Now I am sitting here, in MY house (and I feel I can fairly say that because all of my roommates have decided that going back home to cold or traveling Australia is more important than keeping me company here in my house), thinking a lot trying to grasp the concept of time (or lack there of). Also in how I have truly experienced life in this past year. I have grown personally, even if my interactions with others is comparable to before I left. I have gained in touch-ness with myself and gained a perspective on many life aspects with a brighter light, perhaps.

I have gained a sense of internationalism. No I can’t speak Norwegian (although I have picked up a number of dirty phrases- as thats what being around different nationalities of people is all about) but I have put the country that I live in, in perspective to the rest of the world. At least more so than I had before.

Additionally, I have slowed down. And by this I don’t mean that jokes take me longer to get (because that may have happened before I travelled too!!), but rather that my pace and view on lots of things is more chillant and relaxed. This has helped me to… well, not be so fast. I think this way I am much more capable of really listening to people, enjoying all those little things people always talk about, and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

But instead of continuing to reflect, I am also wanting to talk about how much I have fallen in love with this place that I live.
Firstly, you must like heat to live in a place like this. Luckily, I do. Also this place is all about the outdoors and enjoying the weather, which I also love. West end, where I have lived for the last semester, is somewhere that I don’t know if exists anywhere else. It’s such a great suburb to live in and I was fortunate to experience it. There is so much life and love in west end. The next and possibly most important thing about Brisbane is that it is only 2 hours from Byron Bay and THAT is key! Byron is such an amazing place and is one of a kind. I will never forget the fun, peace and enjoyment that I, as well as everyone else has experience at Byron Bay. There are so many special memories that came from visits to Byron and also, every trip I took, no matter who I went with, everyone walked away raving about it!

These and many more things have made me fall in love with Australia and all the experiences that came with my time here. With this said, I am finding it really difficult to put into words right now, what I want to say so I will leave it at that for now.

Love always
nat

First of all, I will try to indulge in my absolute love for my housemates that I have ended up with. I live with 4 Norwegians and 1 German. There are 3 Guys (all Norwegian) named Morten, Tor and Helge. The other Norwegian is Kristine and the German is Inka. I can’t think of one bad thing I could say of them, and this is already after almost 2 months, which is pretty rad! We have so much fun together being crazy. If there is one thing I have learned this semester so far, it is that I LOVE NORWEGIANS! They are such great people and we see eye-to-eye on so many things. It has made for quite a number of exciting nights out and fun activities, although I must say that I have been somewhat more low key this semester as compared to last semester. Definitely not less fun tho!

The first weekend back from the big trip over my “winter” break was off to the Gold Coast where Kjersti, Cecilie, Candy, Andrew and a number of wakeboarders headed out to Mike’s house (he is a wakeboarder as well). The special thing about his house is that his dad is a seriously insane coniseur of wine. In fact he has a cellar of wine with about 4-5000 bottle of wine (no joke) which made for a ridiculously good time eating great food and drinking a shitload of wine! It was a great evening with lots of laffs.

The following week was special as it was EKKA which is, for anyone who knows the Calgary Stampede, a very small version of that. It is in celebration of something that royalty was involved in but now it is just a great excuse to party. The wednesday of that week was a holiday in due to that and what uni students do is all get nice and dressed up to go and watch horse races, and then the rest of the day is really really messy. In fact out of many, I only managed to watch 2 horse races, the rest of the time I was working on keeping myself in one functional piece! It was tons of fun and again, I had lots of fun spend quality time with my awesome roommates.

That weekend was the last weekend that Cecilie was in Australia (Kjersti had already headed home) and so we were sure to make it an exciting one. It was the wakeboard’s new members pubcrawl. It was a lot of fun and I met some really cool people, the only problem was that I wasn’t able to recall who they were the next morning. The next day Cecilie had to get on her flight home which was a pretty sad day. It was so nice getting to know her and she plans to head over to Canada next summer to visit me. I think it will be totally awesome and I hope it works out that she can come (probably for the Stampede!).

