I Come From A Land Down Under...: I Love Weekends!

Hi everyone! Well, it has been a couple weeks since I updated, so I thought I should tell you all what I have been up to :)

First, let's rewind to the weekend before this last weekend. A friend from Richmond, Angela, who is studying in Melbourne (pronounced Mel-bin) for the semester was visiting Sydney for a long weekend. I met up with her and a few of her friends from Melbourne, one of whom also goes to Richmond, in the city on Saturday. I took the train by myself for the first time to get into the city, which was very exciting and I felt very independent :)) Anyway, once I caught up with them we wandered around the area around the Opera House taking pictures for awhile and then headed to Sydney Tower. It is a big tower that gives you a 360 view of the city from the top, it kind of reminded me of the Space Needle in Seattle! However, unlike the Space Needle, the ticket to the top included a pass to Oztrek, a quick adventure across Australia in a theater with moving chairs. After the fun afternoon, I went to a train station to head back to campus before it got too dark since I was by myself. It was definitely a great day and so nice to see a familiar face from Richmond all the way over here in Australia!

After that the week passed quickly with class and hanging out on campus to this past weekend. On Friday, I invited some friends over for spaghetti and a movie night! My friend Becca had made us all dinner last week so I thought I should volunteer to host. Plus, I have discoved my love of cooking here and I am becoming pretty good if I do say so myself :)) haha I am not a huge fan of the cleanup though, we don't have a dishwasher.

For Saturday, a few friends and I had signed up for a Southcoast day trip, which included a stop at 7 mile beach (where I had surf camp), an Aboriginal workshop, Fitzroy Falls, the largest Buddhist temple in the Southern Hemisphere, and a couple other fun stops. Fitzroy Falls was really pretty and had beautiful views o one of Australia's many national parks. The Aboriginal workshop was awesome as well, we saw all kinds of plants and weapons used by Aboriginals. We also saw all kinds of boomerangs (there are more than one), including some of the killer boomerangs used to hunt. Lastly, one of the rangers leading the workshop played the digeridoo for us, an Aboriginal instrument. None of the girls on the trip were allowed to try to play it because Aboriginal myth says that women can't become pregnant after playing it (who knew?!). All in all, it was a very informative workshop and I learned a lot about the traditions of the native people of Australia. Plus, we got to weave a bracelet to take home with us, which I have on right now and is super cool :) Saturday was a fun but long day, we had to leave campus by 7 to get picked up in the city for the trip, so on Sunday I went to church and then decided to take it easy for the rest of the day. I did a little reading for class and skyped with the fam. Joe and I have also started to get into Australian Idol, it's very entertaining to watch and airs on Sunday nights, so we watched it. It is just getting down to the top 24 and there are a lot of good singers so it is very exciting :)

In other news, I have officially made some plans for my Spring Break at the end of September! I have signed up with six friends for a trip to New Zealand. The trip is for 9 days and we will be on the south island of NZ. Our spring break is two weeks long so we also might take a quick trip north to see the Great Barrier Reef once we're back in Australia! I haven't traveled outside the state I am in, New South Wales, yet so I am super excited to see more of Australia and New Zealand :)

Lastly, I want to give a quick shout out to everyone back in Richmond starting school today! Good luck with your first week of class!! Hope fall semester is off to a great start!!

Ok, well that's all for now, here are some pics for your viewing pleasure: