Short weekend in Melbourne!

Alright, so another month between blogs but in my defense I could've sworn I already wrote this one...oops.

A few weeks ago a group of us went down to Melbourne for the weekend. Melbourne is another major city in Australia, more metropolitanish. It's in the state of Victoria so that makes me a 3/7 state traveler of this country! We found a package deal on a student traveling website which consisted of our flights to and from Melbourne and a 3 night stay in a fancy pants hotel. If I'm going to be honest, the hotel was definitely the best part of the trip, I will never ever again take my queen bed at home for granted after this semester abroad. I am soooo over sleeping in my munchkin bed! BUT ANYWAY.

We flew in Melbourne at about 7:30am so we had a whole day to do fun activities:) For the first day we rented a little car and took a road trip. When I say we rented a little car I really mean a LITTLE car. This thing was like the twin brother to a smart car just one that ate a little more mcdonalds. Between having our luggage in the car with four people there was no leg room at all, not that there was any to begin with. We rented a Nissan Micra and it was bright blue; we decided to name him Little Blue. We took little blue out on probably his first real adventure to the Great Ocean Road. When we originally decided to drive on the Great Ocean Road we thought it was just going to a few hours of driving and then stopping to see all the pretty scenic things along the way. To our dismay and entertainment, our few hours of driving turned into 13 hours of driving across the countryside of Victoria. Regardless of the amount of time we spent in that car we had a great time. Road trips with your friends and a lot of chocolate and chips are great fun. It also was a lot of fun because I got to drive:) AND I only went in the wrong lane like twice, no big deal right? Our first and mostly only destination was the 12 Apostles. Years and years ago, like hundreds of years, the waves of the ocean had eroded away a significant amount of the side of a hill. The hills in South Victoria are made of Limestone so between the HUGE waves and the salt water the rocks were easily formed. Eventually these rocks will be gone because they will all erode away the same way in which they were formed so I'm glad I was able to see them in my lifetime.

After our long day of driving we all slept in and relaxed until about noon, whoops. After we woke up though we went to our dream store on this vacation, a USA food store! Ahhh. It was such an odd feeling getting excited to see Heinz Ketchup and Dr. Pepper all in one place. We had such a ball in this grocery store and between the four of us we spent about $300, oops-BUT IT WAS TOTALLY WORTH IT.

Don't we just look so happy? :)

The rest of our traveling crew flew in that night so we met up with them and got some delicious chinese food for dinner before having a night out on the town.

The next morning we went to the Queen Victoria Markets and did a little shopping. I love going to the big markets in the cities because everything is so much cheaper and all the people there are so friendly! We got a few cool touristy t-shirts of course and some other little trinkets here and there. I got this super awesome Australian fire opal ring that I'm pretty excited for. I'd been wanting one ever since we got here. While at the markets we found another american candy store so naturally we had to get snacks there too! We walked around the Central Business District and Chinatown before heading back to the hotel to get ready for our last night! That night we went to an AFL game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. AFL is a lot different than ARL, which is what they play where I go to school. The MCG was MASSIVE. They say that during an average game an AFL player will run anywhere from 10-12 kilometers during the game, they have to be SO fit. They run around so much because the stadiums they play in are so massive, the MCG holds over 100,000 people in the stadium. Insane. Oddly, sporting events in Australia aren't that expensive compared to games back in the states. We had lower level seating and the tickets were only $25, quite a bargain considering the way everything else is priced here. The teams we watched play were Tasmania versus St. Kilda, and Tasmania just killed poor St. Kilda. It was a bit sad, like watching ISU play football sometimes.

The next morning it was time for us to fly home:( By the end of the trip we had to end up checking a few bags because we bought so much stuff while shopping but once again, No big deal;)

That was our last big trip until its time to go home. In exactly a month from today I'll be landing in the good ole USA. Cannot wait to be home, Mom and Sara are picking me up from the airport and then we're staying over night in a hotel before heading home. Mom's already scheduled me a hair cut, dentist appointment, and doctors appointment. It'll be nice to get back into the swing of things before heading back down to Ames in August to live in my very own apartment! Can't wait to get home and look for grown up things for my apartment with mom.

