Heaps of Fun in the Down Under

So I am well aware that it has been some time since the last time I blogged. Life has been crazy this past month. We've had visitors and gone on trips and everything. 2 weeks after having Harrison come visit the Gold Coast, my sisters Beth and Ali came to Australia to visit me! It was amazing having them here and we got into some ridiculous adventures which were not surprising considering when we get together, anything can happen. We roadtripped all the way to Sydney which is about a 13 hour drive. We stayed with Harrison got to see the sights of Sydney and then got majorly lost on the way home turning our already long road trip into a 17 hour one. It was nice to have more family come visit and we made some great memories. The only downfall was that they had difficulty getting the tan they so desperately wanted which made it the first time in my life that I was ever tanner than those two.

The Opera House!!

At the same time my sisters visited Jen's parents were in town which was fun to see them so there were visitors left and right!! Since than our days have been very busy trying to soak up the last rays of Australian sun and enjoying our last few nights in our lovely home by the sea. Our last weekend we were able to go to an actual AFL game with Scott and Jamie which was so much fun and the Brisbane Lions won even though everyone was losing faith! The next day we all went down to the Fox for the $2 steaks that the Brisbane boys had been telling us about for the past month. For only two dollars, it surprisingly wasn't too bad! I have left out heaps of stories but at least this is a quick update on the past month in Australia. I sorta failed on blogging these past weeks so my apologies but I will blog at least once more before I leave this country I've called home for the past 4 months!!

House Guests Galore!

This past weekend was probably one of the top 3 of my favorite weekends since I've been in Australia! It started off by seeing Shutter Island on Thursday night with my roommates which was a movie we had been wanting to see forever! It was an eerie movie that we called what the ending was going to be, but nonetheless pretty good! I attempted to go to bed early because the next morning Harrison was coming to visit at 7 in the morning!! Friday morning I went and got Harrison at the bus stop outside our place and we went directly to the beach to sit and talk and catch up. It was so nice to have a friendly face from APU come and visit and really comforting to have a member of our AC group Team Strip be there to talk to about everything to do with Australia. Harrison is studying in Sydney so it was awesome to catch up and realize how on the same page we both were on living in the Land Down Under. After spending four hours at the beach talking (according to Harrison thats how long we were there...questionable) we walked into Burleigh's town center area and got some breakfast at a cute cafe where Harrison was greatly disappointed by the the long stack of pancakes that consisted of only 2 tiny flap jacks.

I look awesome at 7 in the morning still in my pj's!!

Once we got back from breakfast and we all ran to the grocery store to buy food for the weekend, we headed down to Southport where we went to see a professional AFL (very similar to rugby but I can't for the life of me tell you the difference). The game was a lot of fun to go to and as I sat there on the grassy hill eating a burger with my roommates, Harrison and some friends from school I was in complete bliss :) .

On the loooong bus ride to the AFL game

After the game, one of my favorite pictures of the weekend!! :)

Once we finally got back to the apartment after our lovely bus driver decided to take us all around what seemed like the entire Gold Coast, we got home and cooked up some steak fajitas for dinner which were amazing! That night we just hung out, Harrison went running into the ocean because he had a random obsession with going into the water in the dark. That whole escapade lasted about ten minutes before he came running out because it was so cold. Later in the night when everyone went to bed and Harrison and I were sorta bored he gave me permission to shave the name of our AC group's name into the back of his head. His hair was already really short so it didn't take much for my artistic skills to show up in his head.

Proud moment for me. Harrison didn't keep it long though :(

The next morning we were pretty tired so we slept in really late and than once we woke up we headed over to McDonald's to use some of their handy dandy unreliable Wifi. Well unreliable it was, as we spent at least an hour trying to skype with people from our AC group and set up times of when we would be able to. We were pretty unsuccessful which was slightly annoying but afterwards we headed up to our rooftop on top of my apartment building and talked for awhile while watching the beautiful Gold Coast sunset. Being able to talk to Harrison this weekend was so refreshing and makes me miss Team Strip so much!

Totally rocking our awesome Alpha shirts too!!

After the sunset we went in and I made the house some dinner and than we went to show Harrison downtown Surfer's Paradise which he absolutely loved. I mean it's no Sydney but it is our own little big city right next to us :) At one point during the night, Harrison accidentally misplaced his wallet and we were never able to find it! That put a slight damper on the night because he lost everything in it including my license and some other cards of mine he was holding for me because I didn't have my purse. Luckily he still had his passport back at our place so that was the most important!! On Sunday we woke up tried to skype with AC members, had no luck so then I had to go with Jen to go pick up her sister from the train station while Harrison went and caught some waves surfing with Matt. Turns out Jen's sister, Alisha caught some buses as well as walked to our place so she was actually waiting in our lobby for a majority of the time that Jen and I were walking around the train station looking for her! Also some friends of Jen's from California, Zack and Josh, who were travelling around Australia before heading home on Tuesday came to stay with us. So Sunday evening we had a huge barbeque with everyone and hung out and got to know each other. It was a really fun night especially because the boys Zack and Josh introduced us to the phenomenal Australian ice cream, Heaven, that we had never tried. Let's just say we will be having more of that little piece of Heaven! The night ended pretty early because all of our guests were tired from traveling. Little ole' room 2204 was squished with people with the 2 Bowker sisters and I squished onto our bed, Zack and Josh snuggled up on the pull out couch and Harrison made a bed out of the cushions from the couch! Quite the set up! Monday I took all of our house guests to the beach while my roommates worked on schoolwork. At the beach Harrison and I got caught in a rip tide while playing in the water and almost died but that's just the usual here in Australia's waters :)

We were finally able to skype with Carisa and Hilary in South Africa which was so nice to see them and the 4 of us be together even though it was for a short time and through a video camera! Harrison needed to catch his flight later that afternoon and it was sad to say bye to him but I enjoyed a great weekend with a great friend! After he left, we took the rest of our houseguests to see Surfer's Paradise and caught some dinner at a really cool Irish pub called Waxy's where they had live music and the guy was singing a cool version of Bob Marley's "No Woman No Cry" so I was in hog heaven with that in itself! After hanging out there the boy's only request for their last night in Australia was to go play laser tag! It was such a simple request that we had to comply so off to the arcade we went!

Sadly, the boys left this morning and Alisha went to Sydney to visit a friend for two days so now we're stuck alone with presentations and paper's looming above all our heads. Better kick it into gear!

Beef Pies at Midnight

Welp another weekend has passed in the Land Down Under. That means another seven days I have spent here in Australia and seven days less that I have left here :( But it was a weekend well spent! On Thursday night we all went out to dinner at a restaurant down the street from us called Mermaid Tavern with some friends with school. It was nice to eat out with friends and it was nice restaurant with a cool atmosphere. Afterwards after a failed attempt to go putt putting we all just went to our apartment and hung out. Friday Matt, Jen and I headed to the beach even though it was slightly cloudy still (no news there). After observing some sea gulls yelling at each other on the sand and creating a scenario as to why the sea gulls were being far from polite to each other, Jen and I decided to go play in the ocean. So there we were splashing around and getting knocked down by the waves like rag dolls and Jen all of a sudden freaked out. A leaf had touched her leg and she thought it was another blue bottle jellyfish. Silly girl was mistaken. Five minutes passed. All of sudden I see the little Blonde from Burbank cringe in pain. An actual blue bottle had stung her. For the 2nd time this trip. So least to say, that was the end of our lovely play time in the ocean.

Saturday we all went out to dinner at Hogsbreath Steak house which is a restaurant where they prepare the steak for 18 hours to get it super super tender. It was delicious and one of the best steaks I have ever had, no wonder they're famous for their steaks!

Sunday was a lot of fun because we all went to the water park Wet N Wild which is nothing compared to Water World in Colorado but it was a good attempt :) It wasn't a very sunny day but it didn't rain so we couldn't complain too much! Overall it was a nice fun weekend that sadly had to end with studying for my 2nd spanish test but I can't forget that I'm supposed to be here studying!!

Yesterday after completing our spanish test that we had thought was at 10am not 11 Jen and I went home to nap and try to make up for the loss of sleep from the night before due to studying and talking ( more talking than actual studying but oh well). When we woke up no one was really hungry for dinner so we went straight to the Putt putting place at a 2nd attempt to complete this fun activity we have been striving for. I didn't start out so hot on this fun pass time but I finished 2nd overall which was decent to me considering I was going up against Tiger Woods aka Jennifer Bowker (minus the scandals). Once we got home at 11:30, we were all famished so we tried the Australian favorite, beef pie. There's nothing like enjoying a beef pie, white rice (remember I live with 2 Asians) and watching the Oscars at midnight on a Monday night. Gotta love Australia!

This weekend I'm suuuuper excited for because Harrison from APU is coming to visit because he's studying in Sydney this semester. It'll be nice to see a friendly face from home and I can't wait to catch up! Nanae's friend from home is coming on Friday too to stay with us for the wekend and Jen's sister is coming to stay with us for a whole week on Sunday not to mention 2 other people from California that are travelling through Australia and need a place to stay on Sunday and Monday. So to say the least, it's going to be a full house at Apartment 2204!! G'day mates!!

Rain, Rain. Come Again another day.

Well this weekend was rather unexciting because I spent the entire time studying for my Social Psychology midterm that was on Saturday. Pretty much from Wednesday night to Saturday afternoon I studied, ate, watched movies, got a little sleep and studied some more. I studied everywhere. On Thursday I went on the beach after it rained and it was nice and gloomy so I sat out there for a couple of hours studying. I studied on the couch, at the kitchen table, on our porch, on my bed. Everywhere! Thursday night, Nanae and I took a break from studying and went and opened up an account at the movie rental place down the street. On Friday Jen, Nanae and I studied hard but with tons of breaks in between. Jen decided she couldn't study any more so she went out Friday night with Matt while Nanae and I rented another movie to take a break from another all night of studying while it rained cats and dogs outside! Saturday we all woke up early to get some studying done before the test and I tried my first McDonald's pancakes in Australia. Nothing too great. Small portion and expensive. Like everything else here! After our brains were way too full of useful information about Social Psychology, we headed off in the pouring rain to Uni to get hit hard by the midterm. The midterm was alright, I felt like I had just gotten ran over by a bus after it but hey that's pretty much how I feel after everything to do with school here, so I'm getting used to it! That evening all of us were just so exhausted from studying that we watched a movie and went to bed early. Sunday it was still raining and we were informed that there was a tsunami coming right towards us due to the earthquake! They said anyone in the southern part of Queensland needs to be cautious and stay off the beaches. Well turns out, our little shack is located about as south as you can be and still be in Queensland, and right across the beach! So we were slightly worried but I was just planning on booking it up to the roof if I saw a huge wave coming, it couldn't be 11 stories high right? Well no one really seemed to listen to that warning because when I went running Sunday morning everyone was on the beach like it was the safest place to be. When I was running I came across a random national park and went for a little hike up to the top of the hill where it overlooked the ocean and I could see for miles on the left and right sides of me. I wish I had brought my camera but that's not something I usually equip myself when I'm going jogging. Right when I started jogging back the mile and half back home, Mother Nature thought it would be nice to began a torrential downpour of rain. That's when everyone thought it would be a good idea to finally get off the beach and I was just trying to sprint through the rain before my ipod broke. That night I thought I would check out the beach myself because I saw the moon shining off the ocean from my balcony and it was just calling out to me to go appreciate it. The only catch was that I had to sit way far up on the sand because the tide was up so high that it covered about 4/5 of the sand that is usually considered the beach part. It was kinda eery how far the water would come up but mesmerizing at the same time. But then because the waters were coming up so high they brought with them all kinds of nasty critters like crabs and random bugs so I got grossed out and the mesmerizing ended quickly so I went inside and called it a night. This week has been the usual boringness of school and raining everyday. I'm for sure ready for the raindrops to stop falling on my head and the sunshine to come back . Love you all!

Let Me Just Stab the Can, It'll Work I Promise

I would say that this past week has been a pretty good one! It was relaxing during the week. Last week I made my roommates dinner two times which was a pretty big deal considering I usually stick to just setting the table for dinner. One of the nights was Taco night, just bringing a little of my Mexican ethnicity into Room 2204 since our two Asian roommates make rice every night. The other night I made dinner all I needed was a can opener but of course that is the one thing that they forgot to equip our apartment with. Yes we need a knife sharpener, but not a can opener. So I went next door, thinking our neighbors would be able to help me out and I could borrow one. No, not that easy. Out of our entire floor, no one answered their doors. I was forced to go up to the next level just to retrieve a can opener before Matt completely destroyed the can by hitting it with anything he could get his hands on. But the rest of the week was nice, where we just hung out and watched the Olympics. We went to the beach a lot this weekend which was fun! One of the days Matt was trying to teach me how to paddle on the surf board and while I was bobbing along in the waves Jen got a little over her head (literally) in the waves and like almost drowned before Matt calmed her down and brought her to shore. It was a pretty funny matter once we realized she was okay. Saturday the Brisbane boys came down to hang out again which was fun and when we went to the beach on Sunday we walked down to the huge surf competition that was on our beach. We only made it there for the finals but it was still fun to watch. Those surfers are amazing! Also on Saturday when we were just sitting there hanging out watching the Olympics, all of a sudden our electricity went out. We all had the same fear, we didn't pay our electricity bill so they cut it off. Of course it was 4:41 pm and the reception office closed at 4:30. So we needed to call the person on duty and figure out what the deal was with our electricity. Turns out, the reason behind the shortage was that Jen put one of the comforters in the drier and it couldn't handle it being that full so it blew the whole outlet. Yeah that was embarrassing...

