble the ball. The players don’t wear any pads or helmets. The scoring is that you have four metal posts sticking straight up into the air. If you get it between the middle two then you score 6 points. If you get it between the outside two then you get 3 (?) points. If you hit the pole you get 1 point. If the other team is about to score and you are able to touch, punch, or kick their ball before it passes through the poles then they only get 1 point. One strange thing is that they don’t have any immediate punishment for fouling. After the game they go back and review everything that went on in the back field and if you are caught fouling people then you get fined and in extreme situations suspended. I think it’s weird that the fouling doesn’t affect the outcome of the game. I guess because it is such a fast pace game that it’s hard to keep track of everything going on.
I did okay playing. Sometimes my kicks were better than others. The punching really hurts though! The form that you use is kind of like underhand serving in volleyball. Except the ball hurts really badly!

That’s about all that went on today. Cheers!

April 9, Friday

The weather here has turned so blah! It has been raining quite often. And it has gotten cold. I thought Australia was never supposed to be cold!?!

This morning I made cinnamon toast for Marc for breakfast. Marc and I studied for awhile. I have a paper due Monday and he has a big test coming up next week.

I also got to Skype with Momma. If he didn’t think it before then I’m sure Marc now thinks I’m crazy after seeing me talk with Momma. We kept being so stupy! J

I can’t think of what we did Friday night. We were supposed to go watch basketball with Fraser but once Marc wanted to keep studying.

Marc invented a new game. It’s a mix between monopoly, charades, movie trivia, and battle of the sexes. Malcolm, Tarni, Marc and I all played tonight. It was pretty fun!

I think that was all for our exciting Friday!

April 10, Saturday

This morning I made cinnamon toast for Tarni. She was jealous that she’d missed out the other day.
Then Marc, Tarni and I got ready to go to the BMX and Motocross rally. J

It was raining outside so we were pretty worried that it would be cancelled but thankfully it wasn’t. Yay. I had never been to a BMX or motocross show so I was excited. It was pretty cool...the show didn’t start for awhile after we got there but in the time being we got to watch them warm up.
The most fun part of the rally was people watching! Talk about bogan-ville!!! It was hilarious.
I really enjoyed it going; it was a cool new experience.

I’m SO excited, next time I come to Launy Marc and I are going to a Monster Truck Rally. Neither one of us has ever been so we thought it’d be a fun adventure. To make it even better, we decided to go dressed as bogans to fit in with everyone there!! We’re both so excited. I think we’ll have more fun dressing up than anything else. Marc has this ridiculous idea that he wants to dye his hair blue. I told him that this would be the only day he is allowed to do that.

Marc, Malcolm and I had Tarni take us up to one of the bars around 3 to watch a footy game. I don’t remember which teams we watched play but they were okay. It was nice to be able to watch and learn about the sport considering we’re going to a game in a couple weeks. Our friend Fraser came up and joined us for awhile. When the guys told me we’d go up to the pub to watch the footy, I imagined the bar would be packed full of rowdy drunks cheering on their team. However we were the only people up there to watch the game. There was another party who were there for a little while but they sat outside. Malcolm said that most people have television so they just watch it from home. I was a little disappointed; I love people watching in situations like that.
Once the game was over we had about 3 hours to kill before the next one started so we decided to walk home. The rain was only a sprinkle at that point so it was okay. It was still pretty cold though. Marc insisted on me taking his jacket and, even though I said I didn’t need it, I was very grateful.
About halfway home, we saw Tarni and Abdel driving by, headed to meet us at the pub. We told them our plan so then we just got a lift back home with them.

We went up to Lloyd’s to watch the second game there. There were only two stools and no table available so it was kind of awkward because we just there in the middle of the bar watching the game. Oh well. One of the teams playing, whose name starts with an E, was red and black so I instantly picked them to be my team. This game was much more exciting than the earlier one. The teams played dirtier so it was more fun to watch. The team I picked happens to be Marc’s favourite team...I knew I picked a good one! And they ended up winning! YAY!

I believe that’s about all that happened that night. Once we got back we all just went to bed.

April 11, Sunday

Paper writing day! So, in other words, it was a totally lame day. I don’t own the book for Public Relations because its $70 and I didn’t want to spend that much money for a book in the class that doesn’t even count. That made writing the paper a little bit difficult. The paper isn’t dues until 5 on Monday so I’m going to go up to the uni tomorrow when I get back and use the copy of the book in the library.
Marc was able to get a lot of his studying done. He has a huge anatomy and physiology test on Tuesday.

Marc and I worked out later that day. We did some abs and push-ups. It wasn’t a long work out but it was still good.

That night all the roommates went to blockbuster to rent Paranormal Activity. The movie was pretty good...it would’ve been much scarier if we hadn’t talked throughout it!

April 12, Monday

My bus today left at 1. So after waking up, packing and stopping by macca’s, Tarni and Marc dropped me off at the transit centre.

While waiting in line for my ticket I saw my friend from class, Angelique. She had been up in Burnie visiting her boyfriend and was going to be on the same bus as me back to Hobart. It was so crazy that we ran into each other! We sat near each other...we were each able to have our own seats though. She had a magazine that she let me borrow which was good because Stevie Wonder (my ipod) died halfway through the trip.

Once we got back to Hobart I took the bus home. It was so perfect; the bus that I got on took me all the way to Nelson Rd. What a wonderful surprise!!

When I got home I Skyped with Lauren. J It sounds like she’s having a pretty stressful week in school...but she’s almost done!!! Hooray!

Stacey and I then went to the grocery store. I had to buy heaps of groceries since all of mine had gone bad when our refrigerator turned off.

I made tacos tonight for supper. They were so yum!

Then it was time for bed!

Melbourne Trip!

2010-04-08T04:25:00.003-05:00

Okay yall, so I know that I'm missing about 9 days worth of info here but I'm trying to catch up with my trip to Melbourne and with what is currently going on. Those 9 days that are not on the blog involved classes, papers and Marc coming down to visit.

March 30, Tuesday

Almost break time! Hooray.

This morning I woke up early to shower and eat breakfast before class. While I was eating breakfast I checked my emails from Judy Poffenbarger, my advisor at Tech. I had emailed her asking her about registration for the Fall 2010 semester. She told me that if I were taking four particular classes her and then took at least 6 hours in the summer semester then I would be able to graduate on time. However, out of the four classes that she had listed I’m only taking one of those. So now, I have found out that only ONE of my classes is counting while I’m here. Awesome. It’s very frustrating that all of this is happening. Had I known before then I’m sure I still would’ve come just for the experience but I just wish I would’ve known before I was halfway through my semester. I’m going to try to appeal this or something when I get back to Tech so hopefully I can get credits. So, it’s looking like the absolute earliest I can graduate is August of 2010.

That whole thing kind of set me off in a bad mood for the day. I went to my Journalism tutorial (the only class that is counting!) and we had to write a news article. I was paired up with a guy who wants to go into journalism so that was lucky. The tutorial Instructor ALWAYS asks me if my name is “Say-ruh” or “SAR-uh.” ...and every single time I tell her I don’t care. Haha. I should just change it every time she asks. One day tell her it’s “Say-ruh” and the next be like “no no, it’s SAR-uh.”

After class I went home and had lunch and watched some television with Joey. Around 4 Natalie came over and we ran some errands.

First we went to the bank. Then, it was SO exciting; we walked into Cole’s and guess who was there...the Easter Bunny! YEP! He sure enough was. He gave me a high five. And his lovely Cole’s friend gave me a free hot cross bun. THAT, my friends, is why I love Cole’s. I was totally “dev-o-ed” (devastated) though because I thought I didn’t have my camera with me. ...it wasn’t until we got back home that I realized I’d had it the whole time. Ugh.

When we got home we made our tasty pancakes, packed and hung out for the rest of the night. Joey, Stacey, Marina and I stayed up pretty late talking. It was lots of fun. J Stacey told us a story about this retarded guy who called his mom saying that he’d found a troll and locked it in the closet. It ends up that the “troll” was actually a midget who was Mormon that came to their house to minister to them. The poor guy had been locked in the closet for like six hours. Haha. Marina said “the moral of the story is, when you’re retarded son calls you and tells you to come home, GO HOME!” haha.

Melbourne tomorrow!!!

March 31, Wednesday

I stayed up SO late last night talking with the housemates and then to Jordy on facebook. I had to wake up at 7:45 this AM in order to get shower and pack a little more before class. After showering, I went into the kitchen to get some apple juice and there was a dead mouse on the trap. I screamed SO loud!!! Ah it was terrifying. I woke up poor Marina and she went and threw it out for us. ...She’s got to be the best housemate ever. I was so jittery after seeing that disgusting mouse. Blah, just thinking about it makes me want to puke!

My first class of the day was my public relations tutorial. We did some stuff to prepare for the assessment two. Which didn’t really make sense to me considering we haven’t even done assessment one yet. After that I had Gender, Power and Change. I still really like the class and I find it interesting but sometimes it just kills me. The other day ALL we talked about was Obama’s health care plan. Today we talked about Cougars. It wouldn’t be so bad except that there are a couple of grownups in the class and they don’t know what cougars are and ask so many questions. There is one lady who is awful...she asks so many questions and then when she’s given the answer she’s like “oh yeah, that’s what I was saying” when it was completely NOT what she was saying. UGH. It’s so wonderful because she’s in my tutorial as well. Thankfully I have a friend named Angelique in that class!!

When I got home from classes I made lunch and did some last minute packing/checking to make sure I had everything. One of the guy’s from Stacey’s white water rafting club, Will, had said he could take us to the airport which was awesome because a taxi would’ve been like $40+. Will got to the house a little before 3:30 and we were off to the airport!!!

It was so strange, at the airport anyone can go through security. They don’t ask for your ticket or anything to get in. And we didn’t have to take off our shoes, jewellery, jackets, take our laptops out of our bags...it was way chill.
While we were waiting for the flight they made an announcement that the flight would be boarding in 5 minutes. Then we looked up on the screen and it said “final call” next to our flight. We got so worried that we’d missed something but the plane was running behind schedule and they just hadn’t bothered to update the board information.
When we boarded the plane we got to walk straight out on to where the planes take off from and walk up stairs directly into the plane. It was so cool...I had always wanted to do that! I felt like a celebrity haha.
Stacey, Natalie and I all sat different places on the plane. I was in the window seat next to these two girls. During the flight I was SO tired and trying to sleep. I laid my head down on the fold out table but that wasn’t comfortable so I got frustrated and sat back up again. The girls next to me looked SO concerned. They thought I was going to puke or something so I had to explain to them that I was just tired and couldn’t sleep.

Lee and one of his friends picked us up from the airport! It was so kind. Lee’s friend, J.P., had a booze cruise to go to and since our flight was running late we were in such a hurry! We were pretty much running when we got off the plane.

Lee lives on campus in a “hall” not a dorm. Even though it isn’t a hall at all...it’s kind of like apartments. But it’s strange because everyone has their own room. It’s like a normal dorm room...built in closet, white brick walls, desk and bed...except it’s smaller and you live alone. I would’ve been so depressed if I came here and saw that that was my room! But it ended up being good for Lee because it forced him to meet people faster.

Lee, Natalie, Stacey and I went to this Portuguese restaurant called Nando’s and it was SO YUM!!!!
After we ate we went to the game room at Lee’s hall and played pool. Natalie and I wanted to play ping-pong but the only ball we were able to find was broken. So, we stuck to pool. Natalie and Stacey played against Lee and me. Wow, I am SO not good at pool. We were solids and at one point I hit the yellow striped ball thinking that it was the cue ball. Haha.

April 1, Thursday

Australian Words:
Queue = Line
Bogan = White Trash/Affliction Tool/Guido/etc.
Fairdinkum = Yeah/You’re right
Wranger = red head

They do not celebrate April Fool’s Day here! LAME.

Today Stacey, Natalie and I went into the city!!! Lee had to go to class so he did his best explaining how to get there. We had to hop on a bus and then switch over to a train...much more difficult than our lovely little Hobart. Haha.
When I was first buying the bus ticket we had some communication errors...I didn’t know what I needed to buy and the guy was totally confused as to what I was asking him...but we worked it out somehow. When we got to the train station we were trying to figure out where to go...basically just following the crowd. There was a green button that you could push and it would tell you when the next bus was coming. Stacey, without reading what it said, pushed the button just because it was green. Then we told her she didn’t need to push the button so she quickly pushed the red one which was next to it. Wrong button...she had pushed the emergency button. Goodness! Thankfully all that happened was someone came over the speaker phone asking what the emergency was and Stacey told them that it was an accident. Natalie and I were both so embarrassed though because we were already sticking out like a sore thumb due to our utter confusion! To make it even better, Stacey then decided to say very loudly that the police would be there soon for us. ...I’m not going to lie we got a couple of looks.

Oh it was SO wonderful to be in the CITY!!! There are REAL skyscrapers here. Ah it’s wonderful. I love Hobart, don’t get me wrong, but it’s good to see the city every now and then. I get excited when I haven’t been to Dallas in awhile and I come back from Lubbock and see the prettiness of the big city; so I’d say this is about the same thing.
We went and bought tickets to see the comedian Adam Hills. He is supposed to be really good and he is up for Personality of the Year. The show that he is doing, called Mess Around, is unscripted and he is just going to play off whatever the audience gives him. I’m REALLY excited about it! When we bought our tickets they told us that it had been sold out but that they actually opened up more and there weren’t even 10 left. How lucky were we!?
Nothing else really went on while we were in the city. We walked around a LOT and found cute little shops. We found a cute tea shop. I bought post carts 10 for $3...what a steal! There are tons of Asian people here! I guess I’m not surprised though.
When we got back to campus where Lee was he was SO impressed that we’d found our way home without any help...I was quite impressed too!

Back at Lee’s, we hung around and talked for awhile. Stacey, Natalie and I were talking about how expensive it was being here. Sometime during the conversation someone suggested we go home a little bit earlier than Thursday. Eight days is a LONG time to be gone. Thankfully everyone was perfectly fine with that idea. So we got on the phone and started calling the airlines and hostel to have it changed. It cost $40 to change our flight but with what we’ll be saving on the hostel and food. After that I think we were all much more relieved about money. I’m just glad we all agreed on coming back early. I had already been thinking about it because I told Marc that I’d see him sometime over the break but I didn’t wait to bail on the girls when I had already made a commitment to them first. But now this works out perfectly. J

Everyone was going to this bar called Notting Hill tonight...it’s what they do every Thursday. However, by the time we got ready and Lee ate dinner it was pretty late. We walked down to “The Not,” as they call it, and there was a massive queue. The security guard said we could wait in the line if we liked but that chances are we weren’t going to get in. I was honestly quite okay with that. The only reason I wanted to go to that bar was because of its name. Besides that I was super tired and just wanted to go to bed.

After leaving “The Not,” we walked down to a Caltex gas station and bought some snacks. We then headed back home. Lee went to go hang out with his friends and we girls decided to go to bed. It had been a long day!!

April 2, Friday

Good Friday sure was a Good Friday!

We woke up entirely too late today! Natalie and Stacey both woke up around 10 and showered and explored. They came and woke me up around noon. Reluctantly I got up and showered so we could get the day started.

By the time we got into town it was around 2. We first went to get lunch at Hungry Jack’s (every time I say “Hungry Jack’s” I feel like I should be saying it in a deep powerful tone haha).
Then we went to see if we could possibly get Lee a ticket to the show tonight. Unfortunately it was sold out but he was able to get a ticket to another show at the same time as ours.
We wandered around for awhile exploring more of the city.

Then it was time to head to our comedy shows!!!
They opened up the seating, which was general admission, and we got seats on the third row! J I was sitting next to a lady named Hannah who is from the U.K. but is here visiting her sister. She said she’d seen Adam Hills before and that he’s real funny. Yay!
When Adam Hills came out he straight away called on Natalie and asked how old she was because she has SUCH a baby face. He then asked where she was from and what she was doing here. She told him she was from the States and that she was here touring. He asked who all was with her so Stacey and I raised our hands. He then asked Hannah, who was sitting on the aisle seat, if she was with us and she said “no, I’m just some random person.” This gave him something to joke about. He started talking about how stereotypical that was “Hi we’re the Americans! We’re here touring! Did we mention we’re from the States! Yeah, we’re from America!” And then he compared it to the British people saying “Oh, I’m nobody. Don’t call on me. Please don’t look at me, I’m not important. I’m just some random person!”
He went on to ask Hannah if she realized that Americans think that British people have bad teeth. He asked me what I thought of her teeth. They definitely weren’t the awful British teeth that you generally think of so that was good!
Next, he called us up on stage to have a 3 on 3 teeth show off between Americans and British. So Stacey, Natalie, Hannah and I all headed up on stage. There were two other British ladies whose names I don’t remember...one was probably my parents age and the other my grandparents age. He asked us all of our names and ended up making a lot of fun of Stacey because she said her name real country. A girl in the crowd yelled out that Stacey was a good name and he shouldn’t make fun of it because it was her name as well. It just so happens that this girl was dressed in a corset, fishnet panty hose, a tiny skirt, feather hat and high heals...we’re talking Lady Gaga here...you getting the visual? So of COURSE she gets pulled on stage to be the “ring girl” for our showdown. Oh, and by the way, her name was Stacy Cakebread and she was an apprentice chef...ironic, yeah? Anyways, we had the competition and I’m pretty sure the Americans’ won SOUNDLY. But the Aussies had to be a little nice to the Brits I guess.
After the showdown, Adam invited us to stay on stage for his whole show to be his “bities” (aka his girls). The old British lady didn’t want to because it was too hot but then he offered to buy us drinks. Could life get any better? He bought us a bottle of champagne and we got to stay on stage the whole show! It was so cool!!!
Adam tried to pin point the roles that each of us had in our friendship. He said that I’m the one who keeps everyone and check and makes sure that nothing crazy happens. Then he said Natalie is the innocent one and Stacey is the crazy one of the group. We quickly corrected him about Natalie and Stacey. Haha.
Oh, and Adam is trying to make this one dude whose name I can’t remember more famous than Shiloh Pitt (Brad and Angelina’s son) because his whole premise for the act is that we, his audience, are far more interesting than any famous person he’ll ever meet. But in order to make this guy famous he is going to make a calender and we’re going to be in it!!! How awesome is that!?!
I think this was the coolest first comedy show I could ever go to!

