Day 142 -- The Final Day

Today was my last day in Australia, and before I get into the sappiness that is inevitably about to come, I'll go into how my day went. I obviously spent the majority of it packing, but embarked on a journey with the guys to visit a cider tasting rooftop bar in Federation Square that we've been wanting to go to forever. It was totally worth it. I tried over 8 different kinds of delicious ciders, and ended up buying a pot of strawberry and pear cider. The bar itself was very quaint itself, as it totally rocked the fake grass and white picket fence around the outside. There were little rooms inside shaped like huts that a small group could sit in as well. Very adorable. We then ate lunch (if you call french fries lunch....which we do haha) at a chain we've been dying to eat at – Lord of the Fries. Like the name suggests, you'd be willing to become a cannibal in order to get these fries they are so good. Okay, not really, but they really were good! You can choose from about 10 different sauces for your fries, so three of us split a box of fries with “Parisian” and “Aussie” sauces. Parisian was this garlic aeoli which I have grown to love after going to Blue Moon so many times, and the Aussie was a twist on tomato sauce (or ketchup – can't wait to actually start hearing ketchup again...), and the combination together was to die for. Two places I'm extremely glad I got to visit before I left!
But alas, all good things must come to an end, and that end is now for my amazing journey in Australia. I'm overwhelmingly sad to be going, and overwhelming happy to be headed home. There are certainly things I won't miss – Coretto's, high prices, paying for my own internet and...well, everything, doing school work, having the smallest fridge and kitchen in the world, certain people, etc, but there are also certainly things I will. I'll always have the memories of family dinners, a comforting home-away-from-home event that helped me feel less alone in this big city. I'll remember all the nights we danced like crazy until the wee hours of the morning. I'll remember risking my life by jumping out of a plane from 14,000 feet and how it felt to be flying through the air. I'll remember not seeing my roommate all day and then not being able to shut up to one another for hours and hours since we had SO much to catch up on. I'll remember conquering my fear of rock climbing in the Grampians, and then sealing it by walking backwards over a cliff to abseil down the mountain face. I'll remember hiking up and down Cradle Mountain and every mountain in between in Tasmania and being in awe of just how strong my legs can actually be. And I'm definitely lucky to be able to remember how much my friends have become a family away from home. I didn't know anyone coming in, and now leaving I feel like I'm leaving a huge part of me behind. There is no doubt in my mind that I am the most lucky person in the world to be able to experience this with the people that I did. I couldn't ask for anything better!
It's also unbelievable to think how far I've come from when I got here. When I got on the plane I was terrified, heartbroken, and doubting whether all of this was even worth it. Melbourne has made me fearless enough to jump out of a plane, mended my heart, and I'm coming back knowing this was the best decision I have ever made in my life. I'm going to miss it more than words can say. I hope that I can one day make it back to this amazing city, but even if I never do I'll never forget what this city has done for me. Melbourne, you have truly captured my heart. I'll never forget ya, mate ;)

Happy Thanksgiving!

First of all, happy thanksgiving!! It technically isn't even thanksgiving anymore in Australia, but it is in America so I thought the timing would be fine. As sad as it was to not be in America watching the parade, I had a fabulous makeshift dinner with my Arcadia family! My friend Randy and I made a green bean casserole and an apple pie, both of which came out amazing! I even wove the pie crust which I've never done before, but I'm so incredibly proud!

Everyone brought a different dish, including the turkey itself (cooked at the home of some church person our friend's mom ran into. Nicest lady in the world to let us use her oven!), along with mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, dinner rolls, stuffing, two pumpkins pies, artichoke dip and cranberry sauce. By the end we totally had a loot! Especially since as the night went on, more and more people showed up bringing food so we ended up having a good 14 people!

It was so much fun and totally made being away from home easier :) I love my arcadia family and I'll be so sad to leave them!

Afterwards we headed to trivia night (because what else would you do on thanksgiving --- come on) and although we still won the just dance 2 competition and only missed 4 questions in the entire game, we lost to the team who's guy always challenges me in just dance (the one who told me he'd won every game and was super cocky about it all -- turns out he's super nice, you just have to beat him a few times first!). But we still came in second, so not bad! I'm still super proud of us! After that we were just hanging around talking and these australian guys that also danced in the competition came up and challenged us to an australian-american match in foosball. We couldn't NOT defend America, so two of our guys went up and CRUSHED the others in a massive 6-1 win. The Australians then got discouraged and challenged us to pool, so we attempted to play pool, but ended up not hitting a single ball into the actual pockets so needless to say, pool is not the sport of Americans. But we can play foosball god dammit!

Two Days Left

You know it's been a good semester when you go to shut down your Commonwealth bank account and almost start crying because you realize you'll never see your favorite bankers again. This is my life right now. Full of too many goodbyes and it doesn't help that people are leaving ONE BY ONE so every day is more sadness. At least we still have one last family thanksgiving dinner tonight, which I'm super excited for, but more one that once it actually happens!

So the last couple of days...Tuesday I officially realized I have too much stuff. I cannot possibly fit all of my newfound and old possessions in my suitcase. Lucky for me, I packed lighter than everyone else did and so I was able to go to vic market today with my friend and his friend and buy a new huge wheeled purple duffle bag that says AUSTRALIA down the side, and I'm allowed to check 2 bags so this is perfect! But for the record – why is packing so incredibly stressful? It seems like only yesterday I was packing to come here and needing to call everyone in a tristate area to calm me down. Gah has 5 months really gone by? Crazy.

The night finished off by going with a few people to Hawthorne Hotel, a fun dance club about 20 minutes away from Melbourne that our australian friend insisted on taking us to. It was super fun with them playing older songs like “Scotty doesn't know” as well as my favorite bands like the Strokes! Except my one girl friend that was with me ditched as soon as her new boy arrived, so I spent most of the night dancing with my dependable guy friends. Afterwards we headed to where our australian friend told us everyone goes after Hawthorne Hotel – Mcdonalds. I was so mad because I had ALMOST gone the entire semester abroad without going to a Mcdonalds, but it definitely was an experience! There was a line out the door, and even a bouncer outside. For Mcdonalds. Crazy Australia!

Then yesterday I headed out with one of my guy friends to pick up movies for tonight's pizza and movie night (Rocky Horror and Finding Nemo!! – cause we really can't go without seeing Finding Nemo while we're in Australia, come on now). Then we went out to lunch in china town where he got a crocodile stirfry, and I had some! It tasted just like chicken, except super chewy. Not really the best texture in the world, but now I can say I've eaten crocodile!

The more I look at this picture the more disgusted I become that I ate that. So terrifying.

But we then went out for a drink at this bar/cafe that's underneath a bridge on the Yarra River! It was super pretty, but made me realize when I looked around at how many things in Melbourne I still haven't done yet. I guess I'll just HAVE to come back!

So then last last we had our pizza and movie night, but it was going on at the same time as our kind-of-friend-who's-kind-of-sketchy's barbeque, so we all played nice and went to visit the bbq for a little bit. I was just enthralled by the cats (the bbq pit is out by the cats at college square) and spent the majority of the time kneeled down feeding little pieces of ham to the kittens. Seriously -- they're SO CUTE. But then we eventually sat down to watch Rocky Horror and I had to stop myself from singing along to the entire movie since only one other guy in the room had even seen it (although we totally bonded over that, it was fun!). Then we totally switched up the pace and watched Finding Nemo, where we all knew the movie so well we were telling the lines a good 10 seconds before they were all said. And once that was all said and done, we just stayed up until 2am telling jokes about women (the girls were totally outnumbered...) and talking about video games (extremely outnumbered...). But it was sooo much fun and a wonderful end to the day! :)

