SPRING BREAKKKK

If you could not tell from the title of this post, I am fairly thrilled to be on Spring Break right now! Other than the fact that I work next Monday, I am free for the next 9 days of my life, during which I will be spending 4 days in Cairns having the time of my life.

A little preview of my Cairns journey:

So much excitement! Wish me luck on all my adventures, it's going to be an adrenalin-filled week. The only downside is that it is expected to rain basically every day we are there, which is the story of our lives these days! But at the end of the day, I'm going there for adventure, not to lay on a beach every day, so I won't complain - as long as it doesn't thunderstorm!

Speaking of rain, it is of course raining again today. It was officially the first day of fall today (high 60s/low 70s) and I was freezing all day! My inner Minnesotan is pretty embarrassed. Tomorrow is finally supposed to be nice, so hopefully we get a chance to go to the beach, and then go to the Marti Gras parade tomorrow night!

Other than that, we didn't do too much this week - a lot more movies! When the weather is terrible, it's hard to be motivated to leave the apartment. No worries, by the time I get back from Cairns I should be able to write my first exciting blog post in ages!

Getting ready for my 8 a.m. Saturday morning job interview and a morning Skype with my mom so she can remind me to be safe in Cairns several times :) [Only 10 more days until they are in Sydney with meeee!]

Until next time, cheers! 

Our Apartment

ONE WEEK LEFT UNTIL SPRING BREAK!!

Cannot wait to go to Cairns, and am hoping time flies by until then. Spent yesterday at work and studying for my mid-term this morning before finishing the night off with a movie. [If nothing else, I have been watching so many good movies while here.] Today, I had my 16 question mid-term which we were given an hour and a half to take, so I spent more than an hour just hanging out this morning, which was great. Had several Skype sessions after class got done, and am now home taking care of a million things.

So, because it is so ridiculous, I have a list of all problems that have occurred in our apartment since our arrival:

1. The shelves on the inside of our fridge fell off and had to be replaced
2. We are currently on our 4th DVD player - the first 3 either didn't have sound, didn't show an image, or didn't hook up to our TV
3. We were given 3 batteries for 2 remotes...meaning we had to switch batteries back and forth if we needed 2 remotes at once
4. Our dishwasher wouldn't run, buuuut that was more our fault
5. The upstairs air conditioning stopped working
6. The downstairs air conditioning vent is (as we speak) leaking all over the carpet and creating a giant puddle
7. The washer stopped working, to the point where they literally hauled a new washer up to our room

In their defense, all of our problems have been resolved relatively quickly and with many apologies and we have called them for a dumb thing or two (such as the time when I couldn't get the drain to open in the sink...or when we couldn't turn the oven on). 

There's a reason why "Go one day without calling the front desk about something" was on our bucket list. It has been achieved approximately twice.

We're so independent, right? :)

Some More Sydney

Since I've last blogged, I can't say that an incredible amount has happened, but enough that I've fallen behind! As a result, the last few days of my life are as follows:

Thursday, Feb. 21
My communications class took a field trip to Chinatown! It was a part of the city I had really wanted to see, especially because Chinese New Year is happening right now. It was a surprisingly small area, but our tour guide gave us a ton of information [which I now have to use to write a paper] and I will hopefully be back to try some food!

Our incredibly precious tour guide!

The entrance to Chinatown - you need to remove all negative thoughts from your head before passing through the arch, otherwise they will be carried with you and brought into the town.

The Golden Tree, it's good luck (as everything seemed to be!)

In other news, I'm being given more things to do at my internship: tracking email marketing communications, developing content, using Google Analytics, and a few other things. It was nice to be busy at work for a morning!


Friday, Feb. 22
Made it through the week, fairly uneventfully. We spent Friday night in Darling Harbour at a bar called The Stack. We spent the next few hours there talking, and a relaxing night out was a good change of pace. 

Saturday, Feb. 23
Again, not much to say here. We've been having rather rainy weather in Sydney as of late, and Saturday was no exception. This led to basically an entire day indoors...but we did get to watch Bring it On. Helloooooo, my childhood. It definitely had me reminiscing about how that movie was watched at basically every sleepover for years. That night, we did some more movie watching, with a break in the middle for a gelato run. Messina - world's best gelato. We've been there twice in the past couple of weeks, and I know that I will definitely be going there at least a couple more times before the trip is done!

Sunday, Feb. 24, aka today
While the morning consisted of lounging around and doing homework, Julie and I decided on a trip to the aquarium for the afternoon. It was definitely worth the money and the trip over, as Julie alone took 115 pictures during our time there! 

