the one where I get all sentimental.

Warning: this is going to get a little gushy.
Today's the day. Remember how 5 months ago I was freakishly scared/excited fro all the adventures that awaited me??? Sometimes I can't believe it has possibly been that long, but then I think about all I've done, all the memories I've made, and all new friends I've found and I can believe it.
Before I left multiple people told me that studying abroad would "change my life". I'm a little skeptical of that phrase because your life is always changing. If I had stayed home and sat on my bum my life still would have changed because that's what life does: it goes on. But I can't argue that this has been one of the best experiences ever. I've learned so much about myself, the amazing people and places that exist out there, and as cheesy as it sounds more about the world itself. I could ramble on trying to say what I'm feeling and failing, but then you would all just get confused and bored and I would probably just get sadder about leaving. So I'll save you from it. But do me and yourselves a favor.
Travel, experience the world outside your comfort zone.
Make new friends, there are some amazing people out there just waiting for you to get to know them.
Cherish the people you do have in your life, especially the ones you see everyday that you might take for granted.
Take those last three things seriously, even though they sound like I copied them from some inspirational website:)

Ps. even though I am headed stateside this afternoon, I have some Australian adventures I have yet to share. So there will for sure be some more posts for a while at least, and I've actually kind of fallen in love with blogging so I might just keep it up even when the most fabulous things in my life include: school, an honors thesis, and the GRE. But in case I don't....someday, when my life gets that extra little shot of fabulous, I'll be back.

L.O.V.E

I have more to post about Melbourne, but today has been all about goodbyes and sitting here in my packed up room it's hitting me hard core that I'm leaving in approximately 24 hours!!!!!!!!! Leaving the states was hard but it was different because I knew I would be back, and I knew exactly when. This time it feels like I'm saying goodbye to home but don't know when I'll be back. I have to tell myself that one day I will be back, but not knowing when makes it hard and knowing that it will may never be "home" again adds a whole heap of sadness. So after like 2 weeks of totally being ready to head stateside, the final days have been filled with thoughts of maybe I'm not so ready...
The last 5 months have been such an amazing experience. Words can't even describe, well my use of them anyways:)

But perhaps to remind myself someday of why I loved this place so much here we go.
Reasons why Sydney is oh so fabulous (in no particular order):
1. The harbor.....the best way to spend a sunny day or a warm night is on a boat.
2. The opera house/harbor bridge combination......gorgeous.every.time.
3. The public transportation.......yes we've had our ups and downs. and yes its definitely not the best one ever. but seriously I love hopping on the train and having it take you somewhere new. and when you don't have a car the public transportation is particularly helpful.
4. The fact that it's International city.....not sure if that's really the best way to say it, but I love that Sydney is so globally influenced. in it's people and food.
5. The beaches........there are so many.they are all fabulous.
6. The Taronga zoo........how many places have a zoo with those views?? oh wait NONE.
7. The shopping......so everyone says Melbourne is the place for shopping, but  I think Sydney is pretty awesome too. Heaps of malls and plenty of quirky, cute, and awesome little shops too.
8. The people.....seriously some of the coolest ones I've ever met live here and I'm gonna miss my Sydneysiders and all those who pretended to be Sydneysiders with me(aka all my other exchange peeps).
9. The suburbs....I love that a lot of suburbs totally have different vibes. And there are soooo many. It's slightly ridiculous.
10. The Saturday markets....this city has soooo many fantasmic ones. and I've loved every.single.one.
11. The city life....there are usually some cool shenanigans going on. Sydney is a happening place.
12. The Blue Mountains.....I love that you can head out of the city and leave it totally behind and enjoy the gorgeousness out there.
13. The food........Max Brennar's, cutesy cafes, kebabs, fish and chips, hot cross buns, timtams, cadbury, yum cha, and everything else that has ended up in my belly that was delicious.
14. The accents......yes Australians you have them.  I think being surrounded by the American one again is gonna drive me batty (too many actual pronunciations of 'r'!!!haha)
15. The fact that it's in Australia........while I've loved Sydney, I've also loved jetting off to explore other parts of Oz as well. going to miss that for sure.
16. The shortened words.......honestly most of them are just soooo much better.
17. The school uniforms......probably only because I never had to wear them, but little kids just look so cute in uniforms.
18. The metric system......even though I mostly still have no idea how much 10kgs is or how far 30kms is I know in my heart that it just makes so much more sense. Although I did not develop such a fondness for Celsius. Fahrenheit is still better.
19. The Aussie BBQs......sausages are just soooo much better than hotdogs. no contest.
20. Eastwood....yes it's true I've fallen for this quirky, quacky suburb I call a home. Although I'm pretty sure I still wouldn't want to live here forever.


There is a lot of love happening. And I'm gonna miss it all. But someday I will for sure be back:) So until we meet again Australia.....

Where to start??

I have so much to share. I just looked at my like 400 pictures that haven't been blogged about.goodness. And there is the little tidbit that I am leaving in 3 DAYS! three days, people. insanity.