Kristine and I have got along especially well as we enjoy doing many of the same things. She is really into diving and does a lot of that so I have been lucky enough for her to plan a number of dive excursions, one of which I have managed to go on to Byron Bay. We headed out there quite a number of weeks ago with a few other Norwegians. It was really good fun. We managed to hit up the “dance-on-tables” bar again, which I have been too probably too many times now. That was awesome lafffs. We then hung out at the beach for one day to recover from the after-effects of the “dance-on-the-tables” bar had on us. We kept it low key that evening as we were diving the next day, heading to the lighthouse to watch the sunset and saw a movie. Diving in Byron was lots of fun. We saw grey nurse sharks which are critically endangered on the east coast of Australia and so it’s quite special to see them. We also saw a wicked big turtle and a huge sting ray. I went on two dives that day, lots of fun!

The next weekend which was heaps of fun was the barbeque weekend. We had quite a few people over for a bbq that friday and it got pretty messy. It was pretty chill but one game of King’s cup (drinking game) made it more interesting and crazy! I never knew so many Norwegians could fit into one house but it proved to be possible and actually lots of fun!

Riverfire was on the following weekend. It is a yearly fireworks celebration that takes place on the river. I think I would consider the number of people that go and watch it MORE of a spectacle then the actual event! There was more people at southbank and various places thru the city that were there than I have ever seen packed into somewhere. The show was actually truly an amazing event. There were fighter planes and great fireworks. The fireworks show was on for about 30-40 minutes and it was so cool. They had fireworks in the shapes of happy faces and waterfall effects and other really neat things. It was most definitely the coolest fireworks show I’ve ever seen!

That brings me to this past weekend which was the wakeboard camping trip to Moogerah. It was absolutely awesome and fabulous weather and fun people. We went out friday afternoon and just sent up our stuff that evening. Then as more people came we gathered ourselves around the campfire. The next day’s highlight for me was most definitly the tubing we did (which they call biscuiting). I went for two tube rides that day and it was so fun. I could have stayed on that thing forever and still had tons and tons of fun. My second ride was probably me staying on there for about an hour of riding. It was totally awesome fun. I had lots of laughs with the others there. The following day was totally awesome. The weather was more than perfect and so we all cruised out to a little gorge and blasted some tunes and just hung out. We swam, joked around, jumped off the rocks and had some wicked laughs. It was so chill. We then kinda just lazed around the rest of the day and eventually made our way back to Brisbane. It was a beautiful weekend.

So that really just sums up what I have been up to, ASIDES FROM STUDYING VERY HARD, over the last couple months with all these great people that I am surrounded by. Hopefully it is enjoyable for you to read and get a sense of the craziness of Australia!

much <3 always
Natalie

We then made our way down the country to a place called Coober Pedy which is THE opal capital of the WORLD. It is essentially a desert town where about 50% of the people live underground. They all build their homes under the land because in the summer it gets to about 55 degrees and makes it near impossible to live above ground. Another reason for building their houses underground is that if they ever decide to do “renovations” to make their houses “bigger” and they happen to stumble across opals, that big bucks baby!!! At a cost of about 100, 000 to build a home, it’s quite a tempting invitation. I found the place very interesting and quaint.

We then continued down to work our way to Adelaide. I must say that the best thing about this tour had to be the people we met on it. There was such a close bond between most all of us that it made the laughs abundant. There were two girls, one from Germany (Dani) and one from Switzerland (Nathalie) and they were probably the craziest, most entertaining people we met on our travels! I think they helped the group bond really well. There were also a couple wicked cool Brits that we met (Kat and Neil) and then a bunch of other Brits, Koreans who just had lots of fun together.