Darling Harbour, where the aquarium is located

Found Nemo!

Can't wait to encounter this in the ocean next week

Penguins!

Tell me that is not the most terrifying giant crab ever.

The shark tunnel

Everyone taking pictures of sharks

Our new friend, and Julie's spirit animal!

Aaaaand on another note, there is still plenty of learning happening over here, so I need to keep track of it as I go along:

1. I think I have actually for real learned my way around Sydney. I can confidently say that I could hop on a bus or a train and get anywhere I need to go...even if it occasionally involves asking for directions :)
2. It does not take long to adapt to another country's cultures. I write "Harbour" instead of "Harbor", "recognised" instead of "recognized", and many others. I walk on the left side of the sidewalk, say "cheers", "mate", and "macca's", and get irritated with anyone who is loud on public transit. I honestly feel a little bit Aussie...until I hear my Minnesota accent.
3. I like a lot more food than I thought I did. This seems very minor, unless you understand the extend to which I am in a picky eater. I don't believe I've said no to any food so far on this trip, and I have always been pleasantly surprised.
4. It is possible to build a close group of friends/family wherever you go. I was so worried about making friends before I came, and yet I managed to find a group of people who I hope I never lose touch with.
5. At the same time, I have a new-found appreciation for my own friends and family at home. I realize the importance of all these people I have probably taken for granted, especially when I feel the urge to contact everyone back home several times a day to tell someone a story only they could truly appreciate. I miss you all more than you could ever know.
6. It is more than okay to stay in some nights. Sometimes you just need to.
7. Other than my love of trains which do not exist back home, I really miss Minneapolis public transit. It's bad news if the Sydney busses can make Minneapolis's seem reliable. And I hate that the M20, the bus I need here, never comes when I need it, when I can catch the 16 bus every five minutes!
8. Turns out study abroad only enhances procrastination. Oops.
9. My time in Sydney is too short to worry about money. That's not to say I'll be going out to eat every night or going shopping every weekend, but I'm done saying no to a potential adventure because I can't afford it. I have been saving for this for the longest time, and I plan on making the most of it. Probably my favorite realization so far.

Sending you all love from Sydney, until next time!

Aussie Customs/Phrases/Slang Terms

'Ello everyone,

Only thing of note today: 13 days until I am in Cairns for Spring Break, and only 19 days until my family comes! And as of tomorrow, only 2 months until I'm back in the U.S. of A. Time really does fly when you're having fun.

I really don't have much worth posting other than that [my Wednesdays are all about work, and that's about it], but someone else had something worth posting that I would like to share!

Last night, my roommate Bekah made a huge list of differences between Australia and the U.S., as well as slang terms, abbreviations, and phrases that they use here. I know I had a short list on my blog the other day, but hers is much more extensive and she's planning on updating it as we go along.

If you care to check it out, you can find the post (and Bekah's own perspective of Australia) at: http://reeeebekah.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/bonus-post.html

Cheers!

Real Talk Tuesday

Real talk Tuesday: Today [or this morning at least] was probably one of my worst days of the program so far.

Julie and I were supposed to present at 9:00 for Sociology this morning. Keeping in mind that it takes about an hour to get to school, it was definitely not great when Julie woke me up at 7:45. My alarm was set for 6:30, and I haven't been feeling the greatest the past couple days, so my guess is that I slept through it. So, Julie came into my room at 7:45, which is the time we were supposed to leave, and got me out of bed. She had to leave without me so she could print off everything we were supposed to turn in, and I scrambled to get ready as fast as possible.

I was out the door of the apartment before 8, so I definitely should have made it to school on time...but didn't count on not being able to get on the next 7 buses. I finally got on the bus at 8:30 and didn't make it to the train station until 8:45. Finally reached North Sydney at 9, and literally jogged all the way to class and made it by 9:10. Not bad considering I had gotten up less than an hour and a half before. Horrible if you consider that I was raised by Dave Alto, and there are very few things I hate more than being late. [Yes Dad, you taught me the importance of being on time very well.] Needless to say, I was stressed out for the entire journey and I felt pretty bad walking in while my professor was lecturing. (The positive: we didn't end up presenting until 11:30...made it!)

The other negative: When I grabbed my computer to bring it to school, I found a message that said "Consider replacing your battery. There is a problem with your battery so your computer might shut down suddenly." Yayyyy for that. I mean, I've had my computer for 3 years, and I knew that the battery was definitely at less than full strength, but I was hoping I could make it through. (Back story: I ordered a new battery back in December, but didn't see if it fit in my computer until 2 days before I left. Long story short, it didn't fit. Of course.) 

