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!