--Kangaroos and koalas are even cuter than you think they will be in real life.
--Go with the flow; there doesn't always have to be a "plan." Sometimes the most fun comes from pure spontaneity.
--If the pirate ship is out of commission, go whale watching.
--Tim Tams are delicious by themselves, amazing with milk, and even better with hot chocolate.
--No matter what Aussies try to convince you, this continent is dangerous. If you aren't worried about sharks, spiders, snakes, crocodiles, or jellyfish...worry about near explosion when a car slams on its brakes in front of a truck loaded with a million gallons of gasoline.
--Vegemite is unnatural and disgusting.
--Whenever we try to do an Australian accent impersonation, it will always sound British to our Aussie friends.
--It is easy to turn almost everything Becky says into some sort of sexual innuendo.
--The American school system is better and makes more sense than the Australian one.
--Time is relative on public transportation.
--Not all sharks want to eat you.
--Spending 24/7 with the same person doesn't get old or annoying if you're careful to pick just the right person.
--Skype makes the world seem a lot smaller.
--It's fun to have silly obsessive crushes, even if they never amount to anything.
--Don't waste too much time being shy and closed off from new people, because when you finally start to know and love them, it will be time to leave them.
--Free entertainment is usually the best entertainment.
--Getting lost can be an adventure, so chill out and enjoy the scenery if you lose your way.
--Leave your door unlocked and your facebook unattended, and someone will probably create a bogus status without you knowing so everyone back home thinks you really did get caught walking around naked this morning.
--You're never too old for glowsticks, tiaras, or paint by numbers.
--I'm really lucky to have people who love me enough to travel halfway across the globe to pay me a visit. Which leads me to...
--If you're going to move halfway across the globe, move somewhere exciting and fun that people will want to visit.
--Ugg boots aren't shoes, they're slippers. And everyone should have a pair. (Boys included)
--Dance parties are just as fun in Australia as they are in America.
--When Becca is getting grumpy, feed her.
--Surfing is hard.
--Don't expect the perfect places on postcards to have perfect weather all the time. Rain happens. Put on a rainjacket and deal with it.
--Australia and America have very different ideas of what constitutes a hot dog.
--America needs to discover aioli sauce.
--We are granola!!!
--Things that initially scare you out of your mind usually leave you with the best memories.
--Cricket is a boring and pointless sport, but AFL is fun to watch. I still don't get rugby.
--As far as I can tell, there is no such thing as a mean Australian.
--Time always goes by too fast so live in the moment and focus on the "want to's" more than the "have to's"
Friday, June 25, 2010
All good things must come to an end
Well, that's all folks. Back to the U.S.A.
I'm currently writing in a state of jetlag-induced insomnia. My body tells me it's 8:00 p.m., but in actual Tulsa time it's 5:00 a.m. And I've been up for 2 hours already! Yikes. The good news: plenty of time to update you all on the last of our Australia adventures.
The AFL game was so much fun!!! Our friend Josh has a cousin who works for the Sydney Swans so she was nice enough to give us some free tickets. We got to the stadium and were so excited to discover that our tickers were in the CORPORATE BOX. We felt very important. We had our own box that was undercover (which came in handy when it started raining in the 2nd half), our own refrigerator, and the injured Sydney Swans sitting in the box right next to us! Josh's cousin even came to chat and brought us food! As if all that wasn't enough, it was an incredibly close and exciting game that ended in a Swans win! What more could 2 Americans ask for? Pictures with some players? Oh wait, got that.
Our music theater performances went really well! It was an exhausting experience, but in the end I think we both came up with great pieces. It will be a fun memory to take home with us. We finished our performances by mid-morning and spent the rest of the day enjoying the fact that we were done with music theater FOREVER! I went to the UBar with the rest of my group members to have a celebratory drink for being done. Then I came back for lunch and Becca and I continued the celebrating by making puppy chow and watching Finding Nemo (well, we watched part and napped through the rest). We've been wanting to watch for awhile since the movie takes place in none other than AUSTRALIA. When Nemo is finally found, he's in Sydney! Classic. That night we concluded our day of fun by going to see Sex and the City 2 with our friend Sarah. It was cute, but not as good as the first movie. Still a lovely ending to a fun day.
We spent the next 2 days trying to get into study mode. We weren't entirely successful, but successful enough to the point that we felt decent about the way our Australian Media final went on Thursday. Our reward for finishing with Aussie school after our one and only final? Patti Long came to town!!!
