Evening arrival in Thailand

We loaded our plane at 2pm and it was the most beautiful, enjoyable flight I have ever had. It was about a 9 hour flight and we got two awesome meals that were amazing, delicious, authentic Thai meals. Yep airplane food! Plus we each had our own TVs and unlimited drinks. Soda, cocktails, wine, beer, juice… you name it- anything you can think of! Of course I couldn’t take full advantage of this because of my bladder that seems to not like liquid that much. I just typed my blog in Microsoft Word for a while, read my book, tried watching a movie but got pretty bored of that, and… that’s it. I think I slept for a total of 40 minutes.

Although it was still really nice and the service was great I broke some rules so they had to do their job and take everything away from me. Since I never travelled with just a bag on the plane with me and I always had luggage under the plane I got a lot of my stuff thrown out. My contact solution- gone, Victoria Secret spray- garbage, brand new lotion with sunscreen in it brought all the way from the states- done, half a tube of tooth paste- garbage and… whatever else they decided was too much liquid.

Although it was sad to let some of that go, it ended up being so funny because the guy taking it away from me was laughing at us too. It was even funnier because we thought we may as well get the last use out of it before it all goes in the garbage. Everybody in the line behind us loaded up lotion and body spray and the workers were just laughing at us. After that scene I had to be on a mission to get contact solution since they took that away from me too, but that was an easy task. When we landed in Bangkok we got a transfer to our next flight that was about an hour long to Phuket where we would then meet Alex and Mark.

When we landed in Phuket we saw my name on a piece of paper from our shuttle driver that drove us to our resort. His English was definitely an area of opportunity and so we pretty much didn’t talk to him the whole time. There was a girl about our age I’d guess that was curled up on the front seat sleeping. It was about a 40 minute drive from the airport to our hotel. We arrived around 12:15am and Alex and Mark were already there so I was really excited to see them. The shuttle driver tried to charge us 10,800 baht which is around $340 (ish) Australian dollars and he said it was just for the ride from the airport to the resort. He had no idea what we were saying and we found out later that he said it was just for the shuttle ride but he actually meant to say that it was for the shuttle and the 4 day stay at the hotel. So while I was talking to the front desk he drove off and was really sad that we didn’t pay him. It was really hard to communicate with him because he kept saying the money was just for the shuttle and we didn’t like that answer. Anyway, long story short, for the first 2 days we thought we had a free stay and shuttle since he drove off but then the travel agency got a hold of us in our room a few days later and collected their money. The first day gave us all a really good idea of how unorganized Thailand is with everything. Absolutely every single thing is totally unorganized but somehow, someway, it all works out. As my sister Amy would say it is “dysfunctionally functional”. Not only does it work out but it seems to all work out alright!

So we got showed to our room with great service (even though they had no money from us yet) and we got breakfast tickets and all that fun stuff and then the boys asked us how long it would take us to get ready. Of course we are three girls that have been traveling all day long so we said. . . TEN MINUTES! (tricked ya, didn’t I) And so we just changed and put on clothes for warm weather because it was probably 90 degrees even though it had been dark for hours. After we changed we went on a little tour of our town that we were going to be staying at for the next few days. Pretty much it was a crazy mad house all over the streets and a lot of markets and people selling everything you need ever. The main area was about a 5-8 minute walk but it was craziness even not on the main street. While we were walking Alex said that our hotel was actually pretty far from the main part of town and I had no idea what he was talking about until we walked for another 2 minutes and I saw it myself! Although it was crazy all the way there, the main street that Alex was taking us to was 50,23975, .234 times more crazy then the walk there. It was wild, and I am not even going to try and go into details about it. Just know it was crazier than anything I have ever seen. Vegas on steroids doesn't even come close to describe this. There are no comparisons that would even come close unless you experienced it yourself.

(pictures give absolutely no justice! But that's Alex anyway)-->
Also... This blog is rated G, therefore this picture is also rated G. However, Thailand does not know what rated G is.
So we got to the main street and decided to stop and have a drink at the Moon Bar, nobody else was in there so it was nice to all just hang out for a while and enjoy each other’s company over a long island ice tea. All the bars here are outside but they have a roof still. So even though we were at the Moon Bar we were still on the street and there were other bars all around us that we could see. It was especially fun to people watch here because there are so many people just doing their own thing and it is just craziness all the way around you no matter what way you look.

