Goodbyes :'(

HI! I reckon this will be my last blog until I get home since I’ll be on my trip and such. Sad day! It’s been a fairly emotional few days, though maybe to your surprise, no tears! At least not yet. I haven’t actually said goodbye to anyone yet. I suppose those will start today. I’m definitely not looking forward to them. It’s been a busy week even though I’ve had it all free! It’s so easy to occupy yourself for a week. I still have had things to do though, like packing and figuring stuff out for my trip and stuff. I haven’t done enough packing yet probably, but I just don’t want to, it makes it so real! Two of my friends have left, but I didn’t say goodbye to either one of them because I thought I’d see them again! Lee left before I could say goodbye, and Jess left on her trip, but hopefully I’ll see her this summer sometime again. Anyway, it’s sad. The idea is becoming so real, I’ll probably never see most of these people again! At least I’ve made a bunch of American friends as well, that helps that I can see them. Things are so bittersweet sometimes. I almost wish I could stay here another semester. Things have just seemed perfect and comfortable in the past month or so. It’s been amazing while it lasted though. Okay, so what have I done this week?

Well, I had to spend Sunday writing my paper, not a fun task. I took my time and got distracted quite often. My roommates were here so of course I had to spend time with them. But I did get all my research done and forced myself to just knock out the essay in a few hours. It was pretty good I guess, I barely needed any points to pass the class, so I’m not worried. We don’t find out our final grades for a few weeks I don’t think. That’s strange. We also don’t know what our grade on our final exam is, they only give you your final grade for the class on the whole, you have to pay to see more. I don’t like that. I guess it doesn’t really matter though. It rained all day on Sunday and all day Monday as well, it was actually a dreary rain which is rare here. Monday I turned in my paper and got ready before eating lunch at the Bbar with Jess, her friends, and Brandon. I came back to get my stuff to head into Melbourne and all my roommates freaked out on me because there had been a shooing in Melbourne that morning and told me I was going to get shot if I went into the city. So talking to them, I missed the bus. Marc and Scott just waited in town for me until I came in on the next bus. It was a good train ride into the city and we just started walking around. We had no plan but to snap pictures. We walked around the streets of Melbourne haphazardly and found some really awesome buildings. Hayley had told me about some good views from the Sofitel hotel when she visited here so we went to check that out. I couldn’t remember which floor it was from so we had a bit of an adventure. Marc claimed it was like Bond, I’m not sure about that, though it was pretty exciting. We never found the so called great views, but an adventure nonetheless. Next we were led to Federation Square by our spirits and found some great shots. We started to head over to the South bank, but alas we were stopped by a call from Marc’s friend Lindsey. She was going to meet us back at Fed Square. After this short detour we were on our way back to the south bank of the Yarra for some good views of the city skyline all lit up at night. Lindsey was really nice, and a Canadian! We took some pictures along the way, but went straight for the Crown Casino complex down the way to grab some grub from the food court. She had to leave, but the boys and I continued on our trek. We took many a pictures, had many a laughs, an overall grand night on the town. The train ride back was great as well.

Okay, sidetrack. I’m slow at writing, it takes a day or so to actually write one. Anyway, goodbyes suck, I am not a fan. I’ve had two more today, two of my roommates went home today, Katie and Tom. Katie was super nice, and being my first real goodbye it sucked. Tom was my weekend and early morning buddy when nobody else was around. He’s also a great guitar player, so I’ll miss him heaps as well. Everyone else goes home Saturday. Sidetrack is over, I just don’t like the idea of never seeing these wonderful people again, it’s not fun!

And now it’s the next day. It’s hard to write this long blog of what I’ve been doing when all I can think about is how I’m feeling! Anyway, I’ll try to get through it here briefly anyway. We had our last night out on the town last night and it was really good, but sad for sure. Last night we all sent off Nick. I just sent off Loretta and her sister with everyone, that was sad to see her saying goodbye. A couple girls here are taking it especially hard that all of us are leaving. I’m glad that I don’t leave the country for a couple weeks, that way I just have to say bye to people now, then the country, a step at a time makes it a tad bit easier I suppose.

So, the week behind us. Melbourne was fun. Tuesday was just a relaxing day. Although I think it was Monday night that we had the fire alarm go off in our unit. It rained super hard! I went to bed around 1 and it started raining, but it had been off and on for awhile so I didn’t think much. Then it started sounding like a real storm which is very rare here. Hail came eventually and it honestly freaked me out a little because I didn’t think that was normal for here to be that bad. I guess I just fell into a deep sleep pretty quickly because about 15 minutes later I was woken up by the fire alarm, which I’d never heard before. It freaked me out definitely and the first thought was honestly that it was a tornado siren because it seemed like it would be at home, but they don’t have those here! I was way out of it, but went outside to freeze. One guy had an exam the next morning so that wasn’t good for him. So anyway, it turns out with all the hail and hard rain it had leaked through the roof and was dripping a little into my neighbour’s room from the ceiling and that set it off. So we all stayed up for a bit after that before going back to bed. Wednesday Loretta and I went into Geelong to visit the National Wool Museum and the Ford Discovery Centre. This is the largest wool exporting country. And Geelong was the first place Ford set up a factory in Australia. That was fairly un-interesting, but still worth seeing them both, and quite cheap. We went to Happy’s at the Pond’s Wednesday night and had a good time. Thursday the two of us girls went into the city early in the morning to eat breakfast at this Pancake place I’ve been wanting to go to the whole time. Then we caught the train into Melbourne to go to the Queen Vic Market for some final souvenir shopping for everyone. She also had to stop by the Harley store for some people and we finished off the visit with lunch from Lord of the Fries. We napped on the train there and back, always positive. We enjoyed our last caf meal, although it was a bit disappointing, as Thursdays usually are.

Friday was more doing nothing. All week I just sort of laid around and hung out with whoever was around, it was a great way to spend the days. Early that evening I had to say goodbye to my roommate Tom, he’s the one who plays guitar all the time and is always here to keep my company early in the mornings and on the weekends. Friday night was our last night out on the town, and many people’s last nights here. It was a fabulous time, we finished where we started at Room 99. It was great because pretty much everyone was there, so much of res showed up and everyone was enjoying their last night out together. It was sad to leave and call it a night. I stayed up quite late and woke up early this morning to say bye to Loretta, and her roommates and such. Although I’ll see Loretta and her sister in a short time. I came back and sort of wanted to go to sleep but I thought a couple of my roommates were leaving soon so I stayed awake. They didn’t leave for a couple hours though. That was quite sad. I had to say bye to Allister and Ash. Big Al is a great guy and it made it harder that he was so sad to say goodbye. I’ll miss his super Australian “G’Day Alissa” every morning. I was off and on packing and cleaning and such today. After awhile I decided to take some hot apple cider over to Jared because he’s been pretty sick and liked it when I let him try it. On my way out Kiri was packing up her car with Bree. That was a pretty sad goodbye as well. Kiri’s my girl, she’s obsessed with shoes, wants a beaver, and is in love with Elvis. I’ve also made her fall in love with cinnamon toast, cheese dip, and s’mores. I love that girl and I’ll miss our random talks. So then I headed over to Jared’s, with a stop off on the other side of the Wookey’s to say bye to Jono and Tom and to sign Jono’s fridge. That was sad as well, those two guys are pretty awesome as well. We chatted a bit, and planned on ’definitely maybe’ seeing each other for Loretta’s b-day in Melbourne. I’ll be there, and Jared is definitely coming, but all her roommates and those two boys might show up as well so that would be exciting. Anyway, then it was finally to Jared’s to watch over the sick boy since his girl Loretta wasn’t there to anymore! Ha. He was pretty yuck in bed so I left him to it and promised to bring my soup I hadn’t eaten. I left all my food for my housemates. I came back and chilled in my room, talking to my neighbour Lachy for a few hours from our rooms across the hall from each other. That’s always fun. I’ll miss him lots. He was the last one here and he left early evening. That was a tough goodbye as well. He didn’t want to leave and was quite sad as well. Saying goodbye to everyone I did pretty good. I held it in until they left, except Kiri because her and Bree both started to get a bit teary. But after Lachy, he was the last one from my unit, and a close one, so I just lost it. My aussies are now gone. I probably won’t see them. I hate that idea so so much. I can’t explain it. I’m happy it’s easy to stay in touch and everything, but it’s not the same. I don’t get to be here, be around for all the crazy stuff that happens and talk to everyone in person. It makes me so sad. I definitely broke down after that last goodbye. It’s too many goodbyes for me, it’s really quite tiring! Saying goodbye forever is hard, and I’ve never had to do that before. I’m not a fan. I went back over to take Jared his tea of soup and chocolate before I headed over to the Dawson units to hang out with the rest of the Americans that are left. We played some video games and sat around before deciding to go get dinner and see a movie. We got a Maxi Taxi down the road to the fast food places and all got some food, Bubba’s for myself, Brandon and Joe, everyone else went to Subway. The we walked across the street to the movie theatres to see Ocean’s 13. It was pretty good, nothing compared to the first two though. We were all pretty buggered after such a big night last night and not much sleep. We decided to just walk back from there, it was good bonding time for everyone, about ten of us went and we saw Tom, Jared and Val there as well. Anyway, we got back and went back to the hanging out playing video games. It’s been so long since I’ve played Mario Kart I pretty much sucked, but it was definitely good. I had to say goodbye to a few of them then since I’m leaving tomorrow for my trip. That was sad as well. I think there’s definitely a chance I can see a lot of them, but still you never know and we’ve all grown pretty close. It’s strange how that happens. You get so close to these people that don’t necessarily know you as well as friends back home do, but you have that connection, something to share. It’s like we’re all so close even if we’d never be friends back home, and I think that’s pretty awesome, I am a fan. So anyway, the walk back here was hard on me, my last night on res, saying goodbye to everyone today, it’s just so incredibly sad and I don’t like it. Today I definitely didn’t feel like coming home, sorry. It’s just too sad, I don’t want to feel this, I want to be able to see these people! But it is nice to have good family and friends to be going home to as well.

So now I’m trying to wrap this up so I can go to sleep as I already am pretty late and need to get up again in the morning. It’s so hard to write all this when there is so much else going on. I’m sorry this was drastically less detailed than usual and I probably left out a bunch of stuff, but I just wanted to give you a quick update. So tomorrow comes Perth and Western Australia, and then Adelaide and Canberra before coming back to Melbourne for a couple days and then coming home to Kansas! It’s crazy. It’s so real. The past few days it’s become real that I’m actually leaving this place that has become so normal and wonderful to me. I’ll miss it so much, and not seeing these people every day will be so incredibly hard on me. But it’s been amazing, truly. I don’t think I could ask for more. There’s always that, well I could have gone here or done that or whatever, but really I wouldn’t change a thing, or take anything back. I don’t regret anything. I think every part of my journey the past 5 months has been necessary and fabulous in some way. I’m not ready to leave. But to have been able to experience this at all is enough. Someone said, isn’t it great that we are so lucky we have something to make saying goodbye so difficult?! Indeed.

Now I’ll leave you and probably won’t post again until after I’m home! I’ll have to post a few more though at that point to finish off my experience. I will have limited internet access until I’m home, but you can still leave me comments or send me emails or anything you want until then and I’d appreciate it greatly. Oh yeah, this week was the boys birthday, 24 now! That was sad to miss, but lovely that I got to talk to both of them for a few minutes! Yeah, so ciao, farewell, next time I write I’ll be in the same country as you! Hope to see you all soon. Take care of yourselves and those around you. Remember how blessed we are in this world. Don’t forget to keep the faith. And here are a few more quotes to ponder. It’s so hard to choose from all the great ones I have! So there are just a bunch. I’m not sure how to find words myself.

Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is before you can meet again. And meeting again after a moment or a lifetime is certain for those who are friends. - Richard Bach

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. ~Dr. Seuss

Nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the latitudes and longitudes. ~Henry David Thoreau

Have courage, and be strong. 1 Corinthians 16:13

Faith is to believe what you do not yet see: the reward for this faith is to see what you believe. ~Saint Augustine of Hippo

Each day is a new life. Seize it. Live it. ~David Guy Powers

Love you all, Alissa