Sydney and more

G’day my friends! Still hanging in there? I suppose I am. Australia is absolutely incredible and I wish you all could experience it. It’s a bit strange though, that’s for sure. Today it was about 22, which is around 70 F. That’s insane, we’re supposed to be in winter. All the Americans agree that it has sort of seemed like Spring lately though. The grass is growing and really green where there was no grass, everything else is turning green, all due to all this rain we’re getting, it just feels like spring overall. Except for the fact that the temperature is dropping. But then there have been a few days like today when it’s really warm and feels completely like Spring! So strange, even more so than Kansas! It’s crazy just how much your body is used to weather patterns and it throws me off having completely different weather. It is getting colder, but unlike winter back home, the days still appear to be gorgeous and warm with the bright sun out and blue skies, it’s just a colder air. That’s kind of weird. It’s been really windy as well, just about every single day. It has been raining more as well, which is normal for them, winter brings rain. But it only rains really. I’ve only heard a few rumbles of thunder since I’ve been here and only seen lightning once and that was just a week or two ago!! Even the weather is different, how crazy is that. So are the birds and the trees, it’ll be weird to go home to those birds and trees, I haven’t seen a cardinal or bluebird in forever, or an oak tree or anything like that. I like everything here though. It’s crazy how much it seems like a piece of my heart will be left behind here when I leave. I really love it here, there’s just something almost “magical” about it all, I don’t know. You are a mate to everyone and they’re all so happy and fun most all of the time, no worries mate, things are good, or will be soon. It’s nice. A little side note, just to let all of you know, I am completely and totally enjoying myself to the fullest here, every single day. Even if I have a sad day or rough day in some way, it doesn’t hold me back, it doesn’t keep me from taking full advantage of this opportunity of a lifetime I have been given. I could never do that, so I continue to enjoy every day I have here.

Okay, so back to Sydney. Saturday was our second day and we were a little more energized with a decent night’s sleep. We still forced ourselves to get up and around by 9 to make the most of our day. Our hostel had free breakfast of toast and jam so we grabbed some of that on our way out. We decided this day was going to be full of walking just to see all the sites. So we walked from our hostel a little ways to get to the Botanical Gardens. We walked through those and out to the point by the harbour where Mrs. Macquarie’s chair was, although we didn’t see the chair if there actually is one. It was a spectacular view of the Opera House with the Bridge behind it. So we stopped to take some pictures and such. We kept walking along the harbour towards the Opera House. There we took a few more pictures and kept on our walking tour. We walked down to Circular Quay and over to The Rocks area. This was the oldest part of Sydney so the buildings were really old and looked pretty cool. We went to the visitor centre first to grab some more detailed maps of the area and one had a few historic places it talked about so we headed on in that path. We walked under the bridge and back around the area a bit until we came to this old church that I think was the military church of something. It was a gorgeous old stone church with beautiful stained glass and everything. From there we headed up the hill to Observation park with great views of the bridge and the other side of the city. We stopped in at the Observatory while we were there. We only spent a few minutes in there but I could have spent a lot more! It was so awesome, I love the sky, I’m obsessed, so seeing all these big telescopes and different ways to see the sky and measure the stars and whatnot was really interesting to me. I wish we could have been there at night and seen a show they put on and get to look through this huge telescope up in the dome. It was still cool to see it though. So we walked back over to the Rocks area to find somewhere to eat some lunch. We found a good little pizza place and went to sit down. That’s when we met up with Clay!!! He is studying in Wollongong, a little ways south of Sydney, and was nice enough to come up for the day to see me! I was very excited, it was great to see an old friend and get a big hug. Now we’ve been to London, Paris, and Sydney together! How crazy is that, pretty cool. So we got a nice lunch and decided to hunt for some gelato, but failed. This was when we split up. I wanted to walk across the bridge but Jenny and Heather didn’t, so Loretta, Clay and me went in search of the bridge while Jenny and Heather wandered around. It took a little while to figure out how to get up to the bridge since we were right under it, but we got there and walked all the way across. I kind of wanted to go up in the pylon to get a better view, but it cost money and really didn’t look too much taller. We got some great views just walking across the bridge! It was a gorgeous day outside as well which helped make it even more beautiful in the harbour. Rather than walk back, we decided to take the train since the station was right there. So we thought we’d go over towards Hyde Park to explore that. We took the train to Town Hall which led out into the Queen Victoria Building. This was a funny experience. Well, first off the trains are all double decker which is pretty cool so we sat up top. When we got off though we had to validate our ticket to leave, and our ticket was only a one way so it just ate it up as you walked through the open gates. Well Clay was right behind me to tell me this, but Loretta didn’t know what was happening, so she didn’t walk through in time and the gate shut on her. So she hopped over, well you’re not supposed to do that. There was a security guard there who stopped her and asked very intimidating, what did you do that for? We tried to explain to him what happened that we didn’t know it just ate your ticket and it was our first time. He said that was a $200 fine if you hop over the gate thing but we told him again and he let us go with just warning her. It was funny. Anyway, the QVB used to be something else, but now it’s a big mall. It’s an absolutely gorgeous old building though, so that was kind of cool. We found our way out and the direction we needed to be heading and saw the Town Hall which is a nice building as well. We had to walk a few blocks over to get to Hyde Park and ran into a great old man singing some bad songs on the street corner advertising for Dick Smith electronics, interesting. There were some actual good street performers around Circular Quay, some good aboriginal didgeridoo players and some “statue” people you know. Anyway, at Hyde Park we went to see the Reflection Pool and the Anzac War Memorial. That was pretty cool since I’d just written a paper over the Anzacs and we got to go the memorial service on Anzac Day. We walked down the park to some fountain and also we could see the big old Cathedral there, I forget who’s, maybe St. Paul’s? It is an absolutely beautiful cathedral though, I loved it. So from there we walked across the street to see all the old government buildings and such. We basically just walked by all of them, but we saw the old barracks, the mint museum, the Parliament building, Sydney Hospital, and the state Library. There were some cool buildings, and in front of the hospital was a boar that you were supposed to put change into and rub its nose for good luck. There’s one exactly like it in Kansas City down on the plaza!! I was very excited, so of course I put in my 20 cent piece and rubbed its nose and got my picture with him. We came back to the nearest train station from there and that’s where we left Clay. He was a great tour guide and great at teaching us the train system! It was so good to see him and get to talk with him, it was so normal! So I got a great big goodbye hug and we had a movie goodbye as he rode off in the train after the doors shut. Then Loretta and I got on our train back to King’s Cross and our hostel. Jenny and Heather still weren’t back, they had called us to ask if we wanted to go to the IMAX so they bought us tickets for the next night. We just sat around the room and relaxed a little bit before we started getting ready to go to the ballet at the Opera House. We all got ready pretty quickly and headed down the street for some dinner at Roy’s Café nearby. It was actually very delicious, it was a pretty upscale café. We enjoyed a nice glass of wine and some amazing fresh dinner. Then we caught a bus into the city, we looked so nice and were all dolled up to go to the ballet and be all sophisticated, but still had to take the bus. So we got there and walked down to the Opera House and found our seats for the ballet, it was called New Romantics. It was absolutely wonderful, really. I have only been to see the Nutcracker as far as ballets and I didn’t think I was really a huge fan of ballet, but this was amazing. The dance and the music evoked so many emotions. It was very impressive. I’m not sure how to describe it, I guess here are some words that came to mind; power, grace, strength, beauty, emotional, tender, intense, romantic, gentle. Everything about it was really romantic, and I couldn’t believe the way those dancers could move their bodies, it’s insane. The pit was really good as well and cool to be able to watch them playing the music that was so flawless to go with the dance. The talent involved in the whole production was incredible. There were three parts and two intermissions but it was still only a couple hours, totally worth it. Our tickets were only $26 because it was limited view but we could see everything but some of them entering off one side so it was spectacular! I couldn’t believe how much I enjoyed the ballet and how moving it was. It was fun to talk between acts as well, we talked about childhood and growing up with all the strange toys and fads for some reason, always entertaining. We took a taxi ride home after it and went to bed fairly quickly as it had been another long day.

Sunday was another packed but fun filled day. We got up early again and grabbed some toast and jam. Then we caught the train over to Bondi Junction where we hopped on a bus to take us to Bondi Beach, a world famous surf beach. It was huge, and very gorgeous! We walked around a little, there was a little path along the cliffs so we went a little ways on that. Then we came back and walked along the beach a little ways. I went on further to get some more views and stick my feet in the water and found all the little shops. The other girls met me there and we looked in some shops and found a good place for some lunch. It was another beautiful day and quite warm really. Lunch was tasty and more food than any of us needed! We walked back to catch the bus and then got on the train and headed to Olympic Park a little further inland and out of Sydney. We had to go back to Central Station though and then catch one to Libscombe where we caught one that went into the park directly. So we walked around the Olympic Park where the 2000 Olympic Games were held. That was pretty awesome. I can remember watching them and now I’ve actually been where all that stuff was I saw! We walked around near Telstra Stadium and all these cool poles they have there with info about the games on them. We walked over to the Cauldron that held the flame where they also had laid in the stone ribbons of plaques with all the medal winners on them for all events. We went over to the skate park as well and saw some little kids on their skate boards which was pretty cool. Then we all got a snack and walked on to see some fountain that looked like it’d be fun to play in. We picked up a 50 cent ice cream cone from Macker’s (McDs) on our way back to the train. So we made our way back on the train, switching lines a few times to get back to Circular Quay. We bought tickets for the ferry to Manly Beach but just missed the one then. So we had to wait a little while to catch the next one. We were a little screwed up with our plans then because we wanted to take that one so we could see the sunset. The sun was finishing setting by the time we left. It was still pretty though to see it on the Opera House. The ferry was about 30 minutes one way, we just enjoyed the views and rode it back. When we got back we got a taxi to take us to the Hard Rock Café for dinner. We had to wait a little while so we went to the bar to get some drinks. The girls all got cocktails, but I decided to get a shot! Mostly just because you got to keep the shot glass with Hard Rock Sydney on it and I wanted one anyway so it was a better deal to get a drink and the glass! It was actually quite tasty and I got it down easily, go me. Then we had dinner and it was absolutely wonderful. Service was good and the food was awesome. I got some gourmet mac and cheese with peppers and stuff in it with a salad, that was actually like the salad I know from home with romaine and real ranch dressing, it was so wonderful!! I miss salad, it’s so different here, so that was a real treat for me. It took us awhile to figure out our ticket because they couldn’t split it at all but we got it worked out. Then I bought a shirt, it’s cute, and we headed on our way. We walked a ways over to get to the IMAX theatre in Darling Harbour. We saw the movie 300 on the huge screen!! I didn’t especially want to see it to begin with, but it was actually pretty good, just really bloody. Being on the big screen didn’t really help with the gore scenes, but it was alright. Afterwards we just got a taxi back to the hostel and relaxed some before bed. It was another full day but really amazing.

Monday was our last day in Sydney. We had to awake early again since check out time was 9am. We grabbed our toast and turned in our sheets and keys. They let us leave our luggage in the common room under the table where reception watched it all day. I headed out a few minutes earlier than the other girls so I could go down the street to the pay phone to call my brother, Matt. He graduated Sunday and had his party that night, which was Monday morning to me. So I was really upset I couldn’t be there for that because it’s a big deal and I’m proud of him and wanted to be there for him. Since I couldn’t I thought I’d call and tell him congrats and all that jazz on his big day. I did, and the first thing he asked was if I’d checked my email which I hadn’t been able to. So he said good because he wanted to tell me something! I gasped right then because I knew what he was going to tell me from the sound of his voice, and he had told me he was looking for rings. So he said, you know how I was looking for rings, well I found one and now someone else has it! Yay!!!! I was so excited and surprised! And I was so happy he got to tell me on the phone, as “in person” as we could get! So that was a very exciting phone call to say the least. I was so happy for him for graduating and becoming a doctor and getting engaged and becoming a fiance to Laura! It made me cry because I was so happy and everything and at the same time upset I couldn’t be there to share in any of it! Then when I went back and told the girls they were just like, oh that’s great with no enthusiasm. I mean that makes sense, they don’t know him and have no reason to necessarily care, but I wanted to share the joy and I so felt like giving someone a hug and had nobody I could! Just like it’s really difficult being depressed with nobody close around you, it’s also really difficult being really happy with nobody to share it with! Anyway, that was my morning! Then we could leave and head off to the bus stop to head into the city again. We went to Circular Quay and walked all the way down to Darling Harbour from there. It was great even though it was a little long because we got to see a whole lot of the city and some pretty cool buildings. We walked around down at Darling Harbour and stopped in the visitor centre. There was a Chinese Friendship Garden we wanted to go in but it cost like $10 to walk through so we didn’t, a little depressing. But we saw a bunch of cool fountains. There were really a lot of fountains all over Sydney, a little like Kansas City which was pretty cool. We headed back over to the other side and walked around to see some ships at the Maritime Museum and around to Star City Casino. We explored there a little to just to see what was there and got a quick bite to eat at Subway before walking back to the main part of Darling Harbour. There was an aboriginal culture centre we went into that had a free didgeridoo show at 1pm so we stopped in to see that. The guy was really good and it was interesting to hear him talk about the instrument a little more than I had heard before and how to play it. It really is one of the most amazing musical instruments I’ve ever seen or heard in my life. I can’t believe it’s made from mother nature and it takes so much work to play, though I’ve never really tried. There is so much involved and the circular breathing is insane. So from there we walked back up to Circular Quay taking a different street to see some more of the city. It was another good walk, the architecture in Sydney was so cool. So many buildings were different than your typical skyscraper and they were so interesting. When we got back to the main Quay we headed up the way along the shops and such to the Minus 5° Ice Bar. This was a little expensive, but I found some coupons because I’m awesome like that. We got 30 minutes in the bar and one cocktail so that was nice. They gave us parkas and gloves and the girls got boots since they were wearing their thongs. We looked so funny. Since it was the middle of the day, there was nobody in there at first and only a couple more people came in, but it was still pretty cool. The entire inside was made of ice, the bar, the tables, the chairs, the walls and the ceiling, even the glasses we drank out of were completely ice. It was pretty cold in there. They had some pretty ice sculptures and weird things from the ceiling as well. The photographer came around and took a couple pictures of us and we bought a couple sets of those to split between us because they wouldn’t let us take any pictures inside the bar. It was a good time, nice to have a cocktail in the middle of the day! Then I made them go to take a couple more pictures with the bridge and Opera House since we were right there and I didn’t have any with me in it. We had some time to spare with nothing left planned so we headed into a couple shops along the way there and looked around. Then we got some ice cream from Baskin Robbins, and they had Chocolate Peanut Butter!! So of course I got that, it was funny though because that’s not very big down here and a lot of Aussies I know haven’t ever heard of that or thought it sounded appetizing at all! So we had a cocktail and some ice cream that afternoon, needless to say it was quite spectacular! We figured it was about time to get back to the hostel and get off to the airport, so we caught the bus back. It was still a little early so we watched a little of 10 Things I Hate About You on TV in the hostel before we went outside to wait for the airport shuttle to pick us up. It was only $10 which was nice and the guy was really nice. At the airport we saw this pretty hilarious, but embarrassing, billboard for some real estate company. It said So easy anyone can do it and there was a picture of George Bush on the internet. Yeah, they don’t really like Bush over here either, I just couldn’t believe that was actually real! We had to wait just a little while for our flight, so I looked around one of the shops and bought a couple magnets, I’ve been doing good of getting a magnet from most everywhere. Loretta and I played some solitaire on our computers, I think we are officially obsessed and it’s a bad thing! The flight back was good, we all got seats together and looked through each others pictures some on out cameras. I took about 1000 I think in total over the 4 days. Surprise! Everyone’s used to it by now and knows that’s just what I do, where’d Alissa go, oh she’s just taking some more pictures! I love it. Overall, since I’ve been in Australia, I’ve taken about 11,300 pictures. Yeah. I can’t even believe that! Jenny’s boyfriend was nice enough to come pick us up from the airport and take us back to uni so that was great. That night was all unpacking and uploading my pictures and such since we didn’t get back until almost 10 I think anyway.

Then I really had to crack down on homework! I had to finish my paper for Australia Today and study for my finance test. I got my paper done by Thursday morning, and I think it was pretty good. I got my first paper back and got a D on it when I thought it was pretty terrible! That’s a distinction, which is good for here. They have HD, high distinction, D, C, credit, and P pass. But it’s not like home, HD is actually pretty difficult to get apparently. I still think I should get those, I did get one on our econ homework assignment. They grade differently though and I’m still not sure what all they expect or anything. It’s okay though. I’m here for way more than the classes! So I got a little bit of studying done through the week, but I did most of it last night and today. I took the test today online, it’s a multiple choice one and worth 15% of our grade. That seems like nothing though because that’s what our one assignment was worth and our final is worth 70%!! We got a D on that assignment too which is great, he said that was above average. My econ final is also 70% of my grade, and my final paper is Australia Today is 50%. I need to get started on that paper. My final exam in Business Communication is only 30% and open book so I’m really not worried about that one. I need to start studying for my other ones though, they’re only a couple weeks away now! It’s crazy. It’s actually a little stressful to have almost all your grade based on this one exam when you haven’t had any all semester. It makes me really think about why I worry about 20% finals back home, they seem like such a huge deal! But I can’t really be too stressed here so that’s good, I’m doing alright.

Yesterday was a really productive day and that was fabulous! I had my last finance class, he did all the review, which they call “revision” for some reason, like they’re revising everything they taught to focus it more on what will be on the exam, I don’t know. Anyway, I actually really enjoyed going to that class because Aiman, our lecturer, was really interesting and enthusiastic about everything. I wanted to video tape him actually, but I forgot it was our last lecture! I’ll miss it. But it’s nice that I don’t have any class at all next Friday and only in the afternoon on Thursday! Anyway, I talked with Mom and Dad, and Mark called me!! I hadn’t talked to him in forever so that was a really great surprise to hear from him and get to talk for awhile, even if he did stay up too late for a work night! Then I went into town in the afternoon for some errands. I’d been meaning to send Mom a CD of all her pictures she put on my computer from her trip for a long time. I had to send it in a package though so I had to get to the Post and I never did, so finally I got that done. Also, from when I was sick and had to get medicine I wanted to see if I could claim that on my overseas insurance and their office is in the mall downtown. I finally went and turns out I can’t because it was less than $30 so I just had to pay but that’s alright. I stopped in a store I really like while I was in the mall just to see if they had any sales. And they did! I ended up spending $55!! But I saved $50 so I think it’s okay. I bought a cute sweater, three simple bright long sleeve shirts, and one cute printed short sleeve shirt. So really some pretty good deals, and it’s all so comfortable, the store is called Cotton On. Anyway, that was a good little side trip. I caught the bus then to the supermarket in Belmont. I stocked up on groceries because it had been a long time! I treated myself to some Tim Tams, and some cinnamon donuts for breakfast. Yum. I love the bakery section, and it’s right at the front so I always have to stop and look, Loretta makes fun of me for it. I got some Clementine tangerines too, yum! So, yeah, trip to the grocery store. I went up the hill to Macker’s (McDonald’s) to grab some dinner as well. Then I got the bus back to uni and put everything away and talked to my housemate a little before he left for home. Once again, another weekend when it’s just me and one other guy in my unit! So sad, it’s depressing when nobody’s here and they all go home for the weekend. They better stay here the next couple weekends when it’s my last times here! I spent a lot of last night studying for finance and then planning all my trips after school as well, I think I’ve got it mostly figured out, I just need to finalise what I want and book stuff. It should be a good time, and I’m saving everything until after school so I can spend more time with all the people here while they’re around. It was good to get done. Then this morning I studied quite a bit more and everything and took the test this afternoon. I watched part of Fight Club hanging out at Wookey 4 with Nick and Joe from South Carolina. It was good, I really want to see the whole thing because I think it was ruined for me since I didn’t watch the beginning, but it looked like a great movie. So now I think it’s time for bed actually. Or at least another movie to fall asleep to. I think that’s a complete update on everything. Should be, it’s long enough! I’ll be impressed if you actually made through all this. If only I could write essays this long this easily! Hope you all continue to be doing well. I miss you even if I have fallen in love with this place! Have a great weekend and I hope to hear from you soon. Here’s some wise words to ponder:

“The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” ~Joseph Addison

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” ~William Arthur Ward

Love, Alissa

p.s. You know how I said it was 22 today? Well now it’s about 8, which is like 45 F. Crazy weather I tell you, crazy.

p.p.s. I think I’m getting some sort of carpal tunnel or something, my fingers really hurt sometimes and feel really stiff, maybe it’s the laptop? I don’t know but I don’t like it.

The past week!

G’day everyone! How ya going? I hope all is well. Things have been especially amazing here as of late! It’s strange because it feels like everyone is getting even closer and more connected to everything here, just when we’re starting to think about leaving this place. It makes me incredibly sad to think of leaving, I’m not ready yet. I can’t imagine never seeing these people again and not knowing when I’ll get back to this amazing country. There are still moments I miss people back home, but I still feel like there is so much for me to do and see and be here, it’s weird. The most exciting news I have about anything is that my brother got engaged!! Matt and Laura are now engaged, that’s crazy. And so incredibly exciting! I can’t believe he graduated from pharmacy school and got engaged in the same weekend without me there! I was sad I couldn’t be there to share in either, but still very proud and excited! Anyway, let’s get on with the story.

I’ll start with today and work backwards because that’s what I want to do. Today was great! The best part was getting to talk to Carly for two hours! I had talked to her for just a few minutes last week I think but before that hadn’t spoken a word since the start of January!!! Needless to say, it was absolutely wonderful to get to talk to my best friend again, it makes me feel more connected to home and some normalcy you know. It’s nice that she’s studied abroad and completely understands my feelings even though our experiences were different, those feelings that are even indescribable to ourselves are understood by someone else now! And I got to talk to my other best friend Jess for awhile. And a couple days ago I talked to Amanda before she left for Italy!! So it’s been wonderful to get to talk to my girls. Plus I got to talk to both Mom and Dad today, always a positive. I get to see Dad in just over a week now, too!!!! I got another card from Grandma that totally made my week as well! And some Kool Aid and newspaper articles from Mom! I also turned in a paper this morning and that always feels good, to be done and get rid of assignments. My classes were pretty good, helpful and useful. After my last tute Marc, Brandon, Scott and I stood outside and talked for about an hour and a half about nothing really. I love doing that, just having good conversation is a wonderful thing. By then it was time for caff. Caff is usually leftovers and not too great on Thursdays but tonight it was spectacular! We had chicken caesar wraps with chips, salad, potatoes, cucumbers, some chocolate mousse, and the rolls were actually crisp and warm! They have these amazing rolls every night, but most of the time they are cold, and usually not brown at all. Tonight they were browned and crisp a bit as well as still warm, a real treat!! Anyway, so I was happy, it was one of those times where Alissa eats more than most think she’s capable of you know. Then I went back to get some info on New Zealand from Loretta as I’m trying to figure out what to do for travelling after school. I ended up staying there talking with all her housemates for a couple hours, again, good conversation is amazing. Now I’m writing all you rather than studying for my test that’s online this week!

So, this past weekend was our trip to Sydney!! But before that we had our sloppy unit function! I love this place in case I haven’t said that before. Thursday night was a great time. Our units had all of the nightclub Statik to ourselves at first, we left about 7pm I think. That was a good time as there were quite a few people from all the different units that took part, so lots of different friends. We danced around and drank a little, don’t worry, I kept it to a minimum! After a few hours, the other units that had their unit function met up at Statik with us, that was even more fun! More friends came and there were tons of people all from res. A good time was had by all and I guess I’ll leave it at that. I was pretty exhausted from all I had done that week, but somehow I was still going strong all night and we were some of the last group there and we didn’t leave til about 2am. One of our friends came to pick us up which was really nice so we didn’t have to pay for a taxi. While we were waiting for him to come outside, we saw basically the Geelong Mafia. It was pretty freaky. They were all in black suits and long black trench coats with beards and nice black cars. I walked across the street and down a little ways in case something happened. They pushed some kid down on the ground and were yelling but then drove off. One of our Aussie mates said that really was like a real mafia so it was pretty scary but didn’t turn up to be anything which was good. Anyway, the problem with staying out so late was the fact that we were leaving for Sydney in the morning. Our flight was at 6am, which meant the airport shuttle came to pick us up at 3:30am. So we had a little over an hour to finish packing and be at the bus stop, no time for sleep. That was a little disappointing, but it was nice to talk to some of my housemates for a little while. I was exhausted because it had been such a long night! But we had no choice really.

Friday morning at 3:30am the shuttle picked us up and I was dozing in and out as we picked up a few more people on the way. It was us four Kansas girls, Loretta, Jenny, and Heather and me. When we got to the airport we had to wait almost an hour to board so we sort of slept for a bit. On the plane, we had different seats, so I just passed out asleep before take off and didn’t wake up until we landed, it’s just an hour and a half flight I think, but I was out. So that was the sleep I got for that night, I’ve never done that before! It was a little crazy. We picked up our luggage and called the hostel for our free airport shuttle, it took us awhile to figure out where we were supposed to go, I think it was the lack of sleep. We found it and got aboard another shuttle and dropped off a few people before arriving at our hostel, the famous Jolly Swagman. It was still early morning so we had to wait a little bit to get checked in and get our room. I talked to the guy some about how to get around, particularly how to get to the Opera House by bus because we were going there shortly. He helped us out and gave us our sheets and keys and everything after we paid. We went up and changed clothes and got our stuff ready for the day. We pretty much had to leave right away to catch the bus to make it down to the Opera House by 10 for our scheduled tour, when we did it then it was cheaper when we booked it online. Well, the fact that we weren’t positive what we were doing and we were all a little slow running on just about no sleep, we were confused by the busses and had to wait awhile for one. By the time we got to Circular Quay it was just 10 so we didn’t actually get to the ticket place at the Opera House til about 5 or 10 after, too late to catch our tour. She just had us pay a few extra dollars to go on the 10:30 one so that wasn’t too bad. The funny thing was we saw this lady the next day walking near our hostel. Anyway, so we went on our tour and it was one of the highlights of the trip for me I think. It was awesome to be in this world famous building and see all the parts of it. It was a rainy day out so we stayed inside the whole time. We actually got to go backstage just a little to get from theatre to theatre which was pretty cool. People who work and perform at the Opera House go back there, and we saw some of the dressing rooms and such and where they go on stage, it was awesome. Those were all in the smaller theatres but still. We saw 4 smaller theatres I think, including the studio and then moved on to the two big halls. First we went into the Concert Hall which was breathtaking really. It was so gorgeous and quite impressive. The ceiling was all lights and everything and had a really interesting design, like for the acoustics or whatever, I’m not sure how to say it. The organ was huge and it was just awesome to see it all. She told us some about how much people get paid, who all has been there and what the seats cost. It was impressive. The lobby for it was pretty sweet as well since you could see the Harbour bridge and everything from it. We moved on over to the actually Opera House last. That was pretty impressive as well. We just watched the rehearsal in there, the ballet people were all in there for class. It was beautiful as well, and really neat to see them in action just practicing. Our guide was a little crazy, but that made the tour even more interesting. There were these two little girls that were pretty adorable as well, one of them wanted to sing. The architecture of the building as a whole was quite impressive. The structure and design was intriguing. I really enjoyed that tour and getting to see so much and admire the beauty of the building I guess. We went back and walked along the harbour a bit back to the bus stops. We couldn’t decide what to do for awhile so we ate some lunch in a food court down there. We looked in a couple shops and bought umbrellas since it was cold and rainy that day. Of course, after we bought them it didn’t rain the whole rest of the time. So we decided we were all tired and cold and it was dreary, so I figured out the busses and we went back to the hostel to nap and relax for a bit. Heather and Jenny bought tickets to see a play at the Opera House that night so they got ready for that. Then we all headed out to get some dinner at this fast food type local place with fish and chips, kebabs and the like. Then they left and Loretta and I went to the local Cole’s to buy some fruit and water for ourselves. That was a strange experience since we were in the city, the Cole’s was like a little inside this building, and I think it may have been mostly underground, because it was two levels. It was strange, hard to find our way around, but we got the stuff and headed back to the hostel. Loretta and I had an easy night of playing way too much solitaire and pinball on our computers. We thought we got free wifi in our room but we didn’t. We went down and talked to the people about things to do and how to get different places so that helped us out a lot. We just relaxed and went to bed early as we were so tired!