She was only here for 5 days but we packed in alot of fun. We went on a tour of the Hunter Valley for the madre's first full day in Australia. She even got to feed kangaroos and pet a koala at a wildlife park on our way to the wine country! Other highlights of her visit included: walking the harbor bridge, enjoying Pancakes on the Rocks and a Tim Tam slam for the first time, singing and dancing along at ABBA MANIA (exactly what it sounds like: cute cover band posing as ABBA and insisting that we stand up and join in...which we did, obviously), shopping at markets in the Rocks and Bondi Beach, enjoying Vivid Sydney festivities (this is a yearly festival that includes a free 45 minute theatrical show in the harbor and images being projected on famous monuments like St. Mary's Cathedral and the Opera House). Becca got to take part in most of the Long ladies fun. She also went to the IES farewell dinner to say goodbye to all our IES peeps. Congrats to Miss Lauten for getting 2nd place in the photo contest! She's such a pro. Becca came over for a sleepover on mom's last night. Our hotel was right in Circular Quay so it was the perfect location to be around all the Vivid Sydney fun. Thanks to Ricky and his Marriot points for making that possible!
After Patti-Long-the-one-and-only left, we had 7 days to cram in as much Sydney fun as possible before we left. We planned to go on a cruise on the tallship we've been seeing sailing around the harbor all semseter. But as luck would have it, when we went to buy our tickets we found out that the ship's last sail of the season had been 2 days earlier! Bummer. Luckily, we had a plan B: WHALE WATCHING! Whales are Becca's favorite animal in the whole wide world, you know. We spent 4 hours out in the ocean scouting humpback whales. We saw 3! we were grateful to have windjackets supplied by the boat so we could focus on watching whales and not how freezing we were in the path of the ocean wind.
We spent another day saying goodbye to all things Macquarie/DLC. Had a drink with some friends at the UBar to congratulate them on being done with finals, gave our favorite crossing guard friend a hug, had a pizza feast with Adina & Chelsea (2 Americans living at DLC who love food almost as much as we do) and went to the Ranch to have one last Berry Blast and take a picture with the infamous "Hump" sign.
An unexpected day of fun was when we took a free ferry from Circular Quay to Cockatoo Island, where there was a free art exhibit for Sydney's Biennale celebration. Cockatoo Island is an old industrial island filled with old cranes, warehouses, and factories. All the art was dispersed throughout the old structures. The island is cool enough on its own but put pieces of art in the old buildings and it's even better! We walked around the whole island and came across all kinds of art. Some weird (like the pitch black rooms with creepy movies playing), some were fun (like the big green balls that were suspended from the ceiling and filled an entire room), and some were super cool (like the glitter art!). After our art adventure, we spent the night writing a song for our Australian friends. We picked a popular song for each of our friends (ex: Backstreet Boys "Larger Than Life," Keisha "Tik Tok," Michael Jackson "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough") then rewrote the lyrics to correspond to inside jokes with that person. We put it all together in one big mash-up and it was our present to them so they won't forget us. We had fun giggling the night away and trying to stay quiet so no one would hear what we were doing.
Our last big activity was the Bondi to Coogee walk. This is a famous walk along the coast that we'd been wanting to do all semseter. It certainly lived up to our expectations and then some! Just the image of Australia we wanted to leave with. We enjoyed lunch at Moo Burger with Sam, a friend from Tulsa who lives in Coogee. We also said goodbye to two of our IES friends, Megan and Christina. I HATE goodbyes! We came back to DLC and got ready for our last night out on the town. It ended up just being the girls who went out to the city which was way fun. We danced the night away and said one last goodbye to the Sydney night life. (I'll say it again, I HATE goodbyes)
Our last day in Sydney had to be spent packing. Yuck. Where did all this stuff come from?! I'm surprised we made everything fit. We went out to dinner with some of our DLC friends that night. We were so flattered that 12 of them came to chow down on some pizza. It was fun to have everyone together one last time. Fun, and at the same time so so sad. In our plan to say no to jet lag, we decided to stay up alllllll night so we would crash on the plane (and by crash I mean crash into sleep, not literally into the ground). Activities included: taking down the photo heart (which was heart breaking, pun intended), watching episodes of Friends, cheering on Brazil in the 4:30 a.m. World Cup match, chatting with grandparents on skype, eating a late night snack of EasyMac, and reflecting onhow much we love this country and its people. We actually did it and stayed up all night! Who knew?!
