Brisbane: aka Koala Land

We got to Sydney at 9 pm and caught a taxi to Albert's apartment. After going up a HUGE hill and 3 stories, we took over his apartment throwing on cute outfits and make up so we could go as quickly as possible to grab Albert's birthday dinner. He decided on kebabs, so we met up with Jack (another IES friend) and the four of us went to go get kebabs. (Fact: Kebabs here are more like burritos). We enjoyed some kebabs and went back to Albert's to focus on making sure the birthday boy had a birthday drink. Rob joined us and the 5 of us enjoyed playing some card games before going out to the Coogee Bay Hotel for a round. We got into bed late but enjoyed sleeping in the next day and grabbing some lunch with Albert before packing back up and heading to the airport. The past week had made us realize how much stuff we had really brought, and we now had a week of dirty clothes! Luckily, Albert let us store some of our stuff at his place so that our bags would be dramatically lighter! We caught a cab with a hilarious Asian taxi driver who loved Tina Turner. The flight was quick and we took a train to our hostel. While it was only around 6 pm in Brisbane, we were completely exhausted. We got into our room, which we discovered was more like a dark tunnel. With all the grocery stores closed (they close as 5 pm!), we found a small italian restaurant to split a pizza at. The pizza led to a Tim Tam slam craving so we found a Night Owl Convenience Store to get some Tim Tams and milk at. We ate them and watched some tv in the tv lounge before getting into bed really early.

The next day we decided to head to a market and lagoon! But before we could go, we needed to head to a Woolworth's to get some groceries for our stay in Brisbane. Look at us being economical!!!! We got some food and then enjoyed some fruit loops in a park since we were starving. The market was so fun and we both found cute things to purchase. The market even had both of our favorite snacks! Becky got to have some corn on the cob and Becca got a chocolate covered banana! After exploring the market, we headed to the lagoon where we spent the rest of the day. After lots of hours of enjoying the sun, we headed back to the hostel to cook what we though would be a delicious dinner.

We had planned to make some chicken and cheese quesadillas. Easy right? Wrong. We will go ahead and blame the celsius cook tops for our problems. We started off by trying to cook our chicken. It was going okay until it kept sticking to the skillet despite us trying to use butter as a barrier between chicken and skillet. To make the chicken cook faster, we decided to try and cut the raw chicken with a knife while it was cooking. It helped the cooking time, but not the sticking situation. We then tried to warm the tortillas but then ended up burning before we could add the chicken and cheese on them! Becca tried to fix the situation by cutting the tortillas in half before trying to make the quesadillas but when that failed she got flustered and when to do dishes as therapy. Becky tried turning the burner temperature down so the quesadillas wouldn't cook so fast but it ended up not cooking the quesadillas at all, but instead soaking them in butter. Eventually, we ended up with 1 1/2 burnt quesadillas and 1/2 of a buttered quesadilla mess. Luckily, we also had some mexican style rice and chips and salsa. We were able to laugh about the whole situation once we had sat down and we weren't being stared at anymore. Needless to say, we still finished our meals despite the butter not really sitting well.

Since we were living in a tunnel with no light and bunk beds, we decided to go out and enjoy a drink and see some of Brisbane. We had seen an incredibly cool looking building that we ended up finding out was a bar in our travel book. It's hard to explain the amazingness of this bar. The pictures can't even do it justice. It was voted as the best bar in Queensland but we want to nominate is as the best bar in the world. We walked in and were in awe. Luckily, it was a Sunday night so we were able to explore the whole bar (which is HUGE) and see all the different themed areas (and take pictures) without feeling like complete freaks. Some of the highlights would include:

-a bar made out of crystal balls that could spin and light up to make different patterns

-the amazing bathrooms

-grass on the steps of the stairs

The next day was dedicated to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary!! We had already decided to do EVERYTHING Lone Pine had to offer since we had a whole day to kill. We started off by going to a chick and guinea pig holding session. Then Becca made Becky sit through a Bird of Prey show. Next on the list was a sheep dog show and a sheep shearing show which was amusing!! It was basically a scene out of the movie Babe! After that, we went to a paltypus session and walked through all the different sections of Koalas. Lone Pine has the most Koalas in the world (over 130 of them!) and they are in different living areas according to their age. There is a kindergarten area, mom and baby area, bachelor pad, retirement home and much more! After that it was finally time to HOLD A KOALA!!!!! It was like meeting Santa!! We were about to pee our pants from excitement! We got paired with a koala named Orion who was absolutely precious. Neither of us wanted to let him go and once we had to, all we could focus on was getting the pictures we had ordered. To get our minds off the wait, we went to go hang out with the kangaroos. When we were done our pictures were ready and our faces were glowing with happiness! We ended the day with a lorikeet feeding which was absolutely hilarious. When the lady walked out with their food, the wild birds started flying from all directions to get to the food. When we fed them they were all over our food container and our heads. We couldn't stop laughing but we couldn't even hear each other over all the noise the birds were making!

We caught a bus back to our hostel, and by the time we got back we were STARVING from just eating snacks all day. We had reservations at a restaurant called Garuva. We had read about Garuva in our travel book which called it "the most unique dining experience in Queensland". It talked about how you would sit on cushions on the floor and have curtains around your table for an intimate dining experience. We laughed at the thought of the two of us at this romantic restaurant and decided it would be our nice meal our for the next week. We got all dolled up and started walking to the restaurant. We knew what street it was on, and what two intersecting streets it was in between but somehow we didn't see it. We kept calling the restaurant but it would only transfer to voicemail. Becca saw the restaurants address but it only took us to an architecture firm. After walking the street some more, we finally saw a pathway filled with big plants and waterfalls and realized it was where we needed to be. We got there and enjoyed a drink at the bar before going to our private table. Being the goofy girls we are, we loved having the privacy so we could be our complete selves without being judged. We enjoyed some coconut prawns, chicken and of course got the chocolate cake with ice cream! Everything was delicious and we loved our date. Being really full, we headed back to the hostel and fell asleep with happy bellies.

Our next day was going to be filled mostly with a 7 hour bus ride. We spent the morning relaxing and making mac n cheese (much easier than quesadillas) before heading to the bus station. Our hostel dropped us off and we checked in only to find out that our bus was running an hour late. FANTASTIC! We used the time as an opportunity to write some post cards. We finally got on the bus and relaxed until the dinner stop. We always look forward to the truck stop dinners we get when on our bus rides :). When we got back on the bus, we were not really looking forward to the 3 hours left we had of our bus ride. Our attitudes immediately changed when the bus driver all of a sudden put the movie You've Got Mail on!! We flipped out (of course!) since we are both HUGE fans of the movie. We sat back, relaxed, and laughed as Becky quoted the whole movie.

Since we weren't supposed to get into Hervey Bay until 9 pm, we had talked to our hostel about how we could get there. They had told us we could catch another hostel's bus because the hostel is located across the street. However, with the bus delay, we missed the shuttle but luckily were able to split a cab with two people who were staying in the hostel across the street. We found our key in a box they had told us we would be in, and we thought we would be smooth sailing from this point. However, we ended up having to battle the locked gate. Becca tried using the 2 keys to unlock it and we were really starting to get frustrated when Becky found a pole to pull up and TA DA! The gate opened. We were welcomed by a huge room (especially compared to the tunnel) with two beds, a tv, dvd player and our own bathroom!! We were so excited to even have room to leave our suit cases out instead of always having to store them under our bed.

Time to grab a delicious dinner from our dorm! Next blog post will be our shenanigans in Hervey Bay!!!!

"The Tunnel"

Tasty treats at the market

Brisbane's Lagoon

One of the amazing bathrooms at our favorite bar

We love our Koala friends!!

Becky holding Orion

Waiting for the Sheep Dog Show

Becky at Dinner @ Garuva (When we finally found it!)

Here's a video of us making kangaroo friends for your viewing enjoyment!

Goodbye Cairns!

Hello from Brisbane!

We're a few hours away from our departure. Currently killing time until we can make our lunch. Confession: we've been looking forward to making the boxed mac n cheese we found at Woolworth's since we bought it 3 days ago. It's amazing how much joy a box of processed food can bring into our lives.

