Off in a Cloud of Dust!

OK SO! Tomorrow my adventure begins! Goin on walkabout, or DRIVEabout! (Not sure if I have explained this already but walkabout is an Aboriginal Australian tradition where the young boys go out and become men.) Jeremy and I are driving all the way up the coast tomorrow to the sunshine coast. As we drive through Sydney we'll be picking up my good friend Rob White from back home, who has just arrived in Australia. I figured we'd give him some hospitality and friendship in a foreign country! So Jeremy, Rob and I will be traveling then from Sydney to Noosa (on the sunshine coast) with a nights rest in between. We plan on just pulling over to a strip of beach on the coast and tenting it for the night. I CAN'T WAIT for this adventure to start! Once we get to Noosa we've rented an unreal apartment for super cheap! I'll keep you posted! as for right now, I'm going to start getting some things ready!

G'day Mates!

Em xxox

Road Trip Ahoy!

The car has had a tune up and in one weeks time Jeremy and I will be going on a road trip up the coast. The plan is to drive straight up to the sunshine coast from Canberra. This takes about 13-14 hours! At the sunshine coast we have lucked out and scored an apartment for 50 dollars a night!! (Jeremy's moms got the connections!) So we will be staying in a fully furnished apartment and doing day trips to different places on the sunshine coast. After a few days there, we will be making our way back down the coast. The first stop will be Brisbane, where jeremy has family. After some visiting we will be moving on down the coast. and instead of just driving all the way home in one go, we will be stopping and spending the days and night at random coast towns such as Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay, Nimbin and more. For this, I cannot wait. I have never been on a true road trip before. hopefully it will live up to the high standards that I am have for it. I will also quite possibly be meeting my friend form Canada, Rob White, who is traveling to Australia along the way! I am very excited about this! I will update you as much as I can throughout the road trip! I have a funny feeling that, now that I am not in school I will have time for a lot more Blogging! Hurray!

G'day Mates,

Em xoxo

Moulin Rouge

OH YAH. YOU HEARD ME. MOULIN ROUGE COSTUME PAR-TAY. It was pretty unreal. It was a combined birthday party for Jeremy's parents and their two close friends. I was super impressed by the effort that everyone put into their costumes. I knew the Tupper family was going all out but I had no idea how much everyone else would put into it. I figured since Australia doesnt really celebrate halloween, that they would think dressing up silly. not the case. It was awesome. Sometimes when you go to a costume party, if you dress up and no one else does you feel silly. Well, at this party, if you didnt dress up you looked stupid and felt like an idiot. It was ballin. Jeremy's father's Band played, it was fantastic and kept us dancing all night, well until 1200 when we had to pack up and get out. It was a fabulous night for all.

-Em

Melissa

Melissa, is an American Exchange student. I mentioned her in my Floriade post. Well her and I have become extremely close over the past month and a half. We've gone on many an excursion around Canberra and endured some crazy class together. We enjoy breakfast for dinner, and board games. Over a month ago she started sleeping over every day haha, we were that inseparable. She introduced me to a lot of things and taught me about the importance of many things. Melissa is one of the most humble, thoughtful, caring, fun, people I have ever met. I cannot say enough about her. We love all the same things and we were probably the same person in a previous life. She is extremely beautiful, inside and out. She has become my best friend that I have met on this exchange. Now I am sad to say that Melissa Left Australia Today at 11:20 am. I saw her off at the bus station this morning at 4:00 am on her way to the Sydney Aeroport. It was one of the saddest goodbyes I think that I've ever had. We had some unreal times and I wouldnt trade my time with her for the world. She is amazing and wil be greatly missed for my last couple months in Australia. But I know that our goodbye wasn't really a goodbye, it was a See ya later. Mel, I cannot wait to meet up with you when I'm back in the Northern Hemisphere. Safe Travels, and Godspeed my friend!

Love ya mate.

