Home + Bondi Beach

I was walking home the on Friday and it was crazy windy! I mean there where whirlwinds of leaves on the sidewalks blowing up into my eyes making my eyes water. So pretty much I looked like a sobbing mess walking home with blurry vision trying to avoid walking into a leaf cyclone. It was pretty exciting. But the good news is when I got out in front of my building all the wind stopped so I decided to take a picture of my apartment building for everyone to see. We have that pretty fountain and tons of tropical landscaping. It is pretty much like living at a resort. Across the way we have a gym, pool and a sauna. It is the life!!! Today was absolutely amazing. I do not understand how I have lived in Sydney so long without going to Bondi Beach. It is only a bus, two trains, and another bus away, haha. It takes about and hour to get there. It has the softest sand my feet have ever felt, and it is so light and fine. No rocks, no shells, just creamy white sand. Amazing. Well My friend Talia and I decided we just needed to experience this for ourselves. We had an amazing day just
laying in the sun, people and surfer watching. Surfers own the water at Bondi. There were a few men who were absolutely amazing. They cut across waves like no ones business, it was really fun to watch. Other than enjoying the beach we scoped out the shops near the beach and stumbled in upon an Aborigional Art gallery. All the pieces there were painted by people from tribes all over Oz. The colors and designs they choose are so beautiful. I really wanted to buy something to take home, but anything of decent size was about $150. Not worth it when I have a reef to go to in a week! That is all for now!

Australian Idol

Well this is just a quick bit of me bragging really. So about 4 weeks ago I entered a raffle to win Australian Idol tickets... and well I will save you all the suspense and let you know that I won them and just got back from it with two of my lovely friends Meagan and Rachel. It was really really fun! the studio was tiny though... I mean they make them look so big on tv, there were really only about 200 of us? Maybe less? I am a bad guess at numbers... Any who it was filmed live, so that was pretty cool. They could count us in from commercials and such wanting people to cheer. It was actually very fun! their judges are much nicer than ours.... well by that I mean they really don't have a Simon, but that is ok because he is over rated anyway. That's all I really have for you... we weren't allowed to take pictures inside the studio, but Rachel has one on her camera of the three of us.. I will add it on here as soon as I can get it from her!

Canberra, the Washington D.C. of OZ

Having to meet at school by 6am on a Friday is not on any one's list of favorite things to do, forgive me for making this assumption if your one of the weirdos who disagrees. Regardless of your stance on it I will tell you it was no fun at all. Haha. Especially knowing there was a 4 hour bus ride ahead of us to go visit foreign embassies.... Ughhhh, not quite the draw to get out of bed at 430am. Anyway, I slept most of the trip until we first arrived and drove up to the top of the hill to see the view of Canberra.