When we got out of our show we were SO stoked. Everyone kept coming up and telling us that we were awesome and that we did a good job. We’re FAMOUS. We found Lee and told him all about it! He said his show had been good too so that was good that we all enjoyed ourselves tonight!

While we were deciding what our next plan of action would be, this guy came up and offered us two tickets to a comedy show tonight. The show was some improv act called something about Puppy Fighting Society or whatever...I don’t remember. It was only 8 though and that show wasn’t until 11.

We walked around aimlessly for awhile. Natalie and Stacey went and bought “Spanish Donuts” aka churros. I bought a normal donut. Yum!
Since we only had two tickets to the comedy show at 11, we were each going to have to pay $11 or two people were going to have to miss it. I didn’t really care either way but Lee and Natalie were both tired so they decided to head back home.

Stacey and I walked past the huge town hall where all of the Comedy Festival stuff was set up. This guy stopped us and offered us two tickets to his show, called Capital Punishment, which was starting at 10:45 and was at the building we were already at. The show that we had tickets for was starting at 11, in 30 minutes, and we would have had to walk to the other side of town. We could have made it but we were pretty tired from walking so much so we decided to go to this guy’s show instead.
While waiting in the queue for the show we made friends with these two people behind us. Their names were George and Maria and they were siblings. They had been given the free tickets as well so we were kind of wondering how good this show was going to be!
It was actually really funny. It was 5 short, 12 minute acts. We had gotten to talk to two of the guys in the show. The first act was these two people singing funny dirty songs. They sang one about wrangers, one about what you really are thinking when you’re in love, and a couple others that I don’t remember. Next was one of the guys we had met, Daniel...he was pretty funny, he seemed kind of nervous though. Then was this guy who really wasn’t funny at all...poor guy. Then Dayne, another of the guys we met, and he was hilarious. He acted really nerdy and nervous on stage and was reading his lines off a sheet of paper...funny guy. Then it ended with these twin boys who reminded me a lot of Cory and Chris. They were kind of funny but I love my cousin’s humour much more and theirs didn’t stand up to it.

When we left the show we had about half an hour to kill so we went to KFC to stay warm. But the doors didn’t close there to we went to Hungry Jack’s. Then we decided we were hungry so we went to Macer’s. Haha.
By the time all that was done we needed to catch our bus.
We got on the bus that Lee had told us to. Stacey was sitting across from me and I told her to come and sit next to me but it was already too late. This Chinese guy came and sat next to me and started talking up a storm. He kept telling me how he really wanted an American girlfriend and how he always dreamed about going to America. He was asking a million and a half questions. And asking why I didn’t have a boyfriend back home when I left for Australia and if I was popular at home. He kept saying I must be so popular and have a lot of friends and boyfriends...it was so awkward, what do you say in a situation like that? I just tried to talk as little as possible.
Unfortunately it was our bus driver’s very first night and he had NO idea where he was going. This lady on the bus had to give him directions. He had to pull a u-turn and kept asking the lady if he was going to correct way. Awesome.
When we finally got off we were still way far away from Lee’s dorm. We were about 5 minutes away from “The Not” which was probably 10-15 minutes away from campus.
On the walk home Stacey and I had a good talk. She’d made a comment earlier in the week about how Natalie hates her. It was starting to get really awkward. Stacey is really easily amused by a lot of stuff and Natalie is really easily annoyed so they kind of wears on each other at times. I told Stacey that maybe she should direct her excitement more towards me rather than towards Natalie because she won’t take it. We figured out that at the beginning, Stacey and Natalie were closer because Stacey was more reserved and calm. As she got more comfortable with us though, her personality got stronger. On the other hand, I have a very strong personality when you first meet me. As you get to know me, I calm down and learn when/with whom I can act crazy. So, for Natalie, Stacey and I kind of just switched roles which means I’m now closer with Natalie. Hopefully talking that out will make things a little better for everyone. I hate when people aren’t getting along and it makes things awkward!
Regardless of the crazy directions that we were given and the deep talk, Stacey and I found our way SO wonderfully!!! It was awesome. J

When we got home we passed out!!!

April 3, Saturday

Not so early to bed...but still early to rise!

We had to wake up around 8:45 so we could all shower and get to our hostel.

We took the buses into town. I had seen the hostel the other day while we were on the train so we knew where we were going. It’s in the city really close to the Yarra River. The hostel is called Nomad All Nations Hostel. It’s only $20 a night so we liked that!
Let’s just say it isn’t the nicest place I’ve ever stayed. On the first floor there is a bar and a travel shop. The second floor has the reception desk, sex specific bathrooms/showers, the kitchen and a little hang out area with a bunch of computers. Then there are two more floors of just bedrooms. I’d really like to know what this building used to be...we threw out the ideas of a hotel, boarding school, brothel, massive house...we don’t know.
We’re in a room with 5 other people...so 8 total. When we first walked in there were two people sleeping and all of the beds were still taken so we just set our stuff in the corner. We got there at around 12 and cleaning didn’t come until 1 so they told us we’d have to wait to get our beds until later.

We then went to find China Town! Natalie really wanted to go there because she was looking for a gift for her sister. We ended up finding this famous restaurant called The Dumpling House...apparently the guy from Man vs. Food has been there before. They have an all you can eat for $12. As you all know, I hate Chinese food. Natalie, Stacey and Lee were so kind and asked me like a million times if I was sure I wanted to eat there. If I sat at the table with them then I had to pay the $12 because they couldn’t regulate who was going to be eating or not. I figured I’m in China town in Melbourne at this famous restaurant; I’ll give it a go. ...Wrong choice. It was disgusting. They kept bringing out all this boiled, soggy stuff and nasty soggy leaves and it was just gross. I think I tried like 3 things...fried rice, some cracker type thing and then a fried biscuit which ended up having pumpkin inside and it was pretty gross.
Towards the end of the meal Lee’s dad called and said that he’d gotten in town and that Lee needed to get to the airport. He had earlier told Lee to plan on being there 50 – 75 minutes after this flight got in but apparently he wanted him there sooner than that. So, Lee had to roll out early.

Once we left The Dumpling House we wandered around for awhile. There was a lot going on by the mall area of town because it’s Saturday. We have done so much walking this trip it’s insane. We never actually walk anywhere; we just wander aimlessly looking for something to do that sounds fun at the time. It’s kind of nice because we can just not have a schedule or anything but at times it’s a little tiring because we just walk and have no purpose or sense of direction.
We ended up back at the hostel fairly early in the afternoon. When we got back there were only two beds that had been made up for us. There had been 4 total made up but there were two other new people in the room, Joy who is from Korea and Eugene who is from Malaysia I think. We went to the front desk to try to get that sorted. It’s pretty crazy here, no one really knows what’s going on because there are so many people who work here and the occupants come and go so freely that you can’t regulate what stuff belongs to whom and if they should be there still or not. The guy at the desk looked up the information and saw that there really should only be 8 people in the room rather than the 9 that were there. We told him that we would just come back later and hopefully everyone would be back and we would be able to sort it then. Natalie and I shared a bed for the time being. She read for one of her classes. Stacey worked on her journal. I took a glorious two hour nap. J

By the time I woke up I was STARVING. Considering I hadn’t really eaten a lunch, I needed food. I have fallen in love with Subway over here. Back home they totally gyp you on the amount of meat that you get...it’s like 3 slices per 6 inches. Here they actually give you a good amount. Subway is also the only place I’ve found that has ranch. Yum! Oh, they have $7 foot longs here as opposed to $5. We tried to sing the $7 foot long song but that just doesn’t work out too well. But getting 1-2 meals for $7 is such a steal over here. At Macer’s or Hungry Jack’s they don’t even have a dollar menu. We told our friend Steve, from Cairns, about the dollar menu at all of our fast food restaurants and he was in total awe of the fact that you could get a full meal for $3. He said he wanted to come to the States for that reason only. I think when I get back home I’m going to be so excited that food is so cheap that I’m just going to be like “large size that for only a dollar more!?! DO IT!” haha I hope not.
Anyways, I went and got supper from Subway and I was so hungry that I ate the whole foot long sandwich. THAT’S how hungry I was!

After eating we wandered around the city, again. We went to Town Hall in hopes of finding someone to give us free tickets to a comedy act. We didn’t have any luck though. We went down to the Yarra River and watched some street performers. There were two guys who did tricks with fire! They were so awesome. Next there was a guy who did a dog show with his 4 poodles. He was so full of crap...I realize that most of those people probably are but he was so open about it that it rubbed me the wrong way. He kept saying that he had gotten the box of how to do a dog show in the mail that day. He also said that one of the dogs was 6 months old...for 7 years. It was a fairly good show but the guy was just eh. But I really enjoy street performers, I think they’re awesome. We also saw a couple of street artist who do chalk drawings on the sidewalk. They were extremely talented!

Then we headed back to the hostel and got settled. They still didn’t have the bed situation sorted and there was a different guy at the front desk so we just decided to drop the issue. Natalie and I were fine to share a bed. But if it happened again the next night then we’d ask for some money back. We all kind of did our own thing; Natalie read, Stacey journaled, and I blogged. Then it was time to sleep. Travelling sure does wear you out!

April 4, Sunday

Terviseks = Sounds Like = DIRTY SEX = “Cheers” in Estonian.

Happy Easter!! J

Today was Australia’s daylight savings. We were terribly confused this morning when we woke up...we didn’t know what time it was! After asking our roommate, we found out that it was 9 AM. So, please note:
THE TIME DIFFERENCE BETWEEN DALLAS AND HOBART IS NOW 15 HOURS.
It’s crazy...when I first came there was a 17 hour time difference. Then there was Spring Forward back home and it became a 16 hour time difference. Now it is 15 hours difference. So, for home to convert the time to Hobart, you change the AM ßtoà PM and then add 3 hours.

Ugh, last night one of our guy roommates from England totally had sex in our room. It was SO awkward and rude and nasty. Oh the joys of staying in a backpacker’s hostel!

This morning we went to look for some place for Stacey to eat breakfast. She wasn’t sure what she was wanting though. It was rough finding a place that was open on Sunday, let alone on Easter Sunday. We ended up just going to the 7-Eleven next door to our hostel and buying fruit from there.

Then we headed off to St. Kilda Beach. We had to hop on a tram to get there.
In the city there are trams (which run along tracks with the little wire on top), buses, and trains (like a dart rail system). It was confusing at first getting used to the different names for each thing.
When taking the tram you have to buy your ticket on the thing while it’s moving. It was way crowded and hard to walk over to the little ticket thing while it was moving so quickly. If you get caught without a ticket then you can get a $600 fine. We did NOT want that fine! So we slowly worked our way over to the ticket machine. It didn’t accept bills and we didn’t have enough coins to cover the cost so we hopped off at the next stop. We were in some little neighbourhood...it was quite possibly the worst place to get off if we were wanting change but for some reason we got off there. It ended up being perfect though because the beach was just in the distance. We had to walk probably half a mile and we were at the beach.

When we got onto the beach we saw The Spirit of Tasmania, the ferry that goes between Melbourne and Devonport, Tasmania. That was exciting! We walked along the beach for awhile looking at all the sea shells. There were TONS...so many that it almost hurt to walk along the beach. There was heaps of massive jelly fish washed up on the beach...blah. We walked down this pier and this kind old lady took some photos for us. We then went and laid-out for a bit. The water was definitely too cold to go swimming in but the weather was perfect for laying-out. This was the first beach that I’ve been to in Australia that has had volleyball nets set up. We were hoping that we’d see someone playing and be able to join them but no one had a volley ball. Sad.

We left the beach around 12. We started walking down towards where we thought there would be buses.
Ah, Bay Street is so cute. It was the main street in town and it was just so picturesque. There was the ocean at the end and then all the cute little shops with palm trees down the middle of the street.

We found a cute little candy shop which we of course had to stop in. There was also a burger place called Urban Burger that I SO want to go back to!
Once we were on Bay St we easily found the bus that we needed to take!

Back at the hostel we showered before heading out again. That was an experience. Two of the showers weren’t working; they would only get scolding hot, so Natalie and I decided to share this one huge one and just shower with our bathing suits on. We had to keep messing with the temperature. It would get real hot then super cold. We would stand away from the water and one of us would wash our hair and the other would feel the water and adjust it until it was suitable then would yell “go, go, go!” for the other one to quickly rinse off. It worked out pretty well. It reminded me of my mission trips in Mexico when we would have to run back and forth between the hot and cold showers.

After showering we went to The Big Laugh Out which is part of the Comedy Festival. They are going to have it every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. This weekend was the kick off for it. Basically it is a family friendly comedy show in Federation Park. We got there a little late.
When we showed up there was some crazy girl, Jess Love, who was probably around my age or so who was acting like a 10 year old. She was wearing this little baby type outfit...which showed off her leg tattoos as well as the massive tattoo that she had on her butt/hip. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know too many 10 year olds with tattoos on their butts. She was wicked awesome at hoola-hooping though. Besides that all she did was jump rope and tell fat jokes though. At this point I was thinking this Big Laugh Out was going to be the biggest waste of time ever.
The next act was these two French Canadians who did acrobatic/gymnastics stuff. They were really funny and talented. They would do dances, flips, lifts, and whatever else. They were really interactive with the crowd.

We decided to text Jenny and invite her to dinner tonight. She had been begging to hang out with us so we figured we could stand her for one night. Also, there had been so much tension between Stacey and Natalie that I was thinking that maybe if we invited Jenny it would relieve a little of that and they could bond over their mutual hate for her. So, I sent her a text telling her we were having Taco Bill’s at 7 if she’d like to join. After all the time she spent begging to hang out with us, the reply I got was “I don’t really feel like eating Mexican food. Maybe we can catch up later?” ...go figure that she would find something negative to say about Taco Bill’s!

Once the show was over it was only 3:30 and we weren’t planning on going to dinner until 7. We decided we needed food! We went in exploration of the Harajuku Crepe shop...and we found it!!! For anyone who ever comes to Melbourne, this place is a MUST. It’s on La Trobe and Elizabeth St. I’m writing that in here so that I’ll never forget it. Haha. This place is incredible. You can get anything imaginable in your crepe. You can get any kind of fruit, ice cream, cheesecake, brownies, chicken salad, ham, and eggs, basically anything you could ever want. In mine I got a brownie, strawberries and ice cream. It was so good. I could eat those crepes forever. I think we’re going to go back again sometime and next time I’m getting cheesecake in mine. That’s how good this place is, I’m already thinking about what creation I’m going to come up with next time I go back there.
We sat at the park across from the crepe shop and listened to these crazy old men take turns griping about whatever they wanted. This one guy was going on and on for more than 10 minutes before we were able to figure out what he was so adamant about. ...crazy bored old men.

We wandered around the city some more. We found some book shops and some clothing stores to stop and browse through. When we were ready to go back to the hostel we actually got a little turned around. For the first time we walked the opposite way of where we needed to go. We’re generally good about directions but I’m not sure what happened this time. It didn’t set us back too much though, maybe 10-15 minutes of walking. It was funny because the only way we realized we were lost was because we stopped recognizing the restaurants and because we saw a gentleman’s club that we’d never seen before. Haha.

By the time we got back to the hostel it was nearly 6:30. We have a roommate from Estonia named Kylie and she is travelling throughout Australia alone. We had asked her earlier if she would want to come to dinner with us and she said she would. We were supposed to meet up the Brendon Dugan for dinner but I hadn’t heard from him. Finally, on the walk over I got a text saying that his friend’s parents were taking them out to supper and that we’d have to meet up later. We were SO excited about Taco Bill’s that we were practically running to get there. Poor Kylie was like “you walk REALLY fast!” haha.
Taco Bill’s is famous for their fish bowl margaritas. Plus, when you buy a fish bowl you get a free sombrero! Stacey and Kylie didn’t want to split it so the massive classic margarita was just between Natalie and me. Our waitress brought us our chips and salsa when we got there. It was a tiny little bowl of each and if you wanted more you had to pay a dollar. Goodness, if I had to pay a dollar for every time I’ve gotten a chip refill at a Mexican restaurant I’d be broke! The margarita was okay but the food was so yum. I can’t even tell you how wonderful it was to have Mexican food. I got quesadillas but they weren’t normal ones...it was more like a flattened burrito. I ate it so quickly!

We went to the Oaks Hotel to meet up with Brendon, Scott and Matt. They weren’t back from supper yet so we had to wait on them a bit. We girls all sat on the couches in the lobby. When the boys finally got there they had to shower so we waited longer!
We then went to the Crown Casino! It’s funny, on all the signs rather than calling it a casino it is called an “entertainment complex.” Talk about good Public Relations!
Jenny, Stacey and Kylie all decided to go home not long after being there. I wanted to stay because I’d been trying to hang out with Brendon for the past 3 days. Thankfully, Natalie said she’d stay with me! We watched Brendon play the game where the circle spins and you have to try to guess where it’ll land.

We left there at midnight. We were SO tired. When we got back to the hostel we passed out!

April 5, Monday

Oh, strange thing, the Monday after Easter is considered a public holiday here. These Aussies just really don’t like working!

