.A Little Behind.

Alright! It has been awhile. Let's see. What have I been up to?
We started classes this week. This is just a different experience in general. I have never really gone to a bigger University so the concept of "lectures" and "tutorials" is new to me. For most classes I am supposed to attend 2 lectures every week and then one tutorial which is just like a discussion group. The classes are based mostly off of essays and them some have a few tests. Overall I don't think it will be too bad. I am just very ready to be done with school for awhile! I just have to make sure I pass one class to get the credits..just kidding Mom..I'll pass all of them. :)
The week was pretty uneventful. Mostly just trying to find classes and trying not to look like a total American at school. I think I accomplished this since some people asked me where things were on campus. I sort of knew the answer. In one class the professor had everyone stand up and then said if you have lived in Australia for 3 or more years sit down. There were about 10 of us left standing and he started to go around the room and ask where everyone was from. The first person was from China and he said anyone from China sit down, there were about 4 of us left. I soon realized I was the only American..which was just kind of a weird concept for me. When he asked where I was from I said the United States..and I swear I heard someone behind me say "oh she thinks she is cool". I could have been wrong..and I really hope I was.but still. I laughed. It should also be interesting to hear Australia's take on the US in my political class. He already said we will talk about if the alliance with the US really does Australia any good.
Thursday evening my roommate and a few friends decided to go to the beach in the evening. It was gorgeous and the sunset on the water was neat. The water also seemed really warm compared to how chilly it was outside. Although not so cold that we got 9 inches of snow! I  don't miss Spokane right now! On Friday I don't have classes..which is just the way it happened to work out! I went and bought my books and then we went to the beach! It was nice and sunny and the water was super refreshing. Basically just living the dream :). It was a nice relaxing day complete with nutella gelato. Which I swear is a little piece of heaven. It was absolutely amazing! Today my room mate and 2 other friends did a little more sightseeing. We went to the olympic park which I just thought was awesome. It would be so cool to be here during the olympics. It was kids day out so a lot of the arenas and everything were closed off but I look forward to going back! You can also swim in the olympic pool there and they also have a pool with a waterslide and fun toys in the aquatic center so someday we will go back and go swimming! Anyway. From what I can remember that is the past couple days! Hopefully something more exciting will happen this week!

.Let Love Keep My Will On Its Knees.

Lets see here! Friday evening I did speed friendship..which was interesting. There was free food! However i am not exactly sure what I was eating..and i didn't like it..which is saying a lot for me. Especially since it was free. When the actual friendship part started it was..interesting. The music was very loud and since it was all international students in one room it was very hard to understand anything anyone was saying. I nodded and smiled a lot. All in all. It was pretty fun. A good experience and I met a few people.
Saturday I woke up to the sun finally shining! It was beautiful. At 9 am we headed straight to the beach. It was a great day of lounging and getting some sun.
Random Fact: I LOVE that everywhere I turn there is a thai place. I plan on getting so sick of thai that I can't stand it when I get back. It's more common than McDonalds. I love it so much.
Anyway! The water was beautiful, the sun was out and the beach was amazing. A little too amazing. My back is definitely feeling the burn today. So worth it though, its so nice to have the beach so accessible for nice days. Today was also a gorgeous day, but I thought it was probably good to stay out of it for a day. There were also some awesome entertainers there! There were these guys doing a bunch of break dancing and just great entertainment. I have a video of them on facebook you can check out. There was also this adorable boy, probably around 12, playing the guitar and singing. He was SO talented. I was so impressed. He was adorable.
After the beach we decided to head back into the city to Darling Harbor to watch the fireworks.They were awesome! It was a super nice night and so we walked around the harbor for a bit before heading back. I also love all the street entertainers in Sydney. Some of them are slightly lame but I love how you can just walk around and find something to watch.
Well I think that is it! Tomorrow is the first day of my last semester of college. Ever. In Sydney. Could it get much better? I think not.

.Oh How He Loves Us.

Yesterday wasn't too exciting. In the morning I got almost all my classes figured out.all 3 of them that is. I am still waiting to get completely enrolled but I am sure it will all work out. After this was taken care of I did a pretty big load of grocery shopping. It was pretty entertaining because Callie and I walked up and down every aisle just looking at the different products. My favorite part is the variety of starburst products. The picture is on my iphone but I will post it here soon. I got starburst snakes this time. They are delicious! Also, they measure things in here in "energy" instead of calories. It makes me feel like everything I eat is giving me energy and nothing is bad for me! Great! After shopping Callie and I enjoyed the sunshine while playing rummy. We had a running total going.. I believe she beat me by about 800 points. It was really close. In the evening there was a harbor cruise for the international students. The night was absolutely gorgeous and clear. The lights from the city and the Sydney Opera House were amazing. Unfortunately I forgot my camera..again I have some pictures of my phone which I will post later. Anyway, the night was so incredible and it was a great cruise.