<-- (Shorty wasn't drunk he just wasn't ready for the pictue, hahaha. . . tooooo bad!) Our bar tender was a very nice guy and the people here are amazing!! You probably would not have guessed that the Thai people are so nice but they really are. I have never seen so many smiles and nice people all jam packed into one country. Every Thai person we met was just so nice and it was not really expected. So we just hung out with our bar tender and all caught up for a while until we decided that we needed to see more of this street. We paid the bar tender and then they came after us because we didn’t leave enough money on accident and it was totally our fault, actually it was all Jourdan’s fault but we all took the blame and apologized and left with smiles on our faces. After about 1 minute of walking the workers at the Moon Bar chased after us because we accidently gave them too much money the second time and paid extra on accident. This was just totally unexpected because if that happened in a lot of other places you would never see them chasing after you for over paying. This guy chased us down and yelled for us until we heard him just to give us some money back. I just thought that was so amazing because you definitely do not see that act everywhere. This is just one example of how nice the Thai people were. After we left the Moon bar we pretty much just explored the streets and our town. We bought a beer from a street vendor and talked him down. Everything you buy here you barging on and they always go down. The price they offer you is just pretty much a recommendation. This is something that I am not very good at. The price they give you they really never expect to get that much for it. Since most of their English is not that good they just type in price in the calculator and then they hand the calculater to you and ask you to put in your price. We got told by many people to always start off with a little under half or about half of the price they tell you. They always go down from their beginning price and they are still so happy that you bought from them, they are all really desperate to sell anything they have. Just for a better idea on how cheap it is here, shirts are between 100-200 Baht which is about $3-6 dollars. Dresses are about $6, our resort hotel was 10,800 baht for 4 days and this is about $340 but split 3 ways. You can bargon on anything, we got our car rental for cheaper which we all paid about 6 bucks a day for. I am not very good at it but I had a lot of people around me that helped me get a little better. While wondering the streets Jourdan ran into the club that she really wanted to go in and so we just all just followed her in. We bargoned our price in and got it cheaper and they let us all in for like 10 dollars for 5 of us. We stayed here for maybe an hour or something and then we wanted to leave. While we were walking home we decided that we should just go swimming because it was so hot out and we were all sweaty from the humid and the ocean was right there so why not?! We went swimming in the ocean for a while and then just hung out on the beach for the rest of the night until we were ready for bed.

. We walked back to our place and then Alex and Mark went back to their beach which was one beach over on Karon beach. Our beach was called Patong and that is the main part of Phuket. Once we got home we showered and were fast asleep but we all had a great first night and were excited that we had so much fun and still had not been in Phuket for 24 hours.

Thailand. . . Really?

Is my life even for real right now??? YUP! This is crazy! I am on a plane to THAILAND and I can’t even believe it. How is my life even possible? Some things I just don’t know the answer to but I will just live life, take opportunities, be adventurous, learn, and HAVE FUN. Thailand is about a 9 hour flight from Australia and I really had no idea it was that far. I mean I have seen it on my map but didn’t think of it as almost as far as the United States. I know a lot of study abroad students went to Bali and Thailand like it was across the street or something. It definitely isn’t.

Here’s how it happened: My friends Mark and Alex planned a trip to Thailand for two months once they were both graduated. They have been talking about this trip for I bet a year now and we nonchalantly talked about meeting up while they were in Thailand. Ya know, we were all going to be on the same half of the globe at the same time so why not meet up for a week or two. So this was ALL unrealistic talk. At the time we took it seriously but I think we all knew in the back of our head that they were not going to come say hi to me in Australia and the chances of me going all the way to Thailand to see them was unrealistic, I never thought I would have the itch to go to Asia.

<-- (Mark and Alex). Anyway, we still talked about it like it would happen even though it was strictly “excitement talk”. That is the kind of talk that you have just to get excited for something even though you know it’s not realistic. So when I came to Australia we still talked about it here and there but again, it wasn’t going to happen. I was running out of time here and I had a lot to do still. Shawna is going to be in Australia to see me for 10 days and we were going to play and travel a little (only in my free time when she can yank me away from the books of course, since we all know I am here to study) and I guess that was my plan for my 3 week study break. The University of the Sunshine Coast kindly give their students a three week “study break” to prepare for exams since there are no exams through the year and then you have all your exams at the end so… most of the students that study abroad try and utilize this time for traveling and any last HOO RAWS we need to get out. So my options were to stay at my apartment and hang out at my pool and maybe go to the beach once or twice or get out of town. Nobody was going to be at home because everybody leaves right after the final projects. A group of 30 went to Bali from my apartments and I was invited to go there and then some of my friends went to Fiji and others went to Sydney and Melbourne so I had many options.

