BULA! From Fiji!

I am the last one standing of Apartment 20. Everyone moved on out and got on a plane to head to Fiji. Me on the other hand didnt get to go until the day after. I spent the night at Mouses house with my fellow straggler Ali. We had a fun night of hanging at the Bronte Surf club and drinking "scooners" (beers) and watching the sun set. We had our farewell dinner at Ali's favorite Indo place. ( a brave step for me)

The next morning I said my final goodbyes to Australia. I can't believe this day has come! On the bright side I'm headed to Fiji for one last trip and a chance to rap my head around the fact that I the most memorable experience of a lifetime has come to an end. On the 5 hour flight to Fiji I am sitting next to two New York boys who also happen to go to Indiana! Small world huh! I arrive in Fiji around 10pm and navigate my way through customs and try and figure out how to meet up with the rest of my roomies at the hotel. Everyone in Fiji is super friendly with big smiles and "Bula" which means Hello (this is a word I herd close to 5 million times! Bulas left and right) An airport employee asks me if I need a taxi and I do, so he runs out and calls someone for me. This guy takes my luggage and says he will be right back with the car. He pulls up in a station wagon, no taxi sign anywhere! It was his personal car, there wasn't even a meter! He is speeding through the dark, the roads are barely paved, not lined, and no lights. We driving through some pretty seedy places and I start to think this is how the movie "Taken" starts and I'm panicking inside but keeping cool on the outside (I think) But all goes well and I get dropped of at the beautiful hotel and then totally get ripped off by paying in Oz money and getting Fijian back...oh well small price to pay for making it there alive!

We stayed at the Westin on the island of Denaru which is basically an island of resorts. But very pretty! I meet up with my roommates and Sasha has been eaten alive my mosquitoes and Britty has a horrible sunburn! Looks like I missed out on a good day lol! We ate some dinner and then promptly passed out in our ultra plush beds. The next morning we did some more sneaking around because again we were only paying for 2 guest and there were 3 of us. Breakfast was included so we did this shuffle so all of us could still get the free breakfast! My first day there it was rainy and yucky but it turned out to be the best day I had. The hotel recreation director asked us if we wanted to try some cava, a traditional Fijian drink. So we all sat in a circle and watched him prepare it. Some powdered root and water were mixed together to make dirty water and that's what we drank. It tasted just how it sounds, like dirty water with some sand in it, and the effects make your tongue go numb for a few seconds. In the background there was a ukulele band playing and we end up singing along and dancing. That night we ventured out of the resort island and found a traditional Fijian restaurant. We were the only ones in there and the food was amazing! We inhaled our dinners and deserts and the chef came out so we could thank her, she was the cutest little lady ever! Also at the restaurant they had a cd of some awesome drum music and one thing lead to another and there was a big dance party with all us girls and the two women who worked there. They showed us traditional dances and we laughed and danced all night. A very memorable experience.

The rest of the stay in Fiji was low key, the weather got better and we sat by the pool and reminisced about the last few months. All we did was eat, sit by the pool, eat some more and sleep! It was very relaxing and just what I needed before I came home. Sasha and I had a few Pina Coldas at the bar and then headed off to the airport. I slept the whole way to LA and finally arrived. I was super jealous of Sasha because this was her last stop. I had a 6 hour flight back to the NY, I fought to stay up the whole fight in hopes that it would beat the jetlag. I landed in NY around 1:30am July 3. I was greeted by my whole family! Mom and Dad, Maggie and Erin and James too! They were all holding signs, Dads was the funniest saying "Party's over!" I immediately started crying as soon as I saw them, it had just been too long!

Its good to be home and now it all feels like one wonderful dream!

The End is Near

We are fitting in all the last minute things we haven't done yet. Wednesday we went to see a show in the Opera House, we saw "Cabaret Decadanse" it wasn't in the main hall, but in a smaller venue but the show was great. It was a puppet show, but done it a unique way, you could see the humans controlling them and they often interacted with pupets, it was really clever and fun. At first I didn't think I would like it and wondered what I got myself into but after I got over the initial shock of the quirkiness I really enjoyed it! The songs were entertaining and some were really funny and I also enjoyed the how random it was.

Since the winter weather has lightened and it feels like spring we went on the Hunter Valley Wine Tour. Hunter Valley is a wine country about 2 hours out of Sydney, we booked a tour and we got picked up in Sydney and drove out there by our very charismatic bus driver, who talked the whole way there. Oh did I mention that we got picked up at 7:30 am! The tour took us to small boutique wineries where we learned a bit about the wines, got to taste them and see the winery and vineyards. We had lunch in the little town that was really cute and small, we got some home made fudge that was great and we also did some cheese tasting. It was a fun day and we were all exhausted after, not to mention a bit tipsy. Hunter Valley was beautiful, the vineyards were so pretty and perfect and we were lucky to get such a great day!

After learning about some bad news that my grandfather had passed away and seeing the beautiful day outside, I was desperate to get out of the apartment. Brit and I walked down to Bondi Beach and ventured on the Bondi to Coogee Coastal Walk. Its about 2 miles up hill along the coastline looking out to the Tasman Sea. Walking from Bondi Beach we passed Tamarama Beach and sat on the rocks and watched the waves crash in and the surfers catch wave and be crashed by waves. I could have sat there and watched them all day. We then ran into our Spring Break guide Matty Dee, it was good catching up with him. We walked on to Bronte Beach and further trucked our way to Coogee. It was a tough walk with hills and steps and a cemetery detour. We made it to Coogee and were exhausted, we caught the bus home and took long naps! When I woke up my roommates had surprised me with flowers in condolences of the grandfather. It was really touching , I have such great roommates and friends!

First Class Passports

Our flight to New Zealand was nice, the flight was empty and we were able to all have our own rows so we could sleep, and we needed it. We arrive in Christchurch at 12:30 am and we get right into our rental car for a 6 hour drive to Queenstown. We get to our car and it is a clown car! We cant fit all of our luggage in it so we had to put a seat down and pour Brit and Sasha crammed in the back. There are no such things as major highways in NZ just one laned country roads and they are not many of them. While driving through the night we drove up and down many twisty and turny roads in the dark, we came prepared with cds tho! We didn't see another car for hours, but what we did see was 100's rabbits darting into the road. Unfortunately I ran one over....we had a moment of silence for the bunny, it was sad. We finally arrive in Queenstown, and check in to our hotel at 6 am we laid down to take a nap until 10 but we all slept through the alarm and woke up at one.We got up to explore and find some lunch, and its FREEZING! since we still had the car until the end of the night we tried to drive over to Deer Park to do some sightseeing especially some Lord of the Rings spots, even though none of us would have known what we were looking at since we haven't really seen the movies. (sorry Maggie and Erin, hate to break it to you but I not a Lord of the Ring nerd like you two! j.k) But we got the directions wrong and ended up driving the wrong way. But no big we still saw some beautiful sights and drove up to Lake Wanaka and saw a beautiful sunset. That night we ate at Winnies and ran in to JP a friend from our spring break trip.

The next day we rented another car and drove to Milford sound which is about three hours away on a treacherous little road that went to the top of some mountains and through a mountain by a mile long tunnel. It was a pretty drive, although this rental didnt have a cd player, so we were stuck listening to Brit and Sasha singing the whole way. We caught a cruise tour boat that took us around the sound. Most beautiful snow covered mountains everywhere! The boat driver would take us almost right under some waterfalls! Nuts! The high light of this day was seeing the herd of dolphins leading our boat, so cool! Nicole was also in NZ and we kept just missing each other, when we got to our car in the parking lot I made a guess on which camper van was Nicole's because I knew they were there too, I left an note on my subway wrapper and put it on their windshield!
Our last day in Queenstown we just hung out in the town, which is super cute it felt like Aspen or Lake Tahoe. It was a cute wintery ski town right on the lake. We took the gondola up a mountain to get a beautiful view of Queenstown and the lake. There is a old myth about the lake called the Maori Legend, the giant Matau burnt to death while he was curled up sleeping after stealing the chiefs daughter. This is why the lake is "S" shaped and Queenstown sits on his knee. This myth is also used to explain the mystery of the rising and falling of the lake every 5 minutes, this is said to be Matau's heart still beating. Anyways, it was so beautiful, this entire trip we kept gushing over the views and the landscape, we probably said Wow hundreds of times. That night we decided to go out for one drink and ran into our friends again who were on the bar crawl so we ended up tagging along and then made a late night stop at the famous Fergburger.