Sunday night the band Shwayzee was playing in Surfer's Paradise and we of course had to go because they are Matt and Nanae's absolute favorite band. So we all headed down there and watched them perform. It was so much fun! We were right up next to the stage and Nanae got to knuckles it with Shwayzee and Matt got a high five. It was so much fun singing along to Shwayzee, with my 3 roommates in Australia. Yesterday was a fun day, Matt Jen and I all went to the beach (Nanae had class). Jen was my little surfing paddling instructor and was teaching me how to paddle out in the waves. She was a hilarious teacher considering she was still a little scared of going far out in the water because of her rough experience from a few days earlier in the ocean. So she just stood ankle deep and yelled instructions at me. Than Matt, our little own pro surfer came and took me directly out to the big waves and would push me into the waves. He only pushed me into a few but I was able to at least get on my knees on the board! That was exciting. After my attempt at surfing and swallowing half the ocean, we went in to cook dinner and read for politics. Now I'm sitting at school in the middle of my 4 hour break between classes, chomping on trail mix. Ahh trail mix, a reminder of Colorado :)

Sorry if this was a lame post, I felt like I had a lot to say but I can't remember any of it now! Until next time!

Woah... Wait... Dad! What are you doing here?!

So there it was Wednesday afternoon, I'm tired after pulling an all nighter and I have one class to go. Jen and I are sitting in the lounge as usual because God forbid we go some place else on that campus, and my mother dearest wanted to Skype. I was so oblivious to my entire day that I didn't find it suspicious in the least bit that my mom was extremely curious about my location on campus. She told me she had a map of my campus and just wanted to know where I was. I graciously informed her, without thinking it was strange that my mom was looking at a map of Bond. All of a sudden some strange little mexican man comes and kisses my cheek. I look up and low and behold it was my dad standing there just smiling. I was completely dumbfounded. I was so confused at what was going on and could not wrap my head around the fact that my dad was standing right here in Australia with me. I finally got enough composure to get up and hug him as Jen continued to sit there still not completely understanding what just happened. Apparently for the past two weeks my parents have been planning on having my dad surprise me in Australia and not even my sisters knew he was coming! Well they planned well because I was for sure surprised! Since I still had one more class to go to in an hour, I gave my dad a quick tour of Bond but than of course it started raining in the middle of my top notch tour so I had to cut it short. After class I gave my dad the grand tour of our apartment on the beach before we headed to his hotel. That in itself was an adventure considering he needed to learn real quick how to drive on the opposite of the road. It was a difficult task and every time he tried to turn on his blinker, the window wipers flew up. No one knows when he is turning and he turned into the wrong lane a few times but hey at least that windshield is clean! His first night here we just grabbed dinner down at the hotel restaurant. We were going to start his vacation off in style by having the legit seafood buffet thinking it couldn't be more than a $30 buffet but after asking it ended up being a $75 buffet. Good thing we inquired or my mother would not be pleased with that bill! We just stuck to the ordinary entrees offered. On Thursday, my dad was still a little hit by the jet lag and that whole minor detail of jumping 17 hours ahead, so we just decided to lounge by the pool and let him rest. That evening we went to my apartment where we threw the classic shrimp along with steak on the barbie and had a barbeque on the roof of our apartment. It was a huge, delicious and fun dinner. Us five ended up hanging out and talking until 10pm when they close the roof and we had to get off! Friday morning after meeting my doctor partner to work on our presentation in the morning, we went and picked up my roommates for a trip to Byron Bay. We weren't completely sure of the whereabouts of this supposed beautiful place but we had a GPS in the rental car so we figured we would be golden. That was a mistake. The nice lady who told us the directions of Byron Bay must have decided that taking the long long scenic route was a better way to go instead of the quick and direct route. We found ourselves somewhere in the countryside where there was no ocean in sight. It ended up taking two hours to get to Byron Bay when it was only supposed to take 45 minutes at the most. At least my dad got to see a little more of Australia!

the countryside

After driving through the winding roads of the countryside and the mountains, we finally arrived at Byron Bay and boy was it worth the drive! We hiked up to the awesome Lighthouse which was the furthest eastern point of the continent! After grabbing some smoothies we went to some big rocks where the waves were crashing against to take pictures. As Jen was making her way to take a picture with me, she slipped and cut her toe and ankle, that girl has had an injury filled trip to say the least!

He's so adorable

Right After Jen cut her leg...