We got to the aquarium by 10...exactly what time we had hoped! J Natalie had seen something about the tickets being around $60...steep, yeah? Thankfully it was only $23! That price is much better than the alternative.
When we first got there we were in Antarctica! There were lots of penguins. J One of the exhibits right now is with Madagascar’s penguins and it is that they have Penguin Parties every day...the kids can make party hats and badges and play penguin games. It was pretty cute.
I got a call from Dad when we first got there. I hadn’t really gotten to talk to anyone in awhile because of travelling so it was good to get to talk to him! It was kind of loud in the aqua
We went to a talk with a diver. It was cool because the guy was actually in the tank with heaps of stingrays, sharks and other fish while we were talking to him.
While we were there we also went to a fish feeding. Two divers went down and fed the sting rays, sea turtle, snapper fish, and all the others. The sharks didn’t really come around because they only need to eat about once a week and they obviously weren’t hungry. The sea turtle was hilarious. Apparently they’re greedy little things. She wanted more and more food. Also, sea turtles can’t see very well and so if she smelled the food then she would start biting. As a result, she kept biting onto the diver’s hand and arm. The diver kept pushing her away but then two minutes later she’d be right back at it. Sometimes the little turtle was lucky enough to get her head into the bucket while the diver wasn’t looking. It was really cute. The other fish that was cool to watch eat were the sting rays. I think the lady said that the largest sting rays are the ones that they had there. I’ve always thought sting rays were kind of mean and ugly just because they’re and ugly colour. But when you watch them swim they’re gorgeous. Watching them eat was funny; they don’t have teeth so they just look like happy old men munching away at their food. It was cute. Haha.
Before we left we hit up the shop. I was really banking on them having some whale stuff that I could get for Rachel considering she has a newfound fascination with whales. Unfortunately they closest thing they had was a whale shark stuffed animal and it was $30...sorry Sissy. But I was able to get two other gifts! J

After the aquarium we went home to nap!

That evening we all just got dinner on our own...I got Nando’s. We stayed in and watched Wedding Crashers on my laptop. It was a busy day so it was good to have a night in!

April 6, Tuesday

The day we go home! Wow, Hobart is home and I actually miss it. It was so good to be in the city. I love Melbourne and I could probably live there, especially in St. Kilda; however I’m really excited to be able to be back at my house in my bed with my own space.

This morning we woke up around 8:30 and packed up our stuff and checked out of our hostel. Thankfully there is a luggage room where we’re allowed to leave our bags since have a late flight out. Unfortunately it is fairly easy for anyone to just go up to the desk and ask for the key to that room so they recommended not leaving any valuables in there. This meant that I had to carry my backpack around all day since I had my laptop. Ugh. Oh well, at least I didn’t have to carry both bags around!

We were going to go to the Immigration Museum first but they didn’t open until 10 and we didn’t feel like waiting for half an hour.

Next we went to the Queen Victoria Market. It is a huge semi-outdoor market kind of like Canton or McKinney Trade Days.
At one of the booths there was heaps of aboriginal work. There was a really cute kangaroo carving that was all painted. The man told me all about what it meant. It was so interesting! I asked him if I bought it if he would write down all the meanings for me and he did! J
We spent a long while at the market. There were two different sections, one with merchandise and one with fruits and veggies. It was heaven. I was real sad though because Tasmania doesn’t let you bring in fruits and veggies so I wasn’t able to buy any of that unless I wanted to eat it before the flight out.

After leaving the market we went to a couple of exhibits at the library. There was one called “Shop ‘Til You Drop” and it was all about how shopping in Melbourne has grown and changed throughout the years. There was another one about literature and art. Then the last exhibit was about Victoria throughout the years. It was real interesting.
Stacey and I had gone off on our own and when I tried to call Natalie to tell her that we were done she didn’t answer. So Stacey and I went to get Subway for lunch. I was starving! The dude who made my sandwich didn’t put much sandwich meat on there...I was so upset, after all the praises I’d sung to Subway, there they go letting me down!

Once we found Natalie, we were off to our next stop, Federation Square, to see a collage exhibit. It was real small and didn’t take much time at all to go through.
I don’t know why but I was so tired today. Everywhere we walked it was like I would just zone out and somehow make it there without even remembering the walk at all. It was a weird feeling.

We then headed back to the hostel. When we had checked in they gave us a coupon for free drinks at the bar downstairs. We stopped in there and got some cokes. Then we went up to get our bags from the luggage room.
There is an airport shuttle that leaves from Southern Cross Station which is about a 5 minute walk down the street. It cost $16 which was lame. L But hey, at least it’s getting us home! J

At the airport, we used the little self check in things to get our ticket. However, it said that our reservation wasn’t listed. We figured since that had happened to all three of us though that it was just because we had made a change to our flight plan. That was exactly the problem. J We were able to get our tickets A-okay from the lady at the desk.
When we were going through security at the airport the guy in front of me took off his shoes and I thought "haha, look at that American!" haha.
There was an hour to spare before the flight so we sat around like bums and played games on our ipods.
On the plane, Natalie and I sat together on row 7. Stacey was way at the back of the plane. The flight went quickly enough.
Landing in Hobart was amazing. First of all, we got to walk down the stairs which is always just so exciting! Also, the weather was wonderful. It was nice and cool and not muggy like the city. Furthermore, our ride, Will, was already there waiting for us!

When Stacey and I got home we found that our electricity was off. We weren’t sure how long it had been off but we cleaned out the freezer and some of the fridge because everything in there was warm. L After that wonderful discovery, we also found out that our internet wasn’t working for some reason. UGH. Welcome home! Oh well, we were tired anyways. I took a nice hot shower and went to bed! J

home!

2010-04-06T19:22:00.001-05:00

Hey yall, just wanted to let you know that I made it back to Hobart safe and sound! Melbourne was heaps of fun. I'll update soon!

What is a Bogan Today?

2010-03-29T02:03:00.001-05:00

It has come to my attention that there was a lot of confusion as to what a "Bogan" is. I found this definition that may be helpful. Also, I realized that I spelled "Bogan" incorrectly last time I posted. So, forgive me for that!

An excellent question. It is time to bring to the world’s attention the means by which we can keep the world’s bogans happy. The word bogan has had a bad rap of late – still associated with wife beaters, flannelette, VB, utes and mullets. But this conceals the new, modern bogan. The bogan with money. The bogan with aspirations. The bogan with Ed Hardy t-shirts. And this is no mere Australian phenomenon – in the US, you have rednecks, in the UK, chavs. While there are variations, the crux of the discussion remains the same.

The bogan today defies income, class, race, creed, gender or religion. The bogan is defined by what it does, what it says and, most importantly, what it buys. Those who choose to deny the bogan on the basis of their North Shore home, their stockbroking career or their massive trust fund choose not to see the bogan. They merely see old class battles revisited. Likewise, the bogan is no mere ‘tradie’. Even if tradies remained low-income workers, many bogans are affluent. And they set themselves apart by their efforts to stand out by conforming as furiously, and conspicuously, as possible.

Two Posts in One Day!

2010-03-28T09:29:00.002-05:00

March 17, Wednesday

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day!!!

This morning I made sure to wear green so that I wouldn’t get pinched by everyone I saw. It wasn’t until after I was out and about that I realized that they really don’t care if you wear green or not here. And they sure as heck don’t pinch you for not wearing green!

I went to the Popular Fiction tutorial this morning. It was pretty good. The people in the class were pretty intense about Harry Potter though. You can totally tell that they’re arts majors!
After the tutorial I talked to the professor, Dominic, and told him that I needed him to approve me into the class.

Then I went to the library to waste time until my next class. That’s when I got a call from Dominic saying that I don’t have the right prerequisites needed to be in the class. Ugh.
So then I started looking up other English classes or Arts classes that would count for me back home. There was only one that was offered this semester that would work with my class schedule. I emailed the Professor and asked her if there was any way that I could enrol in her class. She emailed me back saying that it is too late for me to join the class and that the last day I could have joined was at the beginning of the week. GRR to Tech for taking SO long to get back to be about everything and to UTas for not letting me know before I got here that these classes wouldn’t count. Ugh. This is just so frustrating. So, I’ll be staying in Public Relations. And if I want to MAYBE get credit for it, then Tech requires me to write a 25 page paper writing about what I learn from the class. ...Sounds difficult. But I think I’m going to give it a go.

Natalie and I went downtown to find her a sexy outfit for her birthday. We went to this store called Cotton On and they were having a huge sale! I got a shirt, shorts and shoes for $25! Awesome!!! The shirt I got has a leopard on it. RAWR. Natalie ended up getting a leopard shirt at another store!

When I got home I was so tired so I laid down to take a nap. When I woke up I was super grumpy and totally didn’t want to go out for Saint Patrick’s Day. But we had already decided to go out tonight for Natalie’s birthday since we were just staying at home on Friday.

We started out at Metz with Marina, Joey, Jeff, Stacey and Natalie. April and Amy were supposed to meet us but they were running late. Stacey and I tried to get the bartenders at Metz to sing to Natalie but they wouldn’t do it.
One of Joey’s friends was up at Irish Murphy’s who said it was pretty fun there. We went up there and ran into my friend Angelique that I have a couple of classes with.

March 18, Thursday

Marc comes today!!!!!! YAY!!!!

Wow, I really can’t remember what I did during the day. I cleaned my room and did some laundry.

Natalie and I went shopping at Cole’s. I bought stuff to make dinner for Marc.

Around 6:45 I started the walk down into Hobart to meet Marc’s bus. I got there in perfect timing, 7:25. Unfortunately, when I got there I realized that his bus didn’t get in until 8 for some reason. So this black dude and I just sat outside the centre waiting for the bus.
Sure enough, Marc’s bus pulled up at 8!

By the time we got home it was almost 9 and the poor boy was starving. I made him chicken fettuccini alferado and garlic bread. After that he was still hungry so he made some more pasta and then ate a bowl of cereal and ice cream as well. I guess I underestimated how much he’d eat!
While we were eating, we sat around the table with Joey and Marina and talked. Marina seems really happy to have another Swiss around. They’re from different parts of the country but I’m sure it’s still nice just to have that other person who knows about where you’re from. And Marc was able to speak German with her which she liked.

March 19, Friday

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY WONDERFUL AMAZINGLY AWESOME FRIEND MISS NATALIE LOGUE!!!!

Natalie and I had talked about going to this little bakery for breakfast so I asked if she still wanted to do that but she had already had breakfast before her class. So, we decided to go somewhere for lunch then.
We couldn’t really decide what we wanted to eat. By the time we had gotten dressed and walked down into Sandy Bay it was getting late. So Natalie ended up getting some quiche from the bakery and Marc and I got Subway.

Oh! I almost forgot! I got a package this morning from Dad and Denise!!! J They sent me a beautiful v-neck from Forever 21 (thank you Sissy for picking it out), ranch, GOLDFISH, REESES!, and a sweet note. It was a wonderful surprise!!

After lunch, Natalie and I baked her birthday cupcakes. J There were chocolate ones and carrot cake ones...both with white icing.

Marc and I went up to uni to Skype with Miss Catie Swimm. J It was so wonderful getting to talk to her. Skype has got to be just the most wonderful invention. Props to whoever created it.

Natalie went to pick up Abdel who got in around 7:30 I believe. Right after Tarni dropped Abdel off at the transit centre she decided that she wanted to come too. J YAY! So she drove down for Natalie's birthday!!!

Marc and I got Macer’s for supper. Marc may love getting ice cream from McDonald's even more than Durwood does!!!

When we got back from supper, Tarni was at the house!! Hooray! And not long after, Natalie and Abdel showed up!

We sang to Natalie and she blew out the candles on her cupcakes that I had made for her. The cupcakes were SO YUM by the way.

March 20, Saturday

I woke up at 9:30 this morning and could NOT go back to sleep.

So I went out and got on Skype. I got to talk to Momma. And I also got to Skype with Dad too. Stacey was awake too and was Skyping with her family. She was pretty much yelling…I had to tell her multiple times to be quiet. Haha.

After everyone finally got up this morning and met at our house we went down to the Salamanca Market. The whole group headed down there (Abdel, Natalie, Stacey, Joey, Tarni, Marc and I)! It was SO much better today than it was the last time we went. Last time there was only one fruit/vegetable stand but this time there were so many. I guess last time was just bad timing for the farmers. There was a place that had really cheap strawberries and chocolate dip! Of course I had to buy those! I also got avocados for $0.95! At the grocery store they’re $1.95 each. SCORE. We also found a shop that sells Dr. Pepper. DOUBLE SCORE.

Marc and I walked around for awhile looking at all the stuff that the booths had. I found this cute little whale carving that I really wanted to get for Rachel due to her new found fascination with whales, but it was way expensive. So, I’ll keep my eyes open! 8)

After the market Marc and I walked into town to go to Redline to check about his bus home the next day.
Then Stacey and Tarni met us downtown to do some shopping. Tarni finally got the flip flops that she has been looking for! Marc got some donuts from Donut King because he loves sweets. I don’t think Stacey and I bought anything.

When we got back into Sandy Bay, Marc and I stopped off at Cole’s to get stuff for supper. Marc cooked fish sticks and Caesar salad for the two of us. It was yum. J

We spent Saturday night not doing much of anything. J Marc and I were total nerds and did homework together. Oh well, I guess that's a good thing!

I'll update again once I get the next couple of posts on my computer. :)
Don't forget to go down and read the previous post...there are two from today.

News!

2010-03-28T07:52:00.004-05:00

First of all, I would like to thank Dad for mailing me his camera! How kind of him. He took my new/broken camera to Best Buy to try to see what they can do about it and they had to ship it off. Dad was SO kind to mail me his camera so that I'll have one for my adventures here!

On Wednesday the 31 Natalie, Stacey and I will be traveling to Melbourne for our mid-semester break. :) Please keep us in your prayers! We aren't too sure what we'll be doing while we're there...hopefully checking out some festivals, comedy clubs and street markets. We will be staying with one of our AustraLearn friends for the first part of the week and then in a hostel for the second half. We head back to Hobart on the 8th of April (Thursday).

Another thing to keep in your prayers is that Miss Paisley, my boxer, just had surgery to get fixed. While she was under, they also had to extract her canine teeth because they were broken and infected. Please pray that she has a fast and healthy recovery! I hate that I'm not with her to take care of her but I'm glad that she is in good hands with Curtis and her Granma Ney.

And last, but certainly not least, I'd like to introduce yall to my boyfriend Marc. Marc is 23 and from Lausanne, Switzerland...which means he's French Swiss. Oh well, we all have our faults. Haha. He has been in Launceston, Tasmania for a year and a half now (if I remember correctly). He is studying physical education. Marc also plays basketball for two teams out here. He plans on finishing the two years that he has left here, and then coming to the States to do his Masters.
Before coming out here, I was friends with this guy from Egypt named Abdel. When Abdel came out here he became house mates with Marc. Some friends and I went to visit Abdel and that's how Marc and I met! We first bonded over our love for dogs and basketball!

We've been "hanging out," "dating," "together" or whatever you call it, for a few weeks now.

He seems to be a good balance for me because in times when I get shy, he is super outgoing. At other times when I like to be loud he lets me be. Haha.

On Tuesday at basketball practice he was jumping up onto a box and somehow missed the box and his leg peeled open like a banana. He had to get 9 stitches. We went to the Doctor on Friday to have them check up on it and it seems to be healing well! Unfortunately it put him out for at least 3 weeks. Pray that it continues to heal quickly and fully.

That's all I have for now. I'll try to catch up with my other posts soon.

Cheers!

Three and a Half Stars ???

2010-03-22T01:52:00.004-05:00

March 8, Monday

Eight hour day. J Hooray for getting a holiday about only working eight hours a day.

I slept in today until about 10:30.

I called Dad to tell him about my camera. He told me to send it to him and he would take it to Best Buy and see what he can do about it because there must be a warranty on it considering I’ve only had it for about a month.

We were supposed to go to the gorge today but it was raining a lot. L

After talking with Dad, I walked to Chicken Feed with Natalie and Abdel. I bought a spiral notebook so that I could write everything out for my blog while I’m traveling. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such an ugly spiral as the one that I bought but it was the only one in the whole store.

Natalie needed coffee so then we went to Hungry Jack’s to fix that problem!

Malcolm and Abdel then drove Joey, Natalie and I to the bus station. It was a very fun weekend!!! It was nice having a fellow Texan, Abdel, around for awhile.

The bus ride home was pretty boring. Some high school aged girls were listening to country music. After they heard me on the phone saying something about Texas they kept turning around and looking at me. Haha. It was funny.

Back in Hobart we decided to just take the walk home rather than the bus since we’d just been on one for 2 ½ hours.

When we got back to Hobart at 5:30, it was nice and hot! We stopped at Cole’s on the way home. Natalie needed a lot of stuff.

By the time we got back to the Cottage of Nelson Road we were SO tired. It had been a long weekend. Joey made his “famous” burritos for supper. Marina and Stacey weren’t home (we could tell they had at least been there though because their stuff was at home). Natalie made some crazy tofu meal. Dinner was ready just in time for us to sit down and watch our favorite show, My Kitchen Rules! Our favorite team, two best friends from Perth are still in it. Yippy Skippy!

We then watched my favorite movie, 101 Dalmatians. J Marina was worried that I was sick because I had told her that it is my sick movie.

Then I was so incredibly tired so I showered and went to write before bed. Stacey came back and we stayed up talking about our adventures from the weekend until sometime after 1:30.

March 9, Tuesday

Happy birthday cousin Katie!!!

I told Natalie that I would go to her Popular Fiction class with her this morning at 9 AM. This is the class that I am hoping to join and get credit for rather than taking the Public Relations class and not getting credit for it. Nat and I met at the top of The Hill of Pain at 8:30AM. In the lecture today, we talked about Disney movies, Peter Pan, and the symbolism behind the stories. I liked it a lot!