Now to continue the update from where we left off in Cairns...we woke up early after our night of karaoke to drive into the rainforest. We were a little bummed that we didn't get to see the Daintree like we were originally supposed to, but the fact that we were going to get to see it at all was super exciting. Just a little bit of trivia for you all: the Daintree is the oldest rainforest in the world. How they know this, I couldn't tell you. But they told us this fact countless times. The Daintree is also unique because it runs all the way to the Great Barrier Reef. 2 very cool natural landscapes all at once! Quite the deal. Unfortunately, you can't swim in any of the beaches around Cairns due to the fact that they have the 2 most poisonous jellyfish in the world as well as your typical sharks and saltwater crocodiles. Yikes! Our tour guide for the day talked constantly about how safe Australia is, then she would put in a video about all the dangerous wildlife that is lurking around every corner. I've come to the conclusion that it is a small miracle neither of us have been stung, bitten, eaten, or killed by some dangerous organism. Keep your fingers crossed this trend continues. Anyway, our day in the Daintree was fun. We saw some cool waterfalls, went on a river cruise where we saw "Scarface" the croc (apparently he weighs something like half a ton) and other cool wildlife, stopped at some cool lookouts, thought about going swimming in some rapids (smartly decided against it), and came across a Cassowary on the side of the road. It's apparently the most dangerous bird in the world because of its huuuuge claws but super beautiful at the same time.

That night, we reunited with all of our IES group for one last dinner. It was delicious, but we both decided that dessert was in order. After some wandering, we came across a Mexican restaurant and were thrilled to discover that it not only looked EXACTLY like a Chili's inside (Texan & Confederate flags, chili peppers, armadillos, and cowboy hats for decoration) but they had the most delicious chocolate mudcake. Just what we were craving. Pure deliciousness! After our tasty treat, we met up with a friend from Macquarie who lives in Cairns. He showed us all the hot spots and we had a fun time introducting him to our IES friends. Everyone was so impressed that we have Australian friends--go us!

On Friday we decided to have a chill day in Cairns. Woke up and got some delicious pancakes from a cute cafe. Big news: Becky finally found new sunglasses!!!! Been looking for 2.5 weeks and was finally successful in Cairns! Way exciting. After finding some cute new goodies at the mall, we wandered over to the lagoon. Since you can't go swimmin in the ocean in Cairns and it's a freaking sauna, there is a huuuuuge man-made pool right next to the ocean for people to escape the heat. It's beautiful! We didn't get in since we were hours away from being on a plane, but we did soak in the overall beauty. After a quick lunch at an Italian restaurant by the lagoon, we decided we needed a nap. But since we had checked out of our hostel where could we sleep? Solution: in one of the lounges in our hostel. It was a little odd at first having random people walk by while we were sprawled out on couches, but we got over it an passed out for a good 1.5 hours. Refreshsed and ready for the next part of our adventure, we headed to the airport and back to Sydney for less than 24 hours of fun to celebrate Albert's birthday.

Internet time is up again, we will continue from Hervey Bay!

Before leaving on our river cruise, we practiced how to react incase our boat got overtaken by a crocodile

Becca on the river cruise

Scar Face--we kept our distance due to the fact that he's MASSIVE and easily agitated

Horned Frogs! Showing our pride at a gorgeous spot where the Daintree Rainforest meets the Great Barrier Reef

A Cassowary!

Becca soaking up all the images from home we found at a random Mexican restaurant in Cairns

SUCCESS! After trying on literally 200 pairs of sunglasses, Becky finally finds some cute pink shades that fit her tiny head

Becky and the lagoon

In front of the ocean that you can't swim in due to the fact that it's filled with every form of dangerous aquatic life imaginable

If You Cairns Cairns Cairns

Hellllllllo Friends and Family! Giving you all a shout out from the lovely Cairns, Australia which is located in Queensland. Today is our last day here and we wanted to give everyone an update on what we have been doing while here!!

We are on our midsemester break which is 2 weeks long. The first week has been spent with our study abroad group, IES. There has been 39 of us travelling around together from Saturday to Friday.

We started off our trip veryyyy early in the morning. We met the 3 other girls that go to Macquarie with us who were going on the trip at the train station at 5:30 am. We caught a train to the airport and got on a plane to Cairns.

We got welcomed by lots and lots of rain. We got in around noon and had the afternoon to explore the city after getting settled into our hostel. Our hostel is MASSIVE!!!! It has over 550 rooms. While exploring the city we stumbled upon a mexican food restuarant which was a huge shock. We devoured our mexican food and spent the rest of the afternoon walking in and out of shops.