4 Days Left

These past couple of days have been very relaxing but fun! I spent the majority of the days with big plans to do things, but then with torrential downpours, the plans were kind of forgotten so I finished the third game of thrones! But then I came to the awful conclusion that my friend is not even close to done reading the 4th one (stupid colin), so I went out and bought it at big W for 10 dollars. I don't think that's bad to continue my never-ending addiction!
This whole weekend was when the first group of Arcadia people left, including one of my best friends on the trip. It was extremely sad to see them go, but at least I'll see one of them back at Wooster in January! I'm so excited to see what kind of shenanigans we can get up to at Wooster now. It'll be a completely different experience!
Today I headed to Bendigo, a large-ish town about two hours outside of Melbourne with my australian friend who is from there, and it was so much fun to see another part of Victoria before I left! We visited her old school and walked up to …. I'm forgetting what it's called, which is sad because she told me an infinite amount of times, but Bendigo is an old gold mining town, so they have these structures that used (still do?) to pull...stuff out of the ground with. I'm still confused on the concept. But they were cool to look at!
Her friends then heard that I had never played laser tag before and were appalled, so we ended up going to a place called “The Zone” for the ultimate laser tag experience. I channelled my inner Barney Stinson and tried to play the best I could, but I ended up being terrified the first half of the game, and then just sucking the last half. But it was fun! Then we played mini golf, which is where it started feeling a bit fifth wheel on a double date with two couples, but I guess that's just naturally what it's going to feel like when you go mini golf with two couples...and yourself. But regardless, I did have a good time, and I won! Super proud moment!
We then got ice cream at this place really similar to Cold Stone, but of course it's Australia so it was called something else that still started with the word “cold”. It honestly wasn't as good as cold stone, but it was still delicious! Cold stone is definitely hard to top!
I ended off the day by heading back to Melbourne to go out with arcadia people to Blue Moon and Turf one last Monday night! One of my best friends here had one of his friends visiting from back home, and I spent the majority of the time talking to them, which was so much fun! Most of the arcadia girls are gone now since they went home early, so it's just me and my friend alyssa, who was extremely wrapped up in her own boy, so it was kind of like, kara and the bros kind of night, but I did't mind! They're all awesome :)

4 days till I leave....

Day 133

The past couple of days have been extremely laid back and relaxing -- exactly what I needed as I'm trying to nurse my horrible sunburn back to health. It also doesn't help that it's a bagillion and a half degrees here all the time, so I have the horrible dilemma of either dressing for the weather or covering up my burns so the sun doesn't make them worse. I end up just being scorching hot either way and curse the lack of ozone layer so thus concludes, even more, that I am SO a cold weather person. I officially do not function in heat.

Yesterday I spent the entire day inside reading nonstop the third Game of Thrones, which I am officially addicted to. I really had to limit myself to how much I could read during finals, and almost didn't let my friend even give me the third book because he and I both know I'm very bad at limiting myself when it comes to Game of Thrones, but somehow succeeded and now am in a reading frenzy. Such a good book!

But last night I broke my reading frenzy by going to trivia night at the backpacker's bar with the normal crowd. The questions actually weren't that bad, and I found myself knowing a lot of them (okay, like 5, but same diff). Then the Just Dance 2 portion came on, and I won over 10,000 points on "Rasputin" (the other guys didn't stand a chance against me with that song with the amount of times we've danced to it at Wooster, let's be honest) and because of those extra two points we won trivia again! Okay, it was also because of everyone else that contributed that we have the rest of the points, but I am still extremely proud that I can contribute something to this trivia.

Now today I woke up semi-early and headed back to vic market to do the remainder of my gift shopping for everyone. I also picked up two buckets of strawberries, a half kilo of cherries, and 6 bananas for 10 dollars. I almost cried it was such a good deal. I love when things come in season! Afterwards I stopped at the "Rice Bar (not only rice)", this chinese place I've been meaning to go to forever because it basically screams my name. Their rice was as good as it should have been with that kind of name, and I was extremely happy I made it there before I head home! Which is in 8 days. Whattttttt.

Day 131

These last two days have been so busy but so much fun! Yesterday I had breakfast with my roommates parents and her (something I love about parents visiting -- free meals!) which was so much fun and absolutely delicious. Then I ventured off to vic market to do some christmas shopping! They have lots of the tacky australian gifts as well as legitimate gifts that I would go into more details about, but that would spoil the surprise! But needless to say it was a wonderful success and I came back full of things that won't fit in my suitcases!

Afterwards I was exhausted so I laid down for what was supposed to be a 20 minute nap, but ended up being a 2 hour nap. I finally woke up to my roommate coming home at 5:30 and realized it was time to head over to the Fitz restaurant for the Arcadia farewell dinner. It was so much fun but kind of really sad to think that this would be the last time all of us would be together before the end of the trip. So many people are leaving this Saturday or Sunday, leaving only about 10 of us for the final week. But dinner was so delicious and I loved that Arcadia paid for it haha.

Then those of us who did not have exams the next day went back to our friend Jeremy's room and had a fabulous hang out session until 3 am. I am definitely going to miss these nights!

Today I woke up far too early and remembered I had made plans with some friends to go to the beach! So I got dressed really fast and embarked on a journey with two of my guy friends to the South Melbourne Beach, which was absolutely gorgeous! It was a bit too chilly to actually sunbathe and go in the water, but we all put our feet in and it felt wonderful. We spent a good 3 hours hiking up and down the coastline and found all these hidden treasures like beautiful parks, irresistable little kids playgrounds, and ice cream to top it all off.