On Sunday (the 26th), we all arrived in Adelaide and decided to have a little hang out session together one last time to bring things to a close. It just so happened that my birthday started technically at 12 that evening/ morning. So instead of having a great chill evening, it turned into a rather exciting, messy, unforgettable (thanks to the photos!) night of Birthday celebrations. The funniest thing was that it was just our group hanging out at a bar dancing, singing and drinking the night away and welcoming my mature days of 21 yrs in this world!!! It became pretty interesting when we managed to stay out until about 430 in the morning and some of us had to get up at 6 to go to a WINE tour- of all things- the next morning. See that was actually supposed to be the birthday celebrations but it didn’t quite work out how we initially planned. We somehow managed to sleep in until 738 the next morning which was interesting because we were supposed to be out waiting for our tour guide bus at 745. Somehow, still giggly and tipsy from the night before, we made it on time. Unfortunately, none of us were quite that excited to do a WINE tour after our hard night of partying…. strange. We got to stop for brekkie before the wine tours which helped me come to an agreement with my stomach and liver that they were going to behave themselves today! That made things quite a bit better and more enjoyable. We visited James Creek, Vinecrest (a local but awesome winery), Richmond Grove and some other fancy fortified winery. This took place in the Barossa Valley which is a beautiful, beautiful valley. It was so green and lush, and delicious! Considering the night we had previous, we concluded that going out for dinner and A (one) beer was the best way to celebrate my birthday. It was pretty relaxed but fun nonetheless. So that was the end of the Alice Springs to Adelaide tour. Our next tour was the Great Ocean Road tour on our way to Melbourne.

The next day we went on a Litchfield National Park tour which was essentially waterfall hopping where we went from waterfall to waterfall swimming and acting about 10 years younger than we were. It was really cool and really beautiful. So that was basically our time up north. Our next adventure was to visit the Red Center (Uluru/ Alice Springs).

What I didn’t know, but had pretty good intuitions about was that I was about to embark one of the most amazing months of my life. Some friends and I decided that we were going to spend the winter month traveling to warmer climates (because 19 degrees in winter is SO cold!). I travelled with 2 Norwegian girls who had studied in Brisbane for the first semester and who I met thru the wakeboard club, and for part of the trip, also a Slovakian and a fellow Canadian. The Norwegian girls are Kjersti (don’t even try to pronounce it properly cause I tried for the whole trip and apparently still can’t say it right!) and Cecilie (yup like the Simon and Garfunkel song- and I made sure I sang it to her at least 5 times a day during the whole trip). The Slovakian is Anna and the Canadian is named Candy.

So picture it, if you can, 5 blonds heading around Australia and hoping to come home together and in one piece, ok well FIVE pieces, but I’m sure you get the idea. Our itinerary (if you can call it that) was work our way up north on the east coast. Then we were going to get rid of some baggage (aka Candy) and head over to Darwin. Then we planned leaving Anna in Darwin and heading down to the Red Center and keep working our way down and back east, ending in Melbourne. By then, the two Norwegians surely would of had enough of me and I leave them to visit Sydney on their own.

Where to start? What to include? What to spare you?

I suppose I will start at Fraser. First of all, I should thank god, or the person who decided to bless us all with blonde hair, for either of the two really helped us get our trips booked. I mean it definitely wasn’t our good planning skills cause we def didn’t have those. Though I quickly realized that the role of getting our shit together and organizing things on the trip nicely slid onto my plate. But to be honest, I didn’t really mind and kinda began to like being in control of some of the situations. As noted, we somehow lucked into getting all of our tours booked for Fraser and Whitsundays the day before we left for Fraser. And lucky us, we still managed to find time to chill, shop and sunbath in Noosa before we left!

Fraser Island. The trip may very easily have turned out to be the favorite place. It is like no other. First of all it is the largest sand island in the world and who doesn’t like to say they have been to the biggest this or largest that! Secondly, Fraser easily has the nicest lakes with the most perfect blue water and pure white sand in the world, only to be topped perhaps by the sand of the Whitsundays. It is like no other. Additionally, there were beautiful champagne pools and beautiful lookout spots. On Fraser we also saw our first sightings of humpback whales, as we conveniently (tho unintentionally) make it to Fraser in whale watching season. We also saw dingos (aka vicious creatures that look somewhat similar to creatures we call DOGS!). We also got to go sandboarding down a desert-like sand dune down into a gorgeously refreshing lake. Tons of fun and made for some great photos and videos! Then once we got bored doing that we decided that things are always more fun when you are rolling down them, so we did exactly that! Dizziness and deep water don’t mix! Made it a little hard to swim when we got to the bottom. Those were probably the highlights from Fraser, although the place was sooo wicked cool that I am thinking I could be very easily convinced to visit it again. I mean any one can go to Fraser once!