Our final send-off couldn't have been better. Aussie friends started waking up around 8 a.m. We played some Uno, enjoyed one last DLC brekkie, then let everyone listen to our finished musical masterpiece. We all laughed through the whole song. After the last note played, we realized it was time to go. The tears started and didn't stop. Everyone helped us get our bags outside then we got our last hugs and goodbyes (did I mention how much I HATE goodbyes?) The icing on top: our precious friends made a tunnel of their outstrected arms for us to walk through as we staggered toward the train station overloaded with all our luggage. They stood and waved infront of DLC until we turned the corner and couldn't see them anymore. A fairy tale way to say goodbye! Of course the entire time, Becca and I are both bawling uncontrollably. By the time we made it to the train station, we were incapable of speech. Short words/phrases such as "best ever" "perfect" and "miss them" were all we could get out . We spent the hour long train ride thinking about how lucky we are to have had such an amazing experience and being thankful that we had each other to share it with.
A 14 hour flight, 9 hour LAX layover (after inhaling a delicious On the Border meal, we spent our entire layover sprawled out on the dirty floor at gate 45), and 3 hour flight later (with an L.A. Laker onboard!)...we were back in DFW. Waiting for us when we made it to baggage claim around midnight were the Lautens, Patti Long, Uncle Sam Long, Kendal, and Daniel. Not to mention a sour cream cheesecake for Becca and JD's cookies for Becky. Mmmmmm. There were lots of hugs then Becca headed off for a Whataburger feast and I devoured some Panera my lovely mother had picked up for me. Can you tell we were really looking forward to the food we had been missing out on for the past 5 months?!
And there you have it. Back to reality. It already feels like a dream as I'm sitting here in my kitchen; back into the normal routine. Did that all really happen? Answer: yes. This was a once in a lifetime experience that we will remember forever. Thanks so much for sharing this journey with us! We love you all!
Cheering on the Sydney Swans from our corporate box seats!
Becky's group "Team Awesome" after their music theater performance (our theme was the morning routine...hence the pajamas)
Becoming wine experts in Hunter Vally
Long women take on the Harbor Bridge
Patti makes a koala friend named Meg!
One of the buildings lit up for Vivid Sydney
Expert whale watchers
Whale sighting!!!
Here's a video of us at the end of our whale adventure!
We nicknamed him Hagrid because he looks like Hagrid in mini-form, don't you think?
Pizza anyone?
Goodbye Ranch...goodbye Berry Blasts...goodbye awkward "Hump" sign
One of our favorite exhibits at Cockatoo Island
The most impressive glitter art you've ever seen
Loving Cockatoo Island!
Some of the gorgeous scenery on our Bondi to Coogee walk
Becca in front of a cool tide pool on our walk
Becca, Sarah, Sam, and Becky ready for one last night on the town
Dinner with our sweet friends on our last night. Miss them already!
Bye Sydney! It's been fun! We'll be back someday!
I'm currently writing in a state of jetlag-induced insomnia. My body tells me it's 8:00 p.m., but in actual Tulsa time it's 5:00 a.m. And I've been up for 2 hours already! Yikes. The good news: plenty of time to update you all on the last of our Australia adventures.
The AFL game was so much fun!!! Our friend Josh has a cousin who works for the Sydney Swans so she was nice enough to give us some free tickets. We got to the stadium and were so excited to discover that our tickers were in the CORPORATE BOX. We felt very important. We had our own box that was undercover (which came in handy when it started raining in the 2nd half), our own refrigerator, and the injured Sydney Swans sitting in the box right next to us! Josh's cousin even came to chat and brought us food! As if all that wasn't enough, it was an incredibly close and exciting game that ended in a Swans win! What more could 2 Americans ask for? Pictures with some players? Oh wait, got that.
Our music theater performances went really well! It was an exhausting experience, but in the end I think we both came up with great pieces. It will be a fun memory to take home with us. We finished our performances by mid-morning and spent the rest of the day enjoying the fact that we were done with music theater FOREVER! I went to the UBar with the rest of my group members to have a celebratory drink for being done. Then I came back for lunch and Becca and I continued the celebrating by making puppy chow and watching Finding Nemo (well, we watched part and napped through the rest). We've been wanting to watch for awhile since the movie takes place in none other than AUSTRALIA. When Nemo is finally found, he's in Sydney! Classic. That night we concluded our day of fun by going to see Sex and the City 2 with our friend Sarah. It was cute, but not as good as the first movie. Still a lovely ending to a fun day.