I thought if I was going to do anything during this time I would want to go to Thailand. I have met people who have lived there for a chunk of time and all of the people that visited it during our last break loved it and said it was amazing. That motivated me to want to go and the fact that Alex and Mark were there encouraging me to come made things come together. Nancy asked me if I had any plans for the first week of my study break and I didn’t at the time because my only plans were Shawna coming and we were going to Sydney together. Well… It was my last 25 days in this part of the world so it was important that I do something very special that I would never be able to do again. So I took the opportunity of going to Thailand to the next level and researched more to see if I should finalize it by getting a ticket.

The sad part was everybody already had their plans for study break and I never committed to Bali because of procrastination and possible chance of going to Thailand. The chances of me finding somebody to go to Thailand with me were pretty slim, everybody knew what they were already doing. I don’t think that my parents or Dan and Nancy would have been very open to the fact of me going there by myself unless I spiced it up. “I think it will be safe, I will meet Alex and Mark right when I get there, I will take all precautions to be as safe as I can to not get scammed, blah, etc, etc.” So I gave this idea a little spice and got the okay to go in preference of finding somebody to travel with. I couldn’t tell Alex and Mark that I was probably going to come because they didn’t have internet because they were in the jungle. So I had to wait for them to call me back before I could take anything seriously. I definitely could not go if I didn’t talk to them because there was no way that I could be there alone. So I had to wait and wait before they finally got a hold of me.

In the meantime of waiting, I went to the gym with one of my workout buddies Carly and told her all about my trip that I might be doing that I can’t finalize yet because I haven’t talked to them and she said, “Oh my gosh Vanessa, I have no plans for that time and I was trying to figure something out! I will totally go with you but only if I can get extra money from my parents which might be a little difficult”. The only problem was, she had to have the right conversation with her parents at the right time. So we went along with our workout, did a little boxing and she had the perfect script all planned out to present to the rents. They said she could go and they would give her a little extra money for the ticket since that is the only expensive part! So this made it official! I could book my ticket since I wasn’t going to be traveling by myself. I didn’t need to talk to Alex and Mark anymore because I had a travel buddy! Carly came over with the amazing news and we just screamed and jumped up and down and hugged each other because WE WERE GOING TO THAILAND IN A WEEK!! So we booked our tickets that second.

. Then her friend Jourdan also decided that she wanted to come so she called her parents at 5 in the morning to try to get money for the ticket and they said no but… she knew it was really early in the morning and maybe a bad time to ask for money so she tried again and she got the transfer funnel! It was official, us three girls were going to Thailand! Alex and Mark finally called me when they got out of the jungle and I told them we all got tickets and we were going to be there next week. They were so excited too! They didn’t think I would actually ever come to Thailand like we “gossiped” about for over a half of a year.

This was the most spontaneous thing that I have ever done and I am so excited for this adventure! Carly, Jourdan and I will be staying at a beautiful resort with a pool and a pool bar and a spa and right in the center of Phuket for 30 bucks a night! And a 5 minute walk to the beach, it is ridiculously cheap here and I can get a massage for 6 bucks every morning if I want. A mani and pedi is on the list for sure. That will probably be 800 baht which will equal out to be about 5 bucks Australian.

We are just about to land in Bangkok and then we will catch a flight to Phuket and meet Alex and Mark in the lobby of our resort at midnight! We will say hi, I will introduce everybody and maybe we will go get cheap food and a beer or something, who knows—more to come!! Alex and Mark are staying in a resort that is the beach right next to ours so they are really close. They recommended Patong Beach for us since it was right in the middle of the hot spot street where the markets and stuff are. There resort is just as nice as ours but not as fun. I am sure they will hang out at our flat a lot!

Read on for upcoming stories and adventures in THAILAND!!!

SA WAH DE KAH :)

Crap day but 100% worth the reward!

I am going to have to say that yesterday was… BY FAR the most annoying, day I have had in Australia so far. All of my days are pretty good, some are a little boring but at least I am bored in Australia and if I think of it that way then that I am automatically not bored anymore. Yesterday was the exception. It was a Thursday and I was leaving for Thailand Friday. I had to give a 15 minute presentation that I pretty much nailed and that was awesome and felt amazing. It was about factory farming and everything they provide for us, such as; horrible health conditions, the most systematic animal abuse in the world and the toll our environment is taking because of these. Those were my three main points and I learned a lot while doing this. It was a very time consuming preparation so all of my time was spent on making this presentation perfect, so I didn’t put much time in my other final project for my other class (but I still did a little bit). I wore this shirt while I was presenting and it was really funny. It was Ahmad’s shirt but he gave it to me because he said I should wear it to my presentation because it was appropriate for my topic.