Once we returned to Surfer's I took my daddio to Hungary Jack's which is Australia's version of Burger King. BK is his utmost favorite restaurant in the states so it would make sense for him to get some in the land down under! Saturday was nice we just talked, hung out by the pool and got burnt to a crisp. For dinner we tried a nice Thai restaurant which had really cool legit artifacts surrounding us and my dad was obsessed with the large wooden elephant sitting next to our table.

Sunday we woke up and tried out the Surf City Church in Surfer's Paradise. After the service we went out in search for a place to get breakfast but we weren't having good luck considering it was already 11:30. We finally struck gold and were able to get breakfast food at a little cafe near the water. The rest of the day I needed to work on preparing for my presentation with my brilliant doctor partner for Tuesday. I felt bad that we were inside the rest of the day but I need to at least seem like I know what I'm talking about in my presentation next to my partner who was the main speaker at a medical conference this past weekend. We're obviously at the same level on public speaking. My dad didn't seem to mind, he was enthralled by the speed skating in the Olympics for a majority of the day.

On Monday we went into Surfer's Paradise and I had my dad try our favorite chicken place... yeah you guessed it, Nando's!!! He of course loved it like the rest of us.

Obviously in love with Nando's by that expression

We then went to the local touristy store to buy him some souvenirs for people where he of course embarrassed me in front of the young Australian clerk boy. He wouldn't be my dad if he didn't embarrass me somewhere right?! We than grabbed some ice cream at Cold Rock (Australia's version of Cold Stone, see the connection?) and than I had to go finish for my presentation with the doctor. It was a nice last day in the Gold Coast with my daddio. I loved having him here and was sad to say bye. It was a great surprise though! Now next in the family to come... Dumb and Dumber (Beth and Ali). I can't wait for my sister's to come and visit in April!

That Lizard is Planning Something...

Well this week has been a very laid back week but has kept us all busy with school. I'm still preparing my presentation with my super smart doctor partner and trying to figure out my politics class. But this weekend was a fun one. It officially really started on Friday when Matt and Nanae headed about 20 minutes south of Burleigh to Coolengatta where there are amazing waves to go surfing on. After taking our time to get ready, and baking under the sun at the bus stop, Jen and I finally met up with them at the huge beach. Nanae had gotten stung by a jellyfish on the arm while she was paddling out (I am the only girl left out of us 3 to get stung, I'm crossing my fingers it won't happen!) so she was just chilling on the beach while Matt caught some waves. Jen and I took the easiest of hikes up a hill (easy because they so politely put in stairs to use) where you could see all of Coolengatta, Burleigh in the distance and even Surfer's Paradise all the way across the water. It was beautiful. We just stood up there and looked out over the waves while discussing the plan of the lizard what was looking up at us while standing a few feet away. Apparently Jen is frightened of lizards because one ran across her bare feet as a child so now she freaks out whenever she sees one. She was convinced that the lizard was planning on attacking her and it was holding eye contact with her. I convinced her to not be so vain and think that the lizard was staring at her but was just planning on having his family of lizards come attack her from behind. It was a ridiculous dialogue that we shared over this lizard for about 20 minutes and if you want to know all of it, check Jen's blog soon. We than walked down and all four of us headed over to Nando's chicken again! We enjoyed our time at the amazing chicken restaurant and than finally took the bus home. When we got home Jen wasn't feeling well at all so she napped while the rest of us examined the game of Cricket for a few hours. We are determined to learn the rules of this game so we tried to figure it out by watching it for awhile. We now finally have a basic understanding but are still in search of a little clarification on some parts of this popular pass time activity.

The next morning I woke up to go to the grocery store looking for a thermometer for Jen because when she is sick, it is apparently a necessity to be aware of her temperature the entire time. I had no such luck finding one but I did buy a lot of snack food for the sick roommate to chomp on while she is all sniffles. Later on our friends Jamie and Scott came down from Brisbane to visit because they were surfing in Burleigh. Matt joined the two in going surfing and while they were gone Jen and I decided to watch our classic show that we love making fun of, Laguna Beach on her computer. Nanae came in and commented on how stupid the show was but we knew that once she started watching it, we totally would get her hooked on it. So for about three hours we all laid on our bed and watched the completely realistic high school drama show. It was some classic girl roommate bonding time. When the others got back from getting rocked by the waves, we all went out for some Thai food. I never had any before so I had no idea what I was getting myself into but it turned out to be quite delicious. It was a nice chill evening until it started storming and raining really hard. We went out in the rain and it was raining so hard my umbrella collapsed under all the pressure or something. It was slightly ridiculous. So now it is Sunday and I have a Spanish test tomorrow that I am not looking forward to considering the only phrase I can remember is "A que se dedica?" Overall a good weekend in the Down Under

I'll post pictures of Coolengatta once I upload them to my computer :)