The next day we packed up and headed towards Christchurch but we decided to stop half way in Lake Tiekapo. This was the smallest whole in the wall town ever, there was 2 hotels and 300 people living there. The reason we stayed there because we herd there were hot springs but they were man made but it was still a pretty nice spa. While in Tiekapo at 3 am Brit realized that we had left our passports in the safe a Queenstown! We frantically tried figure out what to do and what would be most cost effective. Turns out that we ended up getting our passports flown first class to Christchurch so we could pick them up before our flight. So scary and dumb!
We arrive in Christchurch with barely any money left, we drove around got some lunch and tried to kill some time. It was a cool city but not much to do there, so we went and saw a movie The Hangover. It was sooo funny! Since we spent $160 on getting out passports to us we decided to get the cheapest hotel possible...the airport. We slept in the airport since our flight as at 6:30 am it was a very eventful 5 days. This was definitely a trip we wont forget!

Boys are Back in Town

It seems were attached at the hip. Two weeks after spring break we went to Melbourne to visit our friends we meet on our trip, Benny, Chris, Jason, Dubs, & Tyler. Now two weeks after that trip they came to visit us in Sydney. Tuesday we were chatting with them about possibly coming and then all of a sudden they are coming on Wednesday! There is a mad dash to get all of work done so we can be free to play while they are here, clean the apartment, go grocery shopping and figure out what to do with them!

Wednesday they came and we have a family dinner of pasta and some ghetto chicken parm made of frozen patties and American cheese (made by Jason and Dubs) We ate and drank and then headed out to our favorite Wednesday spot, the Eastern. Its only our favorite because its across the street! It was a long night of dancing and drinking and then we all crammed into our apartment trying to find a place to sleep. We have four single beds and one couch, 7 people sleeping here. Next day I had class bright and early and all day. I come home to see everyone still in PJs at 4 o'clock, watching movies. So cute the boys had went out and got us flowers! It was their "rent" we payed had payed them in snickers bars. We spent the long weekend partying and occasionally sight seeing. All the boys had been to Sydney but Chris so we took him down to Bondi Beach, the rocks, the opera house and harbor bridge, all the must sees. One night we ate in the rocks at a cute little Italian place that was out side. We were enjoying our dinner when it started to down pour on us. We were under a covering but with the gusts of wind we were all still getting soaked. Chris ate his dinner under an umbrella. It seemed that every time we stepped out of the house it started to rain. Just our luck. One day it was so yucky we stayed in and watched the Sex and the City Movie, this wasn't the girls pick in movies lol. We went to the rocks market and looked around there, it was my first time there too. Its a cool market with some really unique stuff and some good food too, like the 5 chocolate covered strawberries on a stick! yum!

It was so good seeing the boys but also kinda sad since we wouldn't be seeing the again in Australia. But since most are from Boston and Dubs in Connecticut we made plans to see each other this summer. And of course we still have our long skype conversations, so its not "see you never"

:::Market, Mice, Road Trip::: Melbourne dos!

The day after the footy game me and Court woke up semi early and went out to explore some more, by this point our trip was coming to an end and we hadn't seen much of the city, we have been having an awesome time, we just hadn't seen much. The boys had told us that we needed to go to the market and check it out. This is where they did most of their grocery shopping, for the fresh foods at least. It was crazy they were auctioning off meats and vegetables, it was very hectic. There were some stands further in that reminded me of good old Italian delis and home with the meat hanging and the cheese display. It was cool to see and funny to hear the Italian Aussie accent! Also in the market there were cheap vendors selling clothes and other junk, it always fun to look at. I actually bought a purse I bargained in down $50! I probably was still getting ripped off but I like it and its still holding together! There was a small doughnut stand that brought back some childhood memories of the Oak Park Farmers Market, the cinnamon sugar doughnuts...yum! they smelled just the same but they were sold out and my hopes and dreams were crushed. We settled for Krispy Kremes later, eh, close enough.