<- Control S is how you save files on your computer so its saying control S to save the world... its weird but Ahmad always has weird shirts that are really confusing to figure out. After my presentation I had to go to the lab and work on my other project that I had to turn in a week early in order to make this Thailand trip possible. I worked on that for my two hour break before I had class from 2-6pm straight. I didn’t get a ton done but I got a start and then I went to lunch at a place on campus and then I ran home and got a sweater and filled up my Nalgene. I went to my 2pm class and the teacher let us work on our projects the whole time. I didn’t get much done while she was there because she is absolutely no help at all and she hates Americans. She has never said that obviously but I know she does and so does everybody else in the class. We had presentations from 10-12, then this class was 2-4 and then I had one immediately after from 4-6 which I had to miss because I was at a point in my project where if I went to my last class the possibilities of finishing it were going to be next to impossible. So, I had to miss some stuff on the test that we went over but I have some good friends that will give me their notes for when the test comes up. So I was at the lab working in InDesign on my project from 1:30-8pm at night. I finished it and I couldn’t look into it for another second. At about 7pm the program that we had to use in order to do this project (InDesign) had a schizophrenic freak out and decided to lock my project up and delete it. It wasn’t totally deleted it was just deleted enough where it wasn’t going “restore” it and let me print or access it. At this point I pretty much freaked out and wanted to just fall on my knees and cry after I threw the computer out the window. Before the teacher left for the night she said, “make sure you save your projects because I have already had two students leave here crying because they deleted them”. Well, I made sure I saved mine and I learned that the two people that deleted theirs probably saved there’s also but the stupid most annoying program ever designed deleted them. My story had a happy ending. I called Anas after playing with this for about ten minutes and I kept getting the same stupid messages. “It is saved but you can’t access it, make changes or print it, or save it on your USB drive”. So called Anas and he was at home watching a movie with Seppy. I said Anas, I need you to come to the computer lab right now and help me. I think he heard it in my voice that I was stressed out and that this was a big problem. And he had to know it was serious if I was asking him to walk all the way to the computer lab in the dark and cold to assist my problems. He did and when he was about 30 second away it was fixed! There was a girl in the computer lab that was working on the same assignment and she came to my computer and tried to get it back and she said I don’t think it is going to work, but then magically it did! So I ran outside and told Anas and I think he was mad at first but when he heard what had happened and saw my relief he wasn’t mad. So I was able to finish it and print it and the assignment turned out beautiful. I showed Anas my final draft and he was impressed with the work I did (I am not very good with computers but I had to learn this program in order to do this final project). I worked on this for 7 hours straight with no food breaks. I had my Nalgene full of water and I had a bathroom that was just outside and around the corner so I was fine. Once I finished it was the biggest relief. It finally seemed like I was actually going to THAILAND TOMORROW! I couldn’t even think about Thailand all week because I had to work on this project and my presentation and I knew that I had to do that before I went to Thailand and that was so much work that it seemed like I wasn’t even going. I rode Nigel home and made as much food as I could (I was starving). Then I cleaned my room, did 2 loads of laundry and packed to go WOO HOO! After I packed Anas, Seppy and I went on a walk. Anas and I go on a lot of walks just cus it’s nice to get outside and out of the apartments sometimes and gossip and talk. We all know that our time together is slowly coming to an end and we won’t get to see each other that many more times so we just have to try to go on walks if there is nothing else going on and we are both home. After our walk I did a little more last minute cleaning (since when I get back Shawna will be there waiting for me). I finished my laundry and went through the check list of if I have everything packed for Thailand!!!

PS. As soon as I walked out of the lab with my printed assignment I was FREEE and no longer in a bad mood, just a happy, and hungry mood! And I love InDesign because my assignment is beautiful. I will try and show a picture on here if I can.

Steve Irwin Zoo

Okay so I am so far behind on my blogging and I have lost a few blog posts that were in word and now I cannot find them anywhere so I will give you the jist of what I had and it is not going to be as detailed or good as the ones I had saved but it will have to work for now. This post is pretty much to get up some pictures and move on to other posts that I am behind on.