Then we headed back on the tram to go to Chapel St, a big shopping street in a suburb of melbourne none of us had ever been to before. We got so excited when we were walking down the street and saw a sign for a jam factory, and practically ran up the walkway to find it. After looking around the arcade for a good twenty minutes, we finally asked someone who said that this arcade was just called the jam factory because the building used to be a jam factory. Biggest disappointment EVER. But inside we did find a wonderful tea shop and was able to sample different kinds of iced teas which were absolutely delicious. We had a ton of fun looking in all the different shops as well, as some of them were really high class and we even saw the building for "ten", a huge tv channel here that shows amazing shows like masterchef australia and the renovators, but there were also some reallyyyy hipster stores which were really entertaining to look around in. We finished off the day with crazy cheap drinks at a happy hour and then headed home, completely exhausted. Now unfortunately I got pretty sunburned today, as I realized when I went to take a shower and ended up in complete agony, but hopefully it will turn into a tan and then I can be less white when I come back to the states! I'm hopeful!

Day 129

Today was such a busy but fun day! One of the woes of being off of school so early and having all my finals in the first week of finals is that even though I'm all done, none of my friends actually are. This did not stop some of my best friends here from going and celebrating my finale to Coretto's last night (love them!) but today was a different story – everyone actually had to study – so I had a wonderful day with me! I started off by walking towards the docklands which are actually like a 2 hour walk away but I was too cheap to actually buy a tram ticket, so I ended up just walking in that general direction. I ended up at this giant store that said the largest christmas store in Victoria, so I thought, why not? This is the first thing that greeted me when I walked through the door:

Yep, I'm definitely in Australia. And if you can believe it, this baby was half off! Only 60 dollars for your own personal 10 ft tall blow up kangaroo! Don't worry parents, I didn't buy it (although I was definitely tempted to see it take up our entire family room).
Afterwards I walked out, got completely lost, and happened upon this absolutely beautiful park called Flagstaff Gardens. I found this cute little bench by some flowers, and since my oh so nice friend Brian had told me the other night that I'm “so white” I “should go to the beach”, I decided to sit in the sun and read my book until I was hungry. I ate lunch at this tiny little japanese place on King St (actually the street that everyone tells you to avoid at night because you'll probably get caught in a drive by. I decided to risk it when I saw how many other people were walking down the street). Then walked down the street and ran into the aquarium!

There was a student price for the aquarium, so I was able to get 10 dollars off the entry price to make it pretty reasonable! I'm happy I went too, since although I thought that every zoo/aquarium around the world is relatively the same – not true! Most of the fish in the aquarium were native to places around Asia and Australia! It definitely wasn't as good as the Boston Aquarium, and I'm not going to lie, I was EXTREMELY disappointed when the cuttlefish exhibit was empty, but the adorable penguins, and huge manta rays swimming over me in the clear glass tunnel through the fish tank made it worth it!

After the aquarium I walked out to see the city circle tram stop right in front of me. It's this free tram service that goes in a circle around Melbourne's CBD that is very touristy, but I decided to hop on and see where it went. I was happily surprised that it brought me right down to the docklands! The place where it dropped me off reminded me of California with all these palm trees and they even had those celebrity stars in the ground! I only recognised one name:

So I walked around the docklands a bit and ended up at a big arcade with a ton of outlet stores! I hadn't had basically any retail therapy this entire trip so far, so I decided I should splurge a little and got new boots!! The best part about them too is that they were marked down from 200 dollars to only 40! I think we all know nothing makes me happier than a new pair of boots, so it was definitely worth the money!
Then I got back on the tram and headed back towards the CBD. It ended up on the opposite side of Melbourne near the parliament building, which I didn't even know existed. So I got off and walked around and ran into this beautiful huge church, which was across the street from a little tiny church that looked exactly like the kind of place I always pictured getting married in haha.

I finished off my day of adventuring with a stop at this adorable cafe I found called the Jellybean Cafe and got a pear and honey tea (DELICIOUS) and of course a handful of jellybeans that cost me 20 cents. I couldn't go to the Jellybean cafe and not have jellybeans! And now I'm already planning for tomorrows adventures – I'm going to make these last two weeks count!