So I was sitting in lecture at 9:15 this morning, stressed about being late, irritated with my computer, and starving from not eating breakfast. At this point, I was about ready to give up on my Tuesday completely. 

But, again, real talk: I'm glad I didn't.

It was orientation week at ACU, and as it should, this meant tons of free food. I mean.....we're new enough students to qualify for free food right? A banana, a ton of grapes, and some Oreos later, I was over the fact that I didn't eat breakfast - and I snagged an ACU water bottle. Julie and I presented in class, and it went wonderfully. I Skyped with the fam, mailed a bunch of postcards, and accomplished a lot with my afternoon.

By the time I got home, I was feeling much better about my life, and it helped that 4 of us went for drinks and tacos at Taco Tuesday. Came home, did some reading, and have officially relaxed again - besides the fact that I'm terrified of sleeping through my alarm again tomorrow.

Now it's 10:45, and I've fallen asleep twice in the past hour. I'm not sure what happened to the Bailey who stays up until 12:30 a.m. with ease buuuut, if you find her, please send her my way. I can't handle being exhausted by 9:30 every day!

So, there you are: my real talk Tuesday. A break from my typical "oh my gosh I love Sydney and everything here is great and nothing bad ever happens and life is perfect" kind of post. 

Even while studying abroad, real life and bad days happen. Good thing there's always tomorrow :)

Tropfest

First off, photographic proof that JJ and I got to hang out while we were both in Sydney:

Saturday morning it started off raining, of course. We took advantage of the rainy weather and watch more movies. In the afternoon, it cleared up and Julie, Bekah and I explored Crown St. which is pretty close to our apartment. There are all kinds of cute shops and cafes down the street, reminding us that we will never have enough time or money to enjoy all of them! One of the best stops we made was to get gelato, which was one of the most delicious things I have ever experienced. By the time we finished exploring, 2 and a half hours had passed, and we were very glad we had spent the time outside of our apartment. That night, all of my roommates went out, but I decided I really needed a break and a night in, so I watched movies and went to bed early. I know I'm in Sydney, but every now and then I need a chance to just catch up on my sleep!

Yesterday (Sunday) was my favorite day of the weekend. Last night was Tropfest, the world's largest short film festival - and it definitely lived up to that. It was a perfect day to be outside, and thousands of other people must have been on the same page. A group of probably 40-50 of us went, led by someone running our program, who also brought us lots of snacks! We had to arrive around 5:30 in order to get spots on the grass for so many of us, but the films didn't actually start until 8.

In the meantime, 6 of us went off to explore the Royal Botanic Gardens, which are just a couple blocks away. The Gardens were very cool - for a while it was like being in a rainforest in the middle of Sydney. There were so many plants and trees and it was an incredibly relaxing place. Julie and I have a field trip there in a couple weeks, so I'm looking forward to the chance to get a tour and explore it further. I also plan on heading back a different day when I have more time to just hang out for a while. From the gardens, there is also a great view of the Sydney skyline, Opera House, and Harbour Bridge. We took a whole bunch of pictures in front of the water, including group pictures and our own individual "senior pictures"!

                 Just taking some senior pics!                      Beks and me

 The Sydney Skyline

After that, we went back and waited for Tropfest to begin. Earlier in the day, the preliminary round of judging had occurred, leaving us with 16 short films to watch that night. They were all incredible and I liked each one for different reasons. Some were silly, some were very serious, but there weren't any I wished I hadn't watched. If you're interested in checking out the winners or watching any of the videos, you can go here: http://www.smh.com.au/tv/Movies/show/Tropfest-3008146.html. It would certainly not be a waste of your time!

Today, I'm back to work: uploading videos, putting a presentation together, and getting some of my own things done. I've got a few things due this week, and then 3 midterms next week before I finally escape to Spring Break! Can't wait, it will be here before I know it!

A Friendly Face

This has been an incredibly busy week. I had an extra marketing class Monday, which meant I had to spend extra hours at work on Friday – in addition to going out Wednesday to celebrate Kate’s 21^st, spending a night out on Thursday, aaaand…meeting up with JJ yesterday!

