"Did you choose to come here or did your parents ship you here??"

Yet again I have procrastinated catching up on my blog. Sorry but I am sure this one will be long too…

first off-the explanation of the title....some intoxicated fella was talking with Adriana and he preceded to ask us that silly question!!! it was heaps funny at the time!

As I write this I am hanging out at my guy friends David, Pat, Chase, and Jerrod’s place. They live right on the beach, which is absolutely amazing! About an hour ago I was sitting on the porch (which overlooks Newcastle Beach) working on some homework. I seriously could not get over how amazing it is down here-the view from their porch is incredible!!!! I LOVE studying here, and luckily them don’t mind me chilling on their porch. AND they give me Tim-Tams (super delicious cookies here)! However I do not seem to get as much homework done as I plan, I get easily distracted but still love being down here to study. There is nothing more calming than the sound of the ocean, cheesy I know but so true. Even now as I type this I can hear the rustle of the waves right across the street. I love this place…

Last night I spent like 6 hours putting up pictures on facebook, thus I am pretty tired today. It has been icky and raining here the last few days, which does not help my tired feeling-we, all miss the sun tremendously. No worries though- I am sure not complaining about the weather here, I know I have it way easier than all of you guys at home!

Classes are still going pretty well, I have it way easier here than at home. As for the job-no luck still but I am still looking. I have a job interview at a child care matching center on Thursday morning; we’ll have to see how that goes. I really want to get a job here but it has been so difficult and time is already running out. Ugh, whatever happens happens I guess.

I cannot remember what I last skyped about so I will just start with last Wednesday. We had another dinner with our guy friends. It was down-pouring ALL day so by the time we got to their place downtown we looked like wet dogs. Hahha it was hilarious how drenched we were. We ended up hanging out playing drinking games with everyone, we had a blast!!! Later that night we went out to one of the bars and danced a bit then headed home at the wee hours of the morning. Another successful Student Night for sure…too many stories to even start to tell them!

Thursday night after my classes Adriana and I headed to Sydney. We arrived at Central Station by 9pm that night. The last time we were in Sydney we were on a strict schedule so this time we decided to go without planning much. Her sister and her sister’s boyfriend met up with us right away and we all grabbed dinner (Kebabs-YUM). During the day we hit up the Sydney Aquarium, it was heaps funny!!! Friday night we stayed with a girl I met on the surf weekend and we met up with David and the boys downtown Sydney. We had quite the adventure that night…Saturday we stayed with the family I met on my volunteer weekend. It was SO nice staying in a house!!! Their house was gorgeous and it was heaps fun getting to see how a typical Australian family interacts. Ahh there is SO much I can say about this past weekend but I don’t want to bore you with all the random stuff. To sum it up-I had HEAPS fun with Adriana and am in love with Sydney!!!

I was able to skype with Kristen and the Kirvens (the family I nanny for in Minneapolis) today. Skype always puts me in a good mood!!! Tomorrow I am skyping with mom/dad/Calli, which I am super excited for! I think my cousins from Illinois will be there too which is awesome!

Yesterday I finally got a hint of homesickness but was able to keep myself busy enough so that it really did not affect me too much. I miss everyone a lot but still am not ready to leave. Adriana and I were sorta bumming about missing Easter with our family this year and then literally an hour later a couple from Bara went around and handed out Easter treats. It totally made our night!!!! We went to the grocery store and bought them a chocolate bunny to say thanks. I am still bummed about missing out on Easter baskets and Easter morning church/brunch. Oh well I guess…

Friday afternoon we (Kels, Adriana, David, Jason, Pat, Alex, and I) are leaving for our spring break/holiday trip. We are flying to Brisbane first and hitting up the Steve Irwin’s Zoo- I am heaps stoked for it! After that we are heading to Fraser Island where we will be camping. After 3 days of that we will be heading to the Whitsundays to go sailing for a few days. Our last day there we hope to go skydiving-I’ll let you know if we end up doing that.

Well I really should stop now before you guys fall asleep trying to read it! Long story short-I still really love being down under and am trying to take full advantage of every opportunity thrown my way!!! This experience is going to go by so fast and I know it, so I am enjoying each and every day here to the fullest!!!!!!

Thanks for taking the time to read up on my blog ☺

XOXOXO
Stac