Today was more of a lazy morning. I got to skype Geneva! That was pretty great. After kind of getting ready and organizing my stuff a bit more I decided to use my last day on this train ticket and visit the botanical gardens. It is so beautiful and peaceful. The entire park faces the water and there are benches everywhere to just sit and relax. I took my Bible and read a bit from that and a bit of A Hole in our Gospel, which we had to read parts of for core but I decided I wanted to go back and read of all of it. It was a perfect little outing. I also tried a "flat white" which from what I understand is like a latte..but no flavor. I couldn't decide how I felt about it. On my train ride back I got very excited about being here. I have decided that I love this city. I love all the different culture, on the harbor there are so many types of people and languages and accents all around. I also love that I feel safe here. It is a city but I feel very comfortable traveling the trains by myself (in the daytime) which is so cool. It's also beautiful and I love that I can look at the Sydney Opera House everyday. I feel blessed to be here and I am excited to see what God has planned for me. Thank you everyone for all of your prayers and support. I really do have the best family and friends ever, so I could never stay here for good. :)

.Finally a Little Sun.

So I am a day behind on blogging which I promised myself I would not do since I knew I wouldn't want to start catching up. but thats ok, there isn't too much to tell in the past couple days!

Manly Beach. Yesterday I went with the school to Manly Beach. It was kind of mass chaos. It was also the international students leading the international students. Which eventually just got entertaining. All the accents were just sort of mixing together into one giant ball of confusion. Rather than just get frustrated I decided to just sit back and chuckle. It was great. The beach was gorgeous. It ended up being sunny and perfect weather so I got a little burnt! Which was nice. haha. I think I prefer Bondi Beach over Manly beach but it is still beautiful water and beautiful sand. So I'll take it. :)

Today was just a wonderful day. We had orientation so I am now on information overload. Once my brain settles down a bit I am excited to get involved in a few things. One of things is a global leadership, where all you have to do is go to 10 lectures and they will give you a letter of recommendation and a cool certificate. I am pretty excited about this because the lectures sound pretty interesting and it will be cool to hear about Australia's perspective on what is going on in the world! I also think it would be pretty cool to get involved in Cricket. So hopefully that will be a thing.

Also! One thing I do not like about Australia. Everything closes at 5! I prefer to do my grocery shopping late at night, and to have my late night fast food runs. I suppose I will have to adjust my lifestyle. :)

.Today I saw lots of aminals.

Today was a big day! With lots and lots of walking. Again. (yes I am starting to get whiney) First we walked around campus a little bit so I could get a feel for it. I pretty much loved it. It's a beautiful campus and I am actually a little excited to start classes! (Weird I know) I also signed up to go on the beach trip tomorrow to Manly so that should be fun! After that Callie and I headed for the Taronga Zoo. The zoo is on a hill and you just sort of work your way down. All the animals were pretty cool! I haven't been to the zoo since I was about 5 so it was pretty much a new experience for me. Haha. The highlight was looking for a platypus. As I was looking I put my hand on the rail and said oh Shi......and then looked at my hand and said..literally...there is actually crap on my hand. Some fresh bird crap! I found the nearest bathroom and scrubbed my hands. It was really pleasant. Other than that my favorite part was probably the koala bears. They were super cute. Plus. They sleep up to 20 hours a day because apparently eucalyptus is low in energy. I wish I was a koala bear! After the zoo Callie and I headed to the aquarium, but lunch definitely came first. We both scarfed down some delicious fish and chips. Then we went to look at the fishes we just ate. The aquairum was SO COOL. There are two parts where you walk through and its like a tunnel so the sharks and the fishies are swimming all around you. Then there is another area where there is a glass floor so they are even under you. It was pretty neat. Plus they had cool lego murals and statues everywhere which were super neat. After the aquarium we walked around the harbor and The Rocks just kind of wandering. It was pretty cute because it was valentines day so there were a bunch of couples out and a bunch of guys running around with flowers in a suit. It ended up being a pretty nice night and it was just good to be outside. Other than that I can't think of too much else that has happened today! Hopefully tomorrow brings a lot of sunshine for the beach!

.Hebrews 11:1.