So next on our trip was Whitsunday Is. We actually had got upgraded on our trip to a boat which was about 300 dollars more regularily for FREE! This was great, before we thought about the implications of it. What it turned out to mean was that it wasn’t really something for many budget backpackers to be on, but rather rich families who can afford lots of KIDS! See we thought we were being smart by predicting that we might be the only young ones there, we kinda forgot that usually with other ppl come these annoying little munchkins who like to run around and jump on the boat… at 7 in the morning!!! But to be completely fair it wasn’t actually bad at all. We got to know the crew pretty well (especially the bartenders!) For the most part, we just kept to ourselves and had a great time, especially around 4-5pm (happy hour!). We visited some really, really amazing snorkeling spots and gorgeous beaches (namely, Whitehaven beach where the sand is some of the purest and whitest in the world!) The snorkeling also stands and the nicest I believe I have every done. The colors of the fish and coral really astounded me. Left me speechless (although that make have been attributed to the fact that I was underwater and couldn’t talk…) So that was essentially the Whitsundays minus a few details that are a little hazy to me, which MAY OR MAY NOT include us playing drinking games while the skipper was giving his nightly speech. hmmm… I feel that I can safely say now that drinking excessively on a boat is lots of fun, until you try and go to bed and not only are you rocking from the boat, but also from the alcohol!

Next stop on our trip was Cairns, where we were also set on doing some diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Although we didn’t want to rush anything so we chose to leave booking all this until, yup you guessed it, the day before we left. And yet again, it worked out in our favor. We ended up getting to head out to the Diving boat on an upgraded boat to the one we would have taken if we planned ahead. (I think we were starting to get the hang of it!). Our diving trips was great, great fun. At this point, Candy had left us and went back to Brisbane, so it was just the four of us. It worked out really well because Cecilie and I had our diving certification and could dive together and Anna and Kjersti were doing intro dives together. The diving was awesome, although perhaps not quite as awesome as if our boat didn’t break down and we WERE allowed to move to the other dive sites that we were intended to do. In any case, we got to do a really fun night dive (a little scary at first, which may explain why Cecilie and I were essentially attached at the hips after that ). We also did an exciting dive going through cave like formations from the reef. It was called the Labrynth, I mean the name itself screams AWESOMENESS!!! We did an overnight trip and then headed back to Cairns. We partied in Cairns for a night or two (can’t quite remember- it all kinda blurred together ). We then did a tour up to Cape Tribulation which is one of (if not THE) oldest Rainforests in the World dating back 95-135 million years ago. Again, a great selling feature to visit there. It was a reallly cool place. So what I learned there is that living things can be really cool, even if they are REALLY REALLY OLD We headed back to Cairns after that and got ready to fly over to Darwin, to visit tempertures of about 30-35 degrees constantly!!! What a shame!

So that was a brief overview of our trip up the east coast. It was wonderful, diverse and spectacular!
The rest shall come in another entry.
For now,
Much
luv
Nat

Well I figure not many people bother checking this anymore cause it has proved itself to be a lost cause over the last little while! None the less, for all you out there (hello?) I will do my best to update you! Besides, I don’t only write these for you, I write them for myself (selfish bitch!). I like to have these to help me reflect and when all is said and done in December, I can go over all the adventures again and again! I guess I could go on and on about why I haven’t made an entry since 29 Apr….so I guess I will!!!! . Ok I won’t but I will say this. May flew by me just as much as the rain here in Brissie. Seriously, we have had so much rain, according to stats, more than usual. Even my parents got a little taste of the QLD weather, which I might add is joked about in much the same way as Calgary’s weather, changing every 5 minutes… sunny one minute, pouring gushes of water by the buckets the next!!! It’s so EXCITING, well that is if you have an umbrella (particularily one that is functional and will last more than 10 minutes! haha my family will know what I mean!) Anyways, all rain aside, May seriously did fly by. As it was, it started out and I was terribly excited (oxymoron?!) for my family to visit me. Like seriously excited. It was almost as if I hadn’t seen them for like 5 months, o wait, I hadn’t. Anyways, I was stoked. As far as they told me, they were too but I wasn’t sure if that was because they were excited for Australia or to see me!!! haha no I’m sure they missed me as well! And so they arrived! Although I had to wait as they made there way up from Sydney. We met up in an itty bitty town called Nambucca Heads right between Sydney and Brissie. It was such a cute little place and oh my god how much fun we had with our friends, Ian and Marian. I say friends in the sense that I arrived at 11 pm on a dead railway station and I met a man asking me if I was Natalie. With no other option I said “yes!” and that was the beginning of our friendship. I mean if that’s not indicative of a true friendship, I don’t know what is. BUt seriously, these are some of the greatest people ever. They took me and my family in like their own, totally great people to know. We didn’t get to stay there long, headed up to good old Byron Bay next. We didn’t stay there long either but I really tried to show my family the most of it, so I decided to get them up at 530 to see the sunset. We chilled for just a bit and then trekked up the coast, made a bathroom break in Brisbane and then hit our way up to the Sunny Coast to see Dave and Joan, etc. Good times as it always is there. I was really glad my Dad got to meet up again with his cousin. We also saw a great place called Montville and it had a really cool view of the coast. Much to my dismay, I had to go back to classes that eveing and depart from my fam for a bit while they peaced it up to Cairns.