We wondered the city and took in the cool architecture. There was an interesting mix of classic old building and incredibly modern and artistic buildings right next to each other. I really felt like a tourist because I walked around looking up all day, I couldn't get over how cool some of the buildings were. I really enjoyed the feel of Melbourne, it felt very European and small, much more cultured than Sydney. I love them both, they just have very different feels. Me and Court did a bit of souvenir shopping, walked around and rode the tram. Public transit here with the trams is so much easier than Sydney! Also is was so much cheaper, aka it was free! Actually I don't think it really was, but we never figured out how to pay and we weren't mad about it!

That night all of us ladies met up for a dinner together in St. Kilga. Along our travels there were came across a very interesting character, this 70 something man was telling us a story that he had written, cant really remember the story expect that were was lots of killings and "boos!" in it, interesting guy. We ate at this really cute pizza restaurant. It was small gourmet pizzas and the menus was written on a chalkboard on the wall. The pizza was phenomenal as well as the hot chocolate and wine! We had a nice dinner and we all enjoyed our selves and felt very satisfied. This was all until at the end of our meal we spotted the cutest little thing....a baby mouse! Cute but freaked us all out, it was running around the fire place which we were sitting pretty close to. We all sat with a feet picked up off the ground in fear it might run up our leg or something!Yuck! That night we stayed in, which was a good choice because we had a big day ahead of us. Although we didn't go out, I still only got one hour of sleep...bad moves

It was bad moves because we were up at 6:30 to go pick up our MINI VAN! yup! Monday we rented a car to go drive the Great Ocean Road. Guess who was elected to drive, me. I was so nervous, not only was I driving on the wrong side of the road, I was driving this big old minivan! I got the hang of the other side of the road thing pretty quickly, just a little difficult with turns, but most of the driving was on a highway. phew! It took us about two hours to get to the Great Ocean Road, which was basically a road that drove right along the coastline on cliffs that twisted and turned everywhere with steep drops and hill with amazing views. It also took you through the rain forest too. The drive was beautiful, and I love to drive so I thoroughly enjoyed it. It only took me 2 coffees and a can of coke to get me going! We drove the the 12 Apostle which is the main tourist attraction. The were pretty cool, you wouldn't think so because they are just big rocks in the water, but they were pretty cool! It reminded me of the Cliffs of Moore in Ireland! We basically saw the apostles took some pictures had some laughs and hopped in the car to race back to the airport to make our flights. We made it with 25 minutes to spare! yessss! It was a full day of driving though and I was exhausted!

It was great seeing the boys and seeing the city! We came back to Sydney and back to reality and heaps of home work! That's why these posts have been few and far between. Too much work to do :(

:::Travel Mishaps, Adrian, Footy::: Melbourne

Our trip to Melbourne start a bit turbulent, our flight was scheduled for 6:30, we had to be at the airport at 5:30, we had to catch two trains to get the airport at 4:20, and I got out of class at 3:00. To top it all off, I hadn't packed or showered. I ran in the door after class around 3:25 to jump in the shower and I find that my lovely roommate Courtney has laid out clothes for me and a packing list as well. We make our train, mostly because of Courtney's help with the packing and make it to the airport where we can finally relax, I was so rushed that I had to blow dry and straighten my hair in the airport bathroom. Security in the airport is incredibly lax, I didn't have to show my ID once! Going through the security I didn't have to take off my shoes or show them my boarding pass! crazy! We arrive in Melbourne and of course things cant go too smoothly, we were scheduled to take a bus 1 hour to Melbourne and we thought we had 20minutes before the bus left. So we went to the bathroom to freshen up and guess what, we missed the bus! We had to take a $100 cab ride....ugh! Oh well we made it and it was nice to see the boys from spring break waiting with bottles of wine for us!