I know that was only one day in Sydney, but I’m so tired and want to go to bed, so I’m going. I have another busy and needing to be productive day tomorrow. I’ll try to write the rest of Sydney in the next couple days to post, though. There are three more days of exciting adventures to look forward to!! Get excited! I’ll leave you with a hug and good wishes and these quotes.

“If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we are not really living. Growth demands a temporary surrender of security.” ~ Gail Sheehy (devotional)

“Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.” ~Alan Alda

Love always, Alissa

I'm in Australia, sweet.

Hey all! This whole study abroad thing is crazy. Life is crazy. I don’t understand it. I couldn’t be happier that I decided to do this for myself. It’s incredible and amazing in so many ways, it’s insane. And it’s pretty dang difficult sometimes too! I’ve been thinking about the whole experience a lot lately because Carly is already home from Costa Rica and we now have less than two months here, it’s unbelievable. I don’t want to leave this place. There are definitely moments I wish I could be home and that I deeply miss some people, but I’m not ready to come home yet. It still feels like there is so much to experience here and friendships to strengthen even more. Maybe I’ll be ready when it’s time, but it doesn’t feel like it. Now I’m realizing all this since I have way too much homework to do and it’s getting in the way of my life! It’s crazy. I don’t know how to describe any of it to make sense. I thought I could imagine how it would be and understand it before I left, but I had absolutely no clue. There’s so much to it that I don’t even quite understand. Loretta and I decided we’ve already seen huge changes in ourselves, that we will never be the same person, but we don’t quite know what is different. Anyway, enough of that for now, that’s supposed to be for the end, I still have time to enjoy the best time of my life!!

It’s been fairly boring lately since school is starting to take over people’s lives. It’s not cool. I think it will be this way til the end of exams as well because after the homework is over this week, we’ll have to start our last papers and studying for those final exams that are looming. Motivation is hard to find! We’re all getting it done though. Let’s see, I left off last time after going to see Hayley in Melbourne for the day. Since then I’ve given my group oral presentation in Business Communication, and we’ve written our big report and turned it in. That was a bit stressful because I was given a bigger chunk to do than we had planned just a few days before it was due, but we got it in so whatever. I also had to write journals to turn in with that which needed to be analytical and include specific terms, again, I got it done. So all last weekend was busy doing that stuff that I really didn’t want to do! One of the nights was pretty good though. Donald helped me fix some stuff on my computer and gave me this new software to play around with my pictures, it’s really amazing! Then I went to get fish and chips for tea (dinner) with Loretta and Jared and we watched The Notebook and some footy on TV.

Last Wednesday was Resi Idol, like American Idol, or I reckon Australian Idol. There was happy’s first down at the Pond’s, that local bar across the highway the whole campus heads to every Wednesday! So I went down to happy hour and then to Resi Idol there after. It was really good, I love any kind of live music. Some of them were more of a joke and it was just really funny. Some people really had some talent though. One of my friends was in a band who did well singing No Woman No Cry, and three of my housemates were in two different bands that sounded pretty good, so that was cool. They also fed us munchies! The girl who won was an amazing singer and did Tina Turner’s Proud Mary, what a spectacular song! They had Dodgie Disco afterwards like they always do, but we were buggered so we headed back to campus. I stayed up for a lot longer just sitting around talking with my housemates, though. It was wonderful, some of them are really great. I needed a night out and it was quite a good time.

Not much else has been going on really. I’ve done way too much homework and I can’t even seem to get everything done! I guess it’s because I get distracted and spend hours talking to people. That’s a good thing though, I enjoy that more! It’s been both a very stressful couple of weeks, and somewhat relaxing, as strange as that sounds. I guess the breaks from working have been good, and we haven’t really gone out much or anything so that’s what makes it seem relaxing. Monday night my unit and the one next door all went out to dinner together. It was my neighbour, Ash’s birthday! That was a good time, some unit bonding time. Then it was Val’s birthday on Tuesday so we ate at the Bbar on campus instead of caf. Tuesday is Parmi night so we all got that and it was quality food! I got to talk to Mom and Grandma for Mother’s Day so that was wonderful! I am completely and utterly exhausted for some reason. It just seems like there is so much going on right now and for some reason I haven’t been sleeping too well. But it’s starting to wind down a little bit. Maybe. I guess there is plenty to do since we really only have a couple more weeks of school! Crazy! Somehow we’ll get through it all though. I’m strong! I am woman hear me roar, that’s what my friend Lee keeps telling me to tell myself!

Tonight is our unit function. Except it’s our unit and about half of Barton College as well! It should be a messy time full of laughs, drinks, and overall good times. I’m pretty excited. A wonderful way to end this week! Loretta also has their unit function which is the same thing with a bunch of units. After we’re all going to meet up at a nightclub, Statik, together so that should be the best time of it all! The only problem is that tomorrow we’re getting picked up to go to the airport at 3:30am!!! I’m not sure we’ll be sleeping tonight. It will all be good though. We’re going to Sydney and it will be an amazing weekend! I get to see Clay!! And in just a couple weeks I get to see Dad!!! I’m very excited about that.

Okay, I know this one was about the shortest, but I have been so busy! I wanted to get one in before I’ll have to write about Sydney. So I hope you’ve enjoyed my least exciting post yet perhaps. Hope to hear from you soon. I hope you all are enjoying SUMMER! Crazy, it’s been pretty rainy here as we’re practically in winter. Although the temperatures still haven’t been cold at all. Anyway, I must go! After my quotes.

“Someday may never come. So live each day better than the last. That way you'll wake up with so much excitement and anticipation you'll jump out of bed and shout 'I can't wait!'“ ~Bob Perks

“Risk more than others think is safe.Care more than others think is wise.Dream more than others think is practical.Expect more than others think is possible.“ ~Claude T. Bissell

Love, Alissa

Random Musings

G’day to everyone! I’ve been quite tired as of late, and lacking all motivation for school. I know it sounds horrible, I feel pretty bad about it. It just feels like there is so much else going on in my life that I should be focusing on and it’s hard to try and experience everything while still working hard. But maybe sometimes your focus should change, I don’t know, I’ve never been so horrible in school! Anyway, that’s why I’m writing this right now instead of something else! We’ve been trying to plan trips for the rest of the time we’re here, it’s difficult to get things finalized and such. There is so much I want to see that I won’t have the time or money for. I guess that just means I’ll have to come back a few more times in my life! We have plans for Sydney in a couple weeks, and then New Zealand at the end still needs to get planned. I can’t believe how fast time is disappearing now, it’s insane. I’m starting to question have I made this all I can, have I done what I’ve come to do, are there things I regret about how I’ve been while here, all those types of questions. I think it’s all been good for the most part though, there are times I think I should be more like this or that. I think that’s one of the lessons I’m learning though, I am who I am, whether it’s how I’m “supposed” to be or not, if that makes any sense. I do know who I am after all, and I’m not going to do any turn around no matter what people think. Well, okay, so what can I write about this time. I guess I’ll go back like it’s the beginning and go over some basics about my life in Australia, I’m not sure I ever did that.