This semester, JJ (one of my good friends from high school), is studying abroad in Cairns, which is thousands of miles north of where I’m staying. By coincidence, his program started with a 4 day orientation in Sydney, so we got to get together last night for “soft drinks” and catching up! It was great to see a familiar face around the world. [JJ has pictures as proof that we did actually see each other – those are coming later!] I loved getting to share this city and talk about everything I’ve done so far, and I can’t wait to hear about the adventures he has in Cairns. Speaking of Cairns – 2 and a half weeks until I’m there for Spring Break! Skydiving, snorkeling, and white water rafting in the rainforest await me, I can hardly wait.

The only unfortunate part of yesterday was losing my 2 hotel keys in the taxi on the way home. I heard something fall in the car as I opened my wallet, but saw that I had my phone and what I thought was everything in my wallet, so I figured there was just something rolling around the car.  A couple minutes later, as I was about to enter the Meriton, I realized that what fell was indeed my room key. Unfortunately, all taxis in Sydney look identical, so I have no idea what service it was, meaning that I had no hope of ever getting my key back. Fortunately, the security guards know me (because they constantly come to our room to fix things!) and let me into the building and then up to the 8^th floor. Once there, I had to wake up Bekah to let me back into the room, so it all worked out, but I had to pay to replace my keys. At the end of the day, it wasn’t a big deal, but I had been feeling so responsible lately! Right when I feel like I’m on top of everything and have my whole life together, I’m reminded that life doesn’t work that way!

Today is less than ideal weather again, so my roommates and I are currently inside watching the 5^th Harry Potter. So glad that they love these movies too so I have people to watch them with! Definitely staying in tonight – so much to get done. Tomorrow, we’re going to Tropfest, which is an Australian short film festival, so I’m looking forward to that.

Cheers!

How you going, mate?

Hey all!

Before I detail yesterday's adventure, I have a (rather short) list of the strangest terms I've heard in while in Australia. I need to have them all down in one place so I can remember them!


Aussie word: Macca's
American Equivilent: McDonald's
[It's even Macca's in commercials!]

Aussie phrase: How you going?
American Equivilent: How are you doing?

Aussie word: Mozzie
American Equivilent: Mosquito 
[Words are frequently shortened here, like "criminals" to "crims", etc.]

Aussie word: Pram
American Equivilent: Stroller
[Umm...what?]

Aussie phrase: Happy as a Larry
American Equivilent: [Truthfully, I'm not exactly sure, but my Sociology professor could not believe that this phrase was not used in America!]
 

I know there's many more, my Sociology professor tells us a ton. There's also several things I've heard that I couldn't even tell you the American equivilant of, because I have no idea what the word means. And the classics that everyone knows: mate, bloke, cheers - words I don't even think twice about.

Also, the words keen and heaps are used aaaall the time. At work, people are always asking "Are you keen to *insert activity here*?" or "I'm keen on that". I might take that back with me...and drive everyone at home crazy.


But anyway, yesterday my roommate Julie and I had a great evening adventure. Both of our Tuesdays are pretty open - I'm done by 12:30 and she's done by 4:15, and Sam and Bekah both have class until 8. We didn't have much homework to get done and around the same time, realized that we had fallen into a routine in Sydney. Not that a routine is bad, just that we had kind of stopped appreciated that we were living in Australia. It took us less than 4 weeks to tire of endless exploring and start spending our evenings watching Friends on the couch inside. Again, not that that's a horrible thing (I mean, I love Friends), but WE'RE IN AUSTRALIA!! So we decided to remember how lucky we were, and took off to do some exploring.

Bekah and Tim had been to the Royal Botanical Gardens for a field trip and told us how great they were, so we decided head that direction. We took the train to St. James, somewhere we'd never gotten off before, and started walking around. We stumbled across a gorgeous church, St. Mary's Cathedral, and were disappointed to find that all the doors were locked, even though there was clearly something happening inside! We decided to wander around the outside and take pictures instead. Across the street was Hyde Park, which was like a little rainforest in the middle of the city. Again, more wandering and pictures happened here! [Have you noticed we have not found the Botanical Gardens yet? And by "yet" I mean that we never found them...we got off at the wrong stop!] 

St. Mary's Cathedral

Unfortunately, this is my best picture of Hyde Park!

We came out of Hyde Park with a view of the city in front of us. Right in the middle of that is a giant needle-like tower that I see from the bus and train every day: the Westfield CentrePoint Tower. It is Sydney's tallest structure, and the 2nd tallest in Australia at 1,014 feet tall. Naturally, we had to investigate. 