So Ian's best friend Sam came (not going into details, :( no time, sorry) and stayed here for a few days since he had just spent the last 9 months on a ship for the Marines. While he was here I was really busy with school but still made sure that we had fun while he was here and that he was occupied the whole time. The first day he got here we spent a day at the zoo and underwater world. Alice let me take her car for the day if I woke up early and dropped her off at work and then picked her up at the end of the day.

When we first got to the zoo we got to feed elephants and watch trained otters and we also saw a lot of crocs (it is the Steve Irwin zoo), other weird animals, koalas, kangaroos and lots more animals.

The most amazing thing about this zoo was that we got to hold a Koala, pet kangaroos (and kiss them if we wanted), feed elephants and watch live shows throughout the day. I thought this zoo was cool but I also have liked other zoos just as much if not more than this one. Sam thought this was the greatest zoo that he had ever been to and he even wanted to drop out of the Marines and pick up a new career at the Steve Irwin Zoo.

This zoo made me realize that I will never go to a zoo or an underwater world again until I have kids and they want to go. I guess I didn't think zoos were that fun. Although I did love this zoo and I loved how it was hands on and how they let you hold the animals and stuff I still think in order for me to be motivated to go I will have to wait many years before going to another zoo. I loved holding the Koalas because they were the most cuddliest animals in the world and they just wrapped right around you like you were the tree and they were so cute and close to your face.

I loved them and Sam and I both decided after we got to hold them that we both needed one for a pet, (obviously not real talk but WE WISH). We saw an amazing bird show with crocs and big snakes and other fun weird animals and this show was amazing. It was put together so well and you could tell that they have done it 400 million times before so they pretty much had it perfected to a TEE!

Too bad I can't show you the video but OH WELL. My other favorite part was the kangaroos. I laid next to them and pet them and they were so friendly and calm. It seemed like they loved to be pet because they spend all day getting pet and fed. The ones we saw were really tired and I opened the baby pocket on one of the young girl kangaroos. I just had to check and see if there were any babies in there and there wasn't

She didn't seem to mind too much that I opened her pocket so I must not have been the first to do it. We hung out with these guys for awhile because they were so cute and calm

We saw a lot more animals other than just kangaroos, koalas, and crocs but I can't put all of my pictures on here. I am mostly just annoyed that I am even typing this blog right now because I had such a good blog all typed up and ready to copy and past on here and it is just MIA. So everything I am typing right now just is frustrating because I dont have time to go back and explain the real experience that I had and spend time on these posts. Sam and I did more fun things besides the zoo but that was our highlight.

We saw this red panda and lots of other animals also that dont get to make my blog due to time restrictions, haha! We also went to under water world after the zoo. Both of these things are within 10 minute drive for me so it was easy and it was something that I needed to do because everybody has to go to the Steve Irwin Zoo while they are in Australia if they are in the right area like me. Everybody else has already gone but me and it was something that Sam really wanted to do so it ended up working out perfect. Ian did not want to go with me because he just says, "once you've seen one zoo you've seen them all". I would have never agreed with him but I think I do now. This zoo is awesome because it is really hands on and the shows were good but I dont want to spend more time in zoos for a while.

I really did have a great time and it was fun hanging out with sam because he was like a little kid in a candy store at the zoo beacuse he loved it so much but I just think I am okay not going for awhile... that's all.

After this we went to underwater world which was cool but again... not interested in going until someday my kids will want to go which is not going to be for a very, VERY long time. It is something that I can do without. I did like the underwater world more than the zoo though because there were massive sting rays the size of my whole room pretty much, (not that you know how big that is but its big for a sting ray). There was also sharks and saw nosed fish

And we went to a seal show that was awesome because the seals were trained so good and they could stand on one of their fins and do lots of other cool tricks. This part was my favorite part but Sam would disagree with me and say that the Zoo was the coolest thing ever. He liked the underwater world but he LOVED the zoo with a capital L. I don't think anything will change his mind on the zoo. He will work there maybe someday, haha! Okay... Sorry this blog is so bad and annoying but I just can't type in it too much more because I also lost another whole blog that talked about our underwater world and I dont even want to go into detail of that again because I already spent too much time typing it and now its gone so I am not ready to do it again.

okay, here is a few more pictures and then I have to move on to the blogs that I have actually saved in my computer that I made after the ones that got lost. There were a couple more that got lost but since there were not many pictures I will just skip those ones.