After a week away from them, they reunited with me in Brissie and I got to be a show off. We did some touristy things, went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary which was tres cool. Gotta hold a koala and feed than kangies! Next day they spent it a the Gold Coast. I should point out that this was the week that QLD got the most rain it has every gotten in 24 hrs for the last 17 yrs!!! Hahah. They avoided the rain a bit on the coast and thank god they went the day they did cause the following day was distastorous on the coast. The next couple days were rather chill. Nate, Mom and I did some shopping and Dad had his conference. Thursday, the fam helped make delicious food for the peeps in my apartment, so YUMMY and lots of fun! Friday we got to take a river cruise with dad’s work. Best part of that eveing is debateable. Some would say it was the salt n’ pepper squid, some might say it was the peanut satay chk, some may say it was the free alcohol, some may say it was the spoon-on-nose tricks and some may say it was a combination of all of the above!!! That’s what I reckon!!! Needless to say, if we had to drive home that night, Nathan would be the closest to being eligible out of the 4 of us!

Next day, I had to say goodbye…again. But first we had to endure one more burst of ridiculous rain!!! haha. It was a nice Saturday anyways and during the whole week, the rain really didn’t affect our moods!

After their visit it was, as some say, BALLS TO THE WALL! I had a fair bit of work to do in the weeks following as school was coming to a close. It has actually turned out to be tedious rather than stressful. Just lots of papers- not really my thing! Anyways, up to date, I have chugged along and now, here I am, in the last week of classes and ready for more excitment!

Tomorrow is the last day of my sem 1 and it has been QUITE an AMAZING past semester. It has not gone too fast or too slow. It has been perfect in every sense of the word. So much personal discovery and growth. And I am ready also to get back into the travelling scene over the next month and a half. I plan on travelling with a few gorgeous, amazing Norwegian gals. I met them thru wakeboarding and they are the sweetest ever! Can’t wait to have more stories to tell of my travelling adventures. Just have to make it thru two final exams adn I am done!!

Also more news over the last little bit is that I have decided to move places for next semester. I had a great time in these apartments and I am ready to try something new and in a new suburb. I have found a place in West end and I am tres excited to move in. I have already met one of my roomies and he is a German int’l student who has extended his stay. It seems like a really fun place, one house, 6 ppl… what could be better??? (i say that now!) haha.

Well, I reckon that will do it for my update this time! Hope all back home are now enjoying the decent weather and taking good care of yourselves. I am still in awe and love with this place!

Much love,
Always,
Natalie XOXO

This past week has been gorgeous weather as well, not quite as hot but still sunny and mid-twenties. I have felt the push to do some work in the last few days cause my parents are heading this way pretty soon and I am really looking forward to spending time with them, which will only be fully enjoyed if I get all my work done this week. I think it will be good fun having them here and showing them around this beautiful place. Nothing says blind leading the blind better than that! tehehe. Well I might actually be blind if I keep being exposed to all the sun’s rays! (ok that was pretty lame, I understand.) Anyways, things are still rockin here in Aussie!