Westfield CentrePoint Tower [or Sydney Tower]

We thought we could see people in the top portion of the tower, so we decided to see if we were right. After following a giant group of tourists through 5 floors of the mall, we ended up at the entrance point of the Sydney Tower Eye. We checked out the price, and decided that we were going to pay to get to the top of the tower. After an ear-popping elevator ride, we came out at the top to 360 degree views of Sydney at night. It was incredible, and crazy to see everything from so high up!

J. Woods embarrassed elevator selfie!

Our progress through the elevator!

Remember the church and Hyde Park? Here they are from 300m up!

Finally, we hopped on a train to Circular Quay to get some pictures of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge at night (after stopping for 30 cent ice cream cones at Macca's). The last time we went to the Opera House, we stopped quite a ways away...but not this time! This time, we walked all the way up to it, touched it, and even snuck inside for a couple minutes! The view of the skyline was breathtaking as well, but I couldn't get any good pictures!

Touching the Opera House!

We even caught the right bus back to our apartment on the way home and decided we can cross "Know our way around Sydney" off our bucket list! The night was a perfect reminder that I was studying abroad and need to take advantage of every moment that I have here. It was crazy to think that I was spending my Tuesday night exploring the city, touching the Opera House, and not being stressed about anything.

Julie and I agreed that it was the perfect spontaneous adventure. Just another night in Sydney.

The Sydney Fam

Before I even get to describing the past few days of my life, I can sum it up by saying that I had an excellent weekend. There was nothing overly outrageous or exciting about it - just a great time with my favorite people on the continent.

I'm not entirely sure what I did when I got home from class on Friday, but it was probably something along the lines of watching the Ellen show and Friends with my roommates, before getting ready to go out for the night. We went to Three Monkeys again - haven't had a bad night there yet, and it was a great way to start the weekend off.

After a nice Saturday sleep-in, we got up and went to Maroubra Beach. It's one of the local beaches in Sydney, a different scene than Bondi or Manly, where all the tourists head to. This beach was definitely quieter, and absolutely gorgeous. The weather wasn't the greatest, warm but cloudy, which at least meant that I avoided sunburn! It also meant that I didn't go in the water at all, which may have been a good thing since one of the people we went with got stung by a jellyfish within a few minutes of getting in the ocean! [Yes, something weird happened with my camera for these pictures!]

We didn't stay at the beach for too long because everyone was starving, and we decided that it was finally time to have our "family dinner". [Just a cheesy side note: I have the greatest Sydney family ever. So lucky to get to spend the semester with all of them, I could not be happier.] Tim said he had an amazing recipe for us to try, and he did not let us down. We had Mexican Fiesta Bake for dinner, along with chips and guac, and we were definitely in heaven. We went and bought everything we needed at the store, and all 7 of us prepared different parts of the meal. It was the best thing I've eaten in ages, and the leftovers today were equally incredible! [Another side note to everyone who knows what a picky eater I am: you would be so proud of me...I try and like everything I've eaten here!]

Mexican Fiesta Bake - the best meal ever!

Chips and guac

Toasting to our delicious meal!

The fam <3

After that, we stayed in for a movie night, and I feel asleep on Tim's floor at probablyyyy 11 o'clock. Oops. 

When I got up this morning, I decided to do some marketplace exploring. There is a market that is in the Rocks area of Sydney (near the Harbour and Opera House) every Saturday and Sunday, so I stopped there first. The weather was perfect and there was loud music and people everywhere - I so appreciated where I was right in that moment in time. I wasn't in a shopping mood, so I mostly wandered around the stalls, checking out everything that was there. There were so many different things offered, and I loved walking around and taking it all in. I forgot my camera at home, so no pictures, [but if you Google Image search "The Rocks Market Sydney" you will find tons of pictures that sum it up!] but I did buy a ton of postcards...coming soon to mailboxes near you! After that, I went back to another market, Paddy's, because I was in desperate need of a hoodie. I did not think I was going to need a sweatshirt here, but picking one up was one of the small highlights of my day.

Finally, this afternoon, we went to a Bulldogs rugby game, also called "footy". From what I understand, rugby is a form of Australian Rules Football, I think. In spite of having the rules explained to me a few times, I never entirely caught on to what was happening. That, in combination with the afternoon's freezing weather, led us to leave the game at halftime. This was totally fine with me - I gave it a shot, and have decided that at least for the time being, I'm still all about my American sports.

Gotta love free cupcakes!

And now here I am, up at midnight finishing off this blog post! I do have to be up in 6 hours though, so it's probably about time to get some sleep. (Even in Australia, my habit for staying up late when I have to get up early remains.) So, cheers everyone, I'll post again soon!