If anything big happens in the meantime, I'll try to keep you updated buttttt there's a slim chance of that;)

Easter Break

A month between blog posts isn't awful is it? I'd like to say my life is soooo busy that I just don't have anytime to write a blog but in reality, I'm just too lazy. I would much rather spend my time at the beach, shopping, or laying around on the lounge with my roommates. Since my wonderful Grandmother doesn't like when I neglect updating her on my travels I am writing this for her. While writing this I am painting my nails with one of our favorite OPI colors, Too Hot Pink to Hold 'Em. I am such a great multi-tasker.

So, last week was our Easter break at the Uni which I suppose could be the equivalent to a spring break in the U.S. even though it's fall here. Still so weird to me. Since we had already traveled to New Zealand we decided to go up the East Coast of Australia and see the Great Barrier Reef.

Originally the plan was to rent a car and drive up along the coast but since you have to be 21 to rent a car in Australia Steph wouldn't be allowed to drive and I was VERY skeptical about doing all the driving myself. According to Google maps it would be about 30 odd hours of driving. Considering the fact that I complain about the hour long drive I have from Mason City to Ames this whole 30 hour thing didn't sound so great to me. We ended up finding a train pass designed for international travelers that allowed us to hop on a train in each city we wanted to go to and stay for a few days before heading off to our next destination. In the end, it actually was cheaper to take the train and much safer.

On Saturday we woke up at about 4:30 to make it to the airport for our 6 am flight out of Newcastle-yes I had about 3 coffees. When booking our plane tickets, Steph wanted to do minimal baggage weight because it would be cheaper; what a mistake. We were supposed to have 15 kg and I ended up with 19 and Steph had 21, whoops. Later that day I called the airline and upped our baggage weight for the next flight to 25 kg, learned from the first time. When we landed in Brisbane we were naturally pretty hungry so where was the first place we stopped for breakfast, McDonalds of course. Typical Americans. Later that day we went to The Australia Zoo, which is the one where Steve Irwin worked so that was pretty cool. Since we were in Queensland we were actually able to hold a koala. We each got to hold and cuddle a Koala and then since we were on vacation in Australia might as well hold a snake too right? So we held an Australian Python too, SO SICK.

Petting a Kangaroo! 

The massive python! 

Cuddling the Koala!

The Lagoon 

The Our last day in Brisbane was Easter Sunday so everyone told us that nothing would be open so we were kinda bummed but after walking around we discovered that enough places were still open roaring for eager shoppers. We went shopping on the street mall and then walked across the river to the South Bank. The South Bank was such a neat area. The river isn't exactly the safest place to swim because of the barges that travel on it so the city of Brisbane has a lagoon in it and it was just like a massive pool but all the banks were sand so it was a kind of like a mini man made beach. We walked around the lagoon and then made our way to the markets. I love walking around all the markets because everything is so different and its fun talking to all the venders about how they got into the business of selling things from candle wax to walkie talkies. While walking along the markets we saw a sign that said Chocolate Bar, instantly I thought I was just imagining things. A chocolate bar? Thats just too good to be true, naturally I had to go in though. They had chocolate EVERYWHERE, it was a dream come true. I ended up ordering banana and praline filled crepes with milk chocolate drizzled on the top and a side of ice cream along with a white chocolate chai tea-so bad for me but SO delicious. 

My yummy food!

That night we were to take the train into Hervey Bay for our next adventure. The first train we were on was called the Tilt train and this was a pretty basic train. They had a little snack cart but nothing too fancy food wise on this one as it was only a 4 hour train ride. We got into Hervey Bay kinda late that night so we didn't do much because we were so exhausted. The next day we were scheduled for a full day tour around Fraser Island. Fraser Island is a massive 75 km long sand island located right off the coast. Most people will rent a big 4WD SUV and go camping on the island for a few days. The only way to get around the island is with the special tour buses or a big SUV that has 4WD because its not exactly the flattest terrain. On the island we did a rainforest hike, beach drive, saw Eli Creek, and Lake McKenzie. Very cool place. 