So instead of blogging I should probably be figuring out how to pack my life from the last 5 months up again, doing the heaps of laundry I have, and cleaning my room that has somehow managed to turn into a tornado despite the fact that I have been in my room maybe 20 hours since I got home from Melbourne and 90% of that time I was sleeping....(I snapped some pics because it is literally that bad, but then I decided I would like to see my mother again before she has a heart attack so I will refrain from sharing them:))

I think I will start a week ago when I left for Melbourne. So here we go...

My flight for Melbourne left at 7, which sounded good when I booked it because a. it was cheaper and b. then I would have a whole day to enjoy in Melbourne. But on the morning of when I had to wake up at 4:30 to catch the train to make it to the airport in time, it was the worst idea ever. And then, being brilliant as usual, forgot to actually look at the handy list I had made to make sure I remembered everything and got half way to the train station and realized I didn't have my phone charger. I decided being stranded without a phone was no bueno so I quick went back to get it, missed the train, PANICKED, made the next train, and got to my gate just fine anyways. Then when I got Melbourne I realized just how awesome I really was that day and realized I hadn't written down or printed out directions on how to get to my hostel or even the address. fail. and it was raining. double fail. Thank goodness for cafes with wifi. So even though Melbourne and I started out a little rocky the trip got much better from there.

Here are some pics from my wandering in Melbourne.

A wet, cold Melbourne.

Melbourne park provides free showers....I kid. It's a pretty sweet fountain.

Artsy. Melbourne tries really hard to be urban and artsy. They are mostly successful.

Winter branches.

St. Peter's, St. Mary's?? anyways, some church.

I love city parks, it's pretty fab to be like city.city.PARK!!!

Gorgeous trees, that they ruined by wrapping them in gray, metal sweaters???

Federation Square, a building of cool looks and multiple purposes. 

Melbournians love to talk about their cool little lane-ways. I think it's mostly to make all their dark alleys that could be seen as dodgy seem cool. But this one had some pretty sweet graffiti and some of them do contain seating for pretty fab cafes...

Makes me wish I had graffiti skillz...

creepster.

Flinders St. station. The main train station.

Are gallery that resembles an epic jungle gym. Seriously I just wanted to climb the thing...

The lovely, brown Yarra River.

The lovely, brown Yarra River made more awesome by a tree with an amazing range of fall colors.

Luckily the only all-day rain I had in Melbourne.

The building with the goo on top....told you Melbourne tries hard :)

The next morning I was off on a great ocean road day tour, so it was off to bed early for this one. And more on that later:)

one.hand.

You can count the number of days I have left in Australia on one hand....so crazy!!!! I have moments where it really hits me that I'm leaving and I'm like, "oh snap, I'm gonna miss this". Then I just tell myself I'll be back and I feel a wee bit better:) So this post is from Melbourne, from my phone (so please excuse if there are more typos than usual...), from the library (because it's warm, I can sit, and it has wifi....basically a trifecta). Other than the fact that it has been cold and my feet hurt from walking all all over, Melbourne has been FABULOUS. Seriously such a good way to wind up my time down under. I will of course sure more...with pictures once my computer and I are reunited. But just to make you jealous....I spent my afternoon at a coffee shop on a cutesy street. Drinking tea ( yes, I like tea now....after being offered a cuppa 5 million times I succumbed and turns out I like the stuff, especially of you add sugar and milk:)Although I can still only handle usually 1 cup a day as opposed to the usual Aussie 6, so they haven't had complete success in converting me) from a cute teacup with a side of honey on a silver platter with a delicious veggie frittata. Gahhh....so good!!! That was when I had one of my "ohemgee, I'm gonna miss this moments". More Melbourne adventures to come as hopefully getting home goes a wee bit more smoothly than getting here(more on that later too...)

hall.lay.lou.yah.

I am officially done with my semester at Macquarie, well I guess officially done at Macquarie forever......since I have no plans to come back here, for school anyways:) And I tried to be sad about my last time walking across campus, my last time in the library, and my last time taking the bus home from uni, but I just couldn't. I'm just too happy that I'm not in school at the moment!!!!!!

And to celebrate my last little bit of time in Australia I'm headed off to Melbourne in the morning!!! Scheduling a flight out at 7 in the morning is maybe the dumbest thing I have done here yet, as it means I have to catch the train at 5. ew. However Melbourne should be lovely, although even colder than Sydney so I will officially be a popsicle when I land in AZ. I'm looking forward to a day tour of the Great Ocean Road, some penguins, some cutesy cafes, maybe some shopping, and whatever else Melbourne may hold:)

Then, not gonna lie, I'm pretty psyched to have a few days back in Sydney to say some goodbyes and then get myself back to the good ol' US of A. 

So at this point I'm pretty much excited about.everything.in.my.life!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And to keep the excitement going for you I'm gonna share the video of me bungy jumping. 