Hope all of you are keeping well!
Much love,
Nat

The long weekend had a little touch of Calgary in it because just as would probably happen back home, the weather was relatively crappy! It seriously poured essentially the whole weekend. But somehow, I felt like I was the only person who didn’t mind. It made it more exciting that’s for damn sure!

On the Friday, Candy and I headed down to the area of South Bank which is what I would relate mostly to Stephen Ave back home.? It has a great dining scene and is where the fake beach is located. It has really cute shops and this and that and is really fun! We just chilled, ate some delic ice cream and walked around the weekend markets there. It was a rather chill day.
Saturday, Candy and I headed out on what was my first road trip in Aussie. We started it off by heading down to pick up our home for the next 5 days, a station wagon. We got a late start and it didn’t look to promising when we showed up at the rental place and he told us that the car that was reserved for us wouldn’t start. Anyways, out of the whole situation, we got a 9 dollar discount/day and met a cool chick from California. How things do work out! So, for the sake of my parents, I will keep it short and say that we finally made it safely to where we were camping overnight with the wakeboarding club. It was a dam west of Brissie called Lake Moogerah! It was a really cute place. We went out for a wakeboard shortly after arriving there and then later got ready for the clown party that was taking place that evening. It was all good fun because, I mean, what’s happier than a roomful of clowns! Later that evening we did some serious clowning around by the campfire. It ended with us showing our true gymnastic talent (or lack there of) with the use of a hula-hoop. As it turned out, I don’t think it was talent but rather stupidity. Regardless, it was truly entertaining. Next morning when I woke, I wondering whether the pain I felt was from wakeboarding or jumping through hoops with some rough landings!?

The next morning, we headed out pretty early to make our way to Byron Bay as to our belief, it was going to be a good three hour drive ahead of us! We got on the road and as it turned out, the instructions for getting to Byron Bay were seriously confusing! I decided to stop and ask for directions before it was too late! This was when I saw the true kindness of Aussies. A guy overheard that we were heading to Byron Bay and said that we could just follow him because for a long portion of the drive, we were heading the same way. He waited for us and was totally cool for doing that. It just makes you appreciate the kindness that some people have. With much help from everyone along the way, the drive to Byron Bay went very well!

When we got there, we had a new task at hand, well two if you consider getting through the Bluesfest traffic one. We had to find somewhere to stay. We already decided that really, we just needed somewhere to park and we were going to sleep in the car. Our task was quite, or completely unsuccessful. Due to Bluesfest and the long Easter weekend, everywhere was completely booked up until Monday night. As it turned out, we found somewhere that was free parking all day. This was great, we could just park here and pop in the back and pay NOTHING! (or so we thought!) The whole thing was a cunning plan up until 4 o’ clock in the morning, when the police came knocking on the door and flashing a light in our face. Turns out it’s such a good idea that it’s illegal! So from 4-8 in the morning, we went and hid from the police in the suburbs of Byron Bay to sleep for a few hours! Such excitement for a Sunday night.

There was more excitement Monday morning when we got ready to head to Bluesfest. We found a place to LEGALLY park out car, which was sweet. However, the rain that I mentioned before became somewhat of an issue. Apparently the grounds were disgustingly muddy and it was ridiculous to think of going without gumboots. So we went on another hunt, to find rainboots. Funny thing, last day of the festival and nowhere seems to have them?! Well we finally got a hold of some, only thing was, they were 50 DOLLARS!! In hindsight… it was the best 50 dollars I’ve ever spent! We headed there and it just poured and there was so much mud built up at the grounds that we would have been silly muddy without them. The festival itself was TOP NOTCH. The highlight for me was Jason Mraz. He became my hero that night! He is such an amazing performer and made it such a great show for the audience. I got some great video that I can hopefully post on my blog. It was a long, long day and we were pooped after.

Next day was the first day that the rain cleared up. We rented boards and did some surfing. I’m not going to lie, it was pretty pitiful on my part. I caught minimal waves but it was nice to just enjoy the beach and lack of rain! That night I had a much needed shower and we both got cleaned up and went out for a chill dinner. Later on we went to the infamous Cheeky Monkeys and danced on some tables. Good way to end the night/ trip.