We spent the next 2 days trying to get into study mode. We weren't entirely successful, but successful enough to the point that we felt decent about the way our Australian Media final went on Thursday. Our reward for finishing with Aussie school after our one and only final? Patti Long came to town!!!
She was only here for 5 days but we packed in alot of fun. We went on a tour of the Hunter Valley for the madre's first full day in Australia. She even got to feed kangaroos and pet a koala at a wildlife park on our way to the wine country! Other highlights of her visit included: walking the harbor bridge, enjoying Pancakes on the Rocks and a Tim Tam slam for the first time, singing and dancing along at ABBA MANIA (exactly what it sounds like: cute cover band posing as ABBA and insisting that we stand up and join in...which we did, obviously), shopping at markets in the Rocks and Bondi Beach, enjoying Vivid Sydney festivities (this is a yearly festival that includes a free 45 minute theatrical show in the harbor and images being projected on famous monuments like St. Mary's Cathedral and the Opera House). Becca got to take part in most of the Long ladies fun. She also went to the IES farewell dinner to say goodbye to all our IES peeps. Congrats to Miss Lauten for getting 2nd place in the photo contest! She's such a pro. Becca came over for a sleepover on mom's last night. Our hotel was right in Circular Quay so it was the perfect location to be around all the Vivid Sydney fun. Thanks to Ricky and his Marriot points for making that possible!
After Patti-Long-the-one-and-only left, we had 7 days to cram in as much Sydney fun as possible before we left. We planned to go on a cruise on the tallship we've been seeing sailing around the harbor all semseter. But as luck would have it, when we went to buy our tickets we found out that the ship's last sail of the season had been 2 days earlier! Bummer. Luckily, we had a plan B: WHALE WATCHING! Whales are Becca's favorite animal in the whole wide world, you know. We spent 4 hours out in the ocean scouting humpback whales. We saw 3! we were grateful to have windjackets supplied by the boat so we could focus on watching whales and not how freezing we were in the path of the ocean wind.
We spent another day saying goodbye to all things Macquarie/DLC. Had a drink with some friends at the UBar to congratulate them on being done with finals, gave our favorite crossing guard friend a hug, had a pizza feast with Adina & Chelsea (2 Americans living at DLC who love food almost as much as we do) and went to the Ranch to have one last Berry Blast and take a picture with the infamous "Hump" sign.
An unexpected day of fun was when we took a free ferry from Circular Quay to Cockatoo Island, where there was a free art exhibit for Sydney's Biennale celebration. Cockatoo Island is an old industrial island filled with old cranes, warehouses, and factories. All the art was dispersed throughout the old structures. The island is cool enough on its own but put pieces of art in the old buildings and it's even better! We walked around the whole island and came across all kinds of art. Some weird (like the pitch black rooms with creepy movies playing), some were fun (like the big green balls that were suspended from the ceiling and filled an entire room), and some were super cool (like the glitter art!). After our art adventure, we spent the night writing a song for our Australian friends. We picked a popular song for each of our friends (ex: Backstreet Boys "Larger Than Life," Keisha "Tik Tok," Michael Jackson "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough") then rewrote the lyrics to correspond to inside jokes with that person. We put it all together in one big mash-up and it was our present to them so they won't forget us. We had fun giggling the night away and trying to stay quiet so no one would hear what we were doing.
Our last big activity was the Bondi to Coogee walk. This is a famous walk along the coast that we'd been wanting to do all semseter. It certainly lived up to our expectations and then some! Just the image of Australia we wanted to leave with. We enjoyed lunch at Moo Burger with Sam, a friend from Tulsa who lives in Coogee. We also said goodbye to two of our IES friends, Megan and Christina. I HATE goodbyes! We came back to DLC and got ready for our last night out on the town. It ended up just being the girls who went out to the city which was way fun. We danced the night away and said one last goodbye to the Sydney night life. (I'll say it again, I HATE goodbyes)
Our last day in Sydney had to be spent packing. Yuck. Where did all this stuff come from?! I'm surprised we made everything fit. We went out to dinner with some of our DLC friends that night. We were so flattered that 12 of them came to chow down on some pizza. It was fun to have everyone together one last time. Fun, and at the same time so so sad. In our plan to say no to jet lag, we decided to stay up alllllll night so we would crash on the plane (and by crash I mean crash into sleep, not literally into the ground). Activities included: taking down the photo heart (which was heart breaking, pun intended), watching episodes of Friends, cheering on Brazil in the 4:30 a.m. World Cup match, chatting with grandparents on skype, eating a late night snack of EasyMac, and reflecting onhow much we love this country and its people. We actually did it and stayed up all night! Who knew?!