Please take into account the following items before viewing:

1. Please check that your volume is turned down (or go ahead and turn it all the way off, because I scream like a nut-job for the first 30 seconds.)

2. If you get motion sick, I'm warning you I was not very good at being aware there was a camera strapped to my wrist. And if you barf....well, I warned you.

3. Since I'm sharing this you are not allowed to use it as blackmail at any point in my life. 

So who's with me the next time I go???? 

must.keep.going.

It's official. I've hit a wall. Just like this one....


Ok, so I might be exaggerating how over studying for exams I am just a wee bit. But not really.
I have one more exam tomorrow and I am sooooo ready to be done and start my winter/summer holiday. I don't really care which season it's associated with as long as no school is involved. Unfortunately the night before said exam I have reached the point where I so want to be done that I don't even care how I do. So in the next few hours I will hopefully hurdling this wall as epically as this guy hurdled this bull.....


Except probably not, because you all know how not graceful I am. But I don't want to end as one of the usual study abroad students who end up failing a subject so even if it's not graceful, I'd like to get over the wall and care just a little about how this next exam goes.

But tomorrow afternoon at 2:30, you best believe the party that is my last 10 days in Australia is going to begin. (yep, MY.LAST.10.DAYS.) holy canoli, where has the last 5 months gone????

try and have a bad day.....

....while looking at this pics. Simply can't be done. (You didn't actually think I was telling you to have a bad day did you?!?!) Not that I've had like the worst day ever or anything, I'll admit I've had better. But sun and the most delicious microwave Indian dinner from Wooly's make it a wee bit better. (Seriously it was like suspicious packages that looked like space food but after 2 minutes in the microwave tasted pretty freaking delicious. Sure it was probably super processed and unhealthy but anyways....don't kill my buzz.) Anyways and then I was like "ooo I should post these beauties" and my day went up like 50 points on the awesomeness scale. 

These were from round two of VIVID. It was wet but still fabulous. (oh hey speaking of rain, one of my attempts at not studying was to calculate how much rain Sydney has had since I've been here....it was twice as much as AZ has had in the past year and 1/2. Good use of my time? I think yes.)

Everyone loves an awesome glowing box!!! (not sarcasm.if you don't love awesome glowing boxes. well, get out.)

Oh wait the boxes were actually supposed to be the heads of dogs??
weird, go back to thinking they are just awesome boxes.

little bit wet.

This particular beauty had me hyped up like no other drug ever could. Not that I'm admitting a drug problem here....
I'm studying for my drug class, I can't help it if my mind is on drugs. promise.

Seriously though. FABULOUSNESS in a light form.

Even just looking at the pictures now still makes me giddy.

gahhhhh.

Yasmin was probably trying to pretend she didn't know the freak who was snapping 500 pictures
and giggling like a school girl at this point....

Last one, promise. (but check out that reflection, schweet.)

So an awesome pic, but a fail attempt at tic-tac-toe. C'mon kids......

A trippy feet photo.

Another sweet reflection of the giant lake-sized puddle.

I got my shoes totally soaked for this one folks. you best appreciate it.

Remember this building from the 50 photos I took last time? Well I took 50 more....

Every time it changed I would just be like "So awesome!!!"

and again.

and again.

and....well I think you get my point.

still awesome.

last one....

everything looks better in pretty colors...

oops....I forgot. This is for reals the last one:)

Remember the horrible photos of the opera house last time? No, probably because they were so pathetic. These are better.

Wouldn't you love to be the girl who could say "oh ya, that's me plastered larger than life on the opera house"??

Still love this one.

so blue.

check out that reflection....I"m pretty proud of it. Even though I had no part in creating it....
so really I guess I'm proud of my iPhone for capturing it.

see, this has to make your day at least a little better??

too bad the girl on the opera house decided she had cramps and had to curl into the fetal position....

Ok, so you would think these might not be that cool. but I loved them....

Yasmin and I might have snapped a picture every 2 seconds because they kept changing color so we'd be like,
"ooo this ones good"

And this one too!!!

Oh pink!!!

And before we new it, we had a ton.

VIVID.

even the po-po had cool lights.

I started to read this and then my eyes started crossing...

You could try reading the picture version if your looking to waste 5 minutes of your life.

little, dodgy allies look less dodgy with pretty lights.

So hopefully this made your day a little better. And my apologies because this post seems especially exaggerated. in case you haven't noticed I feel like it's better to talk about things in 50s, 500s, or 5,000s, when usually it's really more like 2....and I overuse ellipses. and sometimes I'm not sure how well sarcasm comes across on a blog and sometimes I feel like it comes across as sarcastic when it is meant as 100% seriousness. And I make up words and spellings. And my capitalization is spotty at best...but who am kidding, I'm not going to change any of these things even if you hate them:) so sorry, but please just stop reading if any of these things cause you to lose sleep at night. And yes I am just hard core rambling at this point because I really don't want to study!!!!