So I’m at Deakin University in Geelong, Victoria. I live on campus in a ressie called Evatt with 11 Aussies and my RA is in charge of two of our units, so 24 people total. My unit is super nice and I have one of the best rooms because I get one of the only walk in closets on res! It’s nice to have the privacy of my own room, but still live with others. Res has about 500 people I think, and there are a bunch of other international students here. I’m not sure, but I think there are close to 100 total, but not all are on res. The Uni only has about 6000 students, so it’s much smaller than home, but it’s quite nice. I always seem to see somebody I know, even though I don’t feel like I know tons of people. We’re in a huge drought right now, about a decade long depending on who you talk to. Since it’s turned to Autumn we’ve gotten quite a bit more rain, but still nothing to solve all the problems. Although, there is grass growing now and not just dirt, we actually have some green!! I love Geelong, I think there are about 240,000 in the town, but I wouldn’t bet the farm on it. Uni is on the outskirts of town, about a 15 drive straight into the city. I ride the bus to get there, it takes about 40 minutes that way, but it’s a nice ride I guess through the neighborhoods. We go in town to do some shopping or walk around the waterfront, to go to the train station to go to Melbourne, and to go out at night. It’s very clean for a downtown from what I’m used to, and everyone is friendly. The waterfront area is beautiful and there are always plenty of people out enjoying a nice day. Campus is actually quite large in land size which is nice. There are about 6 lakes total, and a million birds. It’s crazy, even the birds sound different here, seriously. Some of them sound like they are dying, or they are going to kill you, and they’re all over the place. The past few days I’ve been very annoyed with the birds if you can’t tell, they will not shut up. I’m not even kidding, they are making noises every few seconds, all day long! There are also a bunch of rabbits, and thus a bunch of rabbit holes for you to fall in when you’re walking around at night. The trees are kind of strange, they all shed their bark and twigs always fall off, so those are everywhere on the ground as well, it’s dangerous to walk around barefoot! The aussies all walk around with no shoes all the time though, Mom would fit in nicely! Classes are pretty small and laid back. I still haven’t figured out how hard or easy it is here. I don’t think I’m too fond of their whole education system though, maybe it’s just because it’s totally different than what I’m used to. I don’t feel like I’m learning as much because we aren’t tested over anything, or made to use what we’re learning in any way really, until the final exam. I don’t like that kind of pressure and lack of structure almost. It’s very open ended and up to you. I can’t make up my mind about it all still! I go to lunch at caf or eat a sandwich here, and I get 3 dinners a week at caf Mon-Thurs. We go right at 6 every night pretty much. It’s pretty good really, I definitely get enough fruits and veggies which is wonderful. I think next to all you people, the food is what I miss most from home. I like the food here, but if we start talking about food from home, both home cooking and restaurants, I realize how much I want all that! I think I’ll gain 30 pounds when I get home just from eating everything I’ve missed. Being away sort of shows you what you really hold dear to you! First it’s all you people, and my animals, and the food. All my junk that I have, doesn’t really get missed that often, it’s just there. Kinda strange. I’m very lucky to usually get to talk to somebody on AIM, Skype, or the phone everyday, if not more than one person. That’s been nice, but not too much to keep me from enjoying time here. At night we usually just hang out and sit around talking or watching TV, sometimes doing homework or planning trips and such. I haven’t found anyone to love playing Phase 10, the only game I brought. Going out in Geelong is fun, although I don’t do it as often as most do. It’s expensive because we have to take taxis in and back since the busses stop running at about 9. I don’t like having to dress up either, I don’t mind it mostly, but knowing you have to just to get in. Sometimes I just want to go out and have a good time in jeans and a t-shirt! They dress up more than us on an every day basis as well, just not so many t-shirts at all. I don’t understand all their fashions, but I’m probably quite ugly looking to most of them, so whatever. Every once in awhile we cook a meal for a bunch of us and that’s always a good time. I’m trying to think of little every day things. I keep all of my food and dishes in my room and just my cold stuff in the community fridge. Sometimes things get stolen if you leave it out, they call it ressie shopping. “Ressie shopping is theft” as the signs on the fridge say, but it always happens in the middle of the night so nobody gets caught and there’s not much they can do about it. We have to take our “cutlery” down to caf every night (not silverware, that’s the nice stuff). There are quite a few stray cats that live around here and come out at night, they aren’t too keen on people, but they’re not mean or anything. I have one laundry machine and dryer in my actual unit, but I have to pay $1 for the dryer. I just hung my clothes at first, but now it’s chilly and takes so long to dry. The other units have free laundry, but they all have to go to a separate room somewhere, so ours is nice. The only cleaning I ever do is having to wash my dishes (there are no dishwashers) and taking out my trash downstairs, oh and vacuuming my room I suppose. They don’t have Lysol wipes, they only have disinfectant spray, but it’s not for the air either, you can only spray it on a surface. So I try to use that often, Amanda thinks I’m crazy for this back home! We have two toilets, two sinks, and two showers for the 8 of us upstairs and I’ve never had a problem, unless the maid is in there cleaning. She comes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and she’s pretty nice. We have one big fridge, and one big freezer next to it, so plenty of room for everyone’s stuff. There is a toaster, a microwave, 8 burners on a gas stove, and an oven, it’s fan forced or something whatever that means. We don’t have one in our unit, but we’re supposed to have a “skank bin” for dirty dishes, apparently that’s the original name for it and it’s where the term skank came from. Interesting. That’s all I’m coming up with for the moment.

Not a whole lot has happened between break and now besides Tasmania. For my Australia Today class we went to an Aboriginal Culture Centre in Geelong one day and that was pretty interesting. It was different than what we learned when we were at Uluru which was probably the most interesting part. The culture is one as a whole, but each area of the country is quite different in little ways. Let’s see, I also finished the 6th Harry Potter, which was very, very exciting. I loved it, I can’t wait for the fifth movie and the last book to come out!! Oh, me and some of the boys (Marc, Donald, Brandon and Jeff) went into Melbourne for the comedy festival one night, that was a lot of fun. It’s funny, even in Australia I seem to just be one of the guys, I don’t understand. I love it, but it makes me think, what makes me so different that I can’t be a girl that guys long for, I’m just like one of them. Anyway, it was a great time, a bit of an adventure with the train station losing power and Marc missing it and getting stuck in the rain, and all of us walking back and forth about 10 times. It was a bad idea for me to wear my heels that night. It was a fun train ride home, too, for me at least as I was my giddy loopy self and they were all so tired! They had family day here one weekend, so we got a nice lunch out of that. One of my housemates seems to be obsessed with America and things they have that aren’t here, particularly Elvis and our kind of cowboys. Her newest love is beavers, she wants me to send her one. She’s a crazy one I tell you. One night last week we all went down to caf together and Jess, Brandon, Donald and I went back to Brandon’s unit to talk about something. Jess had to leave after a little while, but Donald and I stayed. And we didn’t leave until after midnight! It was insane, but one of those really great nights you know. We just stood there in the kitchen, eventually sat down, and kept talking and talking about anything. We talked about our houses back home, our apartments at school, different things about Manhattan since we all go to K-State, things about school here and other things here. We talked about friends and people from back home and dealing with stuff. It was just really good, people investing time into each other, I like that. It gives you a chance to really get to know each other better than just sitting around talking about the day and watching TV. Anyway, it was crazy and great how that happened. Since then I’ve spent a whole bunch of time working on our Finance group project that we turned into today, that sure felt good. I’m so sick of finance it’s ridiculous, and I didn’t even do as much as a couple of the guys. Yucky homework. I have another group project with a presentation tomorrow and a big essay part due next week, yikes. That pretty much brings me up to date. Except for Sunday.

Sunday I went into Melbourne for the day! It was sort of just decided the night before. I went to see Hayley Vogt!! I haven’t seen her since sophomore year of high school so it was pretty crazy to see her! Especially since we meet up in Australia when we go to uni just three hours away from each other back home! Crazy stuff. It was a lot of fun though. It was really great to see someone I’ve known for more than just the past few months!! She was there with a couple of her friends. We just went to the Australia Centre for Moving Image, it was alright. Then we got some lunch at Lord of the Fries (what a great name!) because they were told they had to go there, it is pretty delicious! Hayley and I also went over and got a slice of pizza at Pepperoni’s a good little place with $1.50 slices! Then we walked around a bit and decided to get on the free tram to head to Queen Victoria Market. I hadn’t actually been there yet so that was pretty cool. We just walked around it for a little bit, so I will definitely have to go back there one weekend and spend about the whole day shopping!! I love markets, they are quite awesome. Then, they wanted to go back to some chocolate place they saw so we jumped on the free tram again, but it was getting close to time for me to catch my 4pm train so I could get the last bus from town to uni back in Geelong. So, I stayed on the tram to head back around to Southern Cross Station. I got off at Spencer St. about 5 to 4. Yeah. So I ran up the hill, but had to wait to cross two streets. So I got across the street and sprinted to find the train, quickly saw it was on platform 2 North. Crap!! North! That is way down the way, so I sprinted as fast as my little legs would take me, pumping my arms as hard as I could. Let me tell you, I think I definitely set some sort of world record. People were stopping and pointing, yelling out wow look at that girl run! It was a pretty big deal, they were clapping and cheering and everything. It could have been one of those slow motion scenes with inspirational music playing in the background in some cheesy movie, you know what I’m talking about. So, yeah, I made the train in time. I sat down and we left, about a minute late I think because they were waiting on me and this other kid and two old people. I was breathing pretty hard for a bit though, I’ve never run so fast in my life! I was in flip flops, too, those suckers are hard to sprint in. It sort of reminded me of Paris! Except my feet didn’t hurt so much after. It gets better too. So, I get back to Geelong at 5 til 5pm. The last bus from the city is at 5:02. It’s a little ways from the bus station. So I got of the train, tired from a long day and the world record sprint, and I ran once again to get to the bus station in time. Well, I got a block away where I had to wait to cross the street, and saw the bus a block ahead, pulling around the corner. Crap again! I missed it. There was another stop up the hill, but I knew I wouldn’t make that, so I claimed defeat. Sure enough, I saw it turning that corner when I was still a couple blocks away. So, I knew I had to do the dreadful thing and call a taxi. I didn’t want to pay that kind of money just to get myself home. So I decided to walk a couple blocks to save a few bucks. Then I got to thinking, well I really need groceries and I was going to go in the morning but why not save myself the trip, I have no reason to hurry home, might as well enjoy missing the bus. (Like we should’ve done in Paris!) So I though yeah I’ll just walk to the Cole’s supermarket down the road. Well, I’ve only come in on the bus, so my perception was a little off. It’s NOT just down the hill and across the bridge. It was much, MUCH further than that! I was already tired too, and my legs had done more running than they had in quite some time. But after more than 30 minutes I got there. It was getting dark and some of the walk there probably wasn’t the best spot to be, but it was on the main road and I was fine so whatever. I got my few groceries I so desperately needed and called a taxi. I waited 25 minutes and it hadn’t come, so I called again and sure enough one came within a few minutes. The taxis here aren’t always reliable, that’s for sure. For some reason, it didn’t cost me much less than it does from all the way in town, I don’t know what kind of setting he had to charge more, but I didn’t see anything faulty so I couldn’t call him out on anything. It made me mad though because I had to pay so much just to get home. I was exhausted after that! I went over to Loretta’s and Jared was cooking tea (dinner in case you’ve forgotten) of gnocchi. So we ate that and watched hours of TV, Grey’s Anatomy and What About Brian. It was spectacular! So yeah, that was my fun filled fabulous Sunday! Look for me on the news, the record breaking sprint in Melbourne, Victoria by a Kansas woman in thongs.

Now I have lots of school and homework to look forward to! And Sydney and many more fun nights and unexpected adventures. It’s all good here. It’s crazy though, a very different experience and there are many times I’m not sure I fully understand what I’m feeling or thinking. Maybe it’s just because I’m just one of those people who thinks way too much and spends a lot of time pondering, but I think it is just the experience. You’re up and down and up again. I guess the good thing is it pretty much always ends up being more positive in the end, even if it’s simply for having had the experience, and growing and learning from it. I think people are pretty incredible. I’m trying to live so people think I am amazing, and happy and good.