On the beach

Eli Creek 

Shipwreck 

Lake McKenzie 

The next day we were supposed to leave Hervey Bay at 4 to get back on the train again. Steph and I decided to walk around town for a little bit in the meantime. We walked along the beach and collected sea shells and dead coral pieces and did a little shopping. The train we were getting on that night was an overnight train into Airlie Beach. This train was quite a bit nicer than the first one we were on. The train had sleeper cabins, a restaurant, a club car, and a little meal car. The food on the train was surprisingly well priced so for dinner Steph and I had a steak and beer, living the high life. It was kind of hard to fall asleep in the seats but they reclined pretty far and had a footrest on them so they were much easier to get comfortable in versus the seats on the plane. The next morning we arrived in Airlie Beach and we booked our boat tour to go around the Islands. Airlie Beach is a small town mostly designed for tourists. There are about 200 different sailing tour companies to go out to the islands. Whitsunday Island are a bunch of little islands that broke off the coast of Australia YEARS ago and now its a pretty little tourist attraction. Steph and I did a speed boat tour around them where we got to snorkel and lay on the beach for a few hours. It was a nice relaxing two days laying around there. 

Finally it was time to take the train up to Cairns. The train ride up to Cairns was about 12 hours so we didn't get there until about 9:30 Friday night. Marie was flying in from New Zealand and meeting us there so we had to stay up until about 11 for her flight to get it, we're such good friends. We had a total of 4 days in Cairns so we booked a day scuba and snorkel tour to see the Great Barrier Reef. The weather was SO awful when we were there and the boat ride out to the reef made a few people sea sick. I took two sea sickness tablets as soon as we got on the boat because I was not about to get sick and not be able to go scuba diving. It was really hard to snorkel around because the waves were awful but we still got to see a lot of fish and lots of the reef. We were on the water for about 6 hours so it was a full day. The last hour we were snorkeling I had a little mishap with nature. My wet suit was really tight all day so I didn't like having it zipped up all the way because it was hard to breath with the whole lack of oxygen and such so I left it half unzipped-bad idea. We were in the water and my chest started hurting really bad, like an insane burning sensation. And then my face was burning and my neck, I couldn't figure out what was wrong so I just kept swimming. When we finally got back on the boat the guides took our wet suits off and she noticed the fact that my whole upper body was bright red, sure enough I got stung by a jelly fish. Just my luck. They thought that at first I must've felt the sting and touched it and got the sting juice on my face and neck from that but only got stung once. And no, they didn't pee on me because that doesn't actually do anything. They pour vinegar on my sting and then I had to rub it on any parts that were burning. The sting was gone by the next day though so that was good.

My stings from the jelly.

Our last full day in Cairns we rented a little compact car and drove up to the rainforest and Port Douglas, which is a small little beach town with cute shops and stuff. It was so fun to rent a car and have the freedom to drive wherever we wanted. And we went through a drive thru for dinner too:) On our last day in Cairns we went to the casino so Marie could hold the Koala and we got chinese for lunch and made our way to the airport. We had two flights to get back to Newcastle, the first one was fine and the second one not so much. Our second flight ended up being delayed for about an hour which was irritating because it was getting late at night and we were just exhausted. All in all we made it back to Newcastle and vacation was over:(

We're headed down to Melbourne in a few weeks for a long weekend trip so I'm pretty excited for that and after that it will almost be time to come home:( It's going to be so hard to leave but I'm excited to get back home. I'm living in Mason for the summer and so grateful for it because I haven't worked in so long I literally have no money. Typical broke college student again, just great.

Family Vacation!

Officially two weeks now without the family being around and feeding me, back to the rough life.

So as many of you know Dad, Mom, and Sara and came to Australia to visit two weeks ago and it was marvelous. They flew into Sydney so I took the train to go meet them there. Talk about dedication on my part, I left my apartment at 5:45 am to catch the train to Sydney. I'm a GREAT daughter, I know. Unfortunately my train was slower than molasses so I didn't get to meet them at the airport with a little sign and stuff like all the other great family members but I tried! I met them at the train station in Sydney and then we caught the train back to Newcastle. Everything was going smoothly up until this point. I got off at the train station to come back to school but they got off at a different one to get to their hotel. Half way back to my apartment Dad calls me and says that the place we were supposed to be staying all week went under receivership and we had no where to stay. JUST GREAT. Talk about a stressful start to the week. Thankfully we got a hotel room for the night at a hotel down by the beach and found a new apartment in town. So after much stress and worry we found somewhere else to stay that was just marvelous.