First off. Hillsong was amazing. Callie and I got up at 8 (which is still very easy for me since that is 1 pm US time) and rode the train then took the bus which took us to the Hillsong Church. Right when we got there we greeted, and not just the fake greeting that people give you at the door where you can tell it is just there job. A genuine greeting, the people honestly cared we were there and were so excited to see us. I even got the chance to talk to someone who studies at Macquarie University (the Uni as she called it) and she let me know that Hillsong does a service and other activities there. The service was incredible. Everyone was up out of there seat dancing and just so excited to be at church and worshiping. The music was amazing (of course) and it was so cool because we got to hear some of the songs from the newest album aftermath. Which I definitely recommend. The message was awesome as well. I'm not sure if what the speaker had to say was great, or it just sounded awesome in an Australian accent, either way.. I listened! Just everything about church made me so excited. I am stoked to go to the Macquarie service every week and get plugged in there.  I really can't explain much more than that but it was just an incredible experience and I feel so blessed to be able to go to the actual Hillsong Church.
After church Callie and I headed to the beach, even though once again it was a bit cold and rainy, and once again I didn't bring a jacket. Whatevs. The sand and the beach were beautiful. I can't wait to go back on a sunny day and just soak it up and do some people watching. We also walked around the markets, and I have decided that from now on all of my clothes shopping will be coming from there. That just seems awesome, and I like to be awesome. After wandering a bit we started to walk back to the bus stop, and then got very sidetracked by the gorgeous view. There is a pathway that goes along the coast and it is all super rocky and so pretty. You can see the waves crashing into the rocks and the water is such a pretty color. The beach we were on is called Bondi beach and is one of the more popular beaches in the area.
The day ended with some great skyping with the parentals and card playing with Callie. Which I lost horribly. All in all. Fantastic day. Hillsong made me super excited to see what magical adventures Australia has to bring me. Tomorrow is zoo and aquarium day!

.Today was Callie's Birthday!.

Today was a great day! First of all. I got to celebrate Callie's birthday with her before anyone else! I think that is pretty awesome. We started out the day by doing something awesome. Getting phones. I feel much more connected to the world, even if my only contact is Callie. The guys at the phone station were super nice, although one admitted he probably shouldn't be at work because of everything he had done the night before. The other guy responded with "we have no shame". Oh Australia. After this we did something else awesome. Got me some internet! It is awesome. I feel so much more connected and it is great to be able to message and skype with people. Even if it is measured in broadband and I have a limit. I will take it! After this we went shopping so I could get a few necessities. Like a toothbrush and toothpaste...because apparently mine were lost somewhere along the line. Some of you might be trying to do the math to see how long it would have been since I brushed my teeth. Don't. It's gross. I would also like to mention that I am pretty sure we went shopping at the Walmart of Australia. So that was a big step for me. Once we got all of these important things done we started exploring Sydney!
We started with getting our passes and taking the train to the harbor. Oh! I forgot to mention something I love about Australia. When you are at a crosswalk you push the button and it goes *beep*beep*beep*...until it goes *dingalingaling*click*click*click* and that means you can start walking! (im not quite sure what the clicks mean although it makes me feel like I am being timed so I try to walk faster) It makes me feel like I am in a video game! Everytime. I love it. ANYWAY...so at the harbor were the chinese dragon races. Apparently this is quite a big deal. I meant to upload pictures of all of this but that didn't quite happen, hopefully soon! We watched that for a little bit and then wandered around the harbor. All around the harbor there is this like river fountain thingy. Again, I will have pictures later. It is super cool because all the little kids were playing in the water (even if it wasn't that warm out) I am hoping to go back someday when the sun is out and watch them. It was super cute! From there we went to the Chinese Garden. This was super pretty and peaceful, but mostly Callie and I just talked about how great of a time Devin will have in China. We decided it was about lunchtime at this point and went to lunch in a food court in Chinatown.
Oh! Other side note. Everything in Australia is EXPENSIVE. Granted there is no tax, so that is nice, but it is really really hard to accept the cost of everything. Although there are no pennies, so they get a point for that.
Anyway! After forcing some pad thai down my throat for lunch (apparently a part of jet lag is loss of appetite, who knew?) we walked around Paddy's market. This seems like a very nice place to get some souvenirs later in the trip. From here we walked around the fish market and then took the train to The Rocks, which is pretty close the opera house! Again, pictures later. This was pretty cool to see and just be so close to, it made it feel like we were actually in Sydney. After snapping a few pics we walked around the shops and market in this area but it started to POUR. I didn't really dress for the day (shorts and a tank top) so after awhile we decided to just head back to the train and come home. We finished the day with a great dinner and some emails and skyping! All in all. Pretty successful day. It was good to really be around the city and to get a feel for the transportation system. Tomorrow we are headed to the Hillsong Church and the beach! Hopefully the weather is a little better, although maybe I will pick out my outfit a bit more carefully. Alrighty. Good night!

.Quite the last...however many hours.

Well the adventure started at about 7:00 pm on Wednesday. I shut off my phone. To all the people who know me know that this is a huge deal. Somehow I managed not to curl up in the corner in the fetal position although I still feel a bit empty without my lifeline to everyone. At 7:45 we flew out of Seattle and landed in LA with just enough time to board the plane to Sydney. This 14 hour flight consisted of: 3 episodes of Modern Family, a little sleep, Going the Distance (meh. not great), a little more sleep, Due Date  (didn't really like it much at all), and a little more sleep, and then breakfast and Sydney! PS. Plane food is disgusting. There was this really fantastic part of the flight where this little kid during breakfast said "this smells like yogurt and I am NOT going to eat it". I have to give him a little credit though, at that age on a 14 hour plane flight I would have been cranky too. Callie was just proud of me for not whining almost at all. Almost.

