Becky & Becca in Australia: 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!