I had an hour break after that class so I mailed my camera off to Dad. It cost $28 because I put insurance on it. It would have only cost $12 otherwise.

Then I went up to the library. I got to Skype with Nanna, Jackson, Durwood, Dad and Denise! That was so exciting! Nanna was so cute; she was wearing a Chinese robe because she was having people over for supper tonight. We got to talk for about 15 minutes before I had to head to class.

The classes I had today were Gender, Power and Change and my tutorial for Journalism, Media and Communications. I have a test in my Journalism class next week...scary!

When I got home I cooked some lunch and got to talk to Momma for a bit on the phone. Oh it was sooo great, I got my green card (Metro Bus System) card in the mail today! I also got cards from Momma, Momma Dos, Bonnie and Britton. It was so kind of all of them to send me mail! I love it. I decorate my room with all the cards and photos that people send me. J

The Telstra (phone service) dude just came out and set up our phone line. So now we REALLY should have internet at the house soon. Thank goodness.

Joey, Marina and I went to Macer’s (McDonalds) to use the free Wi-Fi. It was way slow. So I then walked back up to the library. On my walk, it started raining so it felt so far away!

Its Tuesday so of course that means...pancakes! I love this day. I find myself looking forward to Pancake Tuesdays now.

I was supposed to go rock climbing with Joey and Stacey today but I was still at the library when they went. Natalie and I were trying to plan our mid-semester break. We’d really like to go to the Gold Coast and stay with Steve-o but it is pretty expensive to get there during that break. But we’re keeping our eyes open!!

March 10, Wednesday

Tarni’s coming to HOBART today!!!

I didn’t have my Public Relations tutorial today since we didn’t have the lecture on Monday. I woke up at 9 and just couldn’t go back to sleep. So I went up to the library. I got to tlak to Momma. She is having issues with her trip plans. For some reason the dumb Travel Agent made her flight plans for the 28 rather than the 29. Stupid.

Gender, Power and Change was interesting today. We had the sex talk.

Once I was done with my classes I had a little over an hour before Tarni would get in. I got to work on my photo book a little. Really I just picked out which design I wanted to use. It has been a slow process!

Tarni got in town around 4:30 and we ate a late lunch at the house.

Tarni wanted to get some panty hose so we made our daily trek to Cole’s. J

In Cole’s, there is a fake yellow lab for people to donate money in and every time we pass it I make sure that I, and whoever I’m with, pet the dog.

Megan Macdonald from La Bella’s had invited us to a house party with her friends so went to that. It was nice to meet Aussies. Most of them went to high school together in Launceston. Because of that, Joey, Natalie, Tarni and I were kind of the odd ones out. We only stayed there for about half an hour. Megan is super sweet though, I hope to hang out with her again!

We walked down to Salamanca next. We were trying hard to show Tarni a good Uni night in the big city of Hobart.

We then went to see Danny at La Bella’s. He let me make a pizza!!! It was so yum.

When we got home and were going to bed, Tarni and I talked for a long time. :) She is such a sweetheart!

March 11, Thursday

Hey weekend, hey!

This morning Tarni and I laid in bed for awhile chatting. We got up around 10:45 to get ready to go to Launceston!

The Koala Bear, aka Stacey, was fulfilling her name. She earned that nickname because she loves sleeping and she’s incredibly slow. She was taking her time lying in bed watching a movie and eating oatmeal while we were waiting on her to leave. Tarni needed to be back in Launy by 2:30 so we needed to leave by 12. We finally got Stacey in the car at 12:30 and we were on the road!

When we got into Launy we got Macers! We then went back to the house and Stacey got to meet everyone. We didn’t do too much that night. We went to Woolworth’s and got stuff for supper. I made some pretty awesome tacos! I made them nice and spicy...they were so wonderful after not having spicy food for a long time.

Malcolm had baked a cake for Tarni’s birthday. It was admittedly better than the one that I had made. It was still chocolate with chocolate but it was much moister. Malcolm had also put smarties (like m&m’s) on the cake. He has to go out of town on Friday for work so the house celebrated her birthday today so that Malcolm could be a part of the festivities.

I love the Launy house because they don’t have a living room or a television so they all just sit in the kitchen and talk with each other. I really enjoy it…its quite cute. J Malcolm has a strange fascination with random laws. He looked up a few about Texas. Apparently if you introduce someone as your husband/wife three times in the state of Texas then it is official. Also, it is illegal to shoot a buffalo from the second story of a building. They didn’t mention anything about the third though so…guns up!

March 12, Friday

Happy birthday Tarni!!!!

I woke up around 10:30 to Stacey and Tarni saying that it was time to open presents! Tarni had gotten a package from her parents that she knew had an ipod in it. And surprise, it also had a camera!!!

Tarni, Stacey and I then went into town to shop. Stacey wanted to look for a camera and I wanted to buy perfume. I ended up being the only successful one of the outing…or maybe it was actually Stacey since she didn’t spend money. I really, really wanted the Viva La Juicy perfume but it was more than I had wanted to spend so I bought (don’t laugh) Mariah Carey’s perfume. It surprisingly smells very good.

We then went home to grab a bite to eat. Marc was home from practice so we heated up the left over taco meat and ate those. After lunch we were ready to head off to the gorge!

The gorge is a huge lake with rocks all around it. You can lay-out on the grass or on the rocks. Since it was a week day it was pretty empty so we were able to lay on the rocks that you cliff-dive off of. The cliff diving wasn’t THAT extreme. It was probably around 20 feet. None of us girls had ever done it before so we were scared and made Marc go first. After we saw that it was safe we were all for it though! The water was SO cold…when you jumped in it kind of took your breath away and made it hard to breathe. It was a really cool experience. We had a lot to do that day so we left the gorge around 3 I believe.

On the way home we stopped by Woolworth’s and K-mart. Marc was looking for “candy apple green” flip flops because that’s "the greatest color in the world." Unfortunately they only had that color in girl’s sizes. Tarni got some nail polish while we were there. Stacey and I found a DVD player for $35 that we’re really tempted to buy! ...Buuut, we didn't.

When we got back to the house we were all pretty tired to we took a nap. Around 5:30 it was time for the girls to start getting ready to go out for Tarni's birthday! Stacey and I were very excited because Tarni has a hair dryer and a straightener so we were going to get to do our hair for the first time in a month and a half!

Marc made me a wonderful chicken burger for lunch! Yummy! Fraser came over for a little bit to eat some cake for Tarni's birthday. He couldn’t go out that night for some reason so he came over early. There was a little bit of Malcolm’s cake left so we put a candle in that and sang to Tarni again.

March 13, Saturday

Stacey wanted to go back to Hobart today because she wanted to go to Bonorong Park on Sunday with the Bushwalking Club. Not too much happened today. We went to Chicken Feed to do a little shopping. Abdel burned some DVDs for Stacey and me…yay, movies! Marc cooked me a chicken burger for lunch…so yum. J

There is a park in Launceston where they have monkeys! They’re so cute. J They are in a little cage but you can watch them play and chase each other. At the same park there is also a huge chess game set up. There was a cute little Asian kid who was playing by himself. The chess pieces were as tall as he was. It was so funny! Stacey decided that she wants to get married at this park…there was a beautiful greenhouse with tons of cool flowers. Malcolm and Abdel stood in as the grooms so we could get a good visual of what she would look like walking down the aisle.

After the park we dropped Stacey off at the bus station.

That night Tarni and I went to watch Marc play basketball! He did really well; his team won soundly. There was one other guy who was pretty good but Marc was for sure the best. He had lots of rebounds and points. J

Saturday night Tarni and I rented 500 Days of Summer. By the time we got home and ate dinner we were too tired to watch it though.

Around 4 AM we heard a car horn and alarm going off. We looked outside and saw a car in the parking lot across the street on fire. We guess a bunch of boagans had stolen the car and then set it on fire to ditch it. It was crazy! Everyone in the house woke up and we all went into Marc’s room to watch it. Who needs movies when you have boagans who set cars on fire?

March 14, Sunday

Tarni and I had planned on going to La Trobe to see the platypus capital of the world. I checked my bank account before we went tough and saw that Myer’s had charged me twice for my perfume. So we decided to the platypus for another day. We went into town because Tarni wanted to buy some flip flops. She showed me some cool stores…Thank goodness!

We then headed out to the gorge. Tarni and I got there around 12:30. Malcolm met us at 1. Marc was at practice still and Abdel had to do homework. We didn’t dive today because there were tons of Jr. High kids there. We just laid-out on the grass and swam in the gorge a bit. It was definitely easier getting into the water when you were jumping into it rather than just swimming out in it. It was way cold. We treaded water for a while, hoping to warm up, but then just ended up going to lie on the grass.

Tarni and I cuddled up in bed and watched the movie “500 Days of Summer” when we got back home. The movie was pretty good…kind of strange. I didn’t like the way that the girl treated the boy, it made me angry.

After the movie it was nap time in the house!

When we woke up it was time for us to head to the bus station to catch my 7:30 PM back to Hobart. Tarni and Marc drove me up there this time. We stopped by Macer’s to get me some supper for the road. I sure do love my pollo nuggets! I said bye to them and then had to wait about 10 minutes to load my bus.

The bus ride felt really long for some reason! I slept for the first hour of the trip. After that I just couldn’t do anything. There was a girl sitting in the seat next to me so I felt pretty confined. By the time I got back to Hobart I was real happy to be off of the bus.

When I got back into Hobart I made the 45 minute walk back into Sandy Bay. It felt weird coming home after being gone for so long! Stacey and Joey told me all of the stories about Saturday’s occurrences.

Apparently we have at least two rats, Earl and Richie. They say that the rats have gotten really brave and will just sit there and look at you if you walk into the room. Also, one of them must have gotten sick from the poison and spat blood all over the kitchen floor. Because of this our kitchen smelled RANCID. GROSS. Ugh, I cannot even express how thankful I am that I missed all of this. Marina is going to go talk to the Tasmania University Union, who we rent the house from, tomorrow to see what can be done about this little situation. Needless to say, I will be avoiding the kitchen for the next few days.

I was pretty tired from all of my traveling so I went to bed not long after getting home. Joey and I tried to watch Twilight New Moon, one of the DVDs Abdel had burned for me, but it didn’t work on my computer so we watched another one instead. I passed out not far into the movie!

March 15, Monday

Back in Hobart and back to class.

Because I am going to drop my Public Relations class, I didn’t have class today until 3.

I woke up around 9 and laid in bed debating what I should do until 3. Natalie called and asked if I wanted to go to Cole’s with her. …What kind of question is that? Of course I want to go to Cole’s!

Friday is Natalie’s birthday so I bought stuff to make cupcakes for that! Hip-Hip Hooray! They’re going to be chocolate with white icing.

After the store we came home, ate and discussed our mid-semester break plans. It’s in two weeks!!! Can you believe that? I went to the library to look up flights and Natalie went home to do the same and to put her groceries away.

Natalie and I found flights to Melbourne for pretty cheap! Our roundtrip total was $195. We will be there for eight days (March 31 – April 8). I’m SO excited! I had really wanted to go to the Gold Coast but those flights were super expensive. We have worked out to stay with one of our friends from Austra Learn, Lee. His dad and brother are coming in on the 3 thought so after that we can either stay with one of his friends or go to a hostile. We’re probably just going to play that part by ear.

I then had to go to class. It was Journalism, Media and Communication. That lecture is two hours long and it is just killer! Plus, I think that they’ve decided that because it is autumn they don’t have to turn the air conditioning on anymore. Hah, they’re wrong!

I have a test tomorrow in that class so I spent tonight studying for that. I’m not too worried about it because it is just over this week’s readings. I’ll let yall know how it goes!

Cheers!

March 16, Tuesday

I had to wake up SO early this morning…8:15. It’s crazy how 9 AM seems so late but the 8 AM hour is just a whole different story.

I went to Popular Fiction this morning. Today we talked about Harry Potter. J I like this class. I went and met with the Professor, who reminds me of one of my friends, after class and told him that I’m enrolling in his class and asked what I needed to do to catch up. He was really kind and told me the contact information for James, who I needed to talk to for advice about enrolling late.

I then went to the library to use the internet and contact the guy who my Professor, Dominic, had told me to. I did that. I had also gotten a response from my advisor to my e-mail asking about adding/dropping classes. I sent one back asking how I go about dropping a class…you know, considering I’m a new student here I may not know these things. The response that I got said this and only this: “Dear Sara, You draw a horizontal line through the class.” …Thank you kind advisor woman. Ugh. I knew what sheet she was talking about but I didn’t know where I was supposed to turn that sheet in or if there was a way to do it online. I was so angry with the response that I got from her though. She is the international advisor, she may have to deal with stupid questions every now and then from students who aren’t used to their system here! Grr.

Anyways, I believe I figured out how to take care of it on my own. I’m going to go and meet with the James guy who my English Professor told me about and have him double check that I did everything correctly.

At 11 I had my Gender, Power and Change class. We have our first paper due on Monday so all this week we are solely talking about the paper. It was totally exciting. We learned how to answer an essay question and how to set up an introduction, body and conclusion.

Next, I had my Journalism, Media and Communications tutorial. It was test day! We had 10 minutes to take a 10 question short answer test. It was pretty easy! I know I didn’t get a 100…probably an 80 or 90. There is always that one question that just kills you! The one that got me was asking for the names of the researchers on one of the statistics that was in our book. Bummer.

After class that crazy guy followed me to Uni Print and back home again. It is SO bazaar. Thankfully he didn’t stay long though today because he had to grab food before his next class.

Marina got home around 2ish; she and I decided that it was a good beach day. We walked down Sandy Bay to the dock that we normally swim at. When we got there it was all nice and sunny. But for some reason we have super bad luck or timing. The sun decided to hide behind a ton of clouds. It kind of looked like it was going to rain off in the distance. We left the beach a little earlier than we had hoped.

I went into town to withdraw some cash from the bank. I went to Blockbuster to ask if they had “Night at the Roxbury” and they don’t. Sad. Anyone want to send it to me?? J Then I went to Chicken Feed. We needed dish soap and toilet paper.

Have I told yall about our Chores List that we have on the refrigerator? Each time you: Buy Toilet Paper, Clean the Dishes, Take out the Trash, or Buy Cleaning Supplies you get a mark next to your name. It helps to keep track of who all is spending time/money on things. We also have another one with each week we are here. It rotates who gets to clean what that week. The rotations are: Kitchen, Living room, Entry way, and Bathroom. So far it is working out well I think!

After Chicken Feed I dropped my stuff off at the house and went to the library. Natalie met me up there and, can I just say, that her mom is my absolute most favorite person of the day (and possibly longer)!?!?!? She sent me GOLDFISH!!! “Goldfish: The snack that smiles back until you bite their heads off.” (I’ve always thought that that was the strangest jingle). Oh but that made me so happy!

Furthermore, it’s Tuesday…and that means: Pancake Tuesday!

Natalie cooked her awesome pancakes tonight. They were so tasty. J Stacey and I keep getting so hungry though, it’s like we’re full but we’re never nourished. I think we determined that it is because we don’t have a lot of meat in our diet here. Back home we eat tons of it and our body gets tons of protein that way. But here, we generally eat pastas or something like that. If we have meat then it is just a little bit on a sandwich probably once a day. We are going to try to change that! We are going to go to Cole’s tomorrow and shop for some good food for us.

After eating tons of awesome pancakes I was tired! So I took a shower and now I’m fixing to head to bed…before midnight. How crazy.

As always, thanks for reading my posts! I know some are definitely more exciting than others…maybe I should start a point system and put it in the blog title. Something like: “5 Star Blog: MUST READ!” or “2 Star Blog: Only Read if you’re Bored and Trying to Avoid Work.” That way if you have other things that you need to be doing then you can be like “Eh, today is just a 3 star blog; I’ll just wait and catch her on a 5 star day.”

Yeah? Let me know what you think! J

Here are some photos to reward you for that long read!!!

Malcolm, Me, Tarni, Abdel and Stacey at the Park in Launceston. We joke that this photo makes us look like we are on the Real World television show.

Marc and I at the gorge.

Me jumping at the gorge. And yes, I am holding my nose! :)

Stacey, Me and Tarni at the gorge!

INTERNET!!!

2010-03-19T16:58:00.001-05:00

GUESS WHAT GUYS...

I HAVE INTERNET AT MY HOUSE NOW!!!

YIPPY SKIPPY. :)

First Launceston Weekend

2010-03-17T22:05:00.002-05:00

March 6, Saturday

Another INSANE day!

Natalie, Joey and I all woke up fairly early to get to the bus stop so we could hit the road to good ole Launceston. The bus from Sandy Bay to Hobart was running late. Once we got into Hobart we needed to find Brisbane Street. We asked multiple people and no one knew where it was! Finally, the fourth person we asked was able to tell us where to go. We hurried off that way and made it to the bus station 5 minutes after were needed to check in (10:05 AM). We had left our house at 9 AM…so that just shows how far away this bus station was! It was up in North Hobart again. Ugh. When we went to check in the lady told us that we weren’t booked on the bus. It ends up that the address that we had been given on our confirmation was for Tassielink rather than Redline.
So we jogged our happy little butts back basically to where we had just come from. We had made a HUGE circle. We made it to the bus station at 10:18 AM…3 minutes too late. The bus had left at 10:15 AM. UGH. Thankfully the people let us transfer our tickets to the next bus that was leaving at 3 PM.

