Oooopps.

So I may be the worst blogger ever. My posts are not that fantastical. And not that often. (I just had to look and see when I posted last...and let me tell you a lot has happened since then)

I will play catch up a wee bit. I feel like I'm always saying that, so it is highly likely that I will finally get all caught up in 5 months when I'm back in the states:) kidding....hopefully.

Anyways, Thursday after orientation Andrea and I headed into downtown Sydney to do a bit of exploring. As we had sailed through the harbor on a ferry but had yet to explore it up close and personal. 

TADA!!! first of 5,000 pictures with the opera house.

"No we're not tourist....""

But this lady is!!!! check out the hat. for some reason all the tourist shops have these truly HORRID wide brimmed hats with corks hanging off all the way around?? (p.s. sorry if you are the proud owner of one of these hats...I still love you.)

Checking out "The Rocks". The historic part of downtown Sydney. This building used to be on the water's edge. So where Andrea's standing would have been the beach...it's now like 100 ft inland.

We thought about walking across....but its a REALLY big bridge.

Seriously one of the most photogenic buildings EVER.

I really want a mo-ped here....

Yep that's me awkwardly standing by the light post....

Little me..to show you how big it is when you're standing close.

Just because it's cool from every angle.

Me jumping for joy because we are going to see a play in the opera house on Monday.....PSYCHED!

Right before Andrea tripped going up the steps....yep we got skills.

An awesome jump holding down her skirt and not falling down the stairs.

Me: "Lets get a picture of both of us with the opera house in the background!"
and if you look closely its itty-bitty above our heads:)

More...just because I can:)

As it got hotter our poses got lamer.

I want a boat too.

We walked really far to Mrs.Macquaries chair. It was mostly a let down.

But we were good tourist and took pics anyways.

Because who can resist taking a picture with a pole that is holding up a rock??

After wandering the city most of the day we were hot and exhausted. But lucky me I had a free harbor cruise set up as part of my orientation. Although I was thisclose to not going because I was sooo tired. But since I am poor and since it was free I couldn't resist. So I waited around to start party rocking on my party rock themed welcome cruise while Andrea got to head home. I ended up being really glad I went. Met some awesome people. And some not so awesome ones...try putting 300+ college students on a boat with alcohol and its a given that some of them will get trashed. Mostly the American ones, so you will feel lame about being an American. But the European ones are pretty awesome:) The harbor is gorgeous at night. But unfortunately my pictures of it at night were truly horrid. lamesauce. Here are some of the better ones from the evening.

Louise, Yasmen, and I. Party rocking:)

We're on a boat. and it was awesome.

And this one is actually better.

Oh....and I picked out a house on the harbor for when I move here:) (no worries...I'm kidding mom!!!)

P.s. that one day I had to go to boring orientation Andrea got to go to a koala park!!! She said it was no Phoenix Zoo....but she did get to pet a Koala and a kangaroo!!!

Uni.

Uni=university. To speak Australian you basically cut off half of every word....kidding but for reals they shorten pretty much anything they want:) But I'm starting to get the hang of it!! And then someone will say something and I'll have not idea....but whatevs. I've started getting used to the accent which is actually sad, because then they don't sound as cool.

So after that lovely, rambling intro...back to uni.
Today was orientation. I made it to school and back all by myself, one of the most nerve racking experiences I've had in a long time...I'd take bungy jumping over today, any day. I went to catch the bus this morning and was nervous that: the bus wouldn't come, I'd get on the wrong bus, I wouldn't know where to get off, I'd get lost on campus, I'd be late.....anyways you get the idea. So the bus, of course, was running a little late and I finally saw a bus coming. Phew...big relief. right?? wrong. It turns out there is no magical dance to make a bus stop...just simply a wave. So I did my happy lil wave and....nothing. So I wave frantically again. The bus driver simply waves back and keeps driving. I'm on the verge of having a break-down on the street corner, when I look again and realize it was the wrong bus and wasn't meant to stop there at all. Instead I had just been frantically waving at a bus driver who probably thought I was mad. But my bus did come and I made it to orientation just fine. Met some cool people (most of the international students are from the states, but a few from Europe as well), watched an aborigine dance, got told heaps of mostly boring facts about Australia, and got my class schedule. As of right now I have classes from Tuesday afternoon to Thursday....so I am LOVING the idea of a 4 day weekend, however I do think I have to add another class. Hopefully that won't get in the way of my fabulous weekends!!!

And by now your like, "lame, I read this whole blog post and there are no pictures." Yep, sorry your just going to have to deal with it:) Soon the day is coming where my life will become soooo boring it won't even be worth blogging about period:)

Hope all is going well back home. Missing all of you!!! Send me an update on your lives so I don't have to catch up on 5 months worth when I get home. K. thanks:)

p.s. headed into the city tomorrow...so hopefully more exciting blog posts coming your way shortly:)

Australia's version of the Grand Canyon

So blogging and being a tourist is exhausting...but since I'm already two weeks(ish) behind on New Zealand I figured I'd never catch up if I slacked on Australia too. The real message here is: get excited for a lame blog post.

Today we woke up early and got to enjoy public transportation with all the school children (they all use public transportation to get to school instead of school buses). We headed out to the blue mountains...about a two hour train ride from the city. The fog was still pretty thick when we got there, but it made for some beautiful views!!! The name of the town we went to was Katoomba, and from there we walked to a lookout called Echo Point.

Ew...never mind the tennis shoes.

The fog over the valley...it was like a wall of fog. epic.

Andrea enjoying the view.

These three little beauties are known as the three sisters. Apparently  they are sacred to the aborigines and some chief turned three sisters into stone for some reason which I cannot at this moment recall....

Luckily my sister has yet to be turned into stone.

I'm telling. It's gorgeous...and my pictures sooo don't do it justice. But I refuse to be one of those obnoxious photographers that is ridiculous about getting the perfect shot. We overheard one today...and secretly laughed our bums off because he was soo obnoxious.

The valley. Fun fact: they are called the blue mountains and actually sometimes look kind of blue because the light filters weirdly through the oils that come off the gum trees.

The sista.

This picture is proof that the Queen and I basically hung out together....

I wanted to be one of their sisters...

I look like I'm ridiculously cold because I was ridiculously cold. We forgot to check the weather...

I think I may have posted this picture upside down...I'm so tired I can't tell. So if it appears water is gushing out of the ground that is not the case as this was just simply a waterFALL...in the direction that gravity intended.

Katoomba Falls....this pic was taken from the Skyway, a tram like thing that goes out across a canyon. way.awesome.

Me...standing on the glass floor of the tram. over 200m up.no big deal.

The view across the valley with the three sisters again.

More of Katoomba Falls. It was awesome. And I just kept taking pics of it.

So it had been raining. Imagine these stairs super wet. Ya it was a party.

The Skyway tram we came across on.

The bottom of the tram...which had a glass walkway....which you cannot see:)

Portrait session!!!!

Realizing that it had started raining. in the middle of our portrait session. on a trail in the middle of the woods. with only one umbrella.

The lesser known and less popular Stairway Falls.

This horrible photo which should have never been posted on the internet is simply to document how wet  we got, no thanks to our pathetic umbrella.

And of course once we got back to a building the SUN came out!!!

simply.stunning.

Tomorrow I head to orientation.....hopefully to get orientated:) And I think Andrea is headed to a Koala park. Both of us are secretly excited we don't have anything huge planned and sleeping in a little will be a welcome break.