Yeah. So that’s all I’ve got for the moment I think. I know, it’s still kind of a lot, jeez Alissa can’t you just cut it down a bit! I’m wordy, what are you going to do. I like sharing things with you! Okay, now I’ll stop. After the quotes for this time. And after I tell you to smile please. OH, and after I yell at you to PLEASE leave a comment, hi Alissa I read your blog bye, (insert your name). Thanks. And now, fabulous quotes:

“Be humble, be big in mind and soul, be kindly; you will like yourself that way and so will other people.” Norman Vincent Peale

“Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.” Marie Curie

Love, Alissa

Easter Break Part Cuatro, El Fin!

Okay! This took longer than expected, but I’m getting there. School’s been taking over quite a bit this past week, particularly finance, yuck. But it’s cinco de mayo so tonight should be fun! Last night was good too, a few of us went into town for dinner and a movie, Spiderman 3. It was a great movie, and nice to have an evening on the town sort of. Now revert back about three weeks and I’ll continue my exciting story of break!

I left you hanging in suspense for more details from my day on the reef! I’m excited to tell you more, it was perhaps the most incredible event in my life. Our first activity was the glass bottom boat, that was our first view of the reef. It was pretty awesome and we saw tons of fish. The water was a perfect turquoise color. The “guide” told us all about what we were seeing as well, which was nice. Her name was Alissa and she later helped Mom out a lot to get her snorkelling. So we got back from the boat ride and lunch was ready for us. It was delicious, a buffet with some hot entrees and fruit and meats and cheeses and such, very yummy. Snorkelling was the best. You really can’t imagine it, it’s different but more amazing than expected. The coral was pretty awesome, it’s a living creature just sittin there. The fish are definitely unimaginable. They were such vibrant colors, some even neon. Some of them were almost translucent too. Not only were their colors brilliant, but most of them had many different brilliant colors! The male parrot fish was the prettiest I thought. They do this to attract the females I guess, it would work for me! The parrot fish have a beak sort of, like a parrot, and they’d scrape the coral with their peak to get food of whatever particles are on the coral. I could hear them doing this which was amazing. It was so quiet under the water but you could hear some noises every once in awhile by the fish, and they were my favorite, hearing them eating. Then, I saw something that I thought was incredible, I got to see the parrot fish poop out sand basically. They eat the particles off the coral and I guess they digest it and it comes out as new coral sand, what an amazing recycling process in nature!! I thought that was pretty cool, even if that’s a little weird. I saw some other fish that I can’t remember the name, but they live as one couple their entire lives, and never with any other fish even if their partner dies. How sweet is that, kinda cute to see them swimming around together. We got to snorkel for quite awhile, I explored the whole area we had available to us. Mom had a little more trouble getting further out, so she just stayed close to the beach, but she got the hang of it pretty good. I absolutely loved it out there. The water was fairly warm, the sights were gorgeous both above and below the water, and I actually didn’t have a problem with snorkelling this time at all like I did with the dolphins. We came back to the boat because it was about time to go. Our way back in was nice, I sat out in front just basking in the sun for awhile. When we got close to land, though, a storm rolled in. It was super windy and all of a sudden it was pouring. That was cool to see out on the ocean, and nice since it didn’t last too long and there was a good rainbow to finish it off. We got some more bubbly to enjoy on the ride back in. I can’t quite remember what we did that evening. I think we just took showers and went out for dinner at the place next door. That was a great dinner. And as usual called it an early night, but it had been a pretty long day.

Friday was the 13th! Luckily, it didn’t feel much like it. We spent the day in the rainforest, another amazing day! We had to get up early and head to this old train station where the coach picked us up. We were supposed to go up the mountain via that train, but there was a landslide and they were working on it so we couldn’t. So we drove up the mountain in the coach, it was still pretty nice as the road went through the forest the whole time. The top of the mountain was the village of Kuranda, it’s actually a little town, people do live there. Mostly it’s a tourist attraction though. When we got up there we did get to take that old train, it was just about a 3 minute ride though. It was neat because it was 100 years old and whatnot, but it took us to Barron Falls! That was spectacular. There wasn’t a whole lot of water, so it wasn’t as awesome as it could’ve been, but still a nice waterfall. We were a little ways away from it, too, but nonetheless it was gorgeous situated right in the rainforest. It was really tall, is that how you describe falls, tall? Anyway, it was, and the rocks just went straight down pretty much, but the trees all grew along the sides. So we admired the falls, took a few pictures and it was all aboard for the 3 minute train ride back to Kuranda. From there we walked up the hill into the village. Our first stop was lunch! We found this nice little café restaurant that was really tasty and a great atmosphere. It rained while we were in there, it was a bit of a rainy day really, off and on. After that we headed to the Koala Gardens by the market area. Mom and I went in there so I could hold my koala and go home happy! Queensland is the only state you can actually hold a koala, and it’s always been something I’ve dreamed of since I was a little one, so I had to! The place also had crocodiles, kangaroos and wallabies, and other reptiles. It was pretty good. Of course the best part was holding the little koala! I got Sienna, a baby girl just 2 years old, but kind of heavy! She was pretty adorable. She was really calm and relaxed, and very soft. The trainer told me how to hold her, I thought it looked and felt a little awkward, but whatever, I guess they have to make sure you have her secure. Then they snapped my picture and let Mom take a bunch with my camera, and even got one of me and mom with my camera! That was really nice of them. There wasn’t a line at all when I was there so I got to hold her for a few minutes. She just sat there, pretty cute. I totally enjoyed that and feel like I can check something off my to do before I die list. I seem to be checking off a lot of those things while I’m here! Then I got to feed all the wallabies, they were excited and so was I! I had a lot of food, so it took awhile and it sprinkled some too, but it was good fun. We perused the market a little afterwards, and walked around the whole village, stopping to get some homemade ice cream. After awhile we decided to go on a trail through the rainforest, since that’s the reason we went up there in the first place! The trail led us back to the train station where we had to be by a certain time to catch the SkyRail down to the bottom of the mountain. We walked through the rainforest on this trail and only came across a couple more people, so it was really nice. I can’t believe how quiet and calm and relaxing and peaceful it is in there. I loved it. Nature!! Everything was so incredibly green and it just felt like there was so much life around you, even though the only wildlife we saw or heard were birds. We did see a kookaburra though! The trail went through the forest and down to the river where we followed it for awhile and got really muddy. That led back to where we needed to be, and we got to the SkyRail just in time to catch it with our tickets down to the bottom. That part was fun, it’s the longest one anywhere maybe? I can’t remember, but it’s long, and at some points is very high, it takes you over the canopy of the rainforest all the way down! So where we were walking down in the middle of it, we went over the top, way above. There were some pretty amazing views from up there. We stopped off at one of the two places you could get out and look around. There were more lookouts for the Barron Falls, but from the opposite side we saw in the morning, so that was good. A lady from Sydney got on with us after that stop for the rest of the way down, she was nice. We had to wait for more people on our bus when we got down to the bottom, but then we were headed back to Palm Cove for the evening. We changed and got ready and went to the bottle shop to get a drink, so we had a drink real fast back at our little apartment. Then we went to walk along the Esplanade searching for dinner, and then walked along the beach awhile while the sun went down. We came back and settled on a nice Italian restaurant, it was tasty.

Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day. I took us out to eat for a small breakfast at the local supermarket, it was quite tasty though. We did our shopping there to buy some breakfast the previous days, it was nice. We had to check out of the hotel awhile before the shuttle came to take us to the airport. So Mom and I took a nice walk along the beach quite a ways down. There was a Rolls Royce parked outside the hotel next door, that was pretty cool to see. It was sad to say goodbye to the dog that just sat outside on the porch of our hotel, she was pretty cute! We had to wait awhile before boarding our flight, so we got some Hungry Jack’s (Burger King). On the flight we watched Pursuit of Happyness, I had really wanted to see it so that was great! We got lunch as well, I was set! My ears really bothered me though on all our flights. Going up didn’t bother me at all, but every time coming down just killed! I hate that. Anyway, we got into Sydney and found our ride right away to take us to our hotel. We checked in and went up and changed real fast before heading out to walk down to the pier. We tried to go on this harbour cruise, but it wasn’t running, so we looked for a different one and just found the ferry, so we got tickets for that. It’s the one people actually use for transportation, not just a tourist thing, so it was nice. We got to see all of the harbour, from right by the Opera House, over to Darling Harbour where the Maritime Museum was and some other tourist attractions. We made a few stops along the way but it was alright, that gave me a chance to get a bit of a steadier picture. It was dark so it was really pretty with the lights of the city, but very difficult to get a good picture while the boat was moving! The Opera House and Bridge really were quite gorgeous. When we got back from the cruise we walked over the Opera House to get a closer look and take some photos. I was quite impressed with the architecture and everything, it was pretty. There was this weird guy who asked us to take his photo and then tried to talk to us for awhile but we just kind of walked away. Anyway, then we walked along and found a nice little place for dinner not too far away on the harbour. And of course we called it an early night again for our last evening. It was good though. It was a long week, and although quite wonderful, quite tiring.