We now had a couple of hours to waste. We went to the Short Black Café and Take Away and got some breakfast there. We went to a few shops around town. I wanted to find a spiral notebook but I guess they don’t believe in them in Hobart.
We went to the Hobart Museum. I really like that place! The first time I went I thought it was super small but this time I found a lot more rooms. There is an exhibit about Antarctica and penguins. Penguins are just so cute! It was sad thought because there were a lot of stuffed ones and it made me sad that they had died. L Poor babies.
After the museum we went to KFC! YUM. It was so strange, I asked for mashed potatoes with no gravy and they told me they couldn’t do that…? Oh well.

We got back to the bus station around 2…with plenty of time to spare! The bus left at 3, right on time. There wasn’t too much to look at along the drive besides fields and sheep. As exciting as that was, I fell asleep.

We got into Launy at 5:30 PM. Abdel and his roommates had gone to Cradle Mountain so we hand to hang around town for a bit while we waited on them to get back into town.
While we were in town, Joey tried to tell us that Launceston is bigger than Hobart…dumb, it’s not. When we got into town there weren’t any people on the streets. We didn’t know where everyone was! We later found out that the whole town was either at the movies or at Mortey’s, a big food court area.

Abdel and one of his roommates, Malcolm, a British Bloke, came to pick us up around 7:30 or so. Abdel is nice! He kind of reminds me of Cousin Matt. Malcolm has a car, yay! So we drove over to their house. They live right next door to a Chicken Feed. How lucky are they!?

There are four people living in the house: Abdel, Malcolm, Marc and Tarni. Marc is French Swiss and he is here for Uni and playing basketball. Marc is from the other part of Switzerland than Marina (Fight! Fight! Fight!). He’s a cool guy. We bonded while talking about our dogs and about basketball. We had a heart to heart and he opened up and told me about losing his dad this past year and everything that he’s been through. Tarni (pronounced Tawny) is from Coff’s Harbor on the mainland. She is a first year nursing major; she doesn’t know a lot of people here yet so she is still pretty shy.

Anyways, when we got to Abdel’s we just sat around and chatted for a bit. It had been a long day for all of us so we called it an early night!

March 7, Sunday

Sunday Funday! Woot woot! J

Today was festival day in Devonport! Marc had basketball practice this morning so he couldn’t come. Around “half ten” aka 10:30 AM we headed to Devonport which is about an hour or so away from Launy. The boys (Abdel, Joey and Malcolm) were in one car and the girls (Tarni, Natalie and I) were in the other car. On the trip there Natalie fell asleep and Tarni and I had a nice little chat. The night before she had been super quiet because she was tired and pretty shy, but I got her to open. I found out that she has never lived with guys so it can be a little awkward for her at times, especially because they are all from different cultures and have different limits on things.

When we got to the festival we walked around for awhile before deciding how we wanted to spend our money. There was a bunch of food and drinks. Oh, the festival was the “Taste the Harvest” festival. There were two stages set up; one was the main stage and the other was the acoustic stage. The music was pretty good…lots of cover songs of course.
Regardless of the fact that it was a wine festival, we actually didn’t get any wine while we were there. I tasted some strawberry wine which I thought was pretty gross. I had a baked potato and then some ice cream. J
We got to play with some dogs while we were there. They had a dog show where they did tricks and obedience stuff. We missed the show but I was just happy that I got to play with the dogs. They make me so happy! And there was a boxer there…she was fawn colored, not as beautiful as Miss Paisley.

We stayed at the festival for a couple hours and then went to the beach. It was a little overcast but we went anyways! There were a bunch of big rocks that we girls climbed on while the boys went for a swim in the ocean. We got to see the Tasmanian Sea rather than just the bay. On the way back to Launy I took photos of some of the funny road signs that they have. Such as:
“Drowsy Drivers Die.”
“110. It’s the Limit. Not a Challenge.”
“Keep Left Unless Overtaking.”
“May Become Slippery When Frosty.”
“Rest. Survive the Drive.”

When we got back to the house I went and talked to Marc for awhile.
Then we went over to Hungry Jack’s for some supper. They have free refills there!!! Natalie and I were so happy because we just love coke. We kept sipping down our drink real fast so we could get as much coke as we could handle haha.

Malcolm and I backed a cake, without a box! Can you believe that??? It was chocolate with chocolate icing. Marc couldn’t believe that I let the Brit boss me around in the kitchen about how to bake a cake. It turned out to be a wonderful cake! Everyone loved it. :)

A Couple of Posts!

2010-03-16T02:01:00.002-05:00

March 4, Thursday

Hello weekend!!! J I got to sleep in today because I’m done with my classes for the week!

At 11:30 Julian came to pick me up to go scuba diving! We had to go and pick up the tanks and equipment from the shop that they store all of their gear at. Then we headed out to a beach a little past Kingston. On the way we stopped at another place that Julian likes to dive at. It had a lot of rocks and cliffs. He said there was a lot of cool stuff to see down there but it wasn’t an ideal spot for me to learn in so we headed off to the other place.

The place where we went is a beach/marine reservation. When we got there we realized that only one of the tanks had been filled. Julian said he would just snorkel alongside me as a scuba dove. Because my lesson had kind of been thrown together I didn’t have a lot of the right gear. The vest, goggles and flippers were way too big and I didn’t have enough weights to pull me down. So, we tried real hard but it just wasn’t working for me. I kept swimming to the side because the tank would always shift to my right. It was pretty funny…I felt a little bit like how Nemo must have felt with his little gimp fin. I decided that I would rather just snorkel so I told Jules he could use the scuba tank. He is fixing to start giving lessons in town and is going to take his students to that spot for their first marine dive. There is an underwater trail that you can follow that will lead you to a bunch of cool things to see so he wanted to try and scope that out.
While I was snorkeling I saw a lot of huge fish. I also saw a sting ray!!! It was pretty big! I really wanted to touch it but I wasn’t willing to risk being Steve Irwin-ed so I decided that that wasn’t the greatest idea. I found someone’s lost diving flipper and I tried to go down and get it because it reminded me of Finding Nemo (“P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way Sydney…”). But I wasn’t able to dive down and get it because my wet suit kept me pretty buoyant.

We finished up around 4 and then headed off to get some lunch at Subway in Kingston. We took our food down to eat on the beach. There was quite the breeze though so we ate quick and then headed off towards home.

When I got home Natalie was over watching a movie. I ended up falling asleep for a little “Nanna Nap.” Marina came home and cooked us supper at 6. It was so tasty. I love having home cooked meals after having oh so many sandwiches!!!

After dinner, Stacey, Natalie and I went up to use the internet at the Library. While we were there I went and checked out the movie selections that they have. I rented “Chocolate” because, after buying chocolate-chili flavored fudge, Natalie kept telling us how great that movie is. We then had to go over to Amy and Jeff’s so Stacey could pick up her back packet for their camping trip tomorrow. After that we did the one thing that had been missing from our day…we went to Cole’s. J Then over to Natalie’s to watch the movie! Stacey has been working on a photo book for her boyfriend’s birthday. While the rest of us watched the movie, she used Natalie’s internet to finish it up so that she can get it ordered and shipped so that it will make it in time for his birthday. It took a long time for that to get finished. We didn’t leave Natalie’s until around 3 AM. It’s a good thing I don’t have class tomorrow!!! J

Tomorrow I am going to go up to the library and use the internet. I’m thinking that I am going to go ahead and start working on a photo book of my trip here. If I work on it now I think it will be easier for me to put captions and remember what was going on during each photo.

We worked out that this weekend Natalie, Joey and I are going to go to Launceston and stay with my friend Abdel. We are leaving Saturday morning and then coming home on Monday. There is some festival going on Sunday…I’m pretty excited about it!!!

Thanks for your all of your thoughts and prayers! Cheers.

P.S. I would like nothing more right now than a fourth meal from Taco Bell!!!

March 5, Friday

This morning Stacey, Amy, April and Jeff all headed off to Wineglass Bay. Marina went to Bay of Fires.

I woke up when Natalie came over and we went up to the library for the internet (what else?). I decided I should go ahead and start working on a snapfish book of my Aussie adventures. If I work on it now then it will be easier in the end. J I unfortunately didn’t get much done on it.

I went over to chat with our neighbors for a bit when I got home. I wanted to borrow a broom but I figured it’d be good to make from friendly banter first. In the house to the right there is a kind old man, Allen, and his tiny Asian wife, Aurora, living there. We talked for a little bit about the States and what I was studying here. Allen started singing “All My Exes Live in Texas” when I told him that’s where I’m from. Haha. I told them that we would all be out of town this weekend and that we would appreciate it if they kept an eye on the house for us. They had no clue what I was talking about. I told them just to keep an eye open for any suspicious activity. Allen asked what he was supposed to do if something did happen. Haha, hmm…maybe call 000 (their equivalent to 911). But I didn’t want to freak him out by saying that anything bad could possibly happen in the cute little neighborhood so I just gave them my phone number and told them to contact me if they ever needed anything.
I don’t think that I have mentioned that we named our house “The Cottage of Nelson Road.” We thought it was a cute named for a white picket fence home. J

Someone had told Natalie about this cool place to go and listen to music called Alley Cats. Natalie, Joey and I headed down to Hobart about 9. We walked into town because we didn’t want to wait on the bus. Can we say LONGEST WALK EVER!?!?! We had looked up that the bar was on Elizabeth Street. Unfortunately it was something like 385 Elizabeth so it was way out in North Hobart. It felt like it took four years to make it out there. Once we finally arrived it looked relatively lame. And it had a cover charge. That is never a good combination. I’m not so sure I’m okay with paying a cover to listen to a band that I don’t know at a place that could quite possibly suck. So, we ditched that plan. We started our journey back into Hobart.

On the way home we went to La Bella’s Pizza place, it is so yum! We made friends with a guy Danny, who works there.

After the most delicious pizza ever we went back home. I packed, updated Steve Wonder and then watched 10 Things I Hate About You.

Off to Launceston in the morning!

Launceston / Devonport

2010-03-15T02:11:00.002-05:00

Hey yall!

I'm sorry that it has been so incredibly long since I last posted! I have been traveling!

The past two weekends I have gone to Launceston. For those of you who don't know, Launceston is in North Central Tasmania. It is a 2 1/2 hour bus ride from Hobart.

Last weekend we had a long weekend so Joey, Natalie and I went there to get out of Hobart for a bit. We stayed with at my friend Abdel's house and made friends with all of this roommates (Malcolm, Marc and Tarni). And this past weekend was Tarni's birthday so I told her I would come back up for that! These photos are from the first weekend up there. My camera broke at the end of that trip! :( SADDEST DAY EVER! But I have already gotten it in the mail and Dad is seeing what he can do about it for me. I am SO thankful to have people back in the States that I can rely on. :)

This photo is from a festival that we went to in Devonport. Devonport is an hour North of Launy (what the locals call Launceston). The festival was for wine season I believe? It was called Taste the Harvest. I tried some wine but I was nasty so I decided to stick with ice cream after that! :) The girl in the middle is Tarni (pronounced Tawny).

The Hungry Jack's (aka Burger King) in Launy had free refills on their drinks! We were STOKED!

My friend Malcolm and I getting our guns up for Texas Tech! I told him to get his guns up, assuming that everyone should know what that means, and he was pretty confused. Haha.

This is at the beach in Devonport after the festival. I'll list everyones names and where they are from. Abdel (Alexandria, Egypt), Joey (Colorado), Malcolm (somewhere in Britian), Me (TEXAS!), Natalie (Georgia) and Tarni (Coff's Harbor, New South Wales).

Natalie and I climbing on the rocks! The water was too cold so us girls just climbed the rocks while the boys went for a swim. :)

That's all I have for now! I wish I could tell you there would be more photos soon but I don't know if that'll happen. I'll try to bum off photos from my friends. :) Thanks for reading!

Love from Oz! (The Australians fondly call Australia their Oz...I like the sound of it, it's very quint.)

Longest Post EVER!

2010-03-04T04:02:00.001-06:00

February 27, Saturday

Word of the day:
Boot = trunk of the car

Today everyone but Natalie and I went up to Mount Wellington. Natalie wasn’t feeling the hike and I had been there yesterday so we decided to just stay at home.

Natalie came over around 11. We tried to decide what we would do today but the weather was pretty yucky so we were limited. I had wanted to go to Launy (Launceston) today but everyone else was going hiking so I figured that could wait for another day. Natalie and I made some delicious lunch and were extra loud to be sure that Richie the Rat wouldn’t come around. We then went up to the library to use the computers.

Then we headed over to the grocery store (we LOVE Coles!). I finally needed to buy groceries. I bought kind of a lot of stuff so I was SO thankful that Natalie was with me to help me carry all of it. We always take reusable shopping bags with us and when we were walking home one of them broke. Luckily it only had some plastic juice bottles in it but it was still difficult carrying all that stuff home.

When we got home we put all the groceries away and watched some awesome Aussie television. I ended up falling asleep until around 5. Then I went back up to the library to get online so I could talk to my wonderful best friend Catie. J We didn’t get to talk long because the library was closing soon. Oh, have I mentioned the obnoxious music that plays at the library when it’s about to close? The music starts playing and then a voice comes on that says “The library will be closing in 30 minutes. If you are working on a computer, come to a stopping point and save your work now. If you would like to check out any books go to the desk now.” And then it keeps reminding you every 10 minutes and the messages get longer and longer about what you need to do before you leave. It’s pretty annoying.

By the time I got back home Stacey and Joey were back from their hiking adventure. They had had a long day so I cooked dinner for everyone. I made spaghetti and garlic bread and then cookies for dessert. We are pretty limited on what we can cook because of the cooking supplies that we have. I told Jules that I am going to borrow his kitchen one day so I can make Nanna’s chicken enchiladas! Everyone said that dinner was delicious. It’s nice having a real home cooked meal after so many sandwiches. We think we are going to try to take turns once a week where we will cook for everyone else.

After supper we watched movies. We were going to watch television but the stations that play normal TV shows stopped airing stuff until 6AM. At first I thought that it was maybe the kid’s station so that the kids wouldn’t stay up late watching TV but that was the normal ABC type of station. Bazaar!? Where are the infomercials!?! Since we couldn’t watch TV, we watched movies. First we watched Zoolander and then Hitch. After Hitch I was going completely stir-crazy!

Natalie, Joey and I walked down to Coles just to get out of the house for a bit. On the way down there Joey got egged! Some car drove by and threw something at us. None of us really knew what was going on…I saw that they had thrown something but I wasn’t sure what. It wasn’t until after they had driven off that Joey told us that he had gotten hit with an egg in the middle of his back. Good thing he had two shirts on so he was just able to take the egged on off. He was just glad that they had hit him instead of one of us girls or else he would’ve been super mad. Poor Joey!

When we got back from the store Natalie headed back to her place. Joey and I stayed up and watched Wedding Crashers. Right as that movie was ending Stacey woke up so now I’m lying in her bed writing this as she is uploading photos from her day.

Stacey and I just figured out how incredibly expensive the gas is here. There are 3.79 Liters in a Gallon and at the price of $1.70 a Liter it would cost me $90 to fill up my 14 Gallon tank. HOLY SMOKES!!!! No wonder there are so many people walking or using the bus system!!!
There is a political group here called The Greens. They’re all about keeping Tassie natural and, go figure, green. I’m not sure what the other political parties are but that’s a huge one around here. All around town you see stuff supporting The Greens.

It’s way past bedtime. Tomorrow we are going to try to go to the Botanical Gardens! The issue could be finding a way to get there. But we will surely try our hardest! Cheers!

February 28, Sunday

What a boring Sunday! They always seem to be that way!

Today we all slept in and just woke up on our own timing. I had gotten a text at 4 AM asking if a tsunami was coming my way. Obviously since I was asleep I had NO earthly idea what was going on. It wasn’t until Natalie came over and told me about getting a phone call from her grandma at the same time in the morning that I knew about the earthquake in the ocean that was causing a lot of tsunamis. I believe we are a lot farther south than where the bad weather is headed. It was pretty rainy here today though. It would be sunny yet raining at the same time. It was bazaar.

Marina got back from her camping trip at Brunei Island. It’s always SO good when she makes it back home. J

After bumming around the house and watching movies, Stacey, Joey and I walked down to the Chicken Feed which is basically a Dollar General. Stacey needed to buy some paint for the painting class that she is taking. They were closing in two minutes so we had to be super quick. Next we went to Woolworth’s (we have nicknamed it Wool-Worthless and Dub-Dubs). I found the movie Step Brothers there for super cheap so I bought it. We like to all watch movies together and we were running out of them pretty quickly. After Wool-Worthless we went to our favorite store, Coles. Coles has got to be our favorite place in Sandy Bay, beside La Bella’s Pizza that is. We always joke around that we feel at home as soon as we walk into Coles.

When we got back to the house I made a potato soup packet that I had bought. It was pretty gross. It was water and soup powder…yum. I tried to eat that but I ended up passing it off to Joey (it’s so nice having a disposal, I mean boy, around the house).

Julian came over tonight and we all watched Step Brothers. Marina, Natalie and Julian all hadn’t seen it…it’s always fun watching a funny movie with someone for the first time. After the movie was over Julian headed home and Marina went to bed. Stacey, Natalie, Joey and I all cuddled up in Stacey’s bed and played some word game that she has on her itouch. I think we almost beat the game. But we decided to put a pause on it for tonight since we all have class in the morning.

That’s pretty much all that happened today! Hopefully tomorrow will be a little bit more exciting!

March 1, Monday

Words of the Day:
Supper = Meal/snack after dinner. Kind of like their fourth meal.
– I refuse to follow this rule. Supper = Dinner in my book.

Today is the first day of autumn. It’s kind of bittersweet. I generally love autumn when I’m in Texas because its football season and the weather turns to be nice instead of just being unruly hot and dry. But here, I wish summer would stay forever. It was a good first day of autumn though. It was a whopping 24 degrees…Celsius that is. Remember the conversion? Double the number and add 30…so, it was 78 degrees Fahrenheit today. Not too shabby, yeah?