Next morning, I wanted to get up and see the lighthouse at sunrise, something so special to Byron Bay. It was a breathtaking experience and it’s one of those things that words and pictures can’t even really describe. It was a great start a great day as after that we headed to Tallow Beach which is a secluded beach and we chilled there for a couple of hours. Not only was it a beautiful beach, but the weather really turned and it was absolutely gorgeous out. Some good reflection time before we headed back to the city.

That was that and we had reached the end of our eventful and exciting road trip. Definitely had a great time and did some really exciting and chill things. A perfect way to spend my days off! It was so weird because when I left Byron Bay and went back to Brisbane, I felt like I was leaving home. But as they say, this too shall pass and it just keeps things in perspective. I got some great weather back here and enjoyed some time getting some work done!

School resumes in a couple days and I am not going to lie, I’m now looking forward to my family’s visit in a couple weeks! YAY!!!

Much love,
Natalie

My next week was full of a little (ok, a lot) of stress. I was trying to figure out my classes and moving this class there and that class here and it was just getting me a little stressed out! I dealt with it none the less and it’s probably good I’m chatting about it now, in hindsight cause I’m much more calm about the whole thing. Needless to say, I figured everything out and my classes are so cool. It appears I am doing a major is “Whatever-the-hell-i-want” because my classes are all over the map. I have a Buddhism course, a rock music history course, a nutrition course and an Australian popular culture course.

The next weekend mustn’t have been extremely eventful because I can’t seem to recall what happened. I assume I just went to the Saturday morning markets which are always a good time. The next exciting evening was St. Patty’s Day. Essentially I got my Irish-drink on and a number of a guy who- well, it didn’t really work out! Period. I definitely laid low the following weekend as well. I remember because I was the only one not screaming at the top of my lungs at my roommates birthday party here. I actually had to lock myself in my room as they tried to tear down my door. It was a fun night tho because we didn’t get in trouble from the owners!!!

This past weekend was swell. We headed to the Gold Coast on that Friday and chilled at the beach and then had some fantastic Thai food. It was top notch. I find that a lot of my highlights include the great food I get to experience?!?! We had a party at our apartment and it was a masquerade party, which essentially means that everyone shows up in a cheap mask and then 5 minutes later it is in the trash or on the floor or looking really cool on the top of your head. Whatever gets people together for a good time, right. The next morning was great fun. I decided I wanted to check out the wakeboarding club at the uni and I thought it would be a cool way to meet new people. I went there and surprisingly met, yes, another Canadian. Candace is from Nova Scotia and she’s good fun. We got on really well that morning. We both had some good rides, and some good falls too! We then met up later on the Sunday and watched a movie in the park. We saw Milk, although i can’t decide which had our attention more, the movie or the bats flying just overhead of us. They defiantly made a good effort to steal the show. It was a great Sunday night. This week has absolutely flown by! I couldn’t believe when it was already Wednesday. The funny thing was that it seemed everyone I talked to felt the same way. I am quite sure that someone definitely sped up time this week. In any case, it’s Friday! (and here I am sitting on my computer, alone!) haha it’s all good. I believe I deserve this kind of rest as Judith, Candace, Kathy and I had a tough night last night. We were all busy singing karaoke for the whole bar. It’s a tough act, but we pulled it off.

Realizations I have….realized. (sounds profound, I know):

I have definitely noticed a shift in my attitude over this past week especially. I have had a true appreciation for what I am doing right now and how much I am learning from traveling. It has been a life-changing experience and I have only been gone for three months! You start noticing things that you wouldn’t usually about a city. I feel that this eye-opening will also carry back when I am back home again and with my family and friends. It is so very cool when I take a second and remind myself that I am actually here. It’s kinda hard to share that appreciation with other because so often we just crave to hear bad things that are going on. I have actually noticed that with many people I am traveling with, and even myself. We all want to share our hardship but then I think, what the hell??? I am here on this amazing experience and what am I doing, telling you a story about how bad my day was?! Really makes no sense. Like I said, in the past week or two, I have really become more aware of this and I am also appreciating more how fantastic things are for me right now.