This is the view from our hotel the first night, Noah's on the Beach.

This is just one of the many views from the balcony of our apartment we stayed in.

While in Newcastle we walked around all the beaches and did a little shopping downtown at the little shops. We played it pretty low key while we were in Newcastle, had to give the fam some time to rest from their jet lag.

On Wednesday we did a full day wine tour, it was awesome! We went to quite a few wineries, a cheese factory, and a chocolatier. Dad was pretty excited at one of the wineries we went to because they had Port Wine, I think he took back two bottles of that. Also discovered dessert wine which is my new favorite thing ever. It was so sweet and yummy, just my type. Mom bought me 4 bottles to take back to school which I am so excited to drink. Fancy wine is way better than goon.

Thursday we took the train into Sydney for the weekend. We did Darling Harbour Thursday, the Harbour Bridge and Opera House on Friday, and the Zoo on Saturday. A fun filled three days but I think I really took all the energy out of everyone because they were just exhausted come Sunday.

It was so nice having them here for a week, and I was a bit spoiled. It was hard to have to come back to cafeteria food and noodles after having mom cook for me and going to restaurants for dinner:( I'm wishing they could come back around May sometime because I think thats when I'll really be starting to get ansy for home. I would love to stay for a year here if they could come back and visit me a few times! Oh well, skype will have to do for now!

Yes, I am still alive.

Hello friends and family,

I am indeed still alive and kicking, just slightly forgot about this little blog. Oops-Sorry Grandma.

I suppose I will start where I left off.

As a correction to my last blog, I did not actually go to an AFL game I went to an ARL game. My bad. I accidentally asked someone what time the AFL game was for the next week and they did not really take kindly to that minor mistake. ARL is Australian Rugby League and is generally only played in New South Wales and Queensland where as AFL is Australian Football League and only played in Victoria and South Australia. Who would've guessed that one little letter was such a big deal! But the game actually ended up to be AWESOME, so fun. It was really easy to pick up on all the rules as they were slightly similar to American football. The only downfall to our first rugby game was it was absolutely down pouring the whole time. But that didn't stop anyone. There were 25,000+ people at the game drinking and having a blast.

Regardless of the rain we had a marvelous time!

Knights vs Dragons!

We had our first formal event for International House a while back and it was marvelous, except it was raining again. Go figure, rains all the time. We went out to a fancy seafood dinner and then out afterwards. I would like to thank this event for my discovery of Sticky Date pudding, the most amazing dessert I have discovered thus far. Grandma, if you're reading this PLEASE make this for me when I come home. I promise Grandpa will love it as well, win win!

My roommates and I at our commencement dinner!

Steph, Marie, and I also traveled up to Sydney for the world famous Lesbian and Gay Mardi Gras parade. Around 700,000 people gather in Sydney for this parade so needless to say we didn't actually get to see the parade because there were SO many people there but it was still fun! We even dressed up a little!

Us girls with our boas and glittery eye make-up!

Unfortunately, it rained AGAIN.

Hopefully that catches up enough for now!

Living the life!

The official countdown to Dad, Mom, and Sara being here is 10 days. How exciting! AHHHH. The other night I made a whole week itinerary for them, sure hope they aren't jet lagged too bad because its going to be busy busy busy! I think the thing I'm most excited for is the wine tour we're doing! It's an all day thing and we go to 5-8 wineries, a chocolate factory, a cheese factory, and an olive tasting. We picked this one so that Sara could come along and enjoy it as much as Dad, Mom, and I since she's just a little youngster. Hoping we get some awesome wines from the vineyards because I am so terribly sick of this boxed wine bologna.