First night there we hung out in their closet of an apartment, literally a closet. The room only contained a bed and a desk built against the wall and a narrow walkway to get around. It felt like solitary confinement!But it didnt matter, it was nice of them to squeeze us in there and it was good to see them! After draining a few bottles of wine we went out to find a place to party. No such luck, we ended up at a super swanky place where we had a few cocktails and stood out horribly. We decided to go back to the rooms and make it an early night (you know around 1 or so) We were met with a surprise when we got back. Apparently the boys were supposed to sign us in as guests and they didn't. So when we got home we were met by Adrian the bodyguard who wouldn't let us in because we weren't on the list. This begins a most interesting night of being chased around the building by Adrian trying to get in and hide from him. We were hiding in alleyways, attempting to climb in windows and scale walls, and borrow other peoples IDs. Finally around 3am we finally got in the rooms. Needless to say we were signed in for the rest of the weekend.

Our first full day there was kind of a waste. Me and Courtney tried to find Sasha and Brittany but were unsuccessful. We walked around Brunskwick and ate at the most cutest and bestest breakfast place! We rode the tram and explored a bit, but we were exhausted so we meet up with some of the other girls who had gotten a hotel room and took a nap while they finished their last minute papers. That night we went to Transport Bar and stopped for a late night snack at Lord of the Fries, the best fries place ever (apparently, I didn't eat em)

The next day we got up early and started to grill out in their courtyard and drink beers around 11. Benny cooked and we tried to pitch in here and there, but mainly just watched. We all hung out and got ready for the AFL game, which we were really excited about! The Tigers and Lions were playing and we got tickets as high up as you could go. This is a totally different type of rugby than what the Waratahs play, this field is round and you score and pass by kicking the ball. It is still incredibly rough, 2 players got seriously injured during this game. It was really cold this day and no matter how many layers I put on I was still freezing! Our friend Tyler's parents were in town and they came with us to the game, Tyler's mom gave me a Bentley Football sweatshirt to wear since I was turning blue. I was really embarrassed and tried to not to wear it, but eventually I couldn't feel my fingers and put it on. That night we went to Billboards which was a wild dance club. I enjoy going to these because its soo much fun to watch the Australian boys dance to techno, its a style of dance unlike anything I have seen before, its very entertaining! And of course the night isn't complete without a late night Kebabs. Again I have yet to try one.

Oh I almost forgot! Speaking of me and being to big of a wuss about food, on the way home from the AFL game we stopped at the boys favorite place to eat, a Indian food place! Me and Courtney were really wary about trying this since neither of us have before but the boys encouraged us to try it. We split Buttered Chicken because that's what they ordered for us. Surprisingly it was really good! We both enjoyed it and were proud of ourselves for trying it. But when we got back to the apartment someone told us a little secret about that place....that it was recently written up for being the dirtiest place in Melbourne! The boys new this but took us there anyway they don't seem to care, to them its a cheap good meal! Yuck!

Sorry I'm going to split this into 2 post, for some reason these days my posts are getting to be longer and longer. And i know that you wont read 5 pages worth of my chattiness in one sitting! Tomorrow will be the second half!

ANZAC Day

ANZAC Day is an important day in Australian history. ANZAC stands for Australia New Zealand Army Corps. It is celebrated on April 25 in order to commemorate those soldiers who fought in Gallipoli, Turkey during World War I. Gallipoli could be compared to D-day in the US because there was a massive loss of Australian lives during that battel. The ANZAC legend is born from this, it created a sense of national pride for the Aussies and a sense of national identity away from Great Britain. Now ANZAC day is a national holiday much like Memorial Day back home, but of course with different traditions.

We got to experience of the biggest ANZAC Day tradition, gambling and the horse races! We decided to go to the Royal Randwick Races and it felt like the Kentucky Derby. We woke up early and started drinking wine. Courtney also had a friend from Indiana staying with us for the weekend. So we all got dressed and head off to the race tracks. We got their and even though we were in nice summer dresses we were pretty under dressed. The girls were wearing fancy cocktail dresses and extravagant hats. All the guys were in 3 piece suits or in their fancy uniforms all decorated with medals. We made our way down to the race track to watch some of the races. the race track was a cross country type of course (I dont know the proper name for it) not the typical circular race track. Some of us made bets on the horses, I didn't. I learned my lesson in Ireland betting on Yankee Pride who came in dead last! No more betting on the ponies for me! But it was still fun to root for the horse that was the prettiest or the coolest jokey colors and people watch.

After the races we were all really tired and hungry. Everyone passed out on the couches and I stayed up and watched Miss World and ate McDonald's haha!