*** I have discovered alcohol that is really popular here (and even in NZ) called Canadian Club. When I first saw it, I was like” what the nuts? What is this stuff and Why have I never heard of it?” I hadn’t tried it since I got here but just the other day I tried it with ginger beer and it is absolutely delicious! I just wanted to see if anyone back home knows or could find out if it exists back home??? I would love to know! Cheers!

Oh that’s the other thing. I have become strongly attached to encourporating Aussie slangs and phrases into my vocab. It’s kinda funny because the combination of aussie slang and a Canadian accent really doesn’t sound all that great! hahah whateve’s!

Well take care and much much love,
Natalie
P.S. Sorry again for the major delay of updates!

The week back from Byron Bay, we had orientation week, which i would sum up to be a week that was hyped up to about 10X the actual excitement value of it. It wasn’t a bad week but I wouldn’t say it wasn’t all the fun and games I had imagined it would be. Much to my surprise, I met a bunch of Canadians and American there, I would have never guessed! Anyways, they were all pretty cool so that was fine. I did meet some locals who were there to meet us foreigners as they were all students planning to go abroad to Canada and the USA in the fall semester. That was cool because I got to chat up Canada a bit, and who doesn’t love doing that. Needless to say, that conversation died pretty quick.
The supposed big day during that week was Wednesday which was Market Day. It was a time when tons of clubs and sports organizations were there to get you to join their club. It was good except I didn’t find much to join because I’m no good at Chess, I’m not enraged with the world, I’m not Christian (or Christians and like to read, or Christian and like to party or Christians and like to dance) and I am most definately not Muslim, so really after that, there weren’t really any clubs to join. Oh but I did manage to get in with the business folk as there membership included free entry to tons of bars! I didn’t know I had that much in common with the business students. So that was an alright day but again, a little too built up by everyone. The next evening was the infamous toga party at the RE which is essentially the bar/pub to be seen at if ur a uni student in brissie. Apparently EVERYONE else that wanted to be seen there which led to a ton of people wanting to be seen and no one ACTUALLY being seen as no one could see a damn thing or person anywhere in that place. I just saw lots of white sheets and a little too much skin! It was really busy but we didn’t happen to run into some people we knew, and the most exciting things was that they weren’t American or Canadian! The next evening entailed meeting some more people, except this time we weren’t all wearing togas. It was our apartment complex BBQ and the highlight for me was joking around with a couple from Australia who help the owners of our place out. The guys was going on and making fun of Australia which was thoroughly entertaining and was a little break from the common ragging on Canadians theme that goes on a lot (although definately not as much as the “ragging on american” goes on for).

The next day, I headed off to the Sunny Coast to again, visit my family there. They were good to me, as always and unfortunately I probably came back about 10 lbs heavier. I am a little scared at the rate I’m going, I may stop floating when I go to the beach. We had some good meals, good laughs and just a good time overall. It was a shorter trip and not too much excitement there.

The next week (this past week) was the first official week of classes and let me tell you, as much as I should be ready to go back after my 2.5 month vacation I have just had, it is still a kink in the chain. I am feeling quite off after the first week. My head and body is not quite into it right now and I think I have to keep myself a little more busy with work and such to really feel like I’m back. It doesn’t help that a) I don’t know tons of people on campus and it is a new campus so it makes it feel less like school, b) I am going to a gorgeous campus with outdoor facilities and so it is difficult to feel as tho I really am at school and c) The class set up is a little bit different and quite more laid back so again, I don’t feel completely compelled to do much at all. I have been doing a fair bit of shuffling of classes and trying to figure out how I can squeeze all my classes into T,W,R so I have M and F off during the week. It’s quite a nice thought knowing that I have a 4-day w/e every week. As it stand, I am taking a Music course called From Elvis to Madonna- studying rock over the last few decades, a Buddism course studying Buddism as an entity- seems very cool, an Australian Pop Culture class and a Contemporary Australia class. This may change but that is the plan.

This weekend, I am hoping to try some more surfing up on the Sunshine Coast, Noosa perhaps with the girls. Also, I would love to check out the Roxy/Quicksilver Pro Surf Competition that is taking place on the Gold Coast. It takes place every year and has some of the best surfers in the world here.

Good bye for now,
Much Love,
Natalie!!!