That night was our "aboriginal cultural dinner". We had no idea what to expect going into it. All of us got on a bus and had an hour ride into the forest. We barely made it across a flooded street to the dinner but luckily we made it. To sum up the dinner, it was basically one of the best dinners of our lives. It was in a candle lit tent with chandeliers. We had unlimited wine and tons of food. We ended up eating kangaroo bruschetta, salt and pepper crocodile, lobster, coral trout, black angus sirloin, and a chocolate mud cake. It was insanely good. Everyone was whipped after the dinner and passed out in bed as soon as we got back.

The next day the group was split up into 2 groups. The University of Sydney Kids would be doing the same thing as us just on other days. The UNSW and Macquarie kids were together. It was a rainy day again and we enjoyed it while carrying our huge amount of luggage (we had packed for our 2 weeks) to the boat. We got on the day boat that would take us to the great barrier reef to snorkel before getting 0n the boat that stays at the Great Barrier Reef nightly. The ride out to the great barrier reef was a rough hour and half for Becca who was throwing up at the back of the boat with a lot of the other kids from the group. Becky was luckier and managed to not get sea sick. The snorkeling was suprisingly good for the constant rain.

We got transfered to the night boat where we would be spending the next two nights and three days. The boat rocked less which everyone was thankful for. We shared a room and even had our own bathroom!! Fancyyyy! Everyone was again, worn out, and managed to only stay up for dessert before passing out at 8:30 pm. We were wide awake at 7:30 am for breakfast and a full day of snorkeling. Luckily, our full day on the boat was the most beautiful and the sun decided to join us for most of the day. The reef was inexplainably beautiful and it was unreal to see the colors of coral and fish. Becky pointed out a shark that morning while snorkeling and as cool as it was to see it, we decided to get back on the boat right after. Becky worked up her courage to do an intro scuba dive and struggled with a leaking mask the entire time. She was however, a ninja, and powered through. Becca kept with the snorkeling throughout the day. We got to see sharks all around the back of the boat at night before the scuba night dive. The light from the boat attracts the fish, which attracts the sharks and was totally cool to see. We were in awe of the clear sky and the overwhelming amount of stars that we aren't used to seeing. The next day was a half day of snorkeling before being transfered back on the other boat to return to land. We got to see another shark that morning while snorkeling and Becky decided to go for another scuba dive. This time she had a better mask and got to see a sting ray!

The boat ride back was luckily smoother and there was no throwing up for anyone. However, we did anticipate the dry land despite the fact that we felt like we were still rocking. We got moved back into our hostel and then enjoyed a free night. We asked a lady where she would recommend eating and she told us about an amazing authentic italian restuarant. It was a perfect dinner which was followed by dessert simply because the food was so good. We came back to the hostel and enjoyed a bottle of wine with some other girls in our group while having a fun night of playing bananagrams and listening to our favorite 90's songs.

The next day was pretty hilarious. We had to have our schedule changed due to a lot of rain in the rain forest (go figure). Our coordinator didn't want to get us stuck in the rain forest with no way to get out so she decided to plan a full day of activities for us for Wednesday and then go on a day trip to the rain forest on Thursday.

Our bus driver Ron, who is a true character took us around to some hot spots on Wednesday. We started off by going to Barron Falls, then he drove us to a human size termite mound (seriously), and then to a grave yard so we could see some authentic Italian graves, which looked like mini houses. It was seriously a neighborhood of dead people. We wanted to take a picture, but decided against it. We had a classy lunch at a diner/casino. Questionable fish and chips, people missing numerous teeth, and drunk people that the bus driver told us not to make eye contact with. We were then taken to a Mango Vineyard where we were going to a wine tasting. This event was equally classy with plastic lawn chairs lined up for us in front of a tractor in the middle of the warehouse. We enjoyed lots of wine and were then guilt tripped into getting a bottle of wine due to the lady using the phrase "this is how we survive". We drove back to the hostel and got ready for a delicious dinner at a restaurant across the street. We heard a rumor about karaoke night at a bar nearby and were instantly excited. We got a big group of girls to go and we all enjoyed singing on stage. Becky did a solo. Don't worry, video to come.

Running out of internet time, next blog post will include the rest of our Cairns visit and the start of our next adventure!! Hope all is well and miss you all!!

Up briiiiiight and early to set off on our 2 week adventure around Queensland!