Also, I took Sam to Noosa with a group of people and we took the early bus and went hiking around there for awhile. The weather was not the best so we ended up leaving mid day but it was still a great time. And then Sam went with a few of my friends and they all hiked up the glass house mountains while I worked on my presentation and my final projects for my classes.

and then here is another cute picture of the boys posing at noosa!

Okay, sorry for the rush and I wish I could tell you more but I am too stressed that I lost those files... More fun blogs to come that are not as stressfull :). Hope you enjoyed the jist!

A Baby Roo inside its pouch!

Alight, so, the other morning. . . Sunday to be exact I rode Nigel to the library because it opened at 11 and I had a lot to get done. The kangaroos sleep in till about noonish so I was up before them. I think they start getting up around 11 but usually you don't see them hopping around until at least noon. ANYWAYS, I rode Nigel to the library and saw a baby roo sleeping inside its mama's pouch. It was the coolest thing!

This was soo amazing because I didn't bring my camera with me in my backpack for like a month. After I had been here for 2 months I just decided to stop bring my camera with me everywhere I go because it wasn't as cool anymore. But for some reason I had my camera in my hand and I thought should I bring this? Then I thought no there's no point I will just be at the library all day. BUT THEN. I said in my head... oh eff it, its already in my hand so I may as well just drop it inside my backpack, and I did! And I am SOO glad because this was pretty cool!

So that is my story for today. I also had a long day at school. I had class at 8am, meeting with my teacher to go over an assignment at 9:30, another meeting with a student for an assignment at 10:30, had to make 17 pages of copies to use for my research paper at the library, and... then I rode Nigel to the gym because I left my phone there over night, then I had another class from 11-12, then I came home, made a quick lunch and worked on my assignments for a while. Then I took a short nap because that sounded nicer than coffee. Then I woke up and worked on my assignments again and then I went to the gym and ran 2 miles and then did a boxing exercise class (boxercise to be exact) and then I came home and had a small bowl of tomato soup and a piece of toast that I pretended like it was a delicious piece of cheese garlic bread. --> Take a breath and insert last picture now . . .

And don't let me forget to mention my bike ride over to the gym today, it was POORING rain. And I had a very, LARGE umbrella and it was dark outside, and I didn't wreck. When I pulled up to the gym a lady sitting outside the gym told me what I was doing is talent. I think she is right, you should try holding an abnormally large umbrella with one hand while your other hand is on the bike handles and the wind is going under the umbrella trying to fight you and knock you over and its pitch black outside. Easy? NO, Fun? YES! So I conquered that and I was really proud of myself because I almost tried to make the rain my excuse to not go to the gym. But then I thought about my alternative which was do assignments and no matter how much rain was coming down, I was going to be at Boxersize!

After I ran 2 miles and went to boxersize I came home and ate and worked on my projects and waited for Hayley to get home from the movies so we could try her dinner that was in the oven that smelled SOO DELIGHTFUL. It was a zucchini, carrot, pie slash queshe thing and the smell was amazing! It made our whole house smell like delishousness. And she made so much to last her for the week, two pie containers worth and she was going to freeze some.

She talked about it and was so excited to make this and... We both cut out a little corner and chewed very slowly and it was PUKE IN MY MOUTH DISGUSTING! I was going to try and be nice and tell her it was kind of good but room for improvement and better luck next time but I couldn't even do that. I just started laughing and spit it out but it was just so funny because she was so excited for this for a few days. My comfort statement ended up being that... "Its okay Hayley, at least it smelled really good" Soo she wanted to cry because she said she cant cook. But her pasta and cous cous is very good so maybe if she sticks to that then we can never be disappointed.

Okay, I need to go to bed! GOODNIGHT! Hope you liked the pictures of the baby roo and mama! That was my reasoning to write this blog but I got carried away, haha!

Hello reality. Hello University of Sunshine Coast!

Okay, once again I have neglected my poor little blog. Oopsies! Well… some exciting things have happened but the main reason why it gets neglected is because not every day in Australia is worth talking about, I know I make it sound like it is with my blog but in reality… it’s not. Besides school, assignments, readings, studying, library, sleeping, eating, and gym not much has been going on for almost two weeks. I hope you all took note of the first five things I wrote on that list! The best part about this is that it’s actually true (Yuck, I used the word ‘best’ in the same paragraph I was talking about school, there are so many other appropriate words to use here besides, b-e-s-t) haha.