As soon as we got to Sydney it was a blur of customs and getting our baggage. This is where the troubles started. Callie and I had to separate because she couldn't ride my shuttle, which means we had no means of communication and didn't really know how getting back together was going to go. We thought we would be able to communicate through wireless and email..because..well..who doesn't have wireless everywhere? Apparently Australia. On the way to the apartments I heard some people talking about the fact that we didn't have wireless internet..this began my freakout. I got to my apartment with no means of communication with Callie or anyone else and in an entirely different country with different people and this all started to hit. But I did make it to my apartment. I threw down my stuff, changed my clothes and started walking to the shopping center just a few blocks away. I thought..there has to be a coffee shop with wireless..that just has to be a thing! I ran around the mall with my phone glued to my hand refreshing it every 30 seconds just trying to find wireless. Eventually I asked someone who paused..and said I don't know.. (more panic on my end) and then he remembered the coffeeshop where you could get wifi. I ran upstairs, bought a bottle of water and begged them for their internet. From there I was able to text a few people, email Callie, and feel a little bit better, even if I was shaking the entire time. After realizing there was no more I could do I went back to my apt where I met my roommates. One is from Wisconsin and one is from Austria, they both seem really laid back and nice so that was very comforting. Candace (the one form Wisconsin) had a braodband connector so Callie and I finally had contact and met up!

After those few hours of awfulness it was pretty uphill. We walked around the shopping center and figured out which phones we are getting. It was also super fun to sit by the train station while I waited for Callie and watch all the kids coming out with their uniforms on. The people here are ridiculously nice and want to talk to you about living in America..even when its not necessarily what you want to do. Even though we are in the city everything feels very safe, even safer than Spokane! haha. Of course the accents are awesome.  I am really hoping to pick it up before I come home! It was a roller coaster of a day and I can't believe I am here. I am hoping more food and rest and a little less jetlag will equal an awesome day tomorrow.

.This is the first day of the rest of your life.

So. Tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow I will begin to adventure to do things in Australia.

I'm excited, nervous, happy, sad, basically every emotion imaginable for a situation like this. I keep trying to remind myself that no matter what God has it under control..but sometimes I just kind of want to say.."are you sure you know what you're doing?" haha. I am so very excited for this opportunity and also excited to see how I grow and change (but not too much no worries) as a person.

The big, hard part that I have been procrastinating as long as possible came yesterday. The goodbyes. I cried as soon as I said goodbye to everyone in my house. They are super amazing and it made me so sad to leave. They all better be reading this and better keep in touch in the next few months. Kathy, I will be expecting a message on my wall every day! :) I also bawled again when saying goodbye to the best friend. I have been in constant conversation with Geneva since we became friends in august. She has become my other half. I kind of don't know how to leave her. I will miss her a lot. I hope she doesn't adventure to do many things without me. Bottom line. I have the best friends and family in the world and as I'm leaving I sometimes think I am crazy to leave all these people to go to a place with a bunch of strangers. I'm hoping that there are still some awesome people in Australia. haha.

So now that those are done I'm basically just ready to go. No more waiting around and thinking about how weird and scary this all is. I just want to GO. As soon as I get the chance I will let everyone know I am safe and settled. Here we go!

.Things are gonna change now for the better.

Post number one. I leave for Sydney in one week and I am almost kind of sort of ready. I'm not packed or anything like that of course. However, I do know where my passport is, I feel like that is the most important part. The goodbyes have begun and really aren't terrible. Luckily I feel like technology makes this world seem a bit smaller and I know that the people I am saying goodbye to will be reading this blog as well as contacting me in whatever way possible. I also know that when I am back in 5 months I will see everyone again. I'm pretty blessed to have such awesome people in my life. I will miss the amazing burrow, it has been such a great house with a fantastic group of girls. I couldn't have asked for a better situation for my last semester in Spokane. Anyway, I may feel differently Monday but right now I am mostly excited for my adventure.


I only have one major worry, that I will not make most of this fantastic opportunity that is given to me. I feel very blessed to be able to spend 5 months in a totally different country and I hope that I am able to make the most of it. I do not want to be on the plane ride home thinking about all the things I didn't do or that I wish I would have made more of my time. My goal is to experience as much of the country as possible and feel like I did everything I possibly could.

Anyway, those are just a few thoughts I have the week before I leave. I suppose maybe I should go start packing and getting ready to go. Wow. Sometimes it is hard to believe I am really going. I can't really be in denial about it anymore though!