Gorgeous decorations everywhere at our Aboriginal Cultural Dinner

Mmmmm our favorite course out of the 5 courses we enjoyed at our fancy dinner; stuffed lobster with salt and pepper crocodile. Aren't we adventurours?!

Out on the boat where we spent 3 days exploring the Great Barrier Reef!

Becky getting ready to SCUBA DIVE!

The sundeck on the boat where we lived for 3 days. We didn't get too much sun, but we took advantage of the precious few times when the sun decided to grace us with its presence.

Look! It's the Great Barrier Reef!

Our bus driver, Ron, educating us about the wonders of termites. That huge structure behind him? It's a termite mound.

Barron Falls

Mango wine from the mango winery!

Bringing the house down with our rendition of the Backstreet Boys classic "I Want It That Way"

Still Lovin' the Land of Oz!

Hello All!

Sorry we've been MIA in the blogging world lately. First of all, check out the post "videos galore" from February 18th. We added a few videos from Queenstown. They're pretty funny. :-) So much has been happening! We've been busy entertaining visitors. Becky had 3 friends from high school come visit over the course of two weeks for their spring breaks. Becca got to play with her madre and padre when they came to visit for a week as well. Highlights of both of the visits:

1. We both got to see Wicked! It was phenomenal! Becky had seen it in Tulsa and loved it, but the Sydney show was even better! Becca knows all the songs, but had never seen the show.
2. Lots of beach time building sand castles, burying Becca, avoiding blue bottle jellyfish, watching for sharks, attempting to learn to surf, and working on our beautiful tans
3. The Lautens discovered what they claim is the greatest pizza in the entire world. Loved it so much they had dinner there TWICE. It must be good!
4. Harbor cruises and ferry rides that let us see the opera house, harbor bridge, Luna Park, etc. from the water. Gorgeous!
5. Discovered the amazingness that is Pancakes on the Rocks. Becky loved it so much that she went 3 times in 1 week! They have perfected pancakes and serve them with ice cream. It's MAGICAL!
6. Everyone got to see all the cuddly animals they wanted to. Koalas, kangaroos, tasnamian devils, you name it!
7. Mama Lauten brought goodies galore from the States! Mac n cheese, Cheezits, and FREE WILLY ON DVD were some of the prizes we got especially excited about. They just don't know how to do cheese correctly in Australia. Hence the mac n cheese & cheezits. And Becca found Free Willy on DVD for $3 on amazon!!! What a bargain!
8. Went to our favorite night spot in Coogee Beach on our last night having visitors in town. Danced the night away and made it home sometime in the wee hours of the morning. The thing about Coogee is...by the time you get there, public transportation pretty much stops. So you have to wait to take the morning train home. This was just fine and dandy with us because we got to take a walk on the beach and enjoy some Pancakes on the Rocks (see #5)

Bottom line: we are now both experts on every tourist attraction in Sydney. We've got this town figured out! As of late, we've been busy working on that "school" thing. Within the first 2 days of this week, we had our first 3 Australian assignments due. A take home test (that was basically a 1500 word essay) and two esays. Not fun. But we're done! Now we have so much to look forward to. One more day of class tomorrow and then it's already our mid-semseter break! We get two weeks off from school so we've made some big travel plans...

April 3-9: Cairns with IES (our study abroad group)
We'll spend 2 days & 3 nights exploring the Great Barrier Reef on a private chartered boat. It's going to be really rough: snorkeling, sunbathing, eating constantly. Sounds like a hard life, but we're up to the challenge. We'll also get to see the Daintree (the oldes rainforest in the world) where we get to kayak, do a jungle ropes course, and hike through the forest with a guide. Sweet!
April 10-13: Brisbane
Brisbane is north of Sydney in Queensland. We're just going to explore the city and do some touristy things. We're most excited about hugging koala bears at the koala sanctuary!!! Ahhhhh! Holding koalas is illegal in New South Wales, but it isn't in Queensland! Score!
April 13-18: Hervey Bay & Fraser Island
Supposed to be a beautiful area. We'll stay on the mainland at Hervey Bay for a few days then take a ferry over to Fraser Island for our last part of the break. We have absolutely no plans except for being beach bums and playing lots of Bananagrams (our latest obsession; we play for at least an hour every day)

Now you're up to date! We can't wait to share stories about our trip! Hope all is well back home in the U.S.A. Glad to hear it seems to be warming up a bit! We leave you with some pics from the last 2 weeks to enjoy...