This morning Natalie came and woke me. We walked down into Sandy Bay and went to a nice little pastry shop. We got lemon tarts, read the newspaper and talked about “grown up” stuff. It was such a cute way to start our morning. J

We then headed up to the library so that I could email some advisors back home. I was feeling too toasty with my long sleeve shirt and jacket so I walked back home to change clothes.

At noon I had my Public Relations class. I made a friend! YAY! Her name is Maja (pronounced Maya). She has lived here for 10 years but is originally from Serbia (shout out to Darko!). That class was pretty good. Nothing too special happened in it; we discussed the different people involved with public relations and the differences between marketing and P.R.. The professor didn’t have minty’s candy to pass out like she did last week…bummer.

Next I headed home! I had a package from Momma waiting for me when I got there. J Hooray! Today was supposed to be when we were getting all of our stuff for the internet in the mail. And that sure wasn’t in the mail. UGH! This afternoon Marina got a call from the company AGAIN saying that they were missing part of the information that they needed. So we called Essentially Mobile (the store who set it up for us) AGAIN to tell them to send it AGAIN. We’re starting to get pretty annoyed with this dang internet business.
When I got home I started some laundry and made a sandwich. I ate outside because it was SO incredibly beautiful today. I hate having class on beautiful days like this one. I really wanted to just go and sit at the beach and read all day long.

Regardless of how desperately bad I wanted to go to the beach, I went to my next class at 3. This one is Journalism, Media, and Communications. Today we talked all about the newspaper. The main professor wasn’t the one lecturing, it was some other lady who I have no idea who she is. But whoever she was, she was going SUPER fast. It was hard to keep up with my note taking. Thankfully the notes are online so I will be able to pick up what I missed. The class is two hours long and I was writing the whole time!
For this class the professor assigned us a time for our tutorial. Most always you can select which tutorial you want to go to but for some reason she likes to assign your time. So after class I had to go back to the library and try to figure out when mine was. However, I wasn’t on the list! I emailed her and asked her if I could go to one on Tuesday so hopefully she will have emailed me back by in the morning.

When I got home everyone else was here so we hung around and chatted like always. I made some delicious mac and cheese for supper. Jeff and Amy came over a little while later just to get out of their house. We didn’t do much of anything…just hung out and tried to decide what to do this weekend.

Natalie, Joey and I walked down to Cole’s. There is a sign at Cole’s that says “I Live at Cole’s.” It’s talking about the shopping baskets and asking people to bring them back if they see them around town or anything. However I would really love to have that poster. We NEED it. We go to Cole’s at least once a day. We joke around that we are going to know everyone’s names by the time we leave. We will be their American friends!

Every time we walk somewhere one of us most likely has our ipod so we rock out to music. Even if we don’t have an ipod we always sing. We sing the craziest stuff too. Tonight’s walk consisted of music from the Backstreet Boys, Little Mermaid, Taking Back Sunday and others. I guess when you walk as much as we do you have got to stay entertained somehow.

This next weekend we have a holiday! Monday is Eight Hours Day which is basically their Labor Day. It represents the eight hours of work, eight hours of sleep…and some other things that I don’t remember. Amy, Jeff, April, Stacey and Joey are talking about going out to Wineglass Bay from Friday to Monday. Natalie and I may go on a couple of mini trips. We haven’t decided yet.

March 2, Tuesday

Here is my class schedule (as of now). This could be changing depending on when I hear back from Tech about classes being approved or not.

Monday:
Public Relations à 12 – 1
Journalism, Media and Communications à 3 – 5
Tuesday:
Gender, Power and Change à 11 – 12
Journalism, Media and Communications Tutorial à 12 – 1
Wednesday:
Public Relations Tutorial à 9 – 10:30
Gender, Power and Change à 12 – 1
Gender, Power and Change Tutorial à 1 – 2

This morning I had class at 11. I went up to the library a little before class to check and see if I had gotten any emails from Tech about my classes, and of course I hadn’t. Grr.

I had my first tutorial today! Exciting! It was for Journalism, Media and Communications. I believe that this is going to be my least favorite class. I don’t think that I want to go into the writing aspect of the communications field so it isn’t exactly my passion. I think it will be a rewarding class to have however because it is always good to understand what goes into the fields surrounding your own.
In my tutorial I realized just how much people talk about America. The Aussies are very interested and opinionated about our politics. They all love Obama! I just keep my mouth shut when politics come up. J One time when we had gone out this one guy found out that I am from Texas and started going off on me about George W. That was a bit awkward.

We found out today that not only has our paperwork for our internet STILL not gone through but now they are saying that there is a problem with our phone line so it is going to be another $125 to get that fixed. This stupid internet is turning into so much of a hassle!!! Someone is coming out next Tuesday to fix our phone line. I don’t know if that means we will have internet starting on Tuesday or if it is going to take a bit longer after that. I have decided that I need to just stop speculating about when we will be getting the internet at the house because it never happens when it’s supposed to.

Natalie and I walked down to Cole’s to get stuff for dinner. Julian had told me that he would bring over a casserole dish so that I could make Nanna’s chicken enchiladas. Even though chicken enchiladas are a really simple recipe, it was a little difficult to find everything that I needed. The cheese here is different, they don’t have corn tortillas and they don’t have canned green chilies. What kind of place is this??? I think I was able to find alternatives that would make do though.

April and Amy came over around 7 and brought some dip and then ice cream for dessert. Julian was helping roof his friend’s house today and was supposed to be done around dark so I was waiting on him to get done before I could start cooking. We sat around for quite awhile eating guacamole that I had made and watching our favorite Aussie television show “My Kitchen Rules.” It was starting to get kind of late and we were all pretty hungry so we decided to make quesadillas instead of waiting any longer on Julian to arrive with the dish. They were tasty!

I ended up hearing from Julian around 10. Apparently when he said they would work until dark that meant until after 9. He didn’t have phone service out where his friend lives so he wasn’t able to call me and let me know.

Before bed we continued our little ritual of playing the word game on Stacey’s itouch. J

March 3, Wednesday

I woke up in a wonderful mood today. J

At 9 I had my first Public Relations Tutorial. The Public Relations class is the one that I am currently enrolled in that isn’t supposed to count towards my credits back home. It’s a shame because I really enjoyed the tutorial today. To begin, we paired up and had to find out how our partner would like to be introduced and portrayed to the class. I was paired up with a girl named Kate who has lived in Hobart her whole life. She was really sweet. She talked to me a lot about the different things that I need to do while I’m here.
I was the topic of discussion in that class. The professor wanted to know what I thought was the biggest difference between Australia and America. I told them that the food and customer service were the main difference that I had noticed. After I said that though I decided I should have mentioned the fashion here! Hello 80s!!! (I have never seen so many white washed jeans in my life!)

I then had a little bit of a break so I went to the library to check if I had heard from Tech about my classes…once again, nothing. It’s very frustrating to get here and find out that only two classes have been approved by UTas (the university that I do not even need the credits to count at) and then to not be able to get a response from Tech.
That is the one complaint I have about AustraLearn. I don’t think they have very much experience dealing with UTas. There were communication errors with my internship, housing and classes. I don’t know if it is UTas or AustraLearn at fault but the communication needs to be improved.

At 12 I went to my Gender, Power and Change class followed by my tutorial at 1. The tutorial for that class is really interesting because we are able to discuss what we feel gender means and determines. One point that was brought up is how it is strange that even children to have the desire to determine a person’s biological gender in order to know how to treat that person. Why is that?

All that thinking got me hungry! After class I went home and ate lunch…grilled ham and cheese. Natalie came over because we were ready to kick off our weekend by going shopping in Hobart.

Natalie didn’t bring a sweatshirt or anything so we were on a mission to find her a jacket. I don’t like shopping, but I have never had a more difficult time shopping, or even finding stuff that I thought was cute, than I did today. You really just have two options of what you can shop for here: cheap 80s clothes or overpriced going out attire. We walked around Hobart and the mall for over two hours and didn’t find anything we liked. Finally, just as we were about to give up we found the Surf Shop which is basically a huge Pac Sun. We found the one and only store we will be shopping at for the next 4 months. Of course it was still expensive but at least in those clothes you wouldn’t look like you had been attacked by bleach and/or bad floral print drapes.
Natalie couldn’t decide on which sweatshirt to get so neither of us ended up buying anything but we at least know where to go now! We headed back home around 5:30.

Shopping had made me so tired so I laid down on the couch for awhile. Stacey had made a friend in one of her classes today. The girl had invited us to go out with her and her friends. I was really tired to I decided just to stay at home tonight. Joey went out with her though. Marina, Natalie and I watched some French movie before heading off to bed. It is now time to sleep! I don’t have school for the rest of the week so hopefully I will get to sleep in tomorrow. Julian is taking me out to teach me how to scuba sometime tomorrow. J Hopefully he won’t wake me up too early!

Oh and good news, I haven’t heard Richie at all today!

Mount Wellington Photos!

2010-03-01T17:43:00.003-06:00

Richy the Rat

2010-02-26T20:02:00.002-06:00

February 25

Thursday we went to Sandy Bay beach. It was such an incredibly nice day! The weather was so perfect. There was a little bit of a breeze but it was nice and toasty to lay-out in. …The perfect beach day.

Stacey, Natalie and I walked over there around 11:30 and hung out until a little after 4. We laid-out for a while and then went for a walk down the beach. We found about seven star fish that had washed up onto shore. They were gorgeous yellow and purple. I really wanted to keep one but they were still alive so we threw them back into the ocean.
Some people that we had met at Metz, Julian and Johnny, met us out at the beach. Then Amy, April and Jeff showed up as well.
Not long after they got there we saw a group of dolphins jumping out of the water. They were pretty close to shore so a few people from the group tried to swim out there but the dolphins had them beat.
At the place where we normally go to lay-out there is a nice little dock in the middle of the water. It’s really nice to swim out to and just hang out on. Today it smelled really awful because the seagulls like to use the dock to crack open their clams. Therefore, there is a fair share of bird poop and fish guts on there.
I don’t remember if I mentioned earlier but the water in the bay is SUPER salty. You could probably float because it’s so salty. As long as you don’t get the water in your eyes or mouth all is well!
When we started walking back we decided it’d be cool to walk along the beach rather than just up on the sidewalk. It was much more exciting that way but there were a couple of tricky places where we had to climb rocks or wade out in the water. At one point I think my toe got pinched by a crab…I may just be being dramatic though. :)
In all, today was just about the perfect beach day! I got a little burnt out on there but it’s almost gone already.

When we got back from the beach Stacey, Natalie and I all laid down in my bed and watched A Lot Like Love. I ended up falling asleep and taking a “Nanna Nap” (that’s what my friend told me afternoon naps are called).
Then we went up and used the internet at the library. I really am looking forward to having internet at the house! It will be so much more convenient.

It was our friend Johnny’s last night in town before he had to head back home to Cairns so he and Julian came over to the house and all we hung out.

February 26

Today was wonderful!

I woke up around 9:30 and chatted with Stacey and Natalie for awhile before heading off to the grocery store. Again, I didn’t need to buy anything but I just went so that I’d have something to do!

Once we got back I checked the mail and I had a letter and package from Dad! That was sooo wonderful to get! It was the first piece of mail that I’ve gotten here. I called Dad to let him know that I had received the package. I ended up getting to talk to Dad, Lauren and Nanna! That was an awesome bonus! They were at a movie so I didn’t get to talk with them for long but it was excited none the less.

After that excitement there was still more ahead!

We went up Mount Wellington today. It is the highest mountain around this area. It’s in North Hobart (I believe, it’s hard to keep track of all the suburbs). Thank goodness Jules has a car or else that would’ve been one awful trek. The view from the top of the mountain is extraordinary! You can see for miles and miles. I really like that I live just up the street from Wrest Point, which is a hotel/casino and the tallest building in Sandy Bay, because it makes it easy to spot where my house is. So thanks to Wrest Point I was able to kind of figure out my surroundings. Julian was able to point out some cool beaches and islands to the East and South-East.

We then headed out to Seven Mile Beach. I think it took almost an hour to get out there. It was a really nice beach. There were actually waves out there! It was really breezy which made it pretty cold off the water. We didn’t go swimming at all because the water would have been cold and then to have to drive off in the cool air did not sound appealing! So instead we just relaxed on the beach and people watched a bit. We spent about two hours down there.

When I got home tonight I found out that we have another little friend living in our house…a rat. I am terrified! I don’t know if yall realize just how much I hate rodents but it’s a LOT. I can handle bugs and snakes but rodents gross me out. The other roommates got rat poisoning to set out. Last they saw, the rat was in the kitchen. So we are keeping the door from the living room and kitchen area closed so that hopefully the rat won’t come down to our rooms. Terrifying!?!

On that note, it’s time for bed.
Stacey is sleeping with me tonight to protect me from the nasty rat. Do I have a wonderful roommate or what???
I’m not sure what tomorrow holds but I cannot wait to find out!
Thanks for following.

New Read.

2010-02-25T02:22:00.003-06:00

February 23

Day two of school!

I only had one class, Gender, Power and Change. It was an hour long lecture that started at 11. It is a first year class so it’s pretty full. I really enjoyed the class! My professor is this skinny little lady who has a short boy hair cut. I will have lecture twice a week and then tutorial once a week. The tutorial professor is a gay guy with long, curly white hair. When she introduced him he stuck his arm straight up in the air and starting flinging his wrist around wherever it would go. It was hilarious; remind me to demonstrate his wave to yall! I think I’m really going to enjoy that class, it’s an interesting subject.
Oh, and in my class I saw the first “gangsta” black guy that I’ve seen since I’ve been here. He was wearing a tall tee, baggy pants and diamond star earrings. It kind of made me feel back at home. haha.

When I was walking back from class I ran into Amy (AustraLearn girl from Colorado). We went to some expo that they were having for O-Week (orientation week). We got tons of free stuff! I got a t-shirt, hat, candy, VIP card to some club, grocery bags, and a coin purse…and lots of other little stuff. I love free stuff!

After dropping off all of our goodies at Amy’s house we headed downtown to meet up with Natalie and Stacey. We went to the Hobart Museum for a little bit while we waited on Marina to get into town. Once she was there we went to Voda Phone to set up our internet! Yay!

Too bad the lady at Voda Phone was SO RUDE! Marina has a Voda cell phone and when the lady asked if we got service in our house Marina told her that only one time had her phone not worked. The lady then refused to sell the internet to us. We asked if we could buy it and try it out and she wouldn’t allow that. She was going to mark on our account that it wasn’t going to ever work at our house so then if we ever had an issue then they wouldn’t help us or even listen to our problem. I’m glad that she was concerned about it possibly not working in our house but she was incredibly rude about it. She directed us to another place that sold internet services.

We went to that place and talked to a guy about our different options and ended up getting a service where we will have 20GB of internet usage for $60 a month. It was a little more expensive at first but in the end we will get more internet usage for less. They have to mail us the modem so we should have internet in our house starting on Monday. When we were filling out all of the paperwork the guy told us that there was another $13 shipping fee. Jokingly I told him that we didn’t want to pay that fee. His response was “you Americans, you’re always trying to get more than what you’re paying for.” That kind of made us mad. I told him that the difference is that in America you have to work hard for everything that you have.

Aussies like to take stabs at Americans. Amy and Jeff’s roommate, Mark, tried to tell us the other day that if a girl was cold than an Aussie would give him their jacket but an American wouldn’t.

Another thing that we’ve picked up on is that Aussies VERY much so work to live rather than living to work. Most every place closes at 5PM. When I asked someone if they delivered mail on Saturdays they looked at me like I was completely insane. Servers and sales people will not go above and beyond to make the customer happy because regardless of if they make the sale or not they still get paid the exact same amount.

More Aussies than I thought would be are in love with the idea of the “deep South” as they call it. They want to go to Texas and meet the kids from Friday Night Lights and see South Fork Ranch.

Anyways, after setting up the internet we shopped around the mall for a little while before heading back to Sandy Bay. We just hung around the house and didn’t do much of anything that evening. Our Aussie friend Brett came over and taught us some new lingo! I’ll fill you in on that in the next post. J Cheers!

February 24

Words of the day:
Macer’s = McDonald’s
Afsie = afternoon
Arvo = afternoon
“That just went pear shaped” = “That just got awkward.”

This morning I went to breakfast with Brett. We went down to Salamanca and ate at some little restaurant whose name I cannot remember. I was pretty confused by everything on the menu. I ordered hot cakes but instead of the King Island cream (whip cream) that normally comes on them I asked for some good ole maple syrup.

While we were at breakfast we were talking about some of the differences between the States and Australia. Brett mentioned something about the Lawyers wearing wigs. I thought that was the funniest thing that their lawyers have to wear wigs here! I told him that at some point I was going to have to get into trouble just so I could go and see the Judge and Lawyers all in their white curly wigs. Brett told me that right down the road from where we were eating there is a court where we can go and watch trials so that way I won’t have to get in trouble to see the crazy wigs. I was SO excited to go watch! I really wanted to laugh and take pictures but court was in session so of course I couldn’t do that. We watched a trial about some guy who was drunk and beat someone up and then another one where the father had sexually molested his daughters when they were younger. It was intense!

After my exciting morning in court I had to go to class. But it was okay because it was Gender, the class that I love! Today in there we talked about the different ages in which biological sex starts determining the way one acts and is treated. Interesting, yeah?

I then came home and ate lunch (I’ll give you one guess…a sandwich!) while watching some awful children’s version of Survivor. The television shows here are ridiculous. The Dutch news was on four different channels along with the German and Japanese news on three others. I don’t need to watch the Dutch news…let alone watch it on four different stations! Haha.

