It has been a less than exciting past two weeks, so forgive me for not blogging. Finals week has arrived at UNSW, so I've been anti-social and stressed. A really fun combination. Now that I am DONE with 3 of my 4 classes I can stop to breathe.
-a few exciting events:
Last Friday I went to dinner in Bondi Beach with Alexa's dad, who was in town, and a group of friends. We ate at Pompeii's Italian Restaurant, which is supposedly the best Italian food in the area, and I would have to completely 100% agree. SUCH an amazing meal. And he was so fabulous and had us order whatever we wanted and bought us two bottles of wine and dessert and yeah...YUM. Bruschetta, spinach and ricotta ravioli, chocolate gelato, and sauvignon blanc semillon New Zealand wine. We ended the night with real tim tam slams back on Beach Street. My roommates and I have been doing them with hot water, so we splurged that night and did a real slam with hot chocolate. For those of you who don't know what a tim tam slam is: you bite off opposite corners of a tim tam cookie and dip it in a cup of hot chocolate and suck up the melted chocolate from the inside and then slam the melted chocolate delicious mess in your mouth. Heavenly. Can't wait to bring several boxes of them home. We reminisced about good times and looked at pictures from our trip and started making a slide show on our computers. Gotta love those nights-the ones we will truly miss.
Last Sunday I went for a lovely walk (half of the Coogee to Bondi walk-to my usual stopping point of the graveyard) with my roommate since the weather was so gorgeous. Kelsey and I went to St. Brigid's Church for mass, since we had made a deal to go at least one Sunday during our time abroad. The mass was the quickest mass I have ever been to (45 minutes, tops). No one held hands during the Our Father, and the words to the songs were on an overhead screen, not in books. A little different, but still a good experience nonetheless. My friend from my sorority at SMU is doing summer abroad in Sydney, so I met up with her afterwards. I told her to meet me in Coogee, and since my town is so small I just happened to literally walk into her on the road coming home from my walk. She had just gotten here and was a bit overwhelmed with life (as I once was) and really appreciated seeing a familiar face. I did as well! It was great getting all caught up on silly school drama and American news. We had dinner with some of my friends at five o's before she headed back to her place. My roommates and I rearranged our couches that night to snuggle to watch Mean Girls on someone's laptop. Going to miss those nights too....
This Wednesday (yesterday), I went on a harbor cruise with a friend and checked out the festival Vivid Sydney. I had a bit of a mental breakdown before we left, unfortunately. The grading system here is VERY difficult and the stress of not doing well and studying for finals just really caught up to me. Thankfully after getting a few tears out and chatting with my lovely parents I felt much better. We got stuck in traffic on the bus and the driver said we would probably miss our boat if we didn't get out and walk, sorry RUN, so we did. I took off my heels and sprinted a good 2 kilometers, minimum, with my friend. We were the last people on the boat, but we made it just in time! Thank god we both ran track in high school. We had a delicious pasta meal and free champagne and chatted with our table neighbors. We turned out to be the only fun table, because the dining room turned into a dance floor after dinner, and the 6 of us were literally the only ones dancing. But we had more than enough fun for the rest of the party poopers on the boat. We went up to the top deck for a while after dancing to cool off and check out the gorgeous views of the Harbor Bridge, Opera House, and Vivid lights. Vivid Sydney is a huge annual festival that takes over the city every year for about two weeks. It is supposed to celebrate the creativeness of the city and features art, music, and colorful light displays. After we got off the boat, we walked about 3 kilometers back to the city and my feet were killing me so we took a break and went to Pancakes on the Rocks and split a Bananarama pancake. Most entertaining moment was asking them to add chocolate chips to the top of the pancake. Chips are french fries in Australia... So they literally asked me if I wanted a basket of chocolate fries? We sorted out the confusion (gotta love cultural barriers) and enjoyed a delicious dessert. We mustered up the strength to continue on to walk around the Vivid displays. It was incredible. It is near impossible to describe... The Opera House had lights projecting images on it. There were random neon sculptures around the boardwalk. The MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) was a screen with graphic design movies playing on its front wall to music. It was like I was in Alice and Wonderland. The city had turned into a strange neon carnival. But it was such a unique and fun experience. My friend took pictures, since I am without a camera, so I will post some later when I get them from him! So glad my stressful day ended on a great note.
Just took my History final this morning, so now I have finished my Sexuality, Indigenous Australia, and History classes! Only one more final to go (Psych), which is in 3 weeks. So I get to enjoy my time off and head to Fiji with the roomies in just 4 days. So excited to lay on a beach and explore yet another part of the world. Countdown of days left in Sydney: 23. WEIRD. See ya soon America. Even through all the ups and downs of my abroad experience, I will say I will truly miss it here.
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