Anyways, since I have wrote last; Ian has left, I upped my cardio, I have turned in 1 assignment, I have been working on two more to turn in this week, I have gone to the Plaza, Hayley has almost got a job, I have gone grocery shopping at Woolies, I got two summer job rejection e-mails, Lucy’s sister got married, I saw a kangaroo with a baby roo in its pocket sleeping, I have cooked a lot of food, made a few bowls of cereal, and it has been sunny and rainy.

So, Ian left last week and we had such an amazing 10 days, and it was definitely a needed time together. The last few days together we didn’t get to do too much exciting but our big thing was to go to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef and we kicked that off the bucket list right away.

The last couple days Ian was here we just hung around my apartment, went to Mooloolaba beach, had a BBQ at the community BBQ at our apartments with some friends and worked on my assignments. Nothing too exciting but just being together was more fun than anything, even if we were working on assignments.

Anas, Seppy, Ian and I all spent one day at Mooloolaba because it was nice out and we wanted to do something fun before he left (besides working on homework of course). It was a great time and the water was really nice. Anas, Ian and I swam for a while and caught some waves.

. Ian had never swam in waves like that before so he was really anxious to do it. He thought it was so much fun after he got the hang of it. I explained it in some of my beginning blogs when I first got here and went to the beach. It can be dangerous but it’s easy to avoid the danger of it. You can either go under the wave when it comes and grab onto the sand below while your under water until the wave is over you, you can jump over it if it is small enough (usually not) or you can swim (sprint swim) with the wave which is the most fun.

Or you can let it take you out which is also fun and sometimes unavoidable. Anyway, Ian loved this part, (it is a lot of fun, so I have to give it to him) I swam with him for a while then I went back to my towel and warmed up under the sun while Ian stayed in the water. Later I convinced Anas that the water was not cold and so he went in with Ian for a while.

After awhile of warming up I went back in and I snapped some photos with my new water camera case. Once we got too cold to be in the water we went back to our towels and dried off and walked around the shops in Mooloolaba. Anas and Seppy went to go get something to eat and Ian and I ate at home so we were not hungry. We separated from them for 40 minutes while they ate and we looked in the shops, and of course we got ice-cream because there is NOTHING better than ice-cream after swimming in the ocean, something sweet after all that salt. So Ian and I got ice cream, and then I got a coffee because I knew I had to go home and work on my assignments and then we met back up with Anas and Seppy and caught the bus home.

When we got home we showered and got comphy and I started working on my assignments. We did take a break and go next door so I could introduce Ian to my friends Danielle and Jennifer. He met Danielle on the bus earlier that day but I wanted to introduce him to Jenn (Danielle’s roommie) and we had to gossip a little bit about their trip that they are planning to Melbourne. After that it was back to work till bedtime.

The next night was the night we had the BBQ. We just invited a few of my friends and we all went to the BBQ and cooked. Krista, Ian and I all got salmon and split it. Ian has a special little marinade for salmon and whenever he makes it, it always turns out so good. So we had that and hung outside around the BBQ for the night and then we came home after we ate and packed up everything Ian brought. The other 75% of his suitcase that was not being used was all my stuff that he took home with him. I stuffed his suitcase soo good so I could fit all of my stuff when it is time for me to pack up everything, this way I don’t have to leave anything behind that I don’t want to. Since it is getting cooler here I sent him home with some dresses and tank-tops. When I say cooler, I mean it is not like Montana or Wisconsin, cooler means that it will not get colder than 60 degrees (except at night it will go down to 40).

So then it was about bedtime and the next morning Ian was off at 7am. I walked him to the front gate where his shuttle was picking him up and said good bye and went back to bed for an hour. It was sad for him to leave but not that sad because I know I will be back in a month and that is nothing because we just went 3 months without seeing each other. I guess since we have lived 6 hours from each other in the states for a year we are kind of used to a 1 month period away. Usually we get to see each other for 1-2 weekends a month. I know this last month is going to go by so fast. Saying good bye to him was cake compared to all of the good byes I will have to say in the next month. Those goodbyes are going to be really hard because I have met some amazing people since being here and I can’t put a time on when I will see them again so that makes it harder.