All along that middle red path are the Oz embassies and war memorials and important governmental buildings. Very exciting I know! Our first stop was the capitol Parliament house.... not very exciting in my opinion. Just a waste of money on a huge marble creation of a building, with so much marble and gold coated empty space.... really? Is that necessary? After that we went to the Aboriginal embassy.... which people kept calling the "tent embassy". I figured tent would mean something a little nicer than what it was, a camping tent out in front of the old Parliament building (which was basically the size of our white house). We stood out in the rain for an hour listening to two aboriginal men talk about how the government does not acknowledge them as the original inhibitors of the country and how they destroy their land, wildlife, and plants kicking aboriginals out of their homes and not giving them anything in return. Obviously standing out in the rain in front of this beautiful building which cost billions of dollars to build listening to two guys speak in the rain about how they have been taken advantage of. They spoke so kindly and humbly to us, but you could tell there was so much anger behind their words, but I would probably feel the same way if I were them. It was heart breaking and opened my eyes so much. I don't even know what I can begin to do to help them, and when we asked what we could do for them they just asked us to spread what we have learned here. Help people to become more aware of what is really going on. When you see it first hand there is no way you can possibly deny it unless you are really good at lying to yourself. Even so I still see it as quite the challenge. Well after that we were all soggy and freezing we headed off to the Indonesian Embassy, of which we heard an hour an a half lecture from a man we could not understand a word from, while we were wet and cold. Fun fun fun. Needless to say it was very hard to keep the eyes open. Our last visit of the day was to the American Embassy. I have to say it made me want to vomit. It has been over a month since I have been exposed to American arrogance.... ugh the lady speaking telling us that America is so far ahead of everyone and blah blah blah and everyone else just needs to deal with it and acknowledge our power, ughh, kill me now, no wonder no one likes Americans. This is what they think we are all like. They were trying to convince us how we are so influential and what not that other countries would have to have so much progress for so many years to even catch up to us, which in fact may be true, but do they really need to come off like that? I mean if we don't want to start getting bombed it might be a good idea to be a little more humble about our power? Maybe? Well I could vent for hours, but I will try to contain myself. That night we stayed in a hostel, for my first time ever, it was actually a pretty cool establishment. Lots to do, pool (both kinds), lounge areas, video games, regular games, bars.... however I was way too tired to take much advantage of the accommodations. But it did ease my nerves for my trip to the Great Barrier Reef in two Weeks where we will be crashing in a hostel for 4 nights! Woo!!! Anyway our next day in Canberra was a little more exciting and artsy. Our first stop was the national portrait gallery, which after taking art classes was a pretty amazing experience. Followed by the museum of Aussie history and culture. It was awesome!!!! Did I forget to mention museums are free in this country!!! Its spectacular. Sadly my camera was on its way out so I did not get very many pictures, and when your exhausted the last thing you want to do is be creative. After that and a nice lunch of subway on the bay we headed on to an art museum. Which was a lot cooler than the ones in the States, and I am trying to figure out why this is, and I think it is because they have such a new collection of pieces than we do back home everything is new and exciting. Plus everything seems to be more exciting in the land of OZ. Our last stop of the trip was the Canberra war memorial, which was amazingly cool. We have been learning a lot about Australian history and events it was actually interesting to see some real pieces from wars. Plus, how they had the place set up was very educational and un-boring =) Real technical term there. They had huge models set up of different battles giving you a good idea of what the conditions were. They also had real helicopters and planes you could play in (which of course I did, don't even think I didn't) and faux submarine set ups you could go through. It was really fun. I think all historical war monuments should be this fun. Plus the architecture was not bad either. Excuse the crooked angle I was leaning against a column, haha. Well the trip ended on a note of about 9 out of 25 of us being sick, and I think now almost everyone is sick. I spent the afternoon yesterday waiting in a waiting room with my romies and Mum, it was way too much fun. However, I do have to say the man at the counter was very attentive bringing us drinks and out own boxes of tissues. That was rather entertaining =) At the moment I am still healthy with 3 sick roomies, so I am praying for good health and for all of them to quickly recover. All of the classes were cancelled today (Monday) for the Americans because they want us to rest and feel better. So basically we are under quarantine, haha. Oh the joys. As for now I am off to take a nap, I am doing my best to stay healthy and try to fight the sicknesses!! Wish me luck!

Culture + Tasman Sea =)

Well well well it has been awhile eh? I do not even know where to start so I will jump to the good stuff! This last weekend my Oz mum took my roomies and I on a road trip to her parents house. The whole trip was so much fun. We left at 7 (friggen) am on Friday and our first stop was this market called "trash and treasure". It is where all these business from Sydney come together and sell the most random stuff... sinks, clothes, art, fruit, instruments.... you get the idea - but super cheap. I got 3 shirts for 9 dollars and apparently they have super cheap wet suits which I may go back and look in to =) However its hours of operation are 5am to noon. If any of you know how much of a night owl I am this may be a problem! After that we got to drive through the Sydney Olympic park, which was pretty cool. I don't really remember watching the Olympics when they were there, I was young, but it was still awesome, and massive!!! After that we drove south along the coast to Kaima where there is a blow hole and awesome rocks leading out it the beautiful ocean.
As we were out on these rocks exploring we were discussing how many different poisonous creatures there are in Australia and how when we are going out on rocks we should probably pay attention to the signs we pass without looking at twice just in case they are home to come poisonous swooping bird who preys on unsuspecting Americans or something. Crazy I know, but you can never be too careful here!
Obviously we were being very careful =) From the left to right we have Kat, me, Meg, and Marissa. We get along well, it is pretty wonderful. Anyway after Kaima we drove to this little town in the hills, I forget the name, but it was artsy with lots of little restaurants and shops. Gail introduced us to the Australian delicacy of meat pies.... which come to find out is like a chicken pot pie, but better. They are super big on them over here, its great. I had a chicken curry pie in case you were wondering, and I think you were! Mmm! After that we stopped at this beach where Kangaroos roam free. Because it was sort of toasty they made there way into the shaded area, which is odd because basically it is a mobile home park. I guess the people who live there just let the kangaroos coexist with them. It is really cool because you drive through to the beach and you just see roos hopping through the mobile homes or just chilling in the sun. They are so soft and wonderful. I made a new best friend and saw one with a baby in its pouch =)



