Our final send-off couldn't have been better. Aussie friends started waking up around 8 a.m. We played some Uno, enjoyed one last DLC brekkie, then let everyone listen to our finished musical masterpiece. We all laughed through the whole song. After the last note played, we realized it was time to go. The tears started and didn't stop. Everyone helped us get our bags outside then we got our last hugs and goodbyes (did I mention how much I HATE goodbyes?) The icing on top: our precious friends made a tunnel of their outstrected arms for us to walk through as we staggered toward the train station overloaded with all our luggage. They stood and waved infront of DLC until we turned the corner and couldn't see them anymore. A fairy tale way to say goodbye! Of course the entire time, Becca and I are both bawling uncontrollably. By the time we made it to the train station, we were incapable of speech. Short words/phrases such as "best ever" "perfect" and "miss them" were all we could get out . We spent the hour long train ride thinking about how lucky we are to have had such an amazing experience and being thankful that we had each other to share it with.
A 14 hour flight, 9 hour LAX layover (after inhaling a delicious On the Border meal, we spent our entire layover sprawled out on the dirty floor at gate 45), and 3 hour flight later (with an L.A. Laker onboard!)...we were back in DFW. Waiting for us when we made it to baggage claim around midnight were the Lautens, Patti Long, Uncle Sam Long, Kendal, and Daniel. Not to mention a sour cream cheesecake for Becca and JD's cookies for Becky. Mmmmmm. There were lots of hugs then Becca headed off for a Whataburger feast and I devoured some Panera my lovely mother had picked up for me. Can you tell we were really looking forward to the food we had been missing out on for the past 5 months?!
And there you have it. Back to reality. It already feels like a dream as I'm sitting here in my kitchen; back into the normal routine. Did that all really happen? Answer: yes. This was a once in a lifetime experience that we will remember forever. Thanks so much for sharing this journey with us! We love you all!
Cheering on the Sydney Swans from our corporate box seats!
Becky's group "Team Awesome" after their music theater performance (our theme was the morning routine...hence the pajamas)
Becoming wine experts in Hunter Vally
Long women take on the Harbor Bridge
Patti makes a koala friend named Meg!
One of the buildings lit up for Vivid Sydney
Expert whale watchers
Whale sighting!!!Here's a video of us at the end of our whale adventure!
We nicknamed him Hagrid because he looks like Hagrid in mini-form, don't you think?
Pizza anyone?
Goodbye Ranch...goodbye Berry Blasts...goodbye awkward "Hump" sign
One of our favorite exhibits at Cockatoo Island
The most impressive glitter art you've ever seen
Loving Cockatoo Island!
Some of the gorgeous scenery on our Bondi to Coogee walk
Becca in front of a cool tide pool on our walk
Becca, Sarah, Sam, and Becky ready for one last night on the town
Dinner with our sweet friends on our last night. Miss them already!
Bye Sydney! It's been fun! We'll be back someday!Saturday, June 5, 2010
It's June Already?
HELLO BLOG WORLD!!!
It's Becky here to update you on the fabulous lives of Becky & Becca (or "B squared" as some Aussies like to call us). May flew by and it's hard to believe that we leave in a little over 2 weeks! We are really looking forward to seeing all you fun people and eating some good Mexican food (Chipotle in particular), but it's definitely going to be hard to leave all our new friends and this amazing city. We've been doing our best to pack as much fun as possible into our last Sydney days. What have we been doing exactly? Well...
May 16: Baking up a storm! We had planned to bake some cakeballs at our friends' apartment, but as luck would have it their apartment flooded the day we were set to bake! Luckily some of our other American friends took pity on us and let us use their kitchen. Making cake balls in Australia was quite an experience. Their chocolate melts weird...the oven is in celsius degrees...we struggled. Based off of our other cooking failures (quesadillas that were either burned or covered in butter, mac n cheese that took forever to make because the water wouldn't boil, "hot dogs" that weren't actually hot dogs...to name a few) I have decided that it's just harder to cook in this country. Despite difficulties, we soldiered on and made our cake balls. The prettiness factor wasn't there, but they tasted DELICIOUS. And they were gone within 2 days. We introduced Australia to puppy chow a few days later, too. Oh the amazingness of puppy chow...and we can make it in our dorm since we have access to microwaves! Jackpot!
May 17: Movie night! For my first ever movie experience in Australia we went to see "Letters to Juliet" with some American friends. Fun fact about Australian movie theaters: they have assigned seating. Who would have thought? The movie was cute. One of those that is super predictable and cheesy but still charming. We all died laughing about the last line. The sparknotes version: Boy falls from balcony. Girl rushes to his side and says "Can you move?" Boys response: "Only my lips." They kiss. Credits roll. The cheesiness of it is STILL killing me.
May 22: We tried to go out for a fun night in the city. It rained. We ran in heels. It was not a success. We did play Bananagrams, though. And no night is a complete failure when Bananagrams is involved!
May 23: We were supposed to go to a rugby match with our study abroad group, but it was going to take us 3 hours of public transportation time to get to a game that would probably only last a little more than an hour. Plus it was raining, and our seats were in an uncovered "picnic area." There was a mutual decision that we should nix the rugby game and treat ourselves to a pizza feast instead. We each demolished our own pizza while watching New Moon. Success! These pizza nights have become a regularity when we don't like what's on the dinner menu. We had one last week on our last day of classes to celebrate. We sure do love food. Mmmmm.
May 28: I got an Australian driving lesson from Josh, one of my fav Australians. Don't worry, I only drove around campus and came across very few stoplights but I successfully drove on the LEFT (aka wrong) side of the street on the RIGHT (aka wrong) side of the car and didn't hit any curbs, people, or trees. And I did a right turn at an intersection (which is the equivalent of a left turn in the States) without freaking out! It was an incredibly entertaining/terrifying experience.
May 29: We have a list of things we want to do before we leave Sydney. On this list: find all the random art sculptures on our school's campus and take pictures with them. We ventured out on a rainy Saturday afternoon to accomplish this task. How many sculptures did we come across? 59!!!! Yes, f-i-f-t-y-n-i-n-e. It took us way longer than expected to find them all (and I think we STILL missed some) but we were quite pleased with ourselves and our art finding skills. Why Macquarie University has so much random art on campus is still unclear, but it does provide hours of entertainment!
May 30: Fun day at Luna Park and the Rocks! We took the train to Luna Park where Becca rode a ferris wheel for the first time EVER! At the top of the ferris wheel we had the most lovely view of the Harbor Bridge, Opera House, sailboats, and the city. It was just lovely. We enjoyed our ride (Becca is a natural ferris wheel pro) then walked across the Harbor Bridge to get to the Rocks. It was Becca's first time to walk across and my first time to be walking rather than running (the last time I crossed while a random monsoon decided to downpour gallons of water on me, Emma, and Sophie). While we were walking across, we both had a moment where we just had to pause and say "Wow. We live here." This city really is the most beautiful place. Once we made it to the Rocks, we wandered around taking pictures of some of our favorite places and did some shopping at the Rocks market. With all that walking we had to get some fresh squeezed lemonade to give ourselves a sugar boost to hold us over til dinner. The boost wore off, though, so we ended up sitting on a bench outside a pub with live music playing while we waited for the restaurants to open for dinner. We got to watch the sunset then wandered over to the cutest little Italian restaurant for some grub. We had always passed it and wanted to go in, so we decided tonight was the night! We both had a yummy pasta dish and treated ourselves to the most delicious piece of strawberry cheesecake at the restaurant next door before heading back to DLC. More "Sydney to do's" checked off our list!
June 4: A more successful night out in the city! We went out to celebrate our friend Sarah's 21st birthday. We played Twister, danced the night away to classics like "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" and "Let's Hear It For The Boys" and had a great time with our DLC friends. The best part? The bar we were at was handing out FREE GLOWSTICKS AND LOLLIPOPS! We were very excited about this news. Next we headed off to say goodbye to our Aussie friend Sean who's leaving for a 5 month European backpacking adventure. It's so weird that the goodbyes are starting already! After giving Sean lots of hugs, we headed back to DLC and played in the dark with our glowsticks for the rest of the night. It's the simple things in life, ya know?
Other things we've been keeping busy with: Finishing our final paper for Intercultural Relations class, creating an original piece of art for our Contemporary Australian Arts final, practicing NON-STOP with our music theater groups for our 5 minute performance that is our final (video of that coming soon), sending hate vibes toward two of our really mean teachers, sending nicer vibes to our Australian teachers that we really like, eating lots of food, going to work out classes (fat burner with Liesl is our favorite), and other shenanigans.
What's next: our first AFL (Australian Football League) game tomorrow with Josh (He worked some magic and got us free tickets! Yes!), music theater performances on Monday, celebrating the end of music theater with puppy chow and Sex and the City 2 on Monday night, first (and only) final on Thursday afternoon, PATTI LONG ARRIVES ON THURSDAY MORNING!!!, fun with Patti Long in Sydney from June 10-15, then lots of fun and tearful goodbyes before we leave on June 21. Ahhhhh! I'm just so confused as to where the time has gone...?
We love you. We miss you. We can't wait to see you!
"Letters To Juliet" with Sarah, Brittany, and Jenny
Stuck in the rain on a not-so-successful night in the city
Treating ourselves to a delicious pizza feast when DLC food just doesn't cut it
ART! on Macquarie's campus. Confused? So are we. This is sculpture #8 that we found
There is no common theme between all the art on campus. It's just...there. Here's Becca modeling #51
Here it is folks: Becca on her first ferris wheel ride EVER!!!
Isn't our city beautiful?
On our walk across the Harbor Bridge
Sugar boost a la lemonade!
Sunset at the Rocks Market
Mmmmm cheesecake
Free Glowsticks!!!! (and also hours of entertainment)
It's Becky here to update you on the fabulous lives of Becky & Becca (or "B squared" as some Aussies like to call us). May flew by and it's hard to believe that we leave in a little over 2 weeks! We are really looking forward to seeing all you fun people and eating some good Mexican food (Chipotle in particular), but it's definitely going to be hard to leave all our new friends and this amazing city. We've been doing our best to pack as much fun as possible into our last Sydney days. What have we been doing exactly? Well...
May 16: Baking up a storm! We had planned to bake some cakeballs at our friends' apartment, but as luck would have it their apartment flooded the day we were set to bake! Luckily some of our other American friends took pity on us and let us use their kitchen. Making cake balls in Australia was quite an experience. Their chocolate melts weird...the oven is in celsius degrees...we struggled. Based off of our other cooking failures (quesadillas that were either burned or covered in butter, mac n cheese that took forever to make because the water wouldn't boil, "hot dogs" that weren't actually hot dogs...to name a few) I have decided that it's just harder to cook in this country. Despite difficulties, we soldiered on and made our cake balls. The prettiness factor wasn't there, but they tasted DELICIOUS. And they were gone within 2 days. We introduced Australia to puppy chow a few days later, too. Oh the amazingness of puppy chow...and we can make it in our dorm since we have access to microwaves! Jackpot!
May 17: Movie night! For my first ever movie experience in Australia we went to see "Letters to Juliet" with some American friends. Fun fact about Australian movie theaters: they have assigned seating. Who would have thought? The movie was cute. One of those that is super predictable and cheesy but still charming. We all died laughing about the last line. The sparknotes version: Boy falls from balcony. Girl rushes to his side and says "Can you move?" Boys response: "Only my lips." They kiss. Credits roll. The cheesiness of it is STILL killing me.
May 22: We tried to go out for a fun night in the city. It rained. We ran in heels. It was not a success. We did play Bananagrams, though. And no night is a complete failure when Bananagrams is involved!
May 23: We were supposed to go to a rugby match with our study abroad group, but it was going to take us 3 hours of public transportation time to get to a game that would probably only last a little more than an hour. Plus it was raining, and our seats were in an uncovered "picnic area." There was a mutual decision that we should nix the rugby game and treat ourselves to a pizza feast instead. We each demolished our own pizza while watching New Moon. Success! These pizza nights have become a regularity when we don't like what's on the dinner menu. We had one last week on our last day of classes to celebrate. We sure do love food. Mmmmm.
May 28: I got an Australian driving lesson from Josh, one of my fav Australians. Don't worry, I only drove around campus and came across very few stoplights but I successfully drove on the LEFT (aka wrong) side of the street on the RIGHT (aka wrong) side of the car and didn't hit any curbs, people, or trees. And I did a right turn at an intersection (which is the equivalent of a left turn in the States) without freaking out! It was an incredibly entertaining/terrifying experience.
May 29: We have a list of things we want to do before we leave Sydney. On this list: find all the random art sculptures on our school's campus and take pictures with them. We ventured out on a rainy Saturday afternoon to accomplish this task. How many sculptures did we come across? 59!!!! Yes, f-i-f-t-y-n-i-n-e. It took us way longer than expected to find them all (and I think we STILL missed some) but we were quite pleased with ourselves and our art finding skills. Why Macquarie University has so much random art on campus is still unclear, but it does provide hours of entertainment!
May 30: Fun day at Luna Park and the Rocks! We took the train to Luna Park where Becca rode a ferris wheel for the first time EVER! At the top of the ferris wheel we had the most lovely view of the Harbor Bridge, Opera House, sailboats, and the city. It was just lovely. We enjoyed our ride (Becca is a natural ferris wheel pro) then walked across the Harbor Bridge to get to the Rocks. It was Becca's first time to walk across and my first time to be walking rather than running (the last time I crossed while a random monsoon decided to downpour gallons of water on me, Emma, and Sophie). While we were walking across, we both had a moment where we just had to pause and say "Wow. We live here." This city really is the most beautiful place. Once we made it to the Rocks, we wandered around taking pictures of some of our favorite places and did some shopping at the Rocks market. With all that walking we had to get some fresh squeezed lemonade to give ourselves a sugar boost to hold us over til dinner. The boost wore off, though, so we ended up sitting on a bench outside a pub with live music playing while we waited for the restaurants to open for dinner. We got to watch the sunset then wandered over to the cutest little Italian restaurant for some grub. We had always passed it and wanted to go in, so we decided tonight was the night! We both had a yummy pasta dish and treated ourselves to the most delicious piece of strawberry cheesecake at the restaurant next door before heading back to DLC. More "Sydney to do's" checked off our list!
June 4: A more successful night out in the city! We went out to celebrate our friend Sarah's 21st birthday. We played Twister, danced the night away to classics like "I Wanna Dance With Somebody" and "Let's Hear It For The Boys" and had a great time with our DLC friends. The best part? The bar we were at was handing out FREE GLOWSTICKS AND LOLLIPOPS! We were very excited about this news. Next we headed off to say goodbye to our Aussie friend Sean who's leaving for a 5 month European backpacking adventure. It's so weird that the goodbyes are starting already! After giving Sean lots of hugs, we headed back to DLC and played in the dark with our glowsticks for the rest of the night. It's the simple things in life, ya know?
Other things we've been keeping busy with: Finishing our final paper for Intercultural Relations class, creating an original piece of art for our Contemporary Australian Arts final, practicing NON-STOP with our music theater groups for our 5 minute performance that is our final (video of that coming soon), sending hate vibes toward two of our really mean teachers, sending nicer vibes to our Australian teachers that we really like, eating lots of food, going to work out classes (fat burner with Liesl is our favorite), and other shenanigans.
What's next: our first AFL (Australian Football League) game tomorrow with Josh (He worked some magic and got us free tickets! Yes!), music theater performances on Monday, celebrating the end of music theater with puppy chow and Sex and the City 2 on Monday night, first (and only) final on Thursday afternoon, PATTI LONG ARRIVES ON THURSDAY MORNING!!!, fun with Patti Long in Sydney from June 10-15, then lots of fun and tearful goodbyes before we leave on June 21. Ahhhhh! I'm just so confused as to where the time has gone...?
We love you. We miss you. We can't wait to see you!
"Letters To Juliet" with Sarah, Brittany, and Jenny
Stuck in the rain on a not-so-successful night in the city
Treating ourselves to a delicious pizza feast when DLC food just doesn't cut it
ART! on Macquarie's campus. Confused? So are we. This is sculpture #8 that we found
There is no common theme between all the art on campus. It's just...there. Here's Becca modeling #51
Here it is folks: Becca on her first ferris wheel ride EVER!!!
Isn't our city beautiful?
On our walk across the Harbor Bridge
Sugar boost a la lemonade!
Sunset at the Rocks Market
Mmmmm cheesecake
Free Glowsticks!!!! (and also hours of entertainment)
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