Well anyway, that is pretty much all that I have been up to the last two weeks. I have three exams to study for and I have 2 assignments to turn in this week and that is going to be a BIG relief to finally hand them in and never look at them again until I see a grade on it. I have been working on these assignments since before Ian got here. I will turn in my last assignment on Friday and then the week after that I have to give a 15 minute presentation. And between now and 33 days I will have two visitors coming from America. I will host Sam for about 5 days and we will have fun and play around the Sunshine Coast and he leaves and Shawna will come for 10 days and we will plan lots of fun stuff (besides studying, haha). After that I will have to take 3 exams and then I will be finished and will officially be a SENIOR! WOOO HOO! I will take my last exam on the 23rd of July and I will fly back to Chicago on the 25th. Pretty crazy that it is all going to come to an abrupt end so fast.
Well… I’ll write again about anything exciting that happens. Sam will be here Thursday and we will go to Noosa on Saturday, (Noosa is a National Park, famous area that is a bus ride away from school). Ian and I spent some time there while he was there and it is beautiful and fun so I am sure that Sam will like it.
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned :) !!

Rememberr?. . .

So remember a few weeks ago when I told you about my shuttle ride to the Brisbane airport where I met that couple? Okay, well if not, long story short; I met a couple on the shuttle and we just talked the whole way and really got to know each other. They were headed on a cruise for 3 weeks and I was going to New Zealand for two weeks. Anyway they gave me their number and said call them and they would take us around. So I told them Ian was going to be here and they were excited to show us around where they live and all that fun stuff. I called them when Ian and I got back from Cairns and they were ready to hang out. Dot said 'Bob will come get you guys in a few minutes'. Then Bob called and said, 'Will you be ready in 20 minutes,' and we said, 'yep, see you then'. Ian and I packed a little back pack and waited for Bob to get here. It was about 9:30ish in the morning when he picked us up in his baby blue 1975 Mustang and then we drove about 20 minutes to Dot's house and had moUrning tea (there's that U again, Aussies spell morning with a U).

We just hung out outside at the table and enjoyed the beautiful weather with our tea/coffee and banana bread and shared stories about our different trips and lots of other stuff, they are a lovely couple, they are 60 and only 11 days apart (Bob is 11 days older, yes that is important, haha) Dot and Bob are 'partners' and have been together for over 5 years. Dot was widowed about 10 years ago and met Bob a few years after. They have traveled a lot together so they have a lot of fun travel stories. They also have a lot more traveling to do it sounds like.

After mornring tea they took us on a beautiful hike that was about 5 minutes from Dot's house.

You could see her house from the top. She got a new roof the day before so it was easier to spot from up there. It was a nice hike (except I saw a baby brown snake, and brown snakes are deadly), it over looked the ocean and a couple important points like Noosa, which is a National park.

We went to Noosa after this hike so it was cool to see it from away and from so far above. This hike was beautiful. It had a long story about the Aborigines and it was their land but I dont really know the whole story or else I would tell, haha. But I know the hike was amazing and a good little work out. Dot did it barefoot because she had a cut on the heel of her foot and she didn't want the wound to open up because she and Bob were going dancing the next day. The name of this hike was called Mount Coolum.

After Mount Coolum, we went back to Dot's house, had some fruit and then they took us to Noosa. Noosa is a very nice and famous National Park in the Sunny Coast and for some reason I have not made it there yet. I dont know why but it is really close to me and it's beautiful. It is about a 45 minute drive from my house but only 20 minutes from Dot's house.

We went on a really nice walk through there searching for Koala's. They are out there a lot but sadly we didn't spot any. They are really hard to see. We heard a rumor that there was one around where we were but everybody just kept saying that, none of us actually saw it.

There were a lot of really nice beaches and fun activities like the paddle boards and kayaks that everybody was doing. We walked for awhile on the trail and saw a bunch of nice views.

We saw a sea turtle while we were walking back so that can replace the koala in my book :). After our walk we went to a surf club and got a drink and hung out and chatted for while. We stayed at the surf club until the sun was going down and we watched all the people on the beach. There was this one lady that was making sand a sand sculpture and it seemed like she was doing a really good job. It was hard to see from so far above but it seemed really neat. Then there were just people swimming and having fun on the beach. After we left we stopped and Bab ran in the fish and chips store and got some for all of us for dinner. The fish they had there was amazing and it was all fresh we had that and a salad. After dinner they gave us a ride back home and hopefully I will get to hang out with them again soon! We had a really good day with them and they took good care of us. Its just funny how you meet people sometimes and how some friends come into your life. After they dropped us off we went up to Anas's house and hung out with him and Shiney for awhile and then came back downstairs and tried to do some homework. Then we went to bed :). Thats all for now!