Halloween

Believe it or not Australia does not celebrate Halloween. LAME, I know.
So Mel and I decided that we were 'bringin' spooky back'. We planned a pumpkin party. with orange pumpkins, carved. (their pumpkins are weird and green here....) We served all orange food with the exception of some chocolate cup cakes with ghosts, spiders and other halloween stuff on them. Other foods we had included, Orange Jello shots, Carrots and dip, Candy corn sent from Mel's friends in the U.S., Doritos, Cheese puffs, BBQ chips, Gummies, and mini chocolate bars! We decorated a common room and people came dressed up. It was pretty great. The shining happened to be airing on the flatscreen Tv in the common room, epic. Mel and I dressed like 'Bogans" which is an Australian Version of trailer trash lol. How do I describe a Bogan. Well they speak differently from normal Australians, They have more of a twang and incorporate a lot of profanity into their speech. Also they are prettttty uneducated and opinionated, which is never a good combo. They wear flannel shirts and flip flops. A lot have a massive Southern Cross tattoo somewhere. Mullets, Rat-tails, are great hairstyles for bogans. Girls wear trashy makeup and have a kid by 15 (ha.. ok thats only some.. tats the higest degree of boganism.) anyways. There you get the drift. I could go on for a while about that but I wont. I'll just say, Mel and I were Bogans. Jer and Chloe's costumes were unreal too! My flatmate Yuka (a Japanese Exchange Student) brought her friends and they dressed up too! it was great fun :)

Science.

I found out that i have a FIVE HOUR LONG science exam on FRIDAY THE 13TH. that is all. URGHHHHH.

The Lighthouse, Belconnen

G'day,

I don't think I've told everyone this yet, but I have a job now. I get paid 18 dollars an hour haha. I work at The Lighthouse Bar in Belconnen (the suburb where I live). I am a bartender (haha) and food runner. I have my own personal bottle opener. and I love it. I wish i didn't have to work in Australia, but alas, money problems are always there, hovering over me, so I work. It buys me groceries and I've met some new friends :) I've gotta take a picture of it sometime for everyone to see!

-Em

Floriade

Canberra has this famous festival that it does every year called Floriade. I went with my mom, aunt and Jeremy to see it this year. Its pretty awesome. There are stands with food and crafts and such, live entertainment, some rides and more flowers and plants than youve ever seen. I enjoyed it quite a lot. Later, about a week later (this festival goes on for almost a month) I went to 'Nightfest' (floriade at night ... it usually closes at 5 like the rest of Australia) with Melissa, an exchange student from Tennessee, USA. We scored free tickets somehow lol. Anyways, it was our first date. And it rained us out haha! but we enjoyed some hairspray on the big screen, very yummy chai lattes and honey doughnuts anyways. I may or may not have stopped by floriade about three times after that solely for their honey doughnuts and Chai lattes haha.

:)

Cairns

I feel like all of my blogs start with "I know its been a while", so I'm going to try harder to keep up with this thing!

I went to cairns with my mommy and Aunt Joanne. It was loverly. I was a nice change from the colder Canberra winter/supposedly spring. It was about 28 and humid every day. The first day I got a sunburn in about ten minutes at about 830 am, on the way to get sunscreen! epic, seeing as I don't even wear sunscreen at home when I'm laying in the sun for hours! The second day that we were in Cairns we got right down to business and took a trip with Passions of paradise tours out to the great barrier reef! I tried, drumroll please, SCUBA DIVING. It was awesome, accept when you smile all this salt water gets into your goggles ... and I was smiling A LOT. Then we did a little snorkeling and I enjoyed a nice cool pure blonde beer on 1.5 hours trip back to the shore. Lovely.

The next day We enjoyed a little trip up into the rainforest, no big deal lol. It was awesome. I held a koala, ate some yummy food, saw unreal markets and enjoyed an unreal passionfruit-someotherfruit gelato lol. Our last day is Cairn was kinda a lazy day, we just chilled out around the town, by the pool and what not. It was kinda cloudy with a little bit of light rain now and then, so I decided to take a break from slapping on heaps of sunscreen which I hate doing so much. FAIL. Bad idea. I GOT A SUNBURN, IN THE RAIN. Oh Australia, you never cease to amaze me.

G'day folks!

p.s. I'm gonna be on here for a while lol. I've got some serious updating to do on my life!

We Found NEMO!

For More Pictures see my Facebook! www.facebook.com/m.a.jean