At 3 we went up to the Uni for Societies’ day. Societies’ day is HUGE here. All of the different clubs and organizations set up outside of the Union building and try to get you to sign up for their society. A lot of them have offers that if you sign up and pay $10 then you get four free beers or something like that. Pretty much the whole thing was like a bad house party. It was loud, lame and crowded. It wasn’t really our scene so my friends and I didn’t stay too long. The only club that I signed up for was the sailing club and I haven’t paid for that yet, just got added to the email list so that I can get more information. It sounds fun though; they will teach us how to sail and then once we have learned we will get to race and stuff like that!

Once we left there I went to the grocery store with Stacey, Marina and Natalie. I didn’t have to buy anything this time but it was just something to do!

When we got back home I ended up falling asleep for awhile; I guess I had been pretty tired! I woke up around 8 and chilled with the roommates. Around 9:30-10 we went up to Metz to meet up with Jeff, Amy and April. It was SO crowded there tonight! It didn’t stay crowded for long though. Either people were already hammered from society’s day or they moved on to another bar. Stacey, Marina and Natalie bailed kind of early. The rest of us only stayed there for about an hour or so before we went to La Bella’s Pizza place. We saw our friend Danny! He’s awesome…it’s always good to have friends in the food industry!
While we were eating at La Bella’s this super drunk Aussie came in and sat down at our table. His name was Aaron and he was telling us all about how much he loved the “deep south” and how he wanted to go to Louisiana or Mississippi. He told us about his “friend” who plays football for the panthers in Dillon, TX…sounding strangely familiar to the TV show Friday Night Lights. He kept offering us his pizza which he had pretty much slobbered all over. He also kept asking what part of the States we were from and what our favorite bands were. He was so hilarious!

Once Joey and I got back home we stayed up until about 2 AM talking with Stacey. I’m really happy with the roommates that I have and with my living situation. I couldn’t ask for anything better! J

It is now WAY past bedtime! Thank you for your prayers, keep ‘em coming! Cheers mates!

Units!

2010-02-23T00:57:00.002-06:00

February 21

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!
The last day before school starts. :( It feels so strange to be starting school tomorrow! I have been out of school for over two months now and I just feel like I should never have to go back.

If yesterday was uneventful then I don’t even know what I’d call today!
I guess it was a good way to spend my last day before going back to class. I slept in, made some lunch, sat around and made fun of Aussie cartoons with my roommates…that sort of exciting thing!

The most wonderful part of my day was that I got to talk to BOTH my sisters on skype! Joey and went up to the school to use the internet and the library was closed. But we had brought our computers so we sat outside of the library and stole the internet that way. I got to talk to Rachel and Matt for a little while which was so fantastic! And then Lauren got on after getting home from a babysitting job! I was so happy to get to talk to Lauren! I hadn’t gotten to talk to her since I’ve been here and I am so happy she was up late. I was having a few issues with my connection because I was sitting in this underground tunnel so I didn’t get to chat with them for long but it was still wonderful!

When I got back home our American friend Jeff was over playing cards with the rest of the roommates. Stacey had gone white water rafting today and had an awesome time. Marina was back from her camping trip in Wineglass Bay. It was nice to have everyone back home safe and sound!

Tonight we finished watching Fight Club; and then all pulled out our schedules and maps to try to figure out what tomorrow is going to look like for each of us. My first class is at noon and I won’t be done until around 5. I think I’m going to need to bring a snack!

I had better get to bed. Thanks for all your prayers and support. I truly appreciate them!

February 22

First day of school!!!!!!

Funny things from today:
All of the Aussies say “heaps” instead of “a lot.” It’s pretty funny because it’s on billboards and commercials and everything.
There is a Corona beer advertisement on campus.
I found out that there is a bar on campus. Weird, yeah? Apparently it’s more just so that bands can go and play there but I still find that incredibly strange.
“Unit” = “Class”

Okay, well today was the first day of class!
We had planned on waking up this morning and going into Hobart at 9 to set up the internet but that didn’t happen. Every time we come close to setting it up we get scared and start second guessing ourselves about that the best deal is going to be. The way they do internet here is so strange; we really don’t understand how many gigabytes we are going to need or anything like that. It is hard to find a coverage that doesn’t require a contract and that isn’t too expensive. Today we were finally able to talk to everyone that we wanted to talk to and I really hope that we have decided once and for all the plan that we are going with. …I’ll let you know if we change our minds again!

So, instead of going into town we went up to the library to look up some more options. While we were there I talked on the phone with Westnet to see what they had to offer about home internet. The guy next to us overheard me talking to them and could tell we were totally confused! He helped and told us about how many gigs he thought we would need and such things. Thank you! I think we are kind of starting to understand this crazy awful internet thing.

I had a class at noon which I had to wait around a little bit for.
I called Momma and got to chat with her for a little bit which was wonderful. :) I didn’t really have much to tell her since my weekend had been so uneventful; but it was nice to get to catch up regardless of my boring weekend.

The class that I had today was Public Relations. I liked the class; we just went over what we would be learning, the expected outcomes and what the unit would look like. My teacher, Kate Nash, seems like a really fun and happy person. I’m not sure if I will be staying in this class though because it wasn’t approved by Texas Tech for some reason. I’m working to find out why it wasn’t and to see if there is any way that it can be approved.

After my class I went home and made myself a grilled ham and cheese sandwich.
Marina and I chatted about her weekend and the internet and all that good stuff. The maintenance guys came over to deliver the dresser that I had requested and they gave me the option of having this dinky little dresser or a new armoire. I picked the armoire! I’m sure they hated me because then they had to set it all up and it took about an hour. I sat and talked to them while they put it together. I was either an annoyance or a good distraction; I’m not sure which one. Haha. They told me about some fruit markets that I should check out, yay! And now I have a wonderful cabinet for all of my clothes! I am no longer living out of suitcases. Yippy skippy!!!!!

Once the maintenance men left, Natalie and I went to Cole’s grocery store. I bought some more sandwich stuff since I keep running out so quickly! Natalie and I were talking about how we feel like we are always at the grocery store. But it’s okay because we eat everything that we buy before we go back so it isn’t like we are just super picky. …and we don’t just fill ourselves crazy if we aren’t even hungry. Because we walk so much here we are burning more calories. And I feel like I have to go to the store a lot because back home I normally just eat McAlister’s every day and never have to buy food. I’ve never realized just how much money that actually saves me!!!

There was supposed to be a back to school party up at the school that had free food so of course, we went. It was just about the lamest “party” that I’ve ever been to. There were probably 10 people there. They had “one of Tasmania’s hottest D.J.’s” playing a bunch of techno music. Needless to say, we didn’t stay there long.

We then went over to Jeff and Amy’s house and hung out with them and Mark for a little while before going back home to cook supper. On the way back to our house, Stacey, Natalie and I totally had a “10 Things I Hate About You” moment and broke into song on the concrete bleachers overlooking the cricket field on campus. We had to give our respects to Heath Ledger in his home country!

Natalie made us pasta and it was tasty! We hung around and had roommate talk. I really like that we all sit around and talk. We aren’t all bogged down with homework and classes yet so we just spend our time together. After we did the dishes we played card games. Amy and Jeff came over for awhile because they needed to get out of their house. They stayed until almost 11 and then we decided to be old farts and all go to bed. So that was about all we did today! Tomorrow I am going to a class with Natalie that I am hoping I will be able to get into and have approved for credit. Cross your fingers!

Weekend update

2010-02-21T00:11:00.002-06:00

February 18

Today was a craaazy day!

It started off with Stacey and I leaving for a meeting that we had at 10:30AM. I got an email saying that there would be an internet information meeting in the John Fisher Dining Hall. And seeing as we STILL don’t have internet we thought it would be a good idea to go. We trekked ourselves up to John Fisher (University Apartments) and boy was it a long ways up the hills. It was probably almost 2 miles from our house. When we finally got there (a little late) we found out that the meeting was only for people who live ON campus. They asked how we had found out about the meeting so I told the guy from the Uni that I had received an email about it. He did some calling around to try to figure out why and discovered that I have a room waiting for me in John Fisher. So now I have a house and an apartment! He was very kind and told me the whole process that I was going to need to go through in order to get out of my apartment reservation. I went and took care of that and I am just waiting on a call to confirm that I am cleared!

After that chaos we went to talk to the people at T.U.U. (Tasmania University Union) to request a dresser for my room. The man was hilarious! I just love Aussies! Stacey and I talked to him for a good 30 minutes about tons of different stuff. I asked him if I could light a fire in my fireplace and he said that I’m not allowed to. :( Sad! But hey, it still looks cool! Haha. He told us that one of the reasons there was so much confusion with Natalie and April’s housing is because Rebecca had emailed him the night before we came in town and told him that Stacey and I wanted to live together. I feel bad that we caused some issues for him but I’m really glad that she and I are living together! It really is perfect; I love my house and roommates!

We went and got some free lunch at a thing that they were having for all the international students. All us AustraLearn people plus Alex (friend from Italy) ate together and chatted for awhile before all going our separate ways. Stacey, Joey and I headed home after that to get our leases to take up to campus and turn them in. That whole process went smoothly…whew!

Next we went up to the library to skype a little bit! I was so happy to get to skype! I had talked to Momma once on skype before but it was just like a telephone call because we didn’t use the video. I got to talk to Dad, Mom, Catie and Garrett. It absolutely made my day! I was so happy to get to SEE everyone. It made me a little homesick but more so just happy. Catie and Garrett are so goofy and it was good to get to chat with them for awhile. I miss home a lot. I stay busy so I don’t think about it often but little things remind me of it. But when I get sad I simply remind myself that I LIVE in Australia and that I need to make the most of my time. No worries.

Ugh, can I just say that getting internet here is a pain in the rear!?! We called Telstra (like their AT&T) and asked them if there was a phone line set up for our house. They told us that they didn’t have anything on record. Bad news! If there isn’t a phone line installed in the house then we have to pay $300 to get one installed and that just doesn’t seem worth it to us. We found a phone line in our house so it obviously seems that there has been a phone there at one point or another. Telstra wants to charge us $125 to send out a guy to check and see if we have the capability. If not, then we have to pay the $300 in addition to whatever else needs to happen. We are pretty frustrated with everything. We want the internet at our house but we just can’t figure out what is going to be the best thing for us to do. It’s very frustrating when you don’t really understand the way things work and are only going to be here for 5 months and therefore don’t want to sign a contract. What a mess. We are going up to the library tomorrow to look for some good internet options in Tassie.

February 19

Today we woke up and bummed around for a little bit. …I’m starting to see a theme here!

Once we finally got up and going we went up to the library to research some internet options. We were there for about an hour and got some good information. Then we went to free lunch up at the Tasmania University Union building. We’ve had the same lunch I think every day this week; but hey, free is always good!

After lunch Stacey, Natalie, Joey, Amy and I took the bus into Hobart. We went to talk to Telstra and then to Vodaphone. Vodaphone sounds like it is going to be the best bet for us. With that one we don’t have to buy a phone line, just a modem and router and then however many gigs we may need. We are going on Monday to buy it. We have to wait for Marina to get back into town before we make any definite decisions.
After we looked into the internet stuff we did a little shopping. The other girls bought a lot of stuff but I only bought hangers. Hopefully all of my stuff will fit on these hangers now!!!
We met up with Amy’s roommate Mark and he took us to the art building downtown so that Stacey could see where her class is. He’s a really nice guy, a little awkward though. I find that a lot of Aussies are kind of awkward. Mark thinks that Stacey and I are intimidating though so maybe the other Aussies think the same thing. I don’t get it, Stacey and I are pretty much the kindest people ever…we laugh at everything!

Once we made it back home we ate dinner and bummed around for awhile and watched a movie.

February 20

Word/Terms of the Day:
“Trailer for Hire” = “Trailer for Rent”
“Trading Hours” = “Store Hours”
“My Shout” = “I’ll buy”

Today was a pretty uneventful day.

We woke up and went to the Salamanca Market. We were really looking forward to getting a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables like we did at Rusty’s Market in Cairns. This market was more like a trade day. It was still cool though. There were lots of people playing music and tons of cool little stands set up. There were only a couple of booths that sold fruit and veggies and they were a little expensive. I bought a wallet because I forgot to bring one and had been looking for one forever! I also bought some tasty fudge that was made in Tasmania.
Australia is really big on the whole “Australia Made” thing. They don’t let many products into the country and they also don’t allow preservatives so most everything is made here. I have only seen Pepsi in one store and the only Frito-Lays chips that they sell are Doritos…sorry Dad!

We hung out at the Market until around 1 and then we headed back into Sandy Bay. We had planned on going to the beach but the weather was a little overcast so we decided to walk across the street from out house and watch a cricket match instead. It was pretty interesting but we just wish we understood the rules better!

We came back home and dropped of our beach stuff and then headed off to the grocery store. Instead of Woolworths we found a better grocery store, Coles! We love it. The prices are so much better and it’s less overwhelming than Woolworths. I got chicken nuggets. Oh! I can’t remember if I already wrote about this is not but they don’t have orange cheese here…it’s all white. But I was at Coles and I found orange cheese! It was such a happy moment. I made grilled cheese. I am eating a ton of sandwiches that it’s kind of ridiculous. But it’s the cheapest thing to make! They don’t have hot pockets or any of that other wonderful food like we do at home. We have a 24 hour McDonald’s right down the street from my house but we have only been there once…pretty impressive huh?
Natalie and Stacey cooked quiche for dinner…I tried it and it was okay, nothing fantastic (sorry girls!). So I ended up making a sandwich, yet again haha.

Natalie pretty much lives at our house. She’s our fifth roommate. She first lived in this super crappy nasty house…it looked like a creepy seventy’s horror movie. Now she lives in this really nice house but she doesn’t really feel comfortable there yet because everyone else already knows each other. But we love having her here. It’s so lonely when she isn’t here!

We also found an apple and plum tree in our backyard! How exciting is that? I’m not sure if we should eat them though…I’m a little scared to try them.

After dinner we had a nice little night of watching movies. We watched Never Been Kissed and then part of Fight Club. It was storming tonight and it was a little scary at first because there was something hitting against the front of our house but I found out this morning that Stacey had her window open so it was just the blinds. No worries!

Photos

2010-02-18T18:13:00.002-06:00

My House!

Backyard

Kitchen

Living room

Hall way (view from the front door. My room is directly on the right.)

My room! So pretty.

My desk.

My bed

My lovely fireplace that I can't use. Oh, and the black and white photo is a Ralph Lauren model that I met on the plane from LA to Brisbane.

Koala! He was so very kind.

I hope you're ready for a novel b/c this post is long!

2010-02-16T23:55:00.002-06:00

February 14

On the flight from Melbourne to Hobart we had the sweetest flight attendant named Mandy. We were all asking her questions about Hobart because she told us that she lived there. We told her how we didn’t know where we were living or anything like that and she was terribly worried about us! She gave us all juice, water, pretzels, wine, candy, and cups…pretty much anything she could snag for us so that we would have a little something when we made it to our houses. We all gave her huge hugs when we got off the plane!
When we walked in there were a lady and high school aged girl waiting for us with a UTas sign. The lady’s husband had a big van with a trailer so he and the girl took us to our houses. First we dropped off Amy and Jeff and then it was my turn!!!

WOW!!! I LOVE MY HOUSE! Yes, I said house. I am in a four bedroom, one bath with my friend Stacey (yay!), an AustraLearn guy named Joey, and a girl from Switzerland named Marina. The house is precious! We have a white picket fence with rose bushes out front, glass double doors, beautiful bedroom doors, and a HUGE backyard with some kind of fruit tree. And, in my room I have a fireplace!!! How cool is that? I’m really excited. We don’t have “air con” but we really don’t need it. If it gets a little warm then we just open our windows and there’s a nice breeze.
Stacey is my friend from Kentucky who I had talked to on facebook before I came out here. I am so happy that we are living together!! Joey is from Colorado and goes to Colorado State University. Our other roommate Marina is really sweet. She seems a little shy and unsure of her English but she is doing well.
In my room I have a full size bed, bedside table and a desk. AustraLearn had provided us with sheets, blankets, towels, two desk lamps and some kitchen stuff. That was a great surprise! I don’t have a closet though which is kind of strange. I have a rod to hang clothes on though which is good considering I normally hang up all my clothes anyways! However, I still don’t have hangers so my clothes get to say in my bags a little while longer. After I made my bed I passed out!!!

February 15

Word of the day:
Uni = University.
The Aussies like to shorten words as much as possible. Ex: I had breakie with my rellies on Chrissie before opening pressies.
Taking the piss = giving someone a hard time or poking fun at a person.
Stuffed = tired.
Drop Bears = Smaller koala like bears that will drop down from the trees and claw you. Sounds crazy huh? That’s because it’s not true. The Aussies find it funny to convince the Americans that they have these drop bears that we should be absolutely terrified of.
Another thing that I really like is that the Aussies always say “no worries.” This is the absolute best way to describe the people here. They have no worries…and I love it.

Let me start by saying that Hobart/Sandy Bay is the quaintest little town I have ever seen! There are tons of hills, it reminds me of San Francisco, and my calves are already feeling it. There are mountains in the background. And then if you walk not even 5 minutes down my street you run into the bay that is full of boats. There is a cricket field directly across from our house. All of the buildings are pretty old and beautiful. I haven’t even had much time to explore all the parts of Hobart but from what I’ve seen I’m in love.

Today started off with orientation at the Uni. We got a lot of information that was incredibly boring. We then went to an Aussie BBQ and a place where we could go around and talk to a number of different people who would be able to help us (such as with the bus system, taxes, churches, job searches, etc.).

After we left orientation we went back to our house and bummed around for a bit. It’s so nice to have a place that I can just go to relax and know that it’s my room in my house. For the first time in over a week I am able to have some alone time!