We had to get up really early in the morning for the shuttle to the airport. I had to say a quick goodbye to Mom, that was tough to do again after I just did it a couple months ago and will be another few months before I see her again! But it was alright, then I went on my way to check in for the domestic flights. I could check in there and then they had a shuttle for us to go over to the domestic terminal, so that was nice. It was really cool to go out on the tarmac(is that right?) and see all the planes. We saw a bunch getting worked on in the hangars too! Just that little ride was pretty exciting to me! I liked the little sign the best, yield to planes, with a picture of a plane, haha. I had to wait a few hours for my flight then, but I occupied myself. If I can handle about 12 hours in LAX, I could handle a few there. I didn’t even have a gate at first, so I went to the book store and read a little bit of a couple books, then perused the souvenir shop and got a couple postcards. I got a muffin and by then had a gate so I could go sit down for the rest of the waiting time. The plane ride was great, I had the window seat in the first row! I watched some TV and listened to some interesting music, it was only about an hour and a half flight so it was pretty easy to stay entertained. When I landed and got my luggage, I still had to wait about an hour for the Gull bus back into Geelong. Then when it dropped us off I just missed the bus nearby, so I had to get a taxi back to campus, but it was nice, I had a good conversation with the guy. I was exhausted! When I got back I did a lot with all my photos and had to get started on my homework right away, as it was due the next night! But I got that done alright and did a good job. Whew! That’s all of my vacation right there! Hope you enjoyed it! I’m sure it was much more enjoyable for me than you, but you know, I’m trying to help you out a little! It was an amazing vacation, and so wonderful to see my lovely mom! Now I have seeing my dad to look forward to in a few weeks!!!

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed all these posts, it really does take a lot of time and effort on my part to put these together. I try to make them interesting so it’s not so boring to read if you actually do get around to it! I’m not sure how else to say this, but leave me comments please! I want to hear from you, honestly, just anything. I would love it! I’ll come up with another post with some more random things that have happened between then and now and more thoughts and observations. Even in this slow paced, relaxed, no worries place, life still moves pretty fast and keeps on going no matter how you feel or what you need to do! I’ve done way too much finance homework lately! Finals are starting to come into view now, that’s a bit frightening! Who cares, I’m in Australia and that’s incredible, right!? Okay, well, have a wonderful weekend. I miss you heaps and can’t wait to hear from you. Don’t forget to smile and remember I care about you! I’ll leave you with these:

The human heart feels things the eyes cannot see, and knows what the mind cannot understand. ~Robert Vallett

Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory. ~Alan Alda

Love, Alissa

Tasmania Adventures!!

Goodness! I feel so behind in everything, this and school and keeping in touch. I hope you all are doing well. I’m going to make this entry all about my Tasmania trip, then hopefully in the next couple days I’ll get up the end of our Easter break trip and such so I can get myself and you all up to date! Just a little side note, recently I’ve seen a lot of change in myself and my life and it’s sort of overwhelming, but exciting maybe. I’m still not sure what’s happening, or where I’m going, but it’s definitely a change. Anyway, random I know, so now I’ll get on with the show.

Last Wednesday I left for Tasmania with 13 other international students! Nine of us were really travelling together, the other five were staying at the same hostel but doing other stuff, although we did run into them some. That day was ANZAC day, so we had the day off. For our Australia Today class, though, we got up at 4 and went to a dawn service to remember the day and the soldiers. It was in Torquay and was pretty nice. I was amazed at how many people came out, it was honestly pretty moving that so many Australians come together to remember, and there were a lot of young people as well. I don’t think us Americans really seem to come together like that to remember, especially the younger generation. There were just a couple speakers and some readings, planes flew over, and they sang a few songs. There was a short parade of some veterans as well. And we got to see the sunrise sort of, though it was very cloudy. We got free snags as well. We got back mid morning and then had to leave at 11 for the airport. So I finished packing and doing some homework before we left. The Gull took us to Tullamarine Airport, we ate some lunch, waited around, and we headed south to Tassie! It was only about an hour flight, but I was out the whole time I was so tired. We had to pick up our rental car which took us awhile. We got a Toyota Corolla hatchback, it was pretty nice, plenty roomy for 4 of us. It was Jess from Wisconsin, Jeff from Nevada, and Brandon from K-State in our car. Then Donald, a K-Stater, Lauren and Rachael from Atlanta and North Carolina, Scott from Ohio, and Marc from Ohio, were all in another car. Brandon and Jess were the drivers on our car since it cost so much to add more drivers and they’d driven before. I was kinda sad I didn’t get to drive, I still haven’t, it’s been 3 months since I’ve been behind the wheel!! But hopefully I will in New Zealand. Anyway, we drove into Hobart and found our hostel. At first sight I thought it was a really nice one, it was my first one. They had a board with out names to greet us and it seemed fairly clean and lodge-y feeling. We had a four person room so didn’t have to share with strangers, it was decent, small but a sink and enough room to sleep. The beds were actually quite comfortable. The only problem with our room was the damp, stale feel and slight smell of urine, that was a little gross. The bathrooms were horrid, however. I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that gross, it was very nice to come back here and actually feel clean. We had to hold down the flusher on the toilets for at least 30 seconds for it to work. But it was a decent place to sleep and super cheap, not a big deal. We found a fish and chips place on the water for dinner and got some ice cream after. Then we all headed back to the hostel to just plan out the next day and crash.

Thursday we got up early to go to the Cadbury Chocolate Factory. That was pretty cool. It made me very happy being around that much chocolate, you could smell it strongly in the air. Who wouldn’t love that?! It was interesting to see how they make the chocolate and then each of their products as well. All I ever knew was Cadbury Crème Eggs, but here it’s huge like Hershey, it’s like all of Australia’s chocolate. The most amazing thing was seeing everything being wrapped, I was flabbergasted at how fast it all went! They make a lot of chocolate there! The best part was being greeted with a free sample, and being given a small box of free samples at the end of the tour. They had a shop too, we all bought lots and lots of chocolate. It was all super cheap, like factory prices, so I bought $14 worth of it in the hopes it will last me through my time here! We ate a lot of it that day, though. I still have a few blocks and much more left though. After that exciting experience that lifted our tried spirits, we were off on a drive to Port Arthur. We stopped along the way at a few places to see some pretty views and explore a little and take some nice pictures. It was a good time. We stopped at a Tasmanian Devil park but it cost too much for what it was and we didn’t really want to go in that bad anyway, so we left fast. We finally arrived at Port Arthur and ate a little lunch of pb & j before heading in to the historic site. We paid our dues and headed to the museum first. It took you through the life of a convict and how the penal colony worked and the way things were back then. It was pretty interesting. Then our guided tour started and we were led around a little ways on the grounds and told a lot of the history of the place. It was very interesting, and a little disturbing. There were some really horrible things that went on at this place, very cruel treatment of these convicts sent from England. Some of them just stole a loaf of bread or something! But they were all second offense prisoners so they had to have done something while in prison back home to be sent there. Many of the convicts went crazy because of the physical and mental abuse. So then we went off to explore a little more on our own and look at some of the buildings before we went on a cruise around the harbour. That was nice, though quite cold, I was very glad I brought my heavy coat! I guess it makes sense, Tasmania is the closest thing to Antarctica! After the cruise we did a bit more wandering around to other houses and remnants on the grounds. It was pretty interesting, lots of history. There wasn’t near as much now as there was when it was running. They had the commandant’s house and others set up like they would have been back then. The parsonage is one of the most haunted buildings in Australia apparently. That made me feel pretty nervous when I walked in there, but I didn’t experience anything crazy. There were two church’s that were pretty, one was an old stone that had burned down except the foundation walls, and the other was newer and made of wood. There was a disturbing Separate Prison where they put bad convicts to torture them pretty much, mostly mentally. They were pretty much in solitary confinement and stripped of their identity. The houses were closing so we headed back to the visitor center place to grab a bite to eat. Then we had a ghost tour!! Unfortunately, or maybe more fortunately, we didn’t see any ghosts or experience any strange happenings. It was still a little freaky to be out there at night in the dark knowing that it was supposed to be super haunted with so many souls with unfinished business being there. We heard lots of stories of the people that are supposedly ghosts now and stories of their sightings. It was cool. Plus the grounds at night just had a different feel and looked awesome with just a few lights and our lanterns. We just drove back to Hobart that night and chilled. It was a fairly long drive after a long day. It was good though, Port Arthur was really interesting with so much history behind the place.

Friday we were supposed to go to the Brewery, but we were late because we couldn’t find it. So we rescheduled for Saturday. We just headed straight up to Mount Wellington. It was a windy drive up, but pretty cool looking over the side every once and again. The top is pretty tall, I can’t remember what the measurement was though. It was absolutely freezing at the top with the wind blowing so hard. The heavy coat was a genius idea on my part! It was cloudy but we could still see the city pretty well at least when the clouds went over. There were a few moments we were in a cloud, that was weird! Looking over all of Hobart was pretty, and to see the water and everything. We spent a little time up there, wandering around, climbing around on the rocks, and taking plenty of pictures before we headed back down for another long drive. There was a huge fire along the drive with huge clouds of smoke in the sky. We had a couple hours to go before we hit our next adventure destination. This was a hot springs place. They had a hot spring pool that we thought was in a natural cave or something, but it was just a swimming pool with natural hot spring water in it. It was tepid, but not really that warm, especially for it being so chilly outside. The guys got in, but the rest of us just stuck our feet in the water. It did feel nice, it felt soft, like the water was conditioning or something as strange as that sounds. We also brought stuff and had a little barbeque there. We had hot dogs and hamburgers and chips and apples, and our chocolate of course! It was nice, a fun little stop. After awhile we hopped back in the car for another 5 minute drive to Hastings Caves. All of this was reached by dirt roads, a little strange, but that’s Tasmania for you. Many Australian’s joke they’re all in-breeds down there, but some places it really seemed like that could be true! Anyway, these caves were pretty nice. All of this was in the middle of a sort of rain forest as well so it was quite beautiful. We had a guide in the caves, but he didn’t have much to say. The cave was actually made of dolomite, not limestone like most. It was millions of years old and we walked around it by lots of stairs! They had some dramatic lighting going on in there which made for a nice effect, especially for some pictures. That was a spectacular part of nature, what naturally forms and all that stuff. I think I’m obsessed with natural processes and nature left alone to it’s own devices. It’s really awe inspiring and wonderful, and there’s lots of it everywhere in this country. I guess we have lots too though, I’ll have to go see more of it. We started the long drive home in the dark. We had to keep Brandon awake driving so we had some great conversation. He asked if anyone had good topics to discuss after we’d sort of talked about the day and such so I asked if anyone knew what they wanted to do with their life or if they’d always dreamed of something about how their life will turn out. That was a good way to get to know these people a little better and share some of myself with them as well. It was really a great discussion and led to other things sort of. I like conversing like that and getting to know people well. I didn’t know any of them all that well before the trip, now I feel fairly close to them. I needed that, investing time in others and them investing time in me, it’s a great thing. Anyway, we got back to the Frog and headed to the bottle shop to get a few drinks for the evening in at the hostel. That was a fun night just hanging out there!