So, school started this week-wah. I really don't mind it that much I suppose because I only have 1-2 classes a day. My only problem is walking 20 minutes in this heat, OMG I die. I'm going to take the easy card and blame it on my hair because I think it's naturally just more hot in my head than anyone else's. And my only complaint about it is that my body doesn't sweat, just my head and neck. I look like the most out of shape, disgusting, drip sweating american around and it is not pleasant. Luckily the lecture halls I have had classes in have all been air conditioned so far but my one today is not. And guess what, its the hottest today it's been all week, AWESOME. I do enjoy my classes though none the less, they seem pretty fun and easy. All of the classes I'm taking here are 1000 and 2000 level classes but they transfer back to ISU as 300 and 400 level-SCORE. Over here they do things way differently though. In all of my classes we have one massive test that accounts for half our grade at the end of the year and a few quizes and papers along the way. Most of your grade depends on that one, 3 hour long exam. Lucky me, I'm a horrible test taker. But I can't complain too much about school because I have a joke of a schedule and I've already made friends in my classes/have friends from Iowa in them so it's nice.

We have an exciting weekend planned, starting today. Tonight I am going to my very first AFL game! AFL is Australian Football League and from what I can understand it's very similar to rugby with a few other rules and tricks. I'm going to try and read the rules before we go so I have a slight idea of whats going on! Tomorrow is our formal commencement dinner for International House. It's a huge dinner party where everyone gets really dressed up and ritzy and we go to a nice restaurant and bar afterwards. All the girls have been talking about their dresses since I've arrived so I've gathered it's a pretty big deal. And on Saturday we're going back to Sydney! Ah, I love going to Sydney!!! (mostly for the food but hey its alright) We reserved a room at a hostel downtown and were going to celebrate Mardi Gras in Darling Harbour. I've heard the parade and show are just awesome and its insane in the city. I cannot wait to see everyones costumes and what the parade is going to be like! Im so excited! And after this weekend its just one more week until everyone comes to visit! I'm such a lucky girl sometimes!

I'll put some photos of the football game up soon and pictures from Sydney this weekend hopefully!

Finally time to start school!

It is finally the day I have been dreading, the Sunday before classes commence. Been on a break from school for about 3 months now and I feel like it's going to a be a rough start getting back into the swing of things. I did luck out however and have a pretty big joke of a schedule so I guess I can't complain that much. At most, I will only ever have two classes a day and for the first two weeks I only have one class a day. Another cherry topping on my schedule, I only have class 3 days a week. Hello long weekend! I'm thrilled about this long weekend thing because now I can plan all sorts of trips to big cities and other beaches and a few wine tours as well;) Hoping to do a wine tour before Mom and Dad get here so I know how it all works and then I can get them some decent wine because I'm fairly certain they won't like my box of goon.

I have gone on campus twice now trying to find the buildings my classes were in and got lost both times so I'm hoping today I can figure it out so I'm not wandering around like a lost kitten tomorrow!

More Adventures in Newie

Well it is officially orientation week and I really don't think I'm ready for my vacation to come to a stop. I mean it won't really because I'm in Australia but class, ehhh blah.

So orientation here is a two week thing. Last week was just fun things for the colleges(dorms) and this week is the scholastic stuff-the boring stuff. We did a lot of fun stuff last week, there were several cooking classes and a few things to do in town. I re-learned how to make tacos, the mexican here is so sad. I miss El Azteca so much! I need some salsa in my life. Yesterday we had a compulsory information session and I thought I was going to die. It was SOOOOO boring, I fell asleep in the middle. I have NEVER fallen asleep during a class or anything before and I used to be an engineer so thats saying a lot! Before I fell asleep though I did watch some Aborigine people come and dance so that was pretty neat. I was on facebook messenger for most of it too so bless my besties hearts from home for keeping me entertained.

Today was supposed to be an "amazing race" day, yeahhhh. Slept right through that one! Thursday however I have my faculty day for business students that goes from 9-4, please kill me now. I think I'm going to be all alone in that one too so Ill really fall asleep. But the college is really nice and plans fun activities for us after all the boring stuff.

Sunday night was toga night.

Monday night was trivia and games, I failed miserably at that.
Tuesday(tonight) is pool party.
Wednesday is student night, bar crawl.
Thursday is Hawaiian.
Friday is nerdy school night.

So the rest of the week is looking up besides this boring school stuff.
Next week real classes start and granted I only have 3 classes a week I'm still not excited.

Until then, peace out.