Anywho the next stop was her parents house. They live in a town on the south coast called Ulladulla. Their home is on a cliff, the back of it looking out onto the Tasman Sea. The view is absolutely stunning.And this was the view from the back. I am pretty much dying to live somewhere like this some day. Waking up to that view every morning would never get old!
When we arrived we chatted with the parents for
awhile about our majors and some Aussie/American
differences such as "the tall poppy syndrome." Just in case you do not know what that is and are wondering it is what Aussies call it when Americans, or anyone really, gets the "I am better than everyone" attitude. It is how they describe a lot of Americans, which I think is legitimate. Their humor tends to be really sarcastic and "biting" as they describe it, basically to keep everyone on the same level. They don't like to stand out from anyone else, weather that be a show of money by having a nice car, home or cloths, and even with names. They will give everyone nicknames ending in "o" or "azza" it is kinda cool. So after our cultural chat the four of us girls went down to the beach. Definitely the most beautiful beach I have ever been to. The water is so clear and turquoise, and the sand is so soft and fine and the color of cookie dough. It is beautiful! And the water was no where near as cold as it is back home, obviously. I wish I would have worn a swim suit, but that didn't stop me from enjoying the water =)













We finished the evening with a nice dinner at her parents country club. The next morning we ate our body weight in breakfast food and took one last walk on the beach before starting our trip home. It was definitely way too short of a trip and we are all dying to go back. For our journey back Gail decided to take us through the mountains on one of the windiest up and down hill adventure I have ever been on. Let me tell you being in the back seat of a car driving on the opposite side of the road on a friggen cliff with buses flying past you.... well it is an adventure to say the least. But it was all worth it when she took us to Yarrunga Valley where there is a look out point and waterfall into the most beautiful valley I have ever seen.
The picture does it absolutely no justice but it at least conveys an idea. Needless to say this was pretty much the best road trip ever. Coming back was hard, but this week has been fun. I have constantly been getting made fun of for my lack of ability to say Australian words. I was trying to get taught to say "Yobba" which is a red neck but for some reason is came out "Yoburt" alas I finally have a nick name, haha. Oh dear. We had a couple girls from school over for dinner last night and talked about some of the strangest things. However we learned that what our prof has been telling us is true.... Aussies don't see themselves as having much of a culture. I think that is crazy because they definitely do. But being that their country has only really been here about 200 years (weird!!!) they don't think there has been much time to develop one. Also they find their history rather dull (I disagree) and find it weird that we eat peanut butter on anything other than a pb&j sandwich. Also, they really don't use dryers, they like to hang their clothes outside to dry, which I think is kinda cool unless you are in a hurry. Lets see - to go is called take away, if you ask someone where the "rest room" is they will give you a very weird look so you have to ask for the "toilet", instead of saying something like "very very very cool" or something to an extended degree they will say cool as, or sweet as, or mad as... definitely with the accent does not sound at all like "as" =) That is all the fun cultural differences I can think of to share with you for now, so I will leave you with this sweet picture I took at the beach. Who would have known all those little shell guys do so much crawling around?

A quick blurb

I was in life drawing today, and besides me being reminded of the fact I am beautifully horrible at drawing people I was reminded of some stuff I thought was really good. Well the first thing I have to say is really not anything super profound, but more so interesting. Trevor, my prof, keeps telling us not to draw with lines, he then pointed out no where in natural creation there are lines, and people don't have lines so we should not be so set on drawing people with lines. Yeah this may sound a bit odd, but he has a very valid point. In nature and people a line is an illusion, thing about it. It is just an area where two colors merge, or where depth changes. Interesting. But the most interesting thing was in one of his speeches where he was encouraging us to do what feels comfortable, as long as we are stuff pushing ourselves to try new things. Every time we draw something, no matter what it is, he makes us show everyone in the class. We did a bunch of one minute studies of our class mates today and after we filled our page we had to show one another. It was obvious who was stiff and risking nothing and those who were taking chances despite the time crunch. After a few rounds of this he stopped us and said he had seen us all improve quite a bit from the first hour we started. He then went on to say not to look at people who have had more experience and try to imitate their style, or any one's style for that matter. All that mattered was figuring out what style makes you the most comfortable and taking risks and trying new things to develop your skill. he went on to use it as a metaphor for life and how people are attracted to confident people. We see them and have a tendency to want to be like them, but really we just need to embrace who we our and our individual differences. We cannot expect people to be exactly the same at all, no two things in nature are exactly the same, and no two people are the same. We were all purposefully designed and this design will never be repeated.