We went to do some shopping at a grocery store called Woolworth. The prices here seem to be better than the ones that were in Cairns but it’s still a little pricey. I had my first mini culture shock while shopping. I was looking for the Kraft macaroni and cheese and I was able to find the easy mac but not the real stuff. I was in an awful mood for about half an hour. At the end of my shopping I decided to suck it up and get the easy mac. And then, as a turned down the aisle I saw it in the corner of the very bottom shelf…KRAFT MACARONI AND CHEESE!!! It was absolutely magical. One strange this about Australia is that they don’t have orange cheese, all of their cheese is white and it’s just kind of weird.

Once we made the trek back to our house with all of our groceries I made some macaroni and cheese (of course) and we watched Full House. We hung around and talked with our roommate and just had a nice relaxing evening.

February 16

Happy birthday Sissy!!!! And Kendall and Kelton! Yay!

Today we had to go to another orientation session but thankfully this one was much shorter. We were given our class schedule. I will be taking three classes which is a full load here; I haven’t decided which ones I want to take yet. I went and talked to Yasmin about my internship and she told me that the internship classes are only offered in the second semester and that she didn’t have anything set up for me. :/ bummer. She gave me the number to a lady that I can contact in the English/Journalism department but I honestly don’t think I will end up doing that because I was really looking forward to the Media Broadcasting internship so that I could know if that would be something I want to pursue or not. Oh well, it would’ve been nice for that to work out but life is good and it moves on.

After orientation I came home and did laundry. It was so nice to get to wash my clothes that were so nasty from the Cairns humidity!! We don’t have a dryer so I had to hang my clothes on the line for them to dry. How cute is that?? I loved it, I felt so eco friendly. Wow I sound like a hippie.

This afternoon we went to the beach that is closest to our house. It is about 10-15 minutes away. The best part is that it’s a dog beach!!! I cannot tell you how happy I was to get there and see tons of dogs running around and playing. I met some little friends named Finley, Darcy and Rover…those were my favorites. It was good to get my dog fix in. There is a house two doors down from us and the first time we walked by there was a dog out in the yard so now every single time I walk by I call for him but he’s never there.

After the dog beach we went home and showered and were planning on going into Hobart with our friends but it was taking them forever and a day to get ready so after 2 hours we decided to just walk down and get pizza. So we still haven’t gone into Hobart but we are planning on doing that soon! I finally got some hangers so I was able to hang up some of my clothes but not all of them. It’s a work in progress!

February 17

No orientation today!! Yay!

We got to sleep in and that was wonderful! My room is starting to feel like it’s lived in. I woke up around 10 and then went into Stacey’s room where we chatted and looked at photos.

Once the other roommates were up we ate lunch together and headed out to the beach. It’s about a 15 minute walk to Sandy Bay beach. The weather was perfect…nice and warm but there was a breeze to keep you cool. We laid out across from where there was a dock in the middle of the water so once we got nice and hot we decided it would be a good idea to swim out there. Holy smokes, the water was cold!!! But we made it to the platform and felt so proud of ourselves!

Now we are all up at the library using the internet because we STILL don’t have it at our house. We are going to a meeting tomorrow to learn some different options of what we can get.

I’m not sure what we are planning on doing tonight but I’ll be sure to fill you in. Thanks for reading this super long blog! Sorry I haven’t been able to update until now. Love yall.

NEW ADDRESS

2010-02-15T19:45:00.002-06:00

Hey everyone!

I made it to Hobart! I don't have internet at my house yet but I wanted to let yall know that the address that I had previously posted isn't where I am living now. My new address is:

24 Nelson Rd.
Sandy Bay, Tas. 7005

You can get on google maps and kind of check out where I'm living. :)

reef day!

2010-02-13T17:48:00.000-06:00

February 13

Last night was tons of fun. We went to this place called Woolshed and hung out there for awhile. I ran into an Aussie that I had met on the plane so it was nice chatting with him and telling him what I’ve thought of it so far. Then we went to listen to some live music at Blue Sky. It was tons of fun. We danced like it was 1999!

We woke up around 6 and had breakfast then headed out to the Great Barrier Reef. It was a two hour boat ride out there. It was really nice being out on the boat…it was a beautiful day! I snorkeled instead of scuba diving because that was free! We went to two different locations. The first location was pretty cool. Saw a lot of huge clams and some pretty fish. The second location was incredible!!! The water was so clear. There were awesome colors and crazy fish. There were tons of jelly fish but they were the kind that doesn’t sting so it was really cool swimming through them and touching them. I found a huge sea turtle and at first I swam down to just feel his shell. He was really cool and chill. He let me hold on to his shell and swim with him. That was quite possibly one of the coolest things I’ve ever done…swimming with a sea turtle in the Great Barrier Reef!!! There was a bird preservation island that we were able to swim up to. While on shore we saw a shark that was a little more than a foot long.

That night we went out to sing karaoke again…it was so fun. I wore my boots so we just had to sing “these boots are made for walking.”

February 14

I woke up this morning and pretty much everyone had already left. Some groups had to leave at 4AM. The Tassies are luckily the last group to leave and we are heading out at 10. I’m kicking myself for packing SO much stuff that I don’t need. Mom, I’m going to make you take my huge bag back home when you come to visit!

I’m not looking forward to the traveling but I’m very happy that I’ll be staying in one place for awhile. I’ll let yall know how it is when I get there. I’m not sure if I will already have internet or if I’ll have to set it up. I love yall!

Community Day

2010-02-12T02:40:00.000-06:00

How yah goin’ mates? All is well here.

Word of the day:
Hungry Jack’s = Burger King
Bunjy = rather than binge
The AustraLearn people reminded us that we will have to use Australian spelling for when we write papers for school. This could be pretty tricky! However, besides the towns (Cairns, Melbourne, Brisbane) Australians generally spell everything the way they say it. Instead of a “Super Market” they have “Supa Markets.” It’s pretty funny.

Last night we went to a steakhouse and had supper there. We had to walk in the rain but luckily it was only about a 5 minute walk. And I must say warm rain is much better than the 6 inches of snow that I hear Dallas has right now! The dinner was pretty good. They’re feeding us well. I really want pizza though! Good thing that’s tomorrow night’s dinner!

Today we went out to do community service. Australia has these birds called cassowaries and they are kind of like an ostrich. They’re really beautiful birds; if you have facebook I posted a photo of one. The cassowaries are going extinct for a number of reasons…one of them being that dogs like to chase them, they do not have many of the trees that they eat left, and another is because they’re pretty dumb birds and often run out into the middle of the road. The birds eat a fruit from a certain tree which allows that tree to reproduce. A number of species depend on that particular tree for life and so it is very important that ¹the trees are able to reproduce and ²the cassowaries have the trees to feed off of. So we went out and planted a number of those trees. The place where we went to do this was a beautiful place that was completely environmental and efficient with their supplies. Some of the people had the pleasure of getting to mix koala poop that they use as fertilizer. I unfortunately didn’t get to do this job. Two of the other Tassie girls, Amy and Stacey, and I labeled plants and had a very interesting chat with the wife of one of the gardeners. We talked a lot about religion and politics (the two things we were told not to bring up but oh well, it’s all good!) and where the world is headed. It was very interesting.
After that we went to lunch at shenanigans’ where a lot of people tried a crocodile burger but I decided just to be safe and opt out for a beef burger! Maybe some other day when I haven’t been planting trees all morning will I work up the courage to order some crocodile.
We then walked over to Ricky’s Market which is a huge farmers market. There were so many amazing fruits there. A lot of the people had samples set out and it was absolutely amazing how fresh it tasted. Every Saturday Hobart has a market like that; I’m very much looking forward to it. The fruit and vegetables were really cheap and were much better than anything you could buy in a store. There was a huge fruit that was the color and shape of a pear but it had bumps on it like a pinecone and it was about the size of a watermelon…apparently it was some kind of mix between passion fruit and pineapple. It sounded really good but there weren’t any samples of that out.

Being here I’ve realized just how wasteful Americans truly are. Here they have two buttons on the toilet to flush…one for a #1 and the other for a #2. They’re very efficient with their water and food. I feel so much healthier being here. The food is so fresh, we walk almost everywhere and I drink waters because cokes are about $4 for one glass!!! Haha. It’s just amazing to see how other people live and to think what we could be doing differently.

Tonight for dinner we have another free night so I think we are going to walk down to the lagoon for a swim and just grab a sandwich or something on the way. Tomorrow is snorkeling day at the Great Barrier Reef and we have to be at breakfast at 6:30 so we are going to have a chill night tonight! I’ll post again tomorrow after the reef! Thanks for following!

skype

2010-02-11T01:57:00.001-06:00

I haven't had much time to be on skype but my name is Sara.Lake. (dont forget the . at the end of Lake!)

lovin' it!

2010-02-11T01:31:00.003-06:00

G’day buggers! (“bugger” is an all around term that can be used in many situations. Ex. “Oh bugger, I left my keys!” or “That little bugger is such a pain!”).

I think that it would be a cool idea to share new words or phrases that I learn every day. Here’s what I’ve learned so far:
Chockered = full (used after a meal).
Good on yah mate = good job
Yeah? = follows every sentence
Breakie = breakfast
Rellies = relatives
Banana hammock or dick slicker = speedo
Give way = yield
Notes = dollar bills
That’s all I can think of right now…but it’s pretty crazy here!

Last night was a free night so the other Tazzies and I went to supper at this place called Cactus Jack’s. It’s hard to explain but it’s kind of like a Mexican and hamburger place. They had Texas license plates and decorations…I was at home! They also had a Texas Margarita, so it was my duty as a Texan to make sure they were giving us a good name! And don’t worry, they were. Haha. It was so much fun! I had never done karaoke before. The girls and I rocked out to Bon Jovi’s “Livin’ on a Prayer.” I was able to stay up until midnight which was pretty impressive.

Then today was a free day for us so I slept as late as I possibly could…8:30 AM. (See mom, I told you I was made to live over here…I sleep at normal times!). We hung around the resort for awhile and went downtown. We went to this little corner sandwich shop which was AWESOME! The food here is so fresh because they don’t have any preservatives. And the weather is so nice that it was just a little restaurant built into the side of a building and all the tables were outside.They also had fresh fruit juices and smoothies…yum! Oh, one strange thing is that if you don’t ask for ice in your water then you don’t get ice!
Anyways, after lunch we went to the lagoon which they told us was a man made beach but it was actually a beach pool. It was really awesome though because it overlooked the water which would have been too shallow to swim in. The water was so nice and warm! I love it here! We stayed there for a good 4 or 5 hours and I managed to not get burned! Thank goodness!
Then we went to the Australian Target. It was so strange; it was inside and mall and was probably more like a department store than anything else. But it still had the big circle signs telling you where everything was and the same sort of things that our Target would sell, it was just set up differently. Let me tell you Dad, I am very much appreciating that I was able to get a new supply of makeup before I left. Everything is SO expensive here. Hair dye which is normally $7 is $20. Mascara that is $11 in the States is $25. A normal size bag of M&Ms that would cost $0.89 costs $2.50!!! (I am pretty excited though because they still have crispy M&Ms over here!). Face powder which is would be $13 is $30. It’s absolutely insane! I’m really hoping that things will be a little cheaper in Hobart since Cairns is such a tourist town. But it is nice that they already include the tax into their price. When I was checking out the man asked me if I wanted a bag so I said sure and then looked at the price thing to see what the total was and I was going to have to pay 10cents for a bag! I decided that a bag wasn’t too necessary. Haha. Now I’m back at the resort just hanging out until dinner. We are going out to some restaurant with the whole group tonight (there are about 70 of us AustraLearn students at this session. Most of them are going to be in Sydney).

That’s all I have for today! I forgot to post photos yesterday with my blog so I’ll see what I can do about that today! (I write up my blog in a word document and then post it later when I am on the internet so that I’m not wasting my internet money on writing all of this out. So I’ll see if it will let me.) I tried to upload photos to facebook yesterday but it didn’t let me. I will try again today. I love you all very much. Tomorrow we are doing a community service day so I will try to post again after that.

i'm here!!!

2010-02-10T02:26:00.001-06:00

Hey yall!

I’m LOVING it here!

The flight was looong. Very long. But I didn’t have anyone sitting next to me so I was able to lay down and sleep a lot. i was next to another girl who is going to Tasmania and shes really sweet. I must say that I’m pretty done with airports for awhile. I made it through customs with my ranch!! J when I got up to customs the guy asked me “how are you going?” and I answered “quantas” (my airline)…but I now know that the correct response would have been “I’m good, and you?” haha.

We got to our “resort” which is actually just a hostel and it was HOT…it was about 90 to first day. And humid!! Worse than Houston! I am in a room with 5 other girls who are all going to UTas. We get along really well. We are all pretty chill. There are two guys who are going to Tasmania as well. The eight of us all kind of stick together.

Yesterday was such a long day…landed in Brisbane at 7:30AM and then went through customs, checked into our next flight up to cairns and then traveled to our resort and then went to a two hour info session and then on to dinner. We were told to try to stay up as late as possible so that we would adjust to the time. I ended up staying up until about 9 and that was hard!!!

Today I woke up at 6 and was wide awake…I think that’s the only time in my life that I can say that. Haha. We went to breakfast and then to a place called Rain ForeStation. We got to pet kangaroos, meet aborigines, throw boomerangs, play a didgeridoo, go on a safari through the rainforest, and hold a koala bear! It was AWESOME! One of the kangaroos had a joey and she was so sweet and calm. She let us pet him and feed him and I have wonderful photos of him...he was so cute! After that we went to another info session. I went swimming in the pool when we got back…yes, in February! Then we got to go shower because it was stinking hot today! Now I’m waiting to head to dinner. We are on our own tonight so I think us Tazzies may go to a karaoke bar.

I got a phone, if you want to call me you dial 00161 451609892. And if you want to text me then you do +61 451609892. I receive both of those for free! Yay! So feel free to call or text me whenever.

I love yall so much! Thank you for all your prayers. More later from the down under!

Address!

2010-02-05T13:55:00.002-06:00

Hey yall,

I just found out what my address will be while I'm abroad! It is:

28 Earl Street, Room 5
Sandy Bay, Tasmania
AUSTRALIA

Nine Days!

2010-01-29T00:58:00.003-06:00

Holy smokes! I LEAVE IN NINE DAYS! It doesn't seem real. People keep asking me if I'm nervous, excited, scared, etc and honestly I don't know what I'm feeling...it's still so surreal to me that I'm going to LIVE in another country, let alone Australia! :)

Considering my departure date is approaching rapidly, Lauren came over tonight to help me pack. :) She is suuuch a wonderful sister! And I am very thankful for her mad packing skills. Here are some pictures just to show how awesome she is:

I had a wonderful time at Saturday at my going away party hosted by Nanna Bell! Everyone (okay, not really EVERYONE) that I love was there! But I was so blessed to have friends come in town for my party (thank you Rachel, Matt, Judi, Tommy, Dana & Sara!). Thank you Nanna for hosting the party for me, it was truly a special event. I can't wait for my welcome home party! ;)

Dallas.

2010-01-23T15:01:00.002-06:00

I left Lubbock yesterday and that was quite possibly one of the hardest things ever!!! Its hard to think about what all I will miss by being gone for five months. Lubbock is everything that I love...my friends, red raiders and work (yeah, I know) and being away from them will be absolutely awful. But hopefully very worth it.

So now I'm in Dallas! In the next two weeks I'll be doing last minute stuff and spending time with family. Paisley (my boxer) has been in Dallas for the past two weeks because my mom and step dad will be watching her while I'm gone. She was VERY excited to see me. :)

Tonight is my going away party at my Nanna's house. She is making my FAVORITE: chicken enchiladas! I'm trying to eat as much mexican food before I go because I highly doubt Australia will have good mexican food. Haha.

Oh, awesome news! I was awarded a scholarship from AustraLearn for $800. I'm very thankful for that. God is totally awesome!

I believe thats all I have to say for now. As always, I appreciate the prayers that are going out for me.

moving - round 1

2009-12-20T19:14:00.000-06:00

Hello hello,

Well finals are over and Lubbock is empty. & so is my house! This is the first move I'll be making in the next 2 months. Everything is packed for the most part...there's still a ton more stuff to be done though!

I found out that I'll be living in the University Apartments while I'm in Hobart which is very exciting because those are generally for students who are going to be there for a full year but they made an exception for me! :) The way it is set up is that there are three individual bedrooms on one side of the apartment that share a bathroom and a small living area. Then in the middle is a larger living area and the kitchen. And then three more bedrooms on the other side. I requested to live with girls (you're welcome Dad).

I have been talking to a girl named Stacey from Kentucky who will be in Hobart at the same time as me. She has sisters and has never been away from them so shes nervous about the adventure too. She currently goes to a small christian university. I'm SOO excited that God has put her in my life...I feel that it was totally His will for her to facebook me and I cannot wait to meet her! (We'll have a nice 14 hour flight to get to know each other! haha).

I believe thats all I have for now. :)

first post :)

2009-12-01T21:50:00.000-06:00

Hey yall,
I made this blog so that my readers can follow me through my Tasmanian adventures starting in 2 months & one week. exciting!?
Plans are coming along quickly. I'm just waiting for my itinerary from my travel agent. & I have to attend an orientation on Saturday at Tech.
I'm extremely excited..with a lot of scared/anxious feelings mixed in. There is a lot of unknowns for me. I don't know where I'll be living. I don't know what, if any, scholarships I'll be getting. I don't know if I'll receive an internship. I don't know where I'll be living during the month of January. Plus many more unknowns. I'd completely appreciate it if yall would start praying for me to have peace over all this.
I'll update again soon. :)