Becky & Amanda Vining (visitor #1!) taking in a lovely view of the Opera House

Becky, Emma Sitton, & Sophia Olsen (visitors #2 & 3) playing in the waves at Manly Beach

Steve & Janice Lauten (visitors #5 & 6!) saying hello to Luna Park on a ferry ride around Sydney Harbor

WICKED!!!!

Becca making friends at the Zoo

Cuties at the Capitol Theater in the city ready to see Wicked!

1 Month Anniversary!

Well, it has officially been one month since we have left the states...and to celebrate the milestone we have come up with a list of what we have noticed, however, not gotten used to, in the land down under.

WARNING: Some of these differences may seem shocking, in need of the fashion police, or just plain disgusting. We have been taught to react by saying "it's not wrong, it's different".

Observations on Australian Life:

--Jean skirts are in style again for grown women

--People don’t jaywalk; they actually stick to the pedestrian crossings…AND cars stop to let you pass!
--No courtesy wave when you cross the street

--You don’t have to tip. Ever.

--There are lots of Asians here and they all carry umbrellas…rain or shine they’re out protecting from the elements.

--Australians really like Thai food & kebabs.

--No one knows what an enchilada is...tragic.

--Mostly all uni students live off campus with their parents or grandparents

--It’s completely normal to refer to your professor by his or her first name

--Movies are reallllly expensive. As in $18 a piece.

--Baked beans and spaghetti are normal breakfast dishes. Yum.

--Each class we are enrolled in only meets twice a week for one hour. We have a lecture portion where a lecturer stands at the front of the room and prattles on with a slideshow. Then we have a tutorial portion with a smaller group of people that is more interactive and usually involved group work.

Aussie Words:

--Brekkie = breakfast

--Dodgy = sketchy

--S’arvo = this afternoon

--Cheers = goodbye

--Pash = make out

--Root = have sex

--Dag = adorably nerdy

--Olds = parents

--Mob = cell phone

--Uni = university

--Shel’ll be all right = it’s OK

--sms = text message

--whats doing= what are you doing

As for our lives...

We have settled into our dorms and decorated the space as creatively as possible using as little money as possible. This means our decorations for themed parties (such as wings) hang above our beds, and wrapping paper adds color to our bulletin board. Thanks to Becky's perfectionism, we both have hearts on our walls made out of pictures of our adventures and of back home. In case you were wondering, we do have pictures of Chipotle burrito bowls developed and on our wall.

We have learned that if we expect horrible food, then we tend to be pleasantly surprised with what we are eating at our dorm. Our favorite dessert night is ice cream sundaes because it's pretty much impossible to mess that up.

School is going well...lectures are basic and we are expected to do a lot of reading for each class. We are thankful that our grades are more determined on essays rather than tests. We don't get bored in class thanks to the casual relationship between teachers and students. Our favorite examples would be our teacher constantly snapping at us (the whole class) to focus and a student blaming a teacher for saying something that he didn't.

We are both really looking forward to the constant flow of visitors coming up in the next few weeks! Amanda will be arriving on Sunday, Becca's parents arrive on Friday, and Emma and Sophie will be getting here on Saturday! We have been mentally preparing for lots of fun.

Besides school, we have filled our free time with cupcake making, painting to fill rainy days, and some movie watching. This past weekend, we decided to go to the biggest Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in the world, simply because, this is the only time in our lives to see it. We went there with a group of friends that are also here from the states. We got to Mardi Gras about 3:30 and the parade wasn't until 7:45. We filled our time by enjoying a glass of wine while people watching (there was plenty of it). There was lots of boas, glitter, and bright colors, and it was all on the opposite sex than you would expect. We were pretty exhausted (people watching wears you out) by the start of the parade and figured that if we saw one float, then we would be happy. We had a long walk back to the train station since a lot of the closer stations were impossible to get to because of closed streets for the parade. We made it back and were both in bed by 9:30 pm.

That is about all that is new in our lives! We talk about you and miss you all everyday! We love to hear from you so keep emailing us, and skyping us!

Lots of love from your aussie girls!

Picture hearts by Becky Long! Aren't they amazing?!