Even though this is not new info, it was just nice to be reminded of....

My two week aniversary =)

I have officially been here two weeks!!! You would think by now I would be adjusted to the time difference, but oh no you would be wrong. It is currently 9pm here in Aussie (4am at home) and my body is telling me it is 4am and the clock is lying to me telling me it is 9, weird. Anyway that is not important. Well today officially marks my two weeks of being in Australia, and I have to say it is nothing I expected, instead it is so much more. This last weekend I got to go to a Koala sanctuary with a bunch of girls from our ASC group. It was pretty amazing. When we got there we ran straight to the koala's because we were told we would get to hold and cuddle with them. Sadly a million people showed up so instead we just got to pet them and take pictures with them while they were on a gate next to us. This was definitely disappoint until we found out that there was this area of kangaroos of which we could just frolic amongst!!!



This is also our first official roomie picture. I am on the far left, then heading toward the right we have Meagan, a theology major from Texas, Marissa a music major from Pennsylvania, and Kat an anthropology major who goes to the same school as Marissa in Pennsylvania. In a couple weeks the four of us are traveling south with our host mom to visit her parents who live on a house on the ocean. Apparently there is a beach near by where kangaroos just roam free!!! I cannot wait, it will be amazing. Plus, I have not been to the ocean yet. I know, I know, horrible, however it is the middle of their winter... yes these 70 degree sunny says have been absolutely dreadful =) Moving on, the past week or so we have been getting initiated into the Australian culture by eating all the strange things they have in this country. Our (meaning the entire ASC) favorite so far is the lovely Tim Tam slam. Now a Tim Tam is the chocolaty rectangular nugget of which you bite off the corners on opposite ends and stick one end in hot chocolate or coffee and basically use it as a straw. Well after you taste the hot chocolate you have about 2 seconds before the entire cookie melts so you have to sling your head back and shove the Tim Tam in. Oh my goodness it tastes like a chocolate piece of heaven. To model to you the lovely Tim Tam packaging two of my lovely roomies and I will show you...
...and in case you are wondering if you look like your snorting something when you do a Tim Tam slam, I will also show you...
Ah yes, life here is very hard. On a different note, I know I mentioned classes before but they continue to impress me. I am taking a life drawing class, of which we will be getting to study the bones, muscles, and skin of the human body. I don;t know what any of you know about life drawing and private Christian Universities but most don't have it and if they do the models are definitely clothed. Well ours are not. Our teacher (In Aussie they are not called professors, they just go by their names) for life drawing is an amazing man. He can draw people like no ones business and use to be a priest in the Catholic church. Random I know. So he spent the first class explaining to us why it is important to take life drawing as an artist. He also fueled us with info on defending it from a Biblical view point and took time to talk about art vs porn, naked vs nude... It has been really really interesting, and I mean that in the true definition of the word. Needless to say all the teachers here basically just come to teach one class a week and work the rest of the time in the field they teach in (for the most part), so your getting the newest, most up to date, "in style", trendy, accurate, info possible. It is great. Also the new discussion topic in Faith and the Contemporary Artist was "are miracles real & do they prove there is a God?" Once again absolutely amazing. This teach, I forget his name at the moment, also amazing, shoots documentaries and has so many friends all over the board from a religious and occupational stand point. He always tells us stories of his agnostic/atheist friends and their discussions on a greater being. But what I really love about the class is that we all come from such different back grounds and believe different things, some may not believe anything at all. But at the end of the day no matter what happened in class everyone walks out as mates and it is like nothing ever happened. This all might be a little repetitive from my last post but it is so new and so good to me I cannot get over it. I am so pleased and so honored to be in a class full of people who are willing to put their faith on the line for you to test it and so they can test it themselves just so that they can get one step closer to knowing who God really is. I will leave you with this picture I took the other day at observatory park in Sydney on the opposite side of the Harbor bridge from the opera house.
Ok and maybe this...
And maybe this...
...the opera house well never not look like helmets from mid evil times again =)