Saturday we got up and went downtown by the water to the Salamanca Market. That was heaps of fun. There were tons of stalls with local shops, food vendors, souvenir places, local artists and bakeries and stuff. There were also musicians on about every corner and they were actually quite talented. I enjoyed it a lot, shopping and taking in the local feel. I bought a fair amount of treasures and enjoyed the music and atmosphere, and a delicious meat pie! Then we had to head to our Cascade Brewery tour early in the afternoon. That was fairly interesting and exciting, but it would have been better Friday because they were closed so we couldn’t see anything actually happening. I didn’t really know all the steps they had to go through to get to beer though! We did see some sitting in a huge vat brewing. Then we got to go back and get free samples, we got three that were about 300ml maybe, a little smaller than a pot. I only had one glass of the Mercury Cider they had, it was good. I hate beer, but it was alcoholic apple cider basically. I did try a few sips of their blonde beer, a lighter one, and their special First Harvest. That was the first day that one was available, it comes out for a limited time once a year and is hard to come by so it was special. They use real fresh hops in that instead of hop pellets. I could tell that if I were to enjoy beer, it was be really quality, but I just can’t stand it. I bought a few souvenirs and we were on our way so Jess and Brandon could take three of the other Deakin internationals back to the airport because they were leaving earlier than us. I just hung out at the hostel for that time, reading and trying to figure out our plans for Sunday. When they got back we all just rested for awhile. The other car kept going and went out to some old cemetery and a fountain. We all headed out to have a nice dinner together that evening. We found a good little Italian place that was very tasty. Our table got a bottle of wine to share from Victoria and it was very tasty, I actually really enjoyed it - a Chardonnay. After dinner we went back to hang out at the hostel for awhile. We sat around downstairs talking and such. We made friends with the dog, Mojo. She was cute, a little energetic for us though. Most of us went out that night to a couple different bars in Hobart, it was a good time. We finished up the night going to a bakery for a late night snack of a delicious meat pie!

Sunday was our last full day. The other car of people had rented out a house for the day and night on Bruny Island a little south, so we decided to head up north to Wineglass Bay. That is the one thing I really wanted to do down there, so I’m glad we got to. Jess and Brandon had to wake up to take the other two guys to the airport in the morning, so we all got up and around when they got back and left early. It was about a three hour drive up there. It took us longer because we made a few long stops. We had to stop once for gas. Then we stopped at this lookout point on a beach for awhile to explore and take in the view. I found a whole bunch of really awesome seashells there. Then we stopped again right before getting to Wineglass Bay, in Coles Bay I think, to eat some lunch. We had gotten some bread and pb and j for the couple days so we ate that and some chips. We had to go to the bathroom in port a potty, apparently there wasn’t a toilet in the grocery store, but whatever, we were used to being a little gross. We found a little picnic table to eat at and were right on the water, with a beautiful view of some mountains in the background, not a bad way to eat a picnic. The sea gulls were pretty interested in us, so we fed them a few pieces of bread. That was quite entertaining for us. We were on our way again for the last leg of our journey there. We stopped at the visitor center to buy a park pass and see what the hikes were. We just decided to do the shorter hike to see Wineglass Bay, not the other bays or the Hazards. So we got there and got ready. It was quite chilly so we were all bundled up and people were coming down in short sleeves and stuff, we were a little confused. When we started hiking we learned why. It got quite warm as you were walking up the mountain! I really liked the fact that you have to hike up a ways to see this bay at all, it’s hidden and protected, you can’t drive to it at all, it’s still surrounded by pure nature and nothing else to interrupt your views. The hike was difficult at times, but it felt good, invigorating. When we got to the top about 30 minutes later we got to see the amazing view! It was a truly gorgeous beach and bay and mountains around it. The water was really blue and the sand was so white. It was a pretty cloudy day, so it could have been much prettier I’m sure, but even so it was still absolutely gorgeous. Again, the fact that the whole area around there as long as you can see is untouched by man is pretty spectacular. There was another hike to actually go down to the beach, but it was pretty steep and we were all tired and didn’t want to have to hike two hours back up that, so we opted not to. It was a beautiful view form the top anyway. We stayed up there for awhile and talked with these really nice people from Sydney who took our picture. We wandered around the rocks a bit and took plenty of pictures including some pretty silly ones. It was a lot of fun. And the best part was, it was basically a free day besides gas and a few dollars each for the park pass! I love just hanging out somewhere gorgeous and taking lots of photos, it’s great. I love the feeling of being behind the camera, of holding down the shutter and capturing something so wonderful, I don’t know, it feels good. It releases a lot of the stress and whatever negativity is in me, it’s so simple and yet a bit complex. Anyway, you get the point, great views and fun at the top. We took our time heading back down as well, enjoying the views and the nature around us, and still taking a fair amount of funny pictures before all of our cameras died! The drive back was fairly long. Jess drove for most of it so I sat up front with her and let the boys sleep in the back. We talked the whole way back about just about everything. It was really great to get to know her better and have some girl talk and share so much good conversation. Before we knew it we were back in Hobart and just crashed for our last night there, we were all exhausted! I actually had to do some homework and send it back to my group. We got to sleep that night, we went to bed earlier and got up later the next morning so that helped us a lot.

Monday morning we got up just in time to check out of the dirty hostel by 10. We drove downtown to get a bite for breakfast and walk around down there a bit. Jess and I did some shopping and explored the stores and town a little. That was a lot of fun and I got some great stuff. Then we all met back up, and drove over to that meat pie shop we liked so much for a quick lunch. It was time to go to the airport! We had to return the car by 1:30 and our flight was around 3. The flight was a little late so we had to sit and wait awhile but it was alright. The other car of people were a little late because they missed their ferry back to the main land from their island, but they made it so that was good. The flight was short, but again I was out for most all of it!! We had to wait for the Gull bus back in Melbourne for about an hour. Then it was another hour and half back to Geelong. Since there were so many of us they were nice and took us all the way back to Deakin rather than dropping us off at their office in town. I got back and finished my homework for today, loaded my pictured to my computer and called it a night.

This morning we were supposed to have our group presentation in Business Communication but one of our group members got into a car accident! She was fine but couldn’t make it so we have to do it next week instead. That was frustrating since I got up early to get ready and to work on it with them and then we didn’t have to. Today is sort of my long day in class, I have like 4 hours straight basically, that’s a lot for down here! I’m going to be in trouble when I get home! Anyway, I have tons of homework and studying to do between now and the end of school now. It’s getting close! We only have like 5 weeks left, it’s crazy!! I got my exam schedule. We have study week the first week of June, then two weeks of exams. All three of mine are that first week, Tues thru Thursday. So that’s really nice, that frees up a whole other week for me to go somewhere or do something! I’ll have to come up with something, that excited me! Anyway, now it’s getting late and I’m tired. I have a long week ahead with all my work! Hope you all are enjoying your weeks. I miss you lots and look forward to coming home and getting hugs from everyone, although I’m still not ready to come home quite yet! This trip to Tasmania was something I really needed and it was wonderful for me. Oh, I only saw dead Tasmanian devils as road kill everywhere, no live ones wandering around. Leave me comments on how you’re going and I’ll bring you another update from the past soon. I’ll leave you with my current favorite song lyrics, we listened to this song on repeat on our trip, it was perfect and we all related to it somehow, really great!!

“Opportunity”

And so it goes another lonely day
Your savin time but your miles away
Your fly was drownin in some bitter tea
For seeing lost opportunity

Find your mirror go and look inside
And see the talent you always hide
Don't go kid yourself well not today
Satisfaction's not too far away

Hold on now your exits here
It's waiting just for you
Don't pause too long
It's fading now
It's ending all too soon you'll see

Soon you'll see

Your coffee's warm but your milk is sour
Life is short but your here to flower
Dream yourself along another day
Never miss opportunity

Don't be scared of what you cannot see
Your only fear is possibility
Never wonder what the hell went wrong
Your second chance may never come along

Hold on now your exits here
It's waiting just for you
Don't pause too long
It's fading now
It's ending all too soon you'll see

Soon you'll see

Hold on now your exits here
It's waiting just for you
Don't pause too long
It's fading now
It's ending all too soon you'll see

Soon you'll see [x5]
~Pete Murray


Love always, Liss