Sunday was a rainy day, which called for a trip to the dollar store. We found these paint kits and had a relaxing afternoon of painting...Becky found paint in Becca's hair the next day...a sign that it went really well

Becky and Becca at the Macquarie train stop getting mentally prepared for Mardi Gras...of course we brought out crowns, and they were a huge hit.

Videos Galore!!!

So. We have quite a collection of videos to share with our Blog World, but sadly only the ones from Becky's camera are working. Most of our video antics were on Becca's camera. Such a tragedy. Above is a little taste of how Becca was feeling on our way up the gondola to where we were about to bungee over the city of Queenstown. Needless to say, we were a little iffy on the whole jumping of an elevated platform suspended 400 meters over a city halfway across the world from everyone we loved.

But look! As can be seen above, we survived! And were so glad we were hardcore and bungeed!

Settling in to Australian Life

Well, we're attempting to find a routine here at Macquarie University. We're all moved in, starting to get the lay of the land, figuring out public transportation...we've been busy girls!

We've had some big discoveries since our last post. A train station just a 2 minute walk from our room means we can easily get to the city whenever we want. Across from the train station...wait for it...THE LARGEST MALL EVER!!!! 4 stories, ice skating rink, movie theater ($17 tickets?! What?!), food and shopping galore! We're talking a mall so big that it has supermarkets inside of it. What else is inside? A Mexican restaurant we're thinking can be our stand-in Chipotle and a TARGET!!!!!! Hallelujah! We have yet to actually go inside the Target (it was closed when we discovered it), but it's on today's agenda. We'll let you know how it goes.

Things at Macquarie are going to take some getting used to, but as we've learned things aren't wrong they're only different. We have a meal plan at Dunmore Lang College (where we're living), but mealtimes are specifically set. So if we want munchies outside of those times, we're out of luck. It has been wonderful not having to shell out cash for food every day, though! We enrolled in 4 classes: Australian Media, Intercultural Relations, Contemporary Australian Arts, and Music Theater (this one should be entertaining--we'll keep you posted). We conveniently worked our schedule so we only have class on Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday. Jackpot! We're foreseeing lots of beach days in the future on Wednesday and Friday when we have zero school obligations. Life is just so rough.

Speaking of the beach, we spent the day at Bondi Beach yesterday. The weather was much better than our first Bondi trip (although this time there was no hope of spotting Zac Efron--bummer) so we just lazed around and soaked up some sun. Infact, we might have soaked up a little too much sun. Just a little FYI: the Australians aren't kidding when they tell you that there's a hole in the ozone over us and you really need to lather on the sunscreen. Apparently yesterday we missed some spots during that important sunscreen application process. The evidence? Lots of red blotches all over and blazing pain. Lesson learned!

Last night we went on a harbor cruise with the other Macquarie International students. The theme of the party was "When I grow up..." You were supposed to dress up in style with whatever your dream job was when you were little. Naturally, Becky and Becca were fairy princesses. There were only about 10 other people on the entire boat who dressed up, but we were quite proud to be 2 of the 10. On the boat, we got to watch the sunset over the Opera House and Harbor Bridge. Then we had the perfect view from the water of the entire CBD lit up at night. What a gorgeous city! It was fun to meet other people who have come from all over the world to study in Australia. After the boat docked, we explored some of Sydney with a few new friends. The funniest part of the night was when we were trying to get back to school from somewhere around Town Hall. First we couldn't find the train station. When we finally did, we discovered that our train was leaving in 1 minute. The chaos that followed consisted of 9 international students running around in various directions trying to locate the right train. Oh, and did I mention we were still in costume? 2 fairy princesses, 2 Playboy bunnies, 1 fairytale prince, 1 jedi, and 3 uncostumed (but equally crazy) kids running rampant through the train station. We caused quite a disturbance, to say the least.

It's hard to believe we've been away from the U.S. for 2 weeks. We keep waiting for it to sink in that this is all real. We're not tourists, we're Australians! Based on all the fun we've had so far, it's going to be a great semester. Thanks so much for taking the time to keep up with us! We love sharing our adventures with you all!

Hugs,Becky and Becca

Your fairy princesses!

Fairy Princesses enjoying the Harbor Cruise

Sydney Opera House

Opera House and Bridge at Sunset